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Title: The King's Mirror

Author: Anthony Hope

Release Date: December 26, 2007 [EBook #24034]

Language: English

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THE KING'S MIRROR

A NOVEL

BY ANTHONY HOPE

Author of The Chronicles of Count Antonio--The Prisoner of Zenda--The
God in the Car--Phroso--Rupert of Hentzau, etc.

[Illustration: INTER FOLIA FRUCTIS]

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899

COPYRIGHT, 1898, 1899,
BY ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS.

_All rights reserved_.




[Illustration: "I'm not a king for my own pleasure." (See page 14.)]




CONTENTS.

CHAPTER                                                   PAGE
I.--A PIOUS HYPERBOLE                                        1
II.--A BIRD WITHOUT WINGS                                   11
III.--SOME SECRET OPINIONS                                  22
IV.--TWO OF MY MAKERS                                       34
V.--SOMETHING ABOUT VICTORIA                                47
VI.--A STUDENT OF LOVE AFFAIRS                              60
VII.--THINGS NOT TO BE NOTICED                              73
VIII.--DESTINY IN A PINAFORE                                84
IX.--JUST WHAT WOULD HAPPEN                                 96
X.--OF A POLITICAL APPOINTMENT                             109
XI.--AN ACT OF ABDICATION                                  122
XII.--KING AT A PRICE                                      136
XIII.--I PROMISE NOT TO LAUGH                              151
XIV.--PLEASURE TAKES LEAVE TO PROTEST                      165
XV.--THE HAIR-DRESSER WAITS                                179
XVI.--A CHASE OF TWO PHANTOMS                              193
XVII.--DECIDEDLY MEDIAEVAL                                  207
XVIII.--WILLIAM ADOLPHUS HITS THE MARK                     219
XIX.--GREAT PROMOTION                                      233
XX.--AN INTERESTING PARALLEL                               248
XXI.--ON THE ART OF FALLING SOFT                           261
XXII.--UT PUTO, VESTIS FIO                                 275
XXIII.--A PARADOX OF SENSIBILITY                           290
XXIV.--WHAT A QUESTION!                                    304
XXV.--A SMACK OF REPETITION                                318
XXVI.--THE SECRET OF THE COUNTESS                          334
XXVII.--OF GRAZES ON THE KNEE                              349
XXVIII.--AS BEDERHOF ARRANGED                              363




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
                                                   FACING PAGE
"I'm not a king for my own pleasure"            _Frontispiece_
Hammerfeldt came to me and kissed my hand                   43
The firelight played on the hand that held the screen      102
"My ransom," said I. "The price of my freedom"             148
"On my honour, a pure accident," said Varvilliers          215
"Why, what brings you here?" I cried                       262
"My dear friend, have you forgotten me?"                   293
"I'll try--I'll try to make you happy"                     342




THE KING'S MIRROR.

CHAPTER I.

A PIOUS HYPERBOLE.


Before my coronation there was no event in childhood that impressed
itself on my memory with marked or singular distinction. My father's
death, the result of a chill contracted during a hunting excursion,
meant no more to me than a week of rooms gloomy and games forbidden; the
decease of King Augustin, my uncle, appeared at the first instant of
even less importance. I recollect the news coming. The King, having been
always in frail health, had never married; seeing clearly but not far,
he was a sad man: the fate that struck down his brother increased his
natural melancholy; he became almost a recluse, withdrew himself from
the capital to a retired residence, and henceforward was little more
than a name in which Prince von Hammerfeldt conducted the business of
the country. Now and then my mother visited him; once she brought back
to me a letter from him, little of which I understood then, although I
have since read often the touching words of his message. When he died,
there was the same gloom as when my father left us; but it seemed to me
that I was treated a little differently; the servants stared at me, my
mother would look long at me with a half-admiring, half-amused
expression, and Victoria let me have all her toys. In Baroness von
Krakenstein (or Krak, as we called her) alone, there was no difference;
yet the explanation came from her, for when that evening I reached out
my little hand and snatched a bit of cake from the dish, Krak caught my
wrist, saying gravely,

"Kings must not snatch, Augustin."

"Victoria, what do you get when you are a king?" I asked my sister that
night. I was hardly eight, she nearing ten, and her worldly wisdom
seemed great.

"Oh, you have just what you want, and do what you like, and kill people
that you don't like," said she. "Don't you remember the Arabian Nights?"

"Could I kill Krak?" I asked, choosing a concrete and tempting
illustration of despotic power.

Victoria was puzzled.

"She'd have to do something first, I suppose," she answered vaguely. "I
should have been queen if you hadn't been born, Augustin." Her tone now
became rather plaintive.

"But nobody has a queen if they can get a king," said I serenely.

It is the coronation day that stands out in memory; the months that
elapsed between my accession and that event are merged in a vague
dimness. I think little difference was made in our household while we
mourned the dead King. Krak was still sharp, imperious, and exacting.
She had been my mother's governess, and came with her from Styria. I
suppose she had learned the necessity of sternness from her previous
experience with Princess Gertrude, for that lady, my mother, a fair,
small, slim woman, who preserved her girlishness of appearance till the
approach of middle age, was of a strong and masterful temper. Only Krak
and Hammerfeldt had any power over her; Krak's seemed the result of
ancient domination, the Prince's was won by a suave and coaxing
deference that changed once a year or thereabouts to stern and
uncompromising opposition. But with my early upbringing, and with
Victoria's, Hammerfeldt had nothing to do; my mother presided, and Krak
executed. The spirit of Styria reigned in the nursery, rather than the
softer code of our more Western country; I doubt whether discipline were
stricter in any house in Forstadt than in the royal palace.

They roused me at eight on my coronation day. My mother herself came to
my bedside, and knelt down for a few minutes by it. Krak stood in the
background, grim and gloomy. I was a little frightened, and asked what
was afoot.

"You're to be crowned to-day, Augustin," said my mother. "You must be a
good boy."

"Am I to be crowned king, mother?"

"Yes, dear, in the cathedral. Will you be a good king?"

"I'll be a great king, mother," said I. The Arabian Nights were still in
my head.

She laughed and rose to her feet.

"Have him ready by ten o'clock, Baroness," she said. "I must go and have
my coffee and then dress. And I must see that Victoria is properly
dressed too."

"Are you going to be crowned, mother?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I shall be only Princess Heinrich still."

I looked at her with curiosity. A king is greater than a princess;
should I be greater than my mother? And my mother was greater than Krak!
Why, then--but Krak ended my musings by whisking me out of bed.

It was fine fun to ride in the carriage by my mother's side, with
Victoria and old Hammerfeldt opposite. Hammerfeldt was President of the
Council of Regency; but I, knowing nothing of that, supposed my mother
had asked him into our carriage because he amused us and gave us
chocolates. My mother was very prettily dressed, and so was Victoria. I
was very glad that Krak was in another vehicle. There were crowds of
people in the street, cheering us more than they ever had before; I was
taking off my hat all the time. Once or twice I held up my sword for
them to see, but everybody laughed, and I would not do it any more. It
was the first time that I had worn a sword, but I did not see why they
should laugh. Victoria laughed most of all; indeed, at last my mother
scolded her, saying that swords were proper for men, and that I should
be a man soon.

We reached the cathedral, and with my hand in my mother's I was led up
the nave, till we came to the front of the High Altar. There was a very
long service; I did not care about or heed much of it, until the
archbishop came down on to the lowest step, and my mother took my hand
again and led me to him, and he put the crown on my head. I liked that,
and turned round to see if the people were looking, and was just going
to laugh at Victoria, when I saw Krak frowning at me; so I turned back
and listened to the archbishop. He was a nice old man, but I did not
understand very much of what he said. He talked about my uncle, my
father, and the country, and what a king ought to do; at last he leaned
down toward me, and told me in a low but very distinct voice that
henceforward God was the only Power above me, and I had no lord except
the King of kings. He was a very old man with white hair, and when he
had said this he seemed not to be able to go on for a minute. Perhaps he
was tired, or did not know what to say next. Then he laid his hand on my
head--they had taken the crown off because it was so heavy for me--and
said in a whisper, "Poor child!" but then he raised his voice, so that
it rang all through the cathedral, and blessed me. Then my mother made
me get up and turn and face the people; she put the crown on my head
again; then she knelt and kissed my hand. I was very much surprised, and
I saw Victoria trying hard not to laugh--because Krak was just by her.
But I didn't want to laugh; I was too much surprised.

So far memory carries me; the rest is blurred, until I found myself back
in our own home divested of my military costume, but allowed, as a
special treat, to have my sword beside me when we sat down to tea. We
had many good things for tea, and even Krak was thawed into amiability;
she told me that I had behaved very well in the cathedral, and that I
should see the fireworks from the window presently. It was winter and
soon dark. The fireworks began at seven; I remember them very well.
Above all, I recollect the fine excitement of seeing my own name in
great long golden letters, with a word after them that Krak told me I
ought to know meant "king," and was of the third declension. "_Rex,
Regis_," said Krak, and told poor Victoria to go on. Victoria was far
too excited, and Krak said we must both learn it to-morrow; but we were
clapping our hands, and didn't pay much heed. Then Hammerfeldt came in
and held me up at the window for a few minutes, telling me to kiss my
hand to the people. I did as he told me; then the crowd began to go
away, and Krak said it was bedtime.

Now here I might conclude the story of my coronation day; but an episode
remains trivial and ludicrous enough, yet most firmly embedded in my
memory. Indeed, it has always for me a significance quite independent of
its obvious import; it seems to symbolize the truth which the experience
of all my life has taught me. Perhaps I throw dignity to the winds in
recording it; I intend to do the like all through what I write; for, to
my thinking, when dignity comes in at the door sincerity flies out of
the window. I was not tired after the day, or I was too excited to feel
tired. My small brain was agog; my little head was turned. Amidst all
that I did not understand I understood enough to conceive that I had
become a great man. I saw Victoria led off to bed, and going meekly. But
I was not as Victoria; she was not a king as I was; mother had not knelt
before her; the archbishop had not told Victoria that she had no lord
except the King of kings. Perhaps I was hardly to blame when I took his
words as excluding the domination of women, of Krak, even of the mother
who had knelt and kissed my hand. At any rate, I was in a wilful mood.
Old Anna, the nurse, had put Victoria to bed, and now came through the
door that divided our rooms and proposed to assist me in my undressing.
I was wilful and defiant; I refused most flatly to go to bed. Anna was
perplexed; unquestionably a new and reverential air was perceptible in
Anna; the detection of it was fuel to my fires of rebellion. Anna sent
for Krak; in the interval before the governess's arrival I grew uneasy.
I half wished I had gone to bed quietly, but now I was in for the
battle. Had there been any meaning in what the archbishop said, or had
there not? Was it true, or had he misled me? I had believed him, and was
minded to try the issue; I sat in my chair attempting to whistle as my
groom had taught me. Krak came; I whistled on; there was a whispered
consultation between Anna and Krak; then Krak told me that I was to go
to bed, and bade me begin the process by taking off my shoes. I looked
her full and fair in the face.

"I won't till I choose," said I. "I'm king now"; and then I quoted to
Krak what the archbishop had said. She lifted her hands in amazement and
wrath.

"I shall have to fetch your mother," she said.

"I'm above my mother; she knelt to me," I retorted triumphantly.

Krak advanced toward me.

"Augustin, take off your shoes," said she.

I had no love for Krak. Dearest of all gifts of sovereignty would be the
power of defying Krak.

"Do you really want me to take them off?" I asked.

"This instant," commanded Krak.

I do not justify my action; yet, perhaps, the archbishop should have
been more careful of what he said. My answer to Krak was, "Take them,
then." And I snatched off one of them and threw it at Krak. It missed
most narrowly the end of her long nose, and lodged, harmlessly enough,
on Anna's broad bosom. I sat there exultant, fearful, and defiant.

Krak spoke to Anna in a low whisper; then they both went out, leaving me
alone in the big room. I grew afraid, partly because I was alone, partly
for what I had done. I could undress myself, although I was not, as a
rule, allowed to. I tumbled quickly out of my clothes, and had just
slipped on my nightshirt, when the door opened, and my mother entered,
followed by Krak. My mother looked very young and pretty, but she also
looked severe.

"Is this true, Augustin?" she asked, sitting down by the fire.

"Yes, mother," said I, arrested in my flight toward bed.

"You refused to obey the Baroness?"

"Yes. I'm king now."

"And threw your shoe at her?"

"The archbishop said----" I began.

"Be quiet," said my mother, and she turned her head and listened to
Krak, who began to whisper in her ear. A moment later she turned to me.

"You must do as you are told," she said; "and you must apologize to the
Baroness."

"I'd have taken them off if she had asked me," I said, "but she ordered
me."

"She has a right to order you."

"Is she God?" I asked, pointing scornfully at Krak. Really the
archbishop must bear some of the responsibility.

Krak whispered again; again my mother turned to me.

"Will you apologize, Augustin?" she said.

"No," said I stubbornly.

Krak whispered again. I heard my mother say, with a little laugh, "But
to-day, Baroness!" Then she sighed and looked round at me.

"Do apologize, Augustin," said she.

"I'll apologize to you, not to her," I said.

She looked at the Baroness, then at me, then back to the Baroness; then
she smiled and sighed.

"I suppose so. He must learn it. But not much to-night, Baroness. Just
enough to--to show him."

Krak came toward me; a moment later I occupied a position which, to my
lively discomfort, I had filled once or twice before in my short life,
but which I had not supposed that I should fill again after what the
archbishop had said. I set my teeth to endure; I was full of
bewilderment, surprise, and anger. The archbishop had played me terribly
false; the Arabian Nights were no less delusive. Krak was as unmoved and
business-like as usual. I was determined not to cry--not to-night. I was
not very hard tried; almost directly my mother said, "That will do."
There was a pause; no doubt Krak's face expressed a surprised protest.
"Yes, that's enough to-day," said my mother, and she added, "Get into
bed, Augustin. You must learn to be an obedient boy before you can be a
good king."

The moment I was released I ran and leaped into bed, hiding my face
under the clothes. I heard my mother come and say, "Won't you kiss me?"
but I was very angry; I did not understand why they made me a king, and
then beat me, because I behaved like all the kings I had been told or
read about. Moreover, I had begun to cry now, and I would have been
killed sooner than let Krak see that. So presently my mother went away,
and Krak too. Then Anna came and tried to turn down the clothes, but I
would not let her. I hung on to them hard, for I was still crying. I
heard Anna sigh, "Poor dearie!" then she went away; but directly after
Victoria's voice came, saying, "Anna says I may come in with you. May I,
please, Augustin?" I let her move the bedclothes and get in with me; and
I put my arms round her neck. Victoria comforted me as best she could.

"You'll be a real king when you grow up," she said.

A thought struck me--a rapturous thought, born of the Arabian Nights.
(In the archbishop lay no comfort at all.)

"Yes," I cried, "and then I'll bastinado Krak!" With this comforting
thought I fell asleep.

A strange day, this of my coronation, odd to pass through, to the
highest degree illuminating in retrospect. I did not live to bastinado
Krak; nor would I now had I the power. What they did was perhaps a
little cruel, a little Styrian, as Victoria and I used covertly to say
of such harsh measures; but how valuable a lesson on the state and
fortune of kings! The King is one, the man another. The King is crowned,
the man is lashed; they give us greatness in words: in fact, we are our
servants' servants. Little as I liked the thing at the time, I can not
now regret that I was chastised on my coronation day. I was thus put
into an attitude eminently conducive to the perception of truth, and to
a realization of the facts of my position. I forgive thee the blows,
Krak--Lo, I forgive thee!




CHAPTER II.

A BIRD WITHOUT WINGS.


A man's _puerilia_ are to himself not altogether puerile; they are
parcel of the complex explanation of his existent self. He starts, I
suppose, as something, a very malleable something, ready to be hammered
into the shape that the socket requires. The two greatest forces at work
on the yielding substance are parents and position, with the gardener's
boy beneath my window crusts and cuffs, with me at the window kingship
and Styrian discipline. In the latter there was to me nothing strange; I
had grown into it from birth. But now it became suddenly noticeable, as
a thing demanding justification, by reason of its patent incongruity
with my kingship. I have shown how swiftly and sharply the contrast was
impressed on me; if I have not made that point, then my story of a
nursery tragedy is unexcused. I was left wondering what manner of king
he was who must obey on pain of blows. I was very young, and the sense
of outrage did not last, but the puzzle persisted, and Victoria's riper
philosophy was taxed to allay it. Waiting seemed the only thing, waiting
till I could fling my shoes at whom I would, and sit on my throne to
behold the bastinadoing of Krak. My mother told me that I must be an
obedient boy first. Well and good; but then why make me a king now? In
truth I was introduced over-early to the fictions of high policy. A king
without power seems to a child like a bird without wings; but a bird
without wings is a favourite device of statesmanship.

The matter did not stand even here. My kingship not only lacked the
positive advantages with which youthful imagination (aided by the
archbishop's pious hyperbole) had endowed it; it became in my eyes the
great and fertile source of all my discomfort, the parent of every
distasteful obligation, the ground on which all chosen pleasures were
refused. It was ever "Kings can not do this," or "Kings must do that,"
and the "this" was always sweet, the "that" repellent; in Krak's hands
monarchy became a cross between a treadmill and a strait-waistcoat.
"What's the use of being a king?" I dared once to cry to her.

"God did not make you a king for your own pleasure," returned Krak
solemnly. I recollect thinking that her remark must certainly be true,
yet wondering whether God quite realized how tiresome the position was.

It may be supposed that I had many advantages to counterbalance these
evils that pressed so hardly on me. I do not recollect being conscious
of them. Even my occasional parades in public, although they tickled my
vanity, were spoiled for me by the feeling that nobody would look at me
with admiration, envy, or even interest, if he knew the real state of
the case. I may observe that this reflection has not vanished with
infancy, but still is apt to assail me. Of course I was well fed, well
housed, and well, though firmly, treated. Alas, what we have not is more
to us than all we possess. I was thankful under protest; prohibitions
outweighed privileges. I have not the experience necessary for any
generalization, but my own childhood was not very happy.

A day comes into my mind almost as clear and distinct in memory as my
coronation day. I was nine years old, and went with my mother to pay a
visit to a nobleman of high rank. He had just married and brought to his
house a young American lady. We were welcomed, of course, with infinite
courtesy and deference. Princess Heinrich received such tributes well,
with a quiet, restrained dignity and a lofty graciousness. I was smart
in my best clothes, a miniature uniform of the Corps of Guards, and my
hand flew up to my little helmet when the Countess curtseyed very low
and looked at me with merry, sparkling blue eyes. Her husband was a
tall, good-looking fellow, stiff in back and manner, as are most of our
folk, but honest and good-hearted, as are most of them also. But I paid
little heed to him; the laughing Countess engrossed me, and I found
myself smiling at her. Her eyes seemed to enter into confidence with me,
and I knew she was rather sorry for me. The day was damp and chill, and,
although my mother would not refuse to go round the Count's gardens, of
which he was proud, she declared that the walk was not safe for me, and
asked the Countess to take care of me. So she and I were left alone. I
stood rather shyly by the table, fingering the helmet that my mother had
told me to take off; presently looking up, I saw her merry eyes on me.

"Sire," said the Countess, "if you sat down I would."

I bowed and sought a chair; there was a high wooden arm-chair, and I
clambered into it; my legs dangled in mid-air. Another little laugh came
from the Countess as she brought me a high footstool. I tried to jump
down in time to stop her, but she would not let me. Then she knelt
herself on the stool, her knees by my feet.

"What beautiful military boots!" she said.

I looked down listlessly at my shining toes. She clasped her hands,
crying:

"You're a beautiful little king! Oh, isn't it lovely to be a king!"

I looked at her doubtfully; her pretty face was quite close to mine.
Somehow I wanted very much to put my arms round her neck, but I felt
sure that kings did not hug countesses. Imagine Krak's verdict on such a
notion!

"I'm not a king for my own pleasure," said I, regarding my hostess
gravely. "I am a king for the good of my people."

She drew a long breath and whispered in English (I did not understand
then, but the sound of the words stayed with me), "Poor little mite!"
Then she said:

"But don't you have a lovely time?"

I felt that I was becoming rather red, and I knew that the tears were
not far from my eyes.

"No," said I, "not very."

"Why not?"

"They--they don't let me do any of the things I want to."

"You shall do anything you want to here," she whispered. I was very much
surprised to see that her bright eyes had grown a little clouded.

"We've no kings in my country," she said, taking my hand in hers.

"Oh, I wish I'd been born there," said I; then we looked at one another
for a minute, and I put out my arms and took hold of her, and drew her
face near mine. With a little gulp in her throat she sprang up, caught
me in her arms, kissed me a dozen times, and threw herself into the big
chair with me on her knees. Now I was crying, and yet half laughing; so
I believe was she. We did not say very much more to one another. Soon I
stopped crying; she looked at me, and we both laughed.

"What babies we are, your Majesty!" said she.

"They might let me do a little more, mightn't they? It's all Krak, you
know. Mother wouldn't be half so bad without Krak."

"Oh, my dear, and is Krak so horrid?"

"Horrid," said I, with grave emphasis.

The Countess kissed me again.

"You'll grow up soon," she said. Somehow the assurance comforted me more
from her lips than from Victoria's. "Will you be nice to me when you
grow up?"

"I shall always be very, very fond of you," said I.

She laughed a funny little laugh, and then sighed.

"If God sends me a little son, I hope he'll be like you," she whispered,
with her cheek against mine.

"He won't be a king," said I with a sigh of envy.

"You poor dear!" cooed she.

Then came my mother's clear, high-bred voice, just outside the door,
descanting on the beauty of the Count's parterres and orangery. A swift
warning glance flew from me to my hostess. I scampered off my perch, and
she stood up in respectful readiness for the entrance of Princess
Heinrich.

"Don't tell mother," I whispered urgently.

"Not a word!"

"Whatever they do to you?"

"No, whatever they do to me!"

My mother was in the room, the Count holding the door for her and
closing it as she passed through. I felt her glance rest on me for a
moment; then she turned to the Countess and expressed all proper
admiration of the gardens, the house, and the whole demesne.

"And I hope Augustin has been a good boy?" she ended.

"The King has been very good, madame," returned the Countess. Then she
looked in an inquiring way at her husband, as though she did not quite
know whether she were right or not, and with a bright blush added, "If
you would let him come again some day, madame!"

My mother smiled quite graciously.

"You mustn't leave me out of the invitation," she said. "We will both
come, won't we, Augustin?"

"Yes, please, mother," said I, relapsed into shyness and in great fear
lest our doings should be discovered.

"Say good-bye now," commanded the Princess.

I should have liked to kiss the Countess again, but such an act would
have risked a betrayal. Our adieu was made in proper form, the Countess
accompanying us to the door. There we left her curtseying, while the
Count handed my mother into the carriage. I looked round, and the
Countess blew me a surreptitious kiss.

When we had driven a little way, my mother said:

"Do you like the Countess von Sempach?"

"Yes, very much."

"She was kind to you?"

"Very, mother."

"Then why have you been crying, Augustin?"

"I haven't been crying," said I. The lie was needful to my compact with
the Countess; my honour was rooted in dishonour.

"Yes, you have," said she, but not quite in the accusing tones that
generally marked the detection of falsehood. She seemed to look at me
more in curiosity than in anger. Then she bent down toward me. "What did
you talk about?" she asked.

"Nothing very particular, mother. She asked me if I liked being king."

"And what did you say?"

"I said I liked it pretty well."

My mother made no answer. I stole a look at her handsome clean-cut
features; she was frowning a little.

"I didn't tell her much," said I, aiming at propitiation.

"Much of what?" came sharply, but not unkindly. Yet the question posed
me.

"Oh, I don't know!" I murmured forlornly; and I was surprised when she
turned and kissed me, saying:

"We all love you, Augustin; but you have to be king, and you must learn
how."

"Yes," I assented. The thing was quite inevitable; I knew that.

Silence followed for a little while. Then my mother said:

"When you're ten you shall have a tutor, and your own servants,
Augustin."

Hastily I counted the months. There were nine; but what did the
proposal mean? Was I to be a free man then?

"And we women will leave you alone," my mother went on. She kissed me
again, adding, "You don't like us, do you?"

"I like you, mother," I said gravely, "at least generally--not when you
let Kr--the Baroness----"

"Never mind the Baroness," she interrupted. Then she put her arm round
my neck and asked me in a very low voice, "You didn't like the Countess
better than me, did you, Augustin?"

"N--no, mother," said I, but I was an unaccomplished hypocrite, and my
mother turned away. My thoughts were not on her, but on the prospect her
words had opened to me.

"Do you mean that the Baroness won't be my governess any more?"

"Yes. You'll have a governor, a tutor."

"And shall I----?"

"I'll tell you all about it soon, dear."

The rest of our drive was in silence. My mind was full to overflowing of
impressions, hopes, and wonders; my mother's gaze was fixed on the
windows of the carriage.

We reached home, and together went up to the schoolroom. It was not
tea-time yet, and lesson-books were on the table. Krak sat beside it,
grave, grim, and gray. Victoria was opposite to her. Victoria was
crying. Past experience enlightened me; I knew exactly what had
happened; Victoria had a delightfully unimpressionable soul; no rebuke
from Krak brought her to tears; Krak had been rapping her knuckles, and
her tears were an honest tribute to pain, with no nonsense of merely
wounded sensibility about them. My mother went up and whispered to
Krak. Krak had, of course, risen, and stood now listening with a heavy
frown. My mother drew herself up proudly; she seemed to brace herself
for an effort; I heard nothing except "I think you should consult me,"
but our quick children's eyes apprehended the meaning of the scene. Krak
was being bearded. There was no doubt of it; for presently Krak bowed
her head in a jerky unwilling nod and walked out of the room. My mother
stood still for a moment with a vivid red colour in her cheeks. Then she
walked across to Victoria, lifted one of her hands from the table, and
kissed it.

"You're going to have tea with me to-day, children," said she, "and
we'll play games afterward. Augustin shall play at not being a king."

I remember well the tea we had and the games that followed, wherein we
all played at being what we were not, and for an evening cheated fate of
its dues. My mother was merriest, for over Victoria and myself there
hung a veil of unreality, a consciousness that indeed we played and set
aside for an hour only the obstinate claims of the actual. But we were
all merry; and when we parted--for my mother had a dinner-party--we both
kissed her heartily; me she kissed often. I thought that she wanted to
ask me again whether I liked the Countess better than her, but was
afraid to risk the question. What I wanted to say was that I liked none
better if she would be always what she was this evening; but I found no
skill adequate to a declaration of affection so conditional. It would be
to make a market of my kisses, and I had not yet come to the age for
such bargains.

Then we were left alone, Victoria and I, to sit together for a while in
the dusk; and, sitting there, we totted up that day's gains. They were
uncertain, yet seemed great. All that had passed I told Victoria, save
what in loyalty to my countess I might not; Victoria imparted to me the
story of the knuckle-rapping. For her an added joy lay in the fact that
on this occasion, if ever, she had deserved the affliction; she had been
gloriously naughty, and gloried in it now; did not her sinfulness
enhance the significance of this revolution? So carried away were we by
our triumph that now again, after a long interval, we allowed our
imagination to paint royalty in glowing colours, and our Arabian Nights
and fairy tales seemed at last not altogether cunningly wrought
deceptions. When we had gone to bed, again we met, I creeping into her
room, and rousing her to ask whether in truth a new age had come and the
yoke of Krak been broken from off our backs. Victoria sat up in bed and
discussed the problem gravely. For me she was sanguine, for herself less
so; for, said she, they go on worrying the girls for ever so long. "She
won't rap your knuckles any more," I suggested, fastening on a certain
and tangible advantage. Victoria agreed that in all likelihood her
knuckles would henceforth be inviolate; and she did not deny such gain
as lay there. Thus in the end I won her to cheerfulness, and we parted
merrily, declaring to one another that we were free; and I knew that in
some way the pretty American countess had lent a hand to knocking off
our chains.

Free! A wonderful word that, whether you use it of a child, a man, a
state, a world, an universe! That evening we seemed free. In after-days
I received from old Hammerfeldt (a great statesman, as history will one
day allow) some lectures on the little pregnant, powerful, empty word.
He had some right to speak of freedom; he had seen it fought for by
Napoleon, praised by Talleyrand, bought by Castlereagh, interpreted by
Metternich. Should he not then know what it was, its value, its potency,
and its sweetness, why men died for it, and delicate women who loved
them cheered them on? Once also in later years a beautiful woman cried
to me, with white arms outstretched, that to be free was life, was all
in all, the heart's one satisfaction. Her I pressed, seeking to know
wherein lay the attraction and allurement that fired her to such
extravagance. And I told her what the Prince had said to me half-way
through his pinch of snuff.

"'Sire,' said he, 'to become free--what is it? It is to change your
master.'"

The lady let her arms fall to her side, reflected a moment, smiled, and
said:

"The Prince was no fool, sire."

As the result of this day that I have described, I had become free. I
had changed my master.

We did not, however, pay any more visits to the Countess.




CHAPTER III.

SOME SECRET OPINIONS.


Even such results as might be looked for on Prince von Hammerfeldt's
theory of the meaning of freedom were in my case arrested and postponed
by a very serious illness which attacked me on the threshold of my
eleventh year. We had gone to Schloss Artenberg, according to our custom
in the summer; it was holiday-time; Krak was away, the talked-of tutor
had not arrived. The immediate fruit of this temporary emancipation was
that I got my feet very wet with dabbling about the river, and, being
under no sterner control than Victoria's, lingered long in this
condition. Next day I was kept in bed, and Victoria was in sore
disgrace. To be brief, the mischief attacked my lungs. Soon I was
seriously ill; a number of grave, black-coated gentlemen came and went
about the bed on which I lay for several weeks. Of this time I have many
curious impressions; most of them centre round my mother. She slept in
my room, and I believe hardly ever left me. I used to wake from uneasy
sleep and look across to her bed; always in a few moments she also
awoke, came and gave me what I needed or asked for, and then would throw
a dressing-gown round her and walk softly to and fro on bare feet, with
her long fair hair hanging about her shoulders. Her face looked
different in those days; yet it was not soft as I have seen mothers'
faces when their sons lay sick or dead, but rather excited, urgent,
defiant; the lips were set close, and the eyes gleamed. She did not
supplicate God, she fought fate, or, if God and fate be one, then it was
God whom she fought; and her battle was untiring. I knew from her face
that I might die, but, so far as I can recall my mood, I was more
curious about the effect of such an event on her and on Victoria than
concerning its import to myself. I asked her once what would happen if I
died; would Victoria be queen? She forbade me to ask the question, but I
pressed it, and she answered hastily, "Yes, yes, but you won't die,
Augustin; you shan't die." I was not allowed to see very much of
Victoria, but a day or two afterward she sat with me alone for a little
while, and I told her she would be queen if I died.

"No. Mother would kill me," she said with absolute conviction, in no
resentment or fear, but in a simple certitude.

"Why? Because you didn't bring me in when I got wet?"

"Yes--if you died of it," nodded Victoria.

"I don't believe it," I said boldly. "Why shouldn't she like you to be
queen?"

"She'd hate it," said Victoria.

"She doesn't hate me being king."

"You're a boy."

I wondered dimly then, and I have wondered since (hardly with more
knowledge), what truth or whether any lay behind my sister's words; she
believed that, apart from any unjust blame for my misfortune, her mother
would not willingly see her queen. Yet why not? I have a son, and would
be glad to lay down my burden and kiss his hand as he sat on the
throne. Are all fathers such as I? Nay, and are all mothers such as
mine? I know not; and if there be any position that opens a man's mind
to the Socratic wisdom of knowing his own ignorance it is that in which
my life has been spent. But it can hardly be that the curious veiled
opposition which from about this time began to exist between my mother
and my sister was altogether singular. It was a feeling not inconsistent
with duty, with punctilious observance, not even with love; but there
was in it a sort of jealousy, of assertion and counter-assertion. It
seemed to me, as I became older, to have roots deeper than any
accidental occurrence or environment, and, so far, I came near to the
difficult analysis, to spring from the relation of one woman who was
slowly but surely being forced to lay down what she had prized most in
her womanhood and another who, slowly but surely, also became aware that
hers was the prize in her turn, and thrust forward a tentative hand to
grasp it. If I am at all right in this notion, then it is plain that
feelings slight and faint, although not non-existent in ordinary homes,
might be intensified in such a family as ours, and that a new and great
impulse would have been imparted to them by such an artificial
accentuation of the inevitable as must have resulted had I died, and my
sister been called to the first place. Among men the cause for such an
antagonism is far less powerful; advancing years take less from us and
often bring what, to older eyes, is a good recompense for lost youth,
and seems to youth itself more precious than any of its own possessions.
Our empire, never so brilliant as a woman's in its prime, is of stuff
more durable and less shaken by the wind of Time's fluttering garment
as he passes by.

My confessor came to see me sometimes. He was an eminent divine,
nominated to his post by Hammerfeldt in reward, I believe, for some
political usefulness. I do not think he saw far into a child's heart, or
perhaps I was not like most children. He was always comforting me,
telling me not to be afraid, that God was merciful, Christ full of love,
and the saints praying for me. Now I was not in the least afraid; I was
very curious about death--I had never seen it--but I was, as I have
said, more curious about the world I should leave behind. I wanted to
know what would be done when I was dead, and where I was to be buried.
Would they fire the guns and parade the troops? I did not rise to the
conception of myself, not knowing anything of what they did. I thought I
should be there somehow, looking on from heaven; and I think that I
rather enjoyed the prospect. A child is very self-centred; I had no
doubt that I should be the object of much attention in heaven on that
day at least. I hinted something of what was passing in my mind to the
confessor. He did not appear to follow the drift of my thoughts. He told
me again that I had been a good boy, and that now, if I prayed and was
sorry for my faults, I should be happy and should please God. This did
not touch the point that engaged my attention. I tried whether my mother
could help me, and I was surprised when the tears started into her eyes,
and she bade me, almost roughly, to be quiet. However, when Victoria
came we talked it all over. Victoria cried a little, but she was quite
clear as to her own position in the procession, and we had rather an
animated dispute about it. She said also that some one in heaven would
hold me, and we differed again as to the celestial personage in whose
lap I was to sit. I am afraid that here our imaginations were assisted
by the picture of the Holy Family in the chapel of the Schloss.

Not the least tiresome incident of this time was that Krak felt it her
duty to display affection. I do not mean to assert that Krak was not and
had not been all along fond of me, but in ordinary seasons to feel
affection was with Krak no reason at all for displaying it. I do more
justice to Krak now; then I did not appreciate the change in her
demeanour. On questioning Victoria, I found that Krak's softness did not
extend beyond the limits of my sickroom; she had indeed ceased the
knuckle-rapping, but in its place she curtailed Victoria's liberty and
kept her nose to the grindstone pitilessly. Why should caresses be
confined to the sick, and kindness be bought only at the price of
threatened death? I was inclined to refuse to kiss Krak, but my mother
made such a point of compliance that I yielded reluctantly. In days of
health Krak had exacted, morning and evening, a formal and perfunctory
peck; if I gave her no more now she looked aggrieved, and my mother
distressed. Had Krak been possessed by a real penitence, I would have
opened my arms to her, but I was fully aware that her mood was not this;
she merely wanted to know that I bore no malice for just discipline, and
it went to my heart even apparently to concede this position. There
seemed to me something a little unfair in her proceedings; they were
attempts to obtain from me admissions that I should have repudiated
scornfully in hours of health. I knew that concessions now would
prejudice my future liberty. In days to come (supposing I recovered) my
hostility to Krak would be met by "Remember how kind she was to you when
you were ill," or "Oh, Augustin, you didn't say that of the Baroness
when she brought you grapes in your illness." I had plenty of grapes.
There are few things which human nature resents more than a theft of its
grievances. I was polite to Krak, but I lodged a protest with my mother
and confided a passionate repudiation of any treaty to Victoria's
sympathetic ear. Victoria was all for me; my mother was stern for a
moment, and then, smiling faintly, told me to try to sleep.

After several months I took a decided and rapid turn toward recovery.
This, I think, was the moment in which I realized most keenly the
fictitious importance which my position imparted to me. The fashion of
everybody's face was changed; mother, doctors, nurses, servants, all
wore an air of victory. When I was carried out on to the terrace at
Artenberg, rows of smiling people clapped their hands. I felt that I had
done something very meritorious in getting better, and I hoped secretly
that they would give me just as fine a procession as though I had died.
Victoria got hold of a newspaper and, before she was detected and
silenced, read me a sentence:

"By the favourable news of the King's health a great weight is lifted
from the heart of the country. There is not a house that will not be
glad to-day." I was pleased at this, although rather surprised. Taking
thought with myself, I concluded that, although kingship had hitherto
failed to answer my private expectations and desires, yet it must be a
more important thing even in these days than I had come to suppose. I
put a question to my mother, pointing at one of the gardeners.

"If Josef's son was ill and I was ill," said I, "which would Josef wish
most to get better?"

"The King should be before a thousand sons to him," she answered
quickly, and in a proud, agitated voice. But a moment later she bade me
not ask foolish questions. I remember that I studied her face for some
moments. It was a little difficult to make out how she really felt about
me and my kingship.

Convalescence was a pleasant season. Styrian discipline was relaxed, and
I was allowed to do very nearly all that my strength enabled me.
Victoria shared in the indulgence of this time; I remember we agreed
that there would be something to be said for never getting quite well.
Had getting quite well meant going back to Krak, I should have felt this
point of view most strongly, but I was not to go back to Krak. There was
a talk of a governor, of tutors, and masters. Hammerfeldt came down and
had a long conversation with my mother. She came out from the interview
with flushed cheeks, seeming vexed and perturbed, but she was composed
again when the Prince took his leave, and said to him pleasantly:

"You mustn't take him away from me altogether, Prince."

"We rely on your influence above everything, madame," was Hammerfeldt's
courtly answer, but my mother watched his retreating figure with a
rather bitter smile. Then she turned to me and asked:

"Shall you be glad to have tutors?"

Krak was in the distance with Victoria; my mother perceived my eyes
travelling in that direction.

"Poor old Baroness! You never liked her, did you, Augustin?"

"No," said I, emboldened by this new and confidential tone.

"Try to think more kindly of her," she advised; but I saw that she was
not in the least aggrieved at my want of appreciation. "You don't like
women, do you?"

"Only you, and Victoria, and----" I hesitated.

"And Anna?"

"Oh, of course, old Anna."

"Well, and who else?"

"The Countess von Sempach," said I, a little timidly.

"Haven't you forgotten her?" asked my mother, and her smile became less
bright.

"No, I've--I've not forgotten her," I murmured. "Does she ever come to
see you, mother--here at Artenberg, I mean?"

"No, darling," said my mother.

I did not pursue the subject. I had eyes good enough to see that my
dislike for Krak was pleasanter to my mother than my liking for the
Countess. Women seem to me to have the instinct of monopoly, and not to
care for a share of affection. Such, at least, was my mother's
temperament, intensified no doubt by the circumstance that in future
days my favour and liking might be matters of importance. She feared
from another woman just what she feared from Hammerfeldt, his governor,
and his tutors; probably her knowledge of the world made her dread
another woman more than any number of men. She feared even Victoria, her
own daughter and my sister; but a woman, very pretty and sympathetic,
who would be only twenty-eight when I was eighteen, must have seemed to
her mind the greatest peril of all. It is one of the drawbacks of
conspicuous place that a man's likings and fancies, his merest whims,
are invested by others with an importance that throws its reflection
back on to his own mind; he is able to recollect only with an effort
that even in his case there are a good many things of no importance. I
did not make these observations as a small boy at Artenberg, but even as
a small boy I knew very well that the Countess von Sempach would not be
invited to the Schloss. Nor was she. My mother guarded the gate, a
jealous angel.

Thus a pleasant summer passed at Artenberg, and in the autumn we
returned to Forstadt. Then I had my procession, though it seemed
scarcely as brilliant or interesting as that wherein Victoria had held
first place while I looked down, a highly satisfied spectator, from
heaven. I was eleven years old now, and perhaps just the first bloom was
wearing off the wonder of the world. For recompense, but not in full
requital, I was more awake to the meaning of things around me, and I
fear much more awake to the importance of myself, Augustin. Now I
appropriated the cheers at which before I had marvelled, and approved
the enthusiasm that had before amused me. My mother greeted these signs
in me; since I was to leave the women she would now have me a man as
soon as might be; besides, she had a woman's natural impatience for my
full growth. They love us most as babies, when they are Providence to
us; least as boys, when we make light of them; more again when as men we
return to rule and be ruled, bartering slavery in one matter for
dominion in another, and working out the equilibrium of power.

But after my procession in the cathedral, when I was giving thanks for
rescue from a death that had never been terrible and now seemed remote
and impossible, I saw my countess. She was nearly opposite to me; her
husband was not with her: he was on guard in the nave with his regiment.
I wanted to make some sign to her, but I had been told that everybody
would be looking at me. When I was crowned, "everybody" had meant Krak,
and I had feared no other eye. I was more self-conscious now. I was
particularly alert that my mother should observe nothing. But the
Countess and I exchanged a glance; she nodded cautiously; almost
immediately afterward I saw her wipe her eyes. I should have liked to
talk to her, tell her that I liked being a king rather better, and give
her the glad tidings that the dominion of Krak had ended; but I got no
chance of doing anything of the sort, being carried away without coming
nearer to her.

Victoria was in very low spirits that evening. It had suddenly come upon
her that she was to be left to endure Krak all alone. Victoria and I
were not somehow as closely knit together as we had been; she was now
thirteen, growing a tall girl, and I was but a little boy. Yet our
relations were not, I imagine, quite what they would have been between
brother and sister of such relative ages in an ordinary case. The
authority which elder sisters may be seen so readily to ape and assume
was never claimed by Victoria; my mother would not have endured such
presumption for a moment. I think Victoria regarded me as a singularly
ignorant person, who yet, by fortune's freak, was invested with a
strange importance and the prospect at least of great and indefinite
power. She therefore took a good deal of pains to make me understand her
point of view, and to convert me to her opinions. Her present argument
was that she also ought to be relieved from Krak.

"Krak was mother's governess till mother was eighteen," I reminded her.

"Awful!" groaned poor Victoria.

"In fact, mother's never got rid of Krak at all."

"Oh, that's different. I shouldn't in the least mind keeping Krak as my
daughter's governess," said Victoria. "That would be rather fun."

"It would be very cruel, considering what Krak does," I objected.

Dim hintings of the grown-up state were in Victoria; she looked a little
doubtful.

"It wouldn't matter when she was quite young," she concluded. "But I'm
nearly fourteen. Augustin, will you ask mother to send Krak away when
I'm fifteen?"

"No," said I. I had a wholesome dread of straining the prerogative.

"Then when I'm sixteen?"

"I don't see what I've got to do with it," said I restlessly.

Victoria became huffy.

"You're king, and you could do it if you liked," she said. "If I was
king, I should like to do things for people, for my sister anyhow." She
pouted in much vexation.

"Well, perhaps I'll try some day," said I reluctantly.

"Oh, you dear boy!" cried Victoria, and she immediately gave me three
kisses.

I was certainly on my way to learn the secret of popularity. In my
experience Victoria's conception of the kingly office is a very common
one, and Victoria's conduct in view of a refusal to forward her views,
and of consent, extremely typical. For Victoria took no account of my
labours, or of the probable trouble I should undergo, or of the snub I
should incur. She called me a dear boy, gave me three kisses, and went
off to bed in much better spirits. And all the while my own secret
opinion was that Krak was rather good for Victoria. It has generally
been my secret opinion that people had no business to receive the things
which they have asked me to give to or procure for them. When the merits
are good the King's help is unnecessary.




CHAPTER IV.

TWO OF MY MAKERS.


Physically my parents' child, with my father's tall stature and my
mother's clean-cut features, intellectually I was more son to
Hammerfeldt than to any one else. From the day when my brain began to
develop, his was the preponderating influence. I had a governor, a good
soldier, General von Vohrenlorf; I had masters; I had one tutor, of whom
more presently (he for a time bade fair to dispute the Prince's
supremacy); but above them all, moulding me and controlling them, was
this remarkable old man. At this time he was seventy years old; he had
been a soldier till thirty, since then a diplomatist and politician. I
do not think in all things as Hammerfeldt thought; time moves, and each
man's mind has its own cast; but I will make no claim to originality at
the cost of depreciating what I learned from him. He was a solitary man;
once he had taken a wife; she left him after two years; he used to talk
about her as though she had died at the date when she ran away, without
bitterness, with an indulgent kindness, with a full recognition of her
many merits. Those who did not know the story little supposed that the
lady lived still in Paris. His conduct in this matter was highly
characteristic. He regarded passions and emotions as things altogether
outside and independent of the rational man. Their power could not be
denied in their own sphere and season; he admitted that they must be
felt--raw feeling was their province; he denied that they should affect
thought or dominate action. In others they were his opportunity, in
himself a luxury that had never been dangerous, or an ailment that was
troublesome but never fatal. He was hard on a blunder; as a necessary
presupposition to effective negotiation or business he recognised a
binding code of honour; he has frequently told me he did not understand
the theological conception of sin. He had eaten of our salt and was our
servant; thus he would readily have died for us; but he prayed pardon if
we asked him to believe in us. "Conduct," he said once, "is the outcome
of selfishness limited by self-conceit." It was his way so to put things
as to strip them of friendly, decent covering; had he said self-interest
limited by self-respect, the axiom would have been more accepted and
less quoted. A superficial person used to exclaim to me, "And yet he is
so kind!" A man without ideals finds kindness the easiest thing in the
world. In truth he was kind, and in a confidential sort of way that
seemed to chuckle and wink, saying, "We're rogues together; then I must
lend you a hand." But he could be ruthless also, displaying a curious
aloofness from his fellow-men and an unconsciousness of any suffering he
might inflict that left mere cruelty far behind. If I were making an
automaton king, I would model my machine on the lines of Hammerfeldt. He
had no belief in a future life, but would sometimes trifle whimsically
with the theory of a transmigration of souls; he traced all beliefs in
immortality to the longing of those who were unfortunate here (and who
did not think himself so?) for a recompense (a revenge he called it)
hereafter, and declared transmigration to be at once the most ingenious
and the most picturesque embodiment of this yearning. He played
billiards extremely well, and excused his skill on the ground that he
was compelled to pass the time while foreign diplomatists and his own
colleagues were making up their mind. I do not think that he ever
hesitated as to what he had best do. He was of an extremely placid and
happy temper. As may be anticipated from what I have said, he regarded
no man as utterly lost unless he were completely under the influence of
a woman.

Yet it was by Hammerfeldt's will that Geoffrey Owen became my daily
companion and familiar friend. Vohrenlorf visited me once or twice a
week, and exercised a perfunctory superintendence. I had, of course,
many masters who came and went at appointed hours. Owen lived with me
both at Forstadt and at Artenberg. At this time he was twenty-five; he
excelled my own adult stature, and walked with the free grace of a
well-bred English gentleman. His dark hair grew thick, rising from his
forehead in a wave; his face was long and thin, and a slight mustache
veiled a humorous tender mouth. There was about the man a pervading
sympathy; the desire to be friends was the first characteristic of his
manner; he was talkative, eager, enthusiastic. If a man were good it
seemed to Owen but natural; if he were a rogue my tutor would set it
down to anything in the world save his own fault. Everybody could be
mended if everybody else would try. Thus he brought with him into our
conservative military court and society the latest breath of generous
hope and human aspiration that had blown over Oxford. Surely this was a
strange choice of Hammerfeldt's! Was it made in ignorance of the man, or
with some idea that my mind should be opened to every variety of
thought, or in a careless confidence that his own influence was beyond
shaking, and that Owen's spirit would beat hopelessly against the cage
and never reach mine in its prison of tradition?

A boy that would not have worshipped such a man as Geoffrey Owen must
have wanted heart and fire. I watched him first to see if he could ride;
he rode well. When he came he could not fence; in six months he was a
good hand with the foils; physical fatigue seemed as unknown to him as
mental inertia. There was no strain and no cant about him; he smoked
hard, drank well after exertion, with pleasure always. He delighted to
talk to my mother, chaffing her Styrian ideas with a graceful deference
that made her smile. Victoria adored him openly, and Krak did not
understand why he was not odious. Thus he conquered the Court, and I was
the first of his slaves. It would be tedious to anybody except myself to
trace the gradual progress of our four years' intimacy and friendship,
of my four years' training and enlightenment. Shall I summarize it and
say that Owen taught me that there were folks outside palaces, and that
the greatness of a station, even as of a man, stood not in the multitude
of the things that it possessed? The summary is cold and colourless; it
smacks of duty, of obligations unwillingly remembered, of selfish
pleasures reluctantly foregone. As I became old enough to do more than
listen entranced to his stories, it seemed to me that to be such a man
as he was, and not knowing that he himself was admired, could be no
duty, but only a happy dream. There has been in my family, here and
there, a vein of fancy, or of mysticism turning sometimes to religious
fervour, again sometimes to soldierly enthusiasm and a knight-errantry
in arms, the ruin and despair of cool statesmanship. On this element
Owen's teaching laid hold and bent it to a more modern shape. I would
not be a monk or a Bayard, but would serve humanity, holding my throne a
naked trust, whence all but I might reap benefit, whereon I must sit
burdened with the sorrows of all; and thus to be burdened was my joy.
With some boys no example could have made such ideas acceptable, or won
anything but scornful wonder for them; in me they struck answering
chords, and as I rambled in the woods at Artenberg already in my mind I
was the perfect king.

Where would such a mood have led? Where would it have ended? What at the
last would have been my state and fame?

On my fifteenth birthday Prince von Hammerfeldt, now in his
seventy-fifth year, came from Forstadt to Artenberg to offer me
congratulations. Though a boy may have such thoughts as I have tried to
describe, for the most part he would be flogged to death sooner than
utter them; to the Prince above all men an instinct bade me be silent.
But Owen rose steadily to the old man's skilful fly; he did not lecture
the minister nor preach to him, but answered his questions simply and
from the heart, without show and without disguise. Old Hammerfeldt's
face grew into a network of amused and tolerant wrinkles.

"My dear Mr. Owen," said he, "I heard all this forty--fifty--years ago.
Is it not that Jean Jacques has crossed the Channel, turning more sickly
on the way?"

Owen smiled. Mine was the face that grew red in resentment, mine the
tongue that burned to answer him.

"I know what you mean, sir," laughed Owen. "Still doesn't the world go
forward?"

"I see no signs of it," replied Hammerfeldt with a pinch of snuff,
"unless it be progress to teach rogues who aren't worth a snap to prate
of their worth. Well, it is pretty enough in you to think as you think.
What says the King to it?" He turned to me with a courteous smile, but
with an unceremoniously intent gaze in his eyes.

I had no answer ready; I was still excited.

"I have tried to interest the King in these lines of thought," said
Owen.

"Ah, yes, very proper," assented Hammerfeldt, his eyes still set on my
face. "We must have more talk about the matter. Princess Heinrich awaits
me now."

Owen and I were left together. He was smiling, but rather sadly; yet he
laughed outright when I, carried beyond boyish shame by my indignation,
broke into a tirade and threw back at him something of what he had
taught me. Suddenly he interrupted me.

"Let's go for a row on the river and have one pleasant afternoon," he
said, laying his hand on my shoulder. "The Prince does not want us any
more to-day."

The afternoon dwells in my memory. In my belief Owen's quick mind had
read something of the Prince's purpose; for he was more demonstrative of
affection than was his wont. He seemed to eye me with a pitiful love
that puzzled me; and he began to talk (this also was rare with him) of
my special position, how I must be apart from other men, and to
speculate in seeming idleness on what a place such as mine would be to
him and make of him. All this came between our spurts of rowing or among
our talk of sport or of flowers as we lay at rest under the bank.

"If there were two kings here, as there were in Sparta!" I cried
longingly.

"There were ephors, too," he reminded me, and we laughed. Hammerfeldt
was our ephor.

There was a banquet that night. I sat at the head of the table, with my
mother opposite and Hammerfeldt at her right hand. The Prince gave my
health after dinner, and passed on to a warm and eloquent eulogy on
those who had trained me. In the course of it he dwelt pointedly on the
obligation under which Geoffrey Owen had laid me, and of the debt all
the nation owed to one who had inspired its king with a liberal culture
and a zeal for humanity. I could have clapped my hands in delight. I
looked at Owen, who sat far down the table. His gaze was on Hammerfeldt,
and his lips were parted in a smile. I did not understand his smile, but
it persisted all through the Prince's graceful testimony to his
services. It was not like him to smile with that touch of satire when he
was praised. But I saw him only for an instant before I went to bed, and
others were with us, so that I could ask no explanation.

The next morning I rose early, and in glee, for I was to go hunting.
Owen did not accompany me; he was, I understood, to confer with
Hammerfeldt. My jovial governor Vohrenlorf had charge of me. A merry day
we had, and good sport; it was late when we came home, and my anxious
mother awaited me in the hall with dry slippers. She had a meal spread
for me, and herself came to share it. Never had I seen her so tender or
so gentle. I had a splendid hunger, and fell to, babbling of my skill
with the gun between hearty mouthfuls.

"I wish Owen had been there," I said.

My mother nodded, but made no answer.

"Is the Prince gone?" I asked.

"No, he is here still. He stayed in case you should want to see him,
Augustin."

"I don't want him," said I with a laugh, as I pushed my chair back. "But
I was glad he talked like that about Owen last night. I think I'll go
and see if Owen's in his room." I rose and started toward the door.

"Augustin, Mr. Owen is not in his room," said my mother in a strangely
timid voice.

I turned with a start, for I was sensitive to every change of tone in
her voice.

"Do you know where he is?" I asked.

"He is gone," said she.

I did not ask where, nor whether he would return. I sat down and looked
at her; she came, smoothed my hair back from my forehead, and kissed me.

"I have not sent him away," she said. "I couldn't help it. The Prince
was resolved, and he has power."

"But why?" burst from my lips.

"It is the Prince's doing, not mine," she reminded me. "The Prince is
here, Augustin."

Why, yes, at least old Hammerfeldt would not run away.

My lips were quivering. I was nearer tears than pride had let me be for
three years past, grief and anger uniting to make me sore and desolate.
There seemed a great gap made in my life; my dearest companion was gone,
the source of all that most held my fancy and filled my mind dried up.
But before I could speak again a tall, lean figure stood in the doorway,
helmet in hand. Hammerfeldt was there; he was asking if the King would
receive him. My mother turned an inquiring glance on me. I bowed my head
and choked down a sob that was in my throat. The old man came near to me
and stood before me; there was a little smile on his lips, but his old
eyes were soft.

"Sire," said he, addressing me with ceremonial deference and formality,
"her royal highness has told you what I have done in your Majesty's
service. I should be happy in your Majesty's approval."

I made him no answer.

"A king, sire," he went on, "should sip at all cups and drain none, know
all theories and embrace none, learn from all men and be bound to none.
He may be a pupil, but not a disciple; a hearer, but always a critic; a
friend, never a devotee."

I felt my mother's hand resting on my shoulder; I sat still, looking in
the Prince's eyes.

"Mr. Owen has done his work well," he went on, "but his work is done. Do
you ask, sire, why he is gone? I will give you an answer. I, Prince von
Hammerfeldt, would have Augustin and not Geoffrey for my master and my
country's."

"Enough for to-night, Prince. Leave him now," my mother urged in a
whisper.

The Prince bent his head slightly, but remained where he stood for a
moment longer. Then he bowed very low to me, and drew back a step,
still facing me. My mother prompted me with what I suppose was the
proper formula.

"You are convinced of the Prince's wisdom and devotion in everything,
aren't you, Augustin?" she said.

"Yes," said I. "Will Mr. Owen write to me?"

"When your Majesty is older, your Majesty will, of course, use your own
pleasure as to your correspondence," returned Hammerfeldt.

He waited for a moment longer, and then drew back further to the door.

"Speak to the Prince, Augustin," said my mother.

"I am very grateful to the Prince for his care of me," said I.

Hammerfeldt came quickly up to me and kissed my hand. "I would make you
a true king, sire," said he, and with that he left us.

[Illustration: Hammerfeldt came to me and kissed my hand.]

So they took my friend from me, and not all the kindness with which I
was loaded in the time following his loss lightened the grief of it.
Presently I came to understand better the meaning of these things, and
to see that the King might have no friend; for his friend must be an
enemy to others, perhaps even to the King himself. Shall I now blame
Hammerfeldt? I do not know. I was coming to the age when impressions
sink deep into the mind; and Geoffrey Owen was a man whose mark struck
very deep. Besides, he had those theories! It was not strange in
Hammerfeldt to fear those theories. Perhaps he was right; with his
statecraft it may well be that he could have done no other than what he
did. But to my fifteen-years-old thoughts these reflections were not
present. They had taken my friend from me. In my bed that night I wept
for him, and my days seemed empty for the want of him. It was to me as
though he had died, and worse than that; there are things as final as
death, yet lacking death's gentleness. Such is it to be cut off, living
friend from living friend, and living heart from heart not grown cold in
the grave. I have told this story of my tutor and myself first, for the
influence Owen had on me more than for the effect wrought in me by the
manner in which I lost him. There must be none very near me; it seemed
as though that stern verdict had been passed. There must be a vacant
space about the throne. Such was Hammerfeldt's gospel. He knew that he
himself soon must leave me; he would have no successor in power, and
none to take a place in love that he had neither filled nor suffered to
be filled. As I wandered, alone now, about the woods at Artenberg I
mused on these things, and came to a conclusion rather bitter for one of
my years. I would tie no more bonds, to have them cut with the sword; if
love must be slain, love should be born no more; to begin was but to
prepare a sad ending. I would not be drawn on to confidence or
friendship. I chose not to have rather than to lose, not to taste rather
than leave undrained the cup of sweet intimacy. Thus I armed my boyhood
at once against grief and love. In all that I did in after days this
determination was always with me, often overborne for the time by
emotions and passions, but always ready to reassert itself in the first
calm hour, and relentlessly to fetter me in a prison of my own making.
My God, how I have longed for friends sometimes!

Geoffrey Owen I saw but once again. I had written twice to him, and
received respectful, friendly, brief answers. But the sword had passed
through his heart also; he did not respond to my invitation, nor show a
desire to renew our intimacy. Perhaps he was afraid to run the risk; in
truth, even while I urged him, I was half afraid myself. Had he come
again, it would not have been as it had been between us. Very likely we
both in our hearts preferred to rest in memories, not to spoil our
thoughts by disappointment, to be always to one another just what we had
been as we rowed together that last afternoon at Artenberg, when the dim
shadow of parting did no more than deepen our affection and touch it to
a profounder tenderness.

And that time when I saw him again? I was driving through the gates of
an English palace, encircled by a brilliant troop of soldiers, cheered
by an interested, good-humoured throng. Far back in their ranks, but
standing out above all heads, I saw his face, paler and thinner, more
gentle even and kindly. He wore a soft hat crushed over his forehead; as
I passed he lifted and waved it, smiling his old smile at me. I waved my
hand, leaning forward eagerly; but I could not stop the procession. As
soon as I was within I sent an equerry to seek him, armed with a
description that he could not mistake. But Geoffrey Owen was nowhere to
be found, he had not awaited my messenger. Having signalled a friend's
greeting across the gulf between us, he was gone. I could have found
him, for I knew that he dwelt in London, working, writing, awakening
hope in many, fear in some, thought in all. But I would not seek him
out, nor compel him to come to me, since he would not of his own accord.
So he went his way, I mine, and I have seen him no more. Yet ever on my
birthday I drain a cup to him, and none knows to whom the King drinks a
full glass silently. It is my libation on a friendship's grave. Perhaps
it would support an interpretation more subtle. For when I stood between
Owen and Hammerfeldt, torn this way and that, uncertain whom I should
follow through life, was not I the humble transitory theatre of a great
and secular struggle? It seems to me that then the Ideal and the Actual
joined in battle over me; Hector and Achilles, and I the body of
Patroclus! Alas, poor body! Greatly the combatants desire it, little
they reck of the roughness it suffers in their struggle! The Spirit and
the World--am I over-fanciful if I seem to see them incarnated in
Geoffrey Owen and old Hammerfeldt? And victory was with the world. Yet
the conquered also have before now left their mark on lands which they
could not hold.




CHAPTER V.

SOMETHING ABOUT VICTORIA.


I feel that I give involuntarily a darker colour to my life than the
truth warrants. When we sit down and reflect we are apt to become the
prey of a curious delusion; pain seems to us the only reality, pleasure
a phantasm or a dream. Yet such reality as pain has pleasure shares, and
we are in no closer touch with eternal truth when we have headaches (or
heartaches) than when we are free from these afflictions. I wonder
sometimes whether a false idea of dignity does not mislead us. Would we
all pose as martyrs? It is nonsense; for most of us life is a tolerable
enough business--if we would not think too much about it. We need not
pride ourselves on our griefs; it seems as though joy were the higher
state because it is the less self-conscious and rests in fuller harmony
with the great order that encircles us.

As I grew older I gained a new and abiding source of pleasure in the
contemplation and study of my sister Victoria. I have anticipated
matters a little in telling of my tutor's departure; I must hark back
and pick up the thread of Victoria's history from the time when I was
hard on thirteen and she near fifteen--the time when she had implored me
to rid her of Krak. I had hated Krak with that healthy full-blooded
antipathy whose faculty one seems to lose in later years. It is a
tiresome thing to be driven by experience to the discovery of some good
in everybody; your fine black fades to neutral gray; often I regret the
delightfully partial views of earlier days. And so many people succeed
in preserving them to a green and untutored old age! They are Popes
always to their heretics. Such was and is Victoria; she never changed in
her views of other people. In contrast she was, as regards herself, of a
temperament so elastic that impressions endured hardly a moment beyond
the blow, and pleasures passed without depositing any residuum which
might form a store against evil days. If Krak had cut her arm off, its
perpetual absence might have made Victoria remember the fault which was
paid for by amputation; the moral effect of rapid knuckles disappeared
with the comfort that came from sucking them. Perhaps her disposition
was a happy chance for her; since the Styrian discipline (although not,
of course, in this blankly physical form later on) persisted for her
long after it had been softened for me. I touch again perhaps on a point
which has caught my attention before; undoubtedly my mother kept the
status of childhood imposed on Victoria fully as long as nature
countenanced the measures. Krak did not go; a laugh greeted my hint.
Krak stayed till Victoria was sixteen. For my part, since it was
inevitable that Krak should discipline somebody, I think heaven was mild
in setting her on Victoria. Had I stayed under her sway I should have
run mad. Victoria laughed, cried, joked, dared, submitted, offended,
defied, suffered, wept, and laughed again all in a winter's afternoon.
She was by way of putting on the dignity of an elder with me and
shutting off from my gaze her trials and reverses. But there was no one
else to tell the joke to, and I had it all each night before I slept.

But now Victoria was sixteen; and Krak, elderly, pensioned, but
unbroken, was gone. She went back to Styria to chasten and ultimately to
enrich (I would not for the world have been privy to their prayers) some
nephews and nieces. It seemed strange, but Krak was homesick for Styria.
She went; Victoria gave her the tribute of a tear, surprised out of her
before she remembered her causes for exultation. Then came their memory,
and she was outrageously triumphant. A new era began; the buffer was
gone; my mother and Victoria were face and face. And in a year as
Victoria said, in two or three as my mother allowed, Victoria would be
grown up.

I was myself, most unwillingly, a cause of annoyance to Victoria, and a
pretext for her repression. Importance flowed in on me unasked,
unearned. To speak in homely fashion, she was always "a bad second," and
none save herself attributed to her the normal status of privileges of
an elder sister. Her wrath was not visited on me, but on those who
exalted me so unduly; even while she resented my position she was not,
as I have shown, above using it for her own ends; this adaptability was
not due to guile; she forgot one mood when another came, and compromised
her pretensions in the effort to compass her desires. Princess Heinrich
seized on the inconsistency, and pointed it out to her daughter with an
exasperating lucidity.

"You are ready enough to remember that Augustin is king when you want
anything from him," she would observe. "You forget it only when you are
asked to give way to him."

Victoria would make no reply--the Krak traditions endured to prevent an
answer to rebukes--but when we were alone she used to remark, "I should
think an iceberg's rather like a mother. Only one needn't live with
icebergs."

Quite suddenly, as it seemed, it occurred to Victoria that she was
pretty. She lost no time in advertising the discovery through the medium
of a thousand new tricks and graces; a determined assault on the
affections of all the men about us, from the lords-in-waiting down to
the stablemen--an assault that ignored existing domestic ties or
pre-arranged affections--was the next move in her campaign. When she was
extremely angry with her mother she would say, "How odious it must be
not to be young any more!" I thought that there was sometimes a wistful
look in my mother's eyes; was she thinking of Krak, Krak in far-off
Styria? Perhaps for once, when Victoria was hitting covertly at Krak, my
mother remarked in a very cold voice:

"You remember your punishments, you don't remember your offences,
Victoria."

I could linger long on these small matters, for I find more interest and
incitement to analysis in the attitude of women toward women than in
their more obvious relations with men; but I must pass over a year of
veiled conflict, and come to that incident which is the salient point in
Victoria's girlish history. It coincided almost exactly in time with the
dismissal of Geoffrey Owen, and my pre-occupation with that event
diverted my attention from the earlier stages of Victoria's affair. She
was just seventeen, grown up in her own esteem (and she adduced many
precedents to fortify her contention), but in my mother's eyes still
wanting a year of quiet home life before she should be launched into
society. Victoria acquiesced perforce, but turned the flank of the
decree by ensuring that the home life should be by no means quiet. She
set to work to prepare for us a play; comedy or tragedy I knew not then,
and am not now quite clear. Our nearest neighbour at Artenberg dwelt
across the river in the picturesque old castle of Waldenweiter; he was a
young man of twenty-two at this time, handsome, pleasant, and ready for
amusement. His father being dead, Frederick was his own master--that is
to say, he had no master. Victoria fell in love with him. The Baron, it
seemed, was not disinclined for a romance with a pretty princess;
perhaps he thought that nothing serious would come of it, and that it
was a pleasant way enough of passing a summer; or, perhaps, being but
twenty-two, he did not think at all, unless to muse on the depth of the
blue in Victoria's eyes, and the comely lines of her figure as she rowed
on the river. To say truth, Victoria gave him small time for reflection.

As I am convinced, before he had well considered the situation he had
fallen into the habit of attending a _rendezvous_ in a backwater of the
stream about a mile above Artenberg. Victoria never went out
unaccompanied, and never came back unaccompanied; it was discovered
afterward that the trusted old boatman could be bought off with the
price of beer, and used to disembark and seek an ale house so soon as
the backwater was reached. The meeting over, Victoria would return in
high spirits and displaying an unusual affection toward my mother,
either as a blind, or through remorse, or (as I incline to think)
through an amiability born of triumph; there was at times even a touch
of commiseration in her manner, and more than once she spoke to me, in a
tone of philosophical speculation, on the uselessness of endeavouring
to repress natural feelings and the futility of treating as children
persons who were already grown up. This mood lasted some time, so long,
I suppose, as the stolen delight of doing the thing was more prominent
than the delight in the thing itself. A month passed and brought a
change. Now she was silent, absent, pensive, very kind to me, more
genuinely submissive and dutiful to her mother. The first force of my
blow had left me, for Owen had been gone now some months; I began to
observe my sister carefully. To my amazement she, formerly the most
heedless of creatures, knew in an instant that she was watched. She drew
off from me, setting a distance between us; my answer was to withdraw my
companionship, since only thus could I convince her that I had no desire
to spy. I had not guessed the truth, and my mother had no inkling of it.
Princess Heinrich's ignorance may seem strange, but I have often
observed that persons of a masterful temper are rather easy to delude;
they have such difficulty in conceiving that they can be disobeyed as to
become ready subjects for hoodwinking; I recollect old Hammerfeldt
saying to me, "In public affairs, sire, always expect disobedience, but
be chary of rewarding obedience." My mother adopted the second half of
the maxim but disregarded the first. She always expected obedience;
Victoria knew it and built on her knowledge a confident hope of impunity
in deceit.

Now on what harsh word have I stumbled? For deceit savours of meanness.
Let me amend and seek the charity, the neutral tolerance, of some such
word as concealment. For things good and things bad may be concealed,
things that people should know and things that concern them not, great
secrets of State and the flutterings of hearts. Victoria practised
concealment.

I found her crying once, crying alone in a corner of the terrace under a
ludicrous old statue of Mercury. I was amazed; I had not seen her cry so
heartily since Krak had last ill-treated her. I put it to her that some
such affliction must be responsible for her despair.

"I wish it was only that," she answered. "Do go away, Augustin."

"I don't want to stay," said I. "Only if you want anything----"

"I wonder if you could!" she said with a sudden flush. "No, it's no
use," she went on. "And it's nothing. Augustin, if you tell mother you
found me crying, I'll never----"

"You know quite well that I never tell anybody anything," said I, rather
offended.

"Then go away, dear," urged Victoria.

I went away. I had been feeling very lonely myself, and had sought out
Victoria for company's sake. However, I went and walked alone down to
the edge of the river. It was clear that Victoria did not want me, and
apparently I could do nothing for her. I have never found myself able to
do very much for people, except those who did not deserve to have
anything done for them. Perhaps poor Victoria didn't, but I was not
aware of her demerits then. I repeated to the river my old reflection:
"I don't see that it's much use being king, you know," said I as I flung
a pebble and looked across at the towers of Waldenweiter. "That fellow's
better off than I am," said I; and I wished again that Victoria had not
sent me away. There is a period of life during which one is always
being sent away, and it is not quite over for me yet in spite of my
dignity.

At last came the crash. A little carelessness born of habit and
impunity, the treachery of the old boatman under the temptation of a
gold piece, the girl's lack of _savoir faire_ when charged with the
offence--here was enough, and more than enough. I recollect being
summoned to my mother's room late one evening, just about my bedtime. I
went and found her alone with Victoria. The Princess sat in her great
arm-chair; Victoria was leaning against the wall when I entered; her
handkerchief was crushed in one hand, the other hand clenched by her
side.

"Augustin," said the Princess, "Victoria and I go to Biarritz
to-morrow."

Victoria's quick breathing was her only comment. My mother told me in
brief, curt, offensive phrases that Victoria had been carrying on a
flirtation with our opposite neighbour. I have no doubt that I looked
surprised.

"You may well wonder!" cried my mother. "If she could not remember what
she was herself, she might have remembered that the King was her
brother."

"I've done nothing----" Victoria began.

"Hold your tongue," said my mother. "If you were in Styria, instead of
here, you'd be locked up in your own room for a month on bread and
water; yes, you may think yourself lucky that I only take you to
Biarritz."

"Styria!" said Victoria with a very bitter smile. "If I were in Styria I
should be beheaded, I daresay, or--or knouted, or something. Oh, I know
what Styria means! Krak taught me that."

"I wish the Baroness was here," observed the Princess.

"You'd tell her to beat me, I suppose?" flashed out my sister.

"If you were three years younger----" began my mother with perfect
outward composure. Victoria interrupted her passionately.

"Oh, never mind my age. I'm a child still. Come and beat me!" she cried,
assuming the air of an Iphigenia.

To this day I am of opinion that she ran a risk in giving this
invitation; it was well on the cards that the Princess might have
accepted it. Indeed had it been Styria--but it was not Styria. My mother
turned to me with a cold smile.

"You perceive," said she, "the spirit in which your sister meets me
because I object to her compromising herself with this wretched baron.
She accuses me of persecution, and talks as though I were an
executioner."

I had been looking very curiously at Victoria. She was in a
dressing-gown, having been called, apparently, from her bedroom; her
hair was over her shoulders. She looked most prettily woe-begone--like
Juliet before her angry father, or, as I say, Iphigenia before the
knife. In a moment she broke out again.

"Nobody feels for me," she complained. "What can Augustin know of it?"

"I know," observed my mother. "But although I know----"

"Oh, you've forgotten," cried Victoria scornfully.

For a moment my mother flushed. I was glad on all accounts that Victoria
did not repeat her previous invitation now. On the contrary, when she
had looked at Princess Heinrich, she gave a sudden frightened sob,
rushed across the room, and flung herself on her knees at my feet.

"You're the king!" she cried. "Protect me, protect me!"

Throughout all this very painful interview I seemed to hear as it were
echoes of the romances which I had read on Victoria's recommendation;
the reminiscence was particularly strong in this last exclamation.
However, it is not safe to conclude that feelings are not sincere
because they are expressed in conventional phrases. These formulas are
moulds into which our words run easily; though the moulds be hollow, the
stuff that fills them may be solid enough.

"Why, you don't want to marry him?" I exclaimed, much embarrassed at
being prematurely forced into functions of a _pere de famille_.

"I'll never marry anybody else," moaned Victoria. My mother's face was
the picture of disgust and scorn.

"That's another thing," said she. "At least the King would not hear of
such a marriage as this."

"Do you want to marry him?" I asked Victoria, chiefly, I confess, in
curiosity. I had risen--or fallen--in some degree to my position, and it
seemed strange to me that my sister should wish to marry this Baron
Fritz.

"I--I love him, Augustin," groaned Victoria.

"She knows it's impossible, as well as you do," said my mother. "She
doesn't really want to do it."

Victoria cried quietly, but made no reply or protest. I was bewildered;
I did not understand then how we may passionately desire a thing which
we would not do, and may snatch at the opposition of others as an
excuse alike for refusal and for tears. Looking back, I do not think had
we set Victoria free in the boat, and put the sculls in her hands, that
she would have rowed over to Waldenweiter. But did she, then, deserve no
pity? Perhaps she deserved more; for not two weak creatures like the
Princess (I crave her pardon) and myself stood between her and her
wishes, but she herself--the being that she had been fashioned into, her
whole life, her nature, and her heart, as our state had made them. If
our soul be our prison, and ourself the jailer, in vain shall we plan
escape or offer bribes for freedom; wheresoever we go we carry the walls
with us, and if death, then death alone can unlock the gates.

The scene grew quieter. Victoria rose, and threw herself into a chair in
a weary, puzzled desolation; my mother sat quite still, with eyes intent
on the floor, and lips close shut. A sense of awkwardness grew strong on
me; I wanted to get out of the room. They would not fight any more now;
they would be very distant to one another; and, moreover, it seemed
clear that Victoria did not propose to marry Baron Fritz. But what about
poor Baron Fritz? I approached my mother, and whispered a question. She
answered me aloud.

"I have written to Prince von Hammerfeldt. A letter from him will, I
have no doubt, be enough to insure us against further impertinence."

Victoria dabbed her eyes, but no protest came from her.

"We shall start mid-day to-morrow," the Princess pursued, "unless, of
course, Victoria refuses to accompany me." Her voice took a tinge of
irony. "Possibly your wishes may persuade her, Augustin, if mine can
not."

Victoria raised her head suddenly, and said very distinctly:

"I will do what Augustin tells me." The emphatic word in that sentence
was "Augustin."

My mother smiled bitterly; she understood well enough the implicit
declaration of war, the appeal from her to me, the shifting of
allegiance. I daresay that she saw the absurdity of putting a boy not
yet sixteen into such a position; but I know that I felt it much more
strongly.

"Oh, you'd better go, hadn't you?" I asked uncomfortably. "You wouldn't
be very jolly here, you know."

"I'll do as you tell me, Augustin."

"Yes, we are both at your orders," said my mother.

It crossed my mind that their journey would not be a very pleasant one,
but I did not feel able to enter into that side of the question. I
resented this reference to me, and desired to be rid of the affair.

"I should like you to do as mother suggests," said I.

"Very well, Augustin," said Victoria, and she rose to her feet. She was
a tall, graceful girl, and looked very stately as she walked by her
mother. The Princess made no movement or sign; the grim smile persisted
on her lips. After a moment or two of wavering I followed my sister from
the room. She was just ahead of me in the passage, moving toward her
bedroom with a slow, listless tread. An impulse of sympathy came upon
me; I ran after her, caught her by the arm, and kissed her.

"Cheer up," I said.

"Oh, it's all right, Augustin," said she. "I've only been a fool."

There seemed nothing else to do, so I kissed her again.

"Fancy, Biarritz with mother!" she moaned. Then she turned on me
suddenly, almost fiercely. "But what's the good of asking anything of
you? You're afraid of mother still."

I drew back as though she had struck me. A moment later her arms were
round my neck.

"Oh, never mind, my dear," she sobbed. "Don't you see I'm miserable? Of
course, I must go with her."

I had never supposed that any other course was practicable. The
introduction of myself into the business had been but a move in the
game. Nevertheless it marked the beginning of a new position for me, as
rich in discomfort as, according to my experience, are most extensions
of power.




CHAPTER VI.

A STUDENT OF LOVE AFFAIRS.


The departure to Biarritz was carried through without further overt
hostilities. It chanced to be holidays with me, all my tutors were on
their vacation, my governor, Vohrenlorf, on a visit at Berlin. Hearing
of my solitude, he insisted on making arrangements to return speedily;
but for a few days I was left quite alone, saving for the presence of my
French body-servant Baptiste. I liked Baptiste; he was by conviction an
anarchist, by prejudice a freethinker; one shrug of his shoulders
disposed of the institutions of this world, another relegated the next
to the limbo of delusions. He was always respectful, but possessed an
unconquerably intimate manner; he could not forget that man spoke to
man, although one might be putting on the other's boots for him. He
regarded me with mingled affection and pity. I had overheard him
speaking of _le pauvre petit roi_; the point of view was so much my own
that from the instant my heart went out to Baptiste. Since he attributed
to me no sacro-sanctity, he was not officious or persistent in his
attendance while he was on duty; in fact he left me very much to my own
devices. To my mother he was polite but cold; he adored Victoria,
declaring that she was worthy of being French; his great hatred was for
Hammerfeldt, whom he accused of embodying the devil of Teutonism.
Hammerfeldt was aware of his feelings and played with them, while he
trusted Baptiste more than anybody about me. He did not know how
attached I was to the Frenchman, and I did not intend that he should
learn. I had received a sharp lesson with regard to parading my
preferences.

It was through Baptiste that I heard of Baron Fritz's side of the case,
for Baptiste was friendly with Fritz's servants. The Baron, it appeared,
was in despair. "They watch him when he walks by the river," declared
Baptiste with a gesture in which dismay and satisfaction were curiously
blended.

"Poor fellow!" said I, leaning back in the stern of the boat. To be in
such a state on Victoria's account was odd and deplorable.

Baptiste laid down the sculls and leaned forward smiling.

"It is nothing, sire," said he. "It must happen now and again to all of
us. M. le Baron will soon be well. Meanwhile he is--oh, miserable!"

"Is he all alone there?" I asked.

"Absolutely, sire. He will see nobody."

I looked up at Waldenweiter.

"He has not even his mother with him," said Baptiste; the remark, as
Baptiste delivered it, was impertinent, and yet so intangibly
impertinent as to afford no handle for reproof. He meant that the Baron
was free from an aggravation; he said that he lacked a consolation.

"Shall I go and see him?" I asked. In truth I was rather curious about
him; it was a pleasure to me to break out of my own surroundings.

"What would the Prince say?" said Baptiste.

"He need not know. Row ashore there."

"You must not go, sire. It would be known, and they would say----"
Baptiste's shrug was eloquent.

"Do they always talk about everything one does?"

"Certainly, sire, it is your privilege," smiled my servant. "But I think
he might come to you. That could be managed; not in the Schloss, but in
the wood, quite privately. I can contrive it."

Baptiste did contrive it, and Baron Fritz came. I was now just too old
to scorn love, just too young to sympathize fully with it. There is that
age in a boy's life, but since he holds his tongue about it, it is apt
to escape notice, and people jest on the sudden change in his attitude
toward women. Nothing in nature is sudden; no more, then, is this
transition. I looked curiously at Fritz; he was timid with me. I
perceived that he was not an ordinary young nobleman, devoted only to
sport and wine; he had something of Owen's romance, but in him it was
self-centred, not open wide to embrace the universe of things beautiful
and ugly. He thanked me for receiving him in a rather elaborate and
artificial fashion. I wondered at once that he had caught Victoria's
fancy; her temperament seemed too robust for him. He began to speak of
her in some very poetical phrases; he quoted a line of poetry about
Diana and Endymion. I had been made to turn it into Latin verses, and
its sentiment fell cold on my soul. He spoke of his passion with
desperation, and I thought with pride. He said that, happen what might,
his whole life was the Princess's; but he did not mention Victoria's
name, he said "her" with an air of mystery, as though spies lurked in
the woods. There was nobody save Baptiste, standing sentry to guard this
secret meeting. I gave the Baron a cigarette, and lit one myself; I had
begun the habit, though still surreptitiously.

"You must have known there'd be a row?" I suggested.

"Tell me of her!" he cried. "Is she in great grief?"

I did not want to tell him about Victoria; I wanted him to tell me about
himself. As soon as he understood this, I am bound to say that he
gratified me at once. I sat looking at him while he described his
feelings; all at once he turned and discovered my gaze on him.

"Go on," said I.

The Baron appeared uncomfortable. His eyes fell to the ground, and he
tried to puff at his cigarette which he had allowed to go out. I daresay
he thought me a strange boy; but he could not very well say so.

"You don't understand it?" he asked.

"Partly," I answered.

"We never had any hope," said he, almost luxuriously.

"But you enjoyed it very much?" I suggested; I was quite grave about it
in my mind, as well as in my face.

"Ah!" sighed he softly.

"And now it's all over!"

"I see her no more. I think of her. She thinks of me."

"Perhaps," said I meditatively. I was wondering whether they did not
think more about themselves. "Didn't you think you might manage it?"

"Alas, no. Sorrow was always in our joy."

"What are you going to do now?"

"What is there for me to do?" he asked despairingly. "Sometimes I think
that I can not endure to live."

"Baptiste told me that they watched you when you walked by the river."

He turned to me with a very interested expression of face.

"Do they really?" he asked.

"So Baptiste said."

"I promised her that, whatever happened, I would do nothing rash," said
he. "What would her feelings be?"

"We should all be very much distressed," said I, in my best court
manner.

"Ah, the world, the world!" sighed Baron Fritz. Then with an air of
great courage he went on. "Yet, how am I so different from her?"

"I think you are very much alike," said I.

"But she is--a Princess!"

I felt that he was laying a sort of responsibility on me. I could not
help Victoria being a Princess. He laughed bitterly; I seemed to be put
on my defence.

"I think it just as absurd as you do," I hastened to say.

"Absurd!" he echoed. "I didn't say that I thought it absurd. Would not
your Majesty rather say tragic? There must be kings, princes,
princesses--our hearts pay the price."

I was growing rather weary of this Baron, and wondering more and more
what Victoria had discovered in him. But my lack of knowledge led me
into an error; I attributed what wearied me in no degree to the Baron
himself, but altogether to his condition. "This, then, is what it is to
be in love," I was saying to myself; I summoned up the relics of my
scorn once so abundant and vigorous. The Baron perhaps detected the
beginnings of _ennui_; he rose to his feet.

"Forgive me, if I say that your Majesty will understand my feelings
better in two or three years," he observed.

"I suppose I shall," I answered, rather uneasily.

"Meanwhile I must live it down; I must master it."

"It's the only thing to do."

"And she----"

"Oh, she'll get over it," I assured him, nodding my head.

I am inclined sometimes to count it among my misfortunes, that the first
love affair with which I was brought into intimate connection and
confronted at an age still so impressionable, should have been of the
shallow and somewhat artificial character betrayed by the romance of my
sister and Baron Fritz. She was a headstrong girl; longing to exercise
power over men, surprised when a temporary gust of feeling carried her
into an emotion unexpectedly strong; he was a self-conscious fellow,
hugging his woes and delighting in the picturesqueness of his
misfortune. The notion left on my mind was that there was a great deal
of nonsense about the matter. Baptiste strengthened my opinion.

"I ask your pardon, sire," he said with a shrug, "but we know the
sentimentality of the Germans. What is it? Sighs and then beer, more
sighs and more beer, a deluge of sighs and a deluge of beer. A Frenchman
is not like that in his little affairs."

"What does a Frenchman do, Baptiste?" I had the curiosity to ask.

"Ah," laughed Baptiste, "if I told your Majesty now, you would not care
to visit Paris; and I long to go to Paris with your Majesty."

I did not pursue the subject. I was conscious of a disenchantment, begun
by Victoria, continued by the Baron. The reaction made in favour of my
mother. I acknowledged the wisdom of her firmness and an excuse for her
anger. I realized her causes for annoyance and shame, and saw the
hollowness of the lovers' pleas. I had thought the Princess very hard; I
was now inclined to think that she had shown as much self-control as
could be expected from her. Rather to my own surprise I found myself
extending this more favourable judgment of her to other matters,
entering with a new sympathy into her disposition, and even forgiving
some harsh thing which I had never pardoned. The idea suggested itself
to my mind, that even the rigours of the Styrian discipline had a
rational relation to the position which the victims of it were destined
to fill. She might be right in supposing that we could not be allowed
the indulgence accorded to the common run of children. We were destined
for a special purpose, and, if we were not made of a special clay, yet
we must be fashioned into a special shape. It is hard to disentangle the
influence of one event from that exerted by another. Perhaps the loss of
Owen, and the consequently increased influence of Hammerfeldt over my
life and thoughts, had as much to do with my new feelings as Victoria's
love affair; but in any case I date from this time a fresh development
of myself. I was growing into my kingship, beginning to realize the
conception of it, and to fill up that conception in my own mind. This
moment was of importance to me; for it marked the beginning of a period
during which this idea of my position was very dominant and coloured
all I did or thought. I did not change my opinion as to the discomfort
of the post; but its importance, its sacredness, and its paramount
claims grew larger and larger in my eyes. It seems curious, but had
Baron Fritz been a different sort of lover, I think that I should have
been in some respects a different sort of a king. It needs a constant
intellectual effort to believe that there is anything except accident in
the course of the world.

Hammerfeldt's persistent pressure drove the love-lorn Baron, still
undrowned (had the watchers been too vigilant?), on a long foreign tour,
and in three months the Princess and Victoria returned. I saw at once
that the new relations were permanently established between them; my
mother displayed an almost ostentatious abdication of authority; her
whole air declared that since Victoria chose to walk alone, alone in
good truth she should walk. It was the attitude of a proud and
domineering nature that answers any objection to its sway by a wholesale
disclaimer at once of power and responsibility. Victoria accepted her
mother's resolution, but rather with resentment than gratitude. They had
managed the affair badly; my mother had lost influence without gaining
affection; my sister had forfeited guidance but not achieved a true
liberty. She was hardly more her own mistress than before; Hammerfeldt,
screened behind me, now trammelled her, and she had a statesman to deal
with instead of a mother. Only once she spoke to me concerning the Baron
and his affair; the three months had wrought some change here also.

"I was very silly," she said impatiently. "I know that well enough."

"Then why don't you make it up with mother?" I ventured to suggest.

"Mother behaved odiously," she declared. "I can never forgive her the
way she treated me."

The grievance then had shifted its ground; not what the Princess had
done, but the manner in which she had done it was now the head and front
of her offence. It needed little acquaintance with the world to
recognise that matters were not improved by this change; one may come to
recognise that common sense was with the enemy; vanity at once takes
refuge in the conviction that his awkwardness, rudeness, or cruelty in
advancing his case was responsible for all the trouble.

"If she had been kind, I should have seen it all directly," said
Victoria. And in this it may very well be that Victoria was not
altogether wrong.

The position was, however, inconsistent with even moderate comfort.
There was a way of ending it, obvious, I suppose, to everybody save
myself, but seeming rather startling to my youthful mind. In six months
now Victoria would be eighteen, and eighteen is a marriageable age.
Victoria must be married; my mother and Hammerfeldt went
husband-hunting. As soon as I heard of the scheme I was ready with
brotherly sympathy, and even cherished the idea of interposing a
hitherto untried royal veto on such premature haste and cruel forcing of
a girl's inclination. Victoria received my advances with visible
surprise. Did I suppose, she asked, that she was so happy at home as to
shrink from marriage? Would not such a step be rather an emancipation
than a banishment? (I paraphrase and condense her observation.) Did I
not perceive that she must hail the prospect with relief? I was to know
that her mother and herself were at one on this matter; she was obliged
for my kindness, but thought that I need not concern myself in the
matter. Considerably relieved, not less puzzled, with a picture of
Victoria sobbing and the Baron walking (well watched) by the river's
brink, I withdrew from my sister's presence. It occurred to me that to
take a husband in order to escape from a mother was a peculiar step; I
have since seen reason to suppose that it is more common than I
imagined.

The history of my private life is (to speak broadly) the record of the
reaction of my public capacity on my personal position; the effect of
this reaction has been almost uniformly unfortunate. The case of
Victoria's marriage affords a good instance. It might have been that
here at least I should be suffered to play a fraternal and grateful
part. My fate and Hammerfeldt ruled otherwise. There were two persons
who suggested themselves as suitable mates for my sister; one was the
reigning king of a country which I need not name, the other was Prince
William Adolphus of Alt-Gronenstahl, a prince of considerable wealth and
unexceptionable descent but not in the direct succession to a throne,
not likely to occupy a prominent position in Europe. Victoria had never
quite forgiven fortune (or perhaps me either) for not making her a queen
in the first instance; she was eager to repair the error. She came to me
and begged me to exert my influence in behalf of the king, who was
understood through his advisers to favour the suggestion. I was most
happy to second her wishes, although entirely sceptical as to the value
of my assistance. I recollect very well the interview that followed
between Hammerfeldt and myself; throughout the Prince treated me _en
roi_, speaking with absolute candour, disclosing to me the whole
question, and assuming in me an elevation of spirit superior to merely
personal feelings.

"After your Majesty," said he, "the Princess is heir to the throne. We
have received representations that the union of the two countries in one
hand could not be contemplated by the Powers. Now you, sire, are young;
you are and must be for some years unmarried; life is uncertain and"
(here he looked at me steadily) "your physicians are of opinion that
certain seeds of weakness, sown by your severe illness, have not yet
been eradicated from your constitution. It is necessary for me to offer
these observations to your Majesty."

The old man's eyes were very kind.

"It's all right, sir," said I. "Go on."

"We all trust that you may live through a long reign, and that your son
may reign after you. It is, indeed, the only strong wish that I have
left in a world which I have well-nigh done with. But the other
possibility has been set before us and we can not ignore it."

From that moment I myself never ignored it.

"It was suggested that Princess Victoria should renounce her rights of
succession. I need not remind your Majesty that the result would be to
make your cousin Prince Ferdinand heir-presumptive. I desire to speak
with all respect of the Prince, but his succession would be an unmixed
calamity." The Prince took a pinch of snuff.

Ferdinand was very liberal in his theories; and equally so, in a rather
different sense, in his mode of life.

I thought for a moment.

"I shouldn't like the succession to go out of our branch," said I.

"I was sure of it, sire," he said, bowing. "It would break your mother's
heart and mine."

I was greatly troubled. What of my ready inconsiderate promise to
Victoria? And apart from the promise I would most eagerly have helped
her to her way. I had felt severely the lack of confidence and affection
that had recently come about between us; I was hungry for her love, and
hoped to buy it of her gratitude. I believe old Hammerfeldt's keen eyes
saw all that passed in my thoughts. The Styrian teaching had left its
mark on my mind, as had the Styrian discipline on my soul. "God did not
make you king for your own pleasure," Krak used to say with that
instinctive knowledge of the Deity which marks those who train the
young. No, nor for my sister's, nor even that I might conciliate my
sister's love. Nay, again, nor even that I might make my sister happy.
For none of these ends did I sit where I sat. But I felt very forlorn
and sad as I looked at the old Prince.

"Victoria will be very angry," said I. "I wanted to please her so much."

"The Princess has her duties, and will recognise yours," he answered.

"Of course, if I die it'll be all right. But if I live she'll say I did
it just out of ill-nature."

The old man rose from his chair, laying his snuffbox on the table by
him. He came up to me and held out both his hands; I put mine into them,
and looked up into his face. It was moved by a most rare emotion. I had
never seen him like this before.

"Sire," said he in a low tone, "do not think that nobody loves you; for
from that mood it may come that a man will love nobody. There is an old
man that loves you, as he loved your father and your grandfather; and
your people shall love you." He bent down and kissed me on either cheek.
Then he released my hands and stood before me. There was a long silence.
Then he said:

"Have I your Majesty's authority and support in acting for the good of
the kingdom?"

"Yes," said I.

But, alas! for Victoria's hopes, ambitions, and vanity for her crown,
and her crowned husband. Alas, poor sister! And, alas, poor brother,
hungry to be friends again!




CHAPTER VII.

THINGS NOT TO BE NOTICED.


I have not the heart to set down what passed between my sister and
myself when I broke to her the news that I must be against her.
Impulsive in all her moods, and ungoverned in her emotions, she
displayed much bitterness and an anger that her disappointment may
excuse. I have little doubt that I, on my part, was formal, priggish,
perhaps absurd; all these faults she charged me with. You can not put
great ideas in a boy's head without puffing him up; I was doing at cost
to myself what I was convinced was my duty; it is only too likely that I
gave myself some airs during the performance. Might I not be pardoned if
I talked a little big about my position? The price I was paying for it
was big enough. It touched me most nearly when she accused me of
jealousy, but I set it down only to her present rage. I was tempted to
soften her by dwelling on my own precarious health, but I am glad that
an instinct for fair play made me leave that weapon unused. She grew
calm at last, and rose to her feet with a pale face.

"I have tried to do right," said I.

"I shall not forget what you have done," she retorted as she walked out
of the room.

I have been much alone in my life--alone in spirit, I mean, for that is
the only loneliness that has power to hurt a man--but never so much as
during the year that elapsed before Victoria's marriage was celebrated.
Save for Hammerfeldt, whose engagements did not allow him to be much in
my company, and to whom it was possible to open one's heart only rarely,
I had nobody with whom I was in sympathy. For my mother, although she
yielded more readily to the inevitable, was yet in secret on Victoria's
side on the matter of marriage. Victoria had been for meeting the
foreign representatives by renouncing her succession; my mother would
not hear of that, but was for defying the protests. Nothing, she had
declared, could really come of them. Hammerfeldt overbore her with his
knowledge and experience, leaving her defeated, but only half convinced,
sullen, and disappointed. She was careful not to take sides against me
overtly, but neither did she seek to comfort or to aid me. She withdrew
into a neutrality that favoured Victoria silently, although it refused
openly to espouse her cause. The two ladies thus came closer together
again, leaving me more to myself. The near prospect of independence
reconciled Victoria to a temporary control; my mother was more gentle
from her share in her daughter's disappointment. For my part I took
refuge more and more in books and my sport.

Amusement is the one great consolation that life offers, and even in
this dreary time it was not lacking. The love-lorn Baron had returned to
Waldenweiter; he wrote to Hammerfeldt for permission; the Prince refused
it; the Baron rejoined that he was about to be married; I can imagine
the grim smile with which the old man withdrew his objection. The Baron
came home with his wife. This event nearly broke the new alliance
between my mother and my sister; it was so very difficult for my mother
not to triumph, and Victoria detected a taunt even in silence. However,
there was no rupture, the Baron was never mentioned; but I, seeking
distraction, made it my business to pursue him as often as he ventured
into his boat. I overtook him once and insisted on going up to
Waldenweiter and being introduced to the pretty young Baroness. She knew
nothing about the affair, and was rather hurt at not being invited to
Artenberg. The Baron was on thorns during the whole interview--but not
so much because he must be looking a fool in my eyes, as because he did
not desire to seem light of love in his wife's. Unhappily, however,
about this time a pamphlet was secretly printed and circulated, giving a
tolerably accurate account of the whole affair. The wrath in "exalted
quarters" may be imagined. I managed to procure (through Baptiste) a
copy of this publication and read it with much entertainment. Victoria,
in spite of her anger, borrowed it from me. It is within my knowledge
that the Baroness received a copy from an unknown friend, and that the
Baron, being thus driven into a corner, admitted that the Princess had
at one time distinguished him by some attentions--and could he be rude?
Now, curiously enough, the report that got about on our bank of the
river was, that there was no foundation at all for the assertions of the
pamphlet, except in a foolish and ill-mannered persecution to which the
Princess had, during a short period, been subjected. After this there
could be no question of any invitation passing from Artenberg to
Waldenweiter. The subject dropped; the printer made some little scandal
and a pocket full of money, and persons who, like myself, knew the facts
and could appreciate the behaviour of the lovers gained considerable
amusement.

My second source of diversion was found in my future brother-in-law,
William Adolphus, of Alt-Gronenstahl. He was, in himself, a thoroughly
heavy fellow, although admirably good-natured and, I believe, a
practical and competent soldier. He was tall, dark, and even at this
time inclining to stoutness; he became afterward exceedingly corpulent.
He did not at first promise amusement, but a rather malicious humour
found much in him, owing to the circumstance that the poor fellow was
acquainted with the negotiations touching the marriage first suggested
for Victoria, and was fully aware that he himself was in his lady's eyes
only a _pis-aller_. His dignity might have refused such a situation; but
in the first instance he had been hardly more of a free agent than
Victoria herself, and later on, as though he were determined to deprive
himself of all defence, he proceeded to fall genuinely in love with my
capricious but very attractive sister. I was sorry for him, but I am not
aware that sympathy with people excludes amusement at them. I hope not,
for wide sympathies are a very desirable thing. William Adolphus,
looking round for a friend, honoured me with his confidence, and during
his visits to Artenberg used to consult me almost daily as to how he
might best propitiate his deity and wean her thoughts from that other
alliance which had so eclipsed his in its prospective brilliance.

"Girls are rather difficult to manage," he used to say to me ruefully.
"You'll know more about them in a few years, Augustin."

I knew much more about them than he did already. I am not boasting; but
people who learn only from experience do not allow for intuition.

"But I think she's beginning to get fonder of me," he would end, with an
uphill cheerfulness.

She was not beginning to get the least fonder of him; she was beginning
to be interested and excited in the stir of the marriage. There were so
many things to do and talk about, and so much desirable prominence and
publicity attaching to the affair, that she had less time for nursing
her dislike. The shock of him was passing over; he was falling into
focus with the rest of it; but she was not becoming in the least fonder
of him. I knew all this without the few words; with them he knew none of
it. It seems to be a mere accident who chances to be previous to truth,
who impervious.

In loneliness for me, in perturbation for poor William Adolphus, in I
know not what for Victoria the time passed on. There is but one incident
that stands out, naming against the gray of that monotony. The full
meaning of it I did not understand then, but now I know it better.

I was sitting alone in my dressing-room. I had sent Baptiste to bed, and
was reading a book with interest. Suddenly the door was opened
violently. Before I could even rise to my feet, Victoria--the door
slammed behind her--had thrown herself on her knees before me. She was
in her nightdress, barefooted, her hair loose and tumbled on her
shoulders; it seemed as though she had sprung up from her bed and run to
me. She caught my arms in her hands, and laid her face on my knees; she
said nothing, but sobbed violently with a terrible gasping rapidity.

"My God, what's the matter?" said I.

For a moment there was no answer; then her voice came, interrupted and
half-choked by constant sobs.

"I can't do it, I can't do it. For God's sake, don't make me do it.

"Do what?" I asked.

Her sobs alone answered me, and their answer was enough. I sat there
helpless and still, the nervous tight clutching of her hands pinning my
arms to my side.

"You're the king, you're the king," she moaned.

Yes, I was the king; even then I smiled.

"You don't know," she went on, and now she raised her face streaming
with tears. "You don't know--how can you know what it is? Help me, help
me, Augustin."

The thing had come on me with utter suddenness, the tranquillity of my
quiet room had been rudely rent by the invasion. I was, in an instant,
face to face with a strange dim tragedy, the like of which I had never
known, the stress of which I could never fully know. But all the
tenderness that I had for her, my love for her beauty, and the yearning
for comradeship that she herself had choked rose in me; I bent my head
till my lips rested on her hair, crying, "Don't, darling, don't."

She sprang up, throwing her arm about my neck, and looking round the
room as though there were something that she feared; then she sat on my
knee and nestled close to me. She had ceased to sob now, but it was
worse to me to see her face strained in silent agony and her eyes wept
dry of tears.

"Let me stay here, do let me stay here a little," she said as I passed
my arm round her and her head fell on my shoulder. "Don't send me away
yet, Augustin," she whispered, "I don't want to be alone."

"Stay here, dearest, nobody shall hurt you," said I, as I kissed her. My
heart broke for her trouble, but it was sweet to me to think that she
had fled from it to my arms. After all, the old bond held between us;
the tug of trouble revealed it. She lay a while quite still with closed
eyes; then she opened her eyes and looked up at me.

"Must I?" she asked.

"No," I answered. "If you will not, you shall not."

Her arm coiled closer round my neck and she closed her eyes again,
sighing and moving restlessly. Presently she lay very quiet, her
exhaustion seeming like sleep. How long had she tormented herself before
she came to me?

My brain was busy, but my heart outran it. Now, now if ever, I would
assert myself, my power, my position. She should not call to me in vain.
What I would do, I did not know; but the thing she dreaded should not
be. But although I was in this fever, I did not stir; she was resting in
peace; let her rest as long as she would. For more than an hour she lay
there in my arms; I grew stiff and very weary, but I did not move. At
last I believe that in very truth she slept.

The clock in the tower struck midnight, and the quarter, and the
half-hour. I had rehearsed what I should say to my mother and what to
Hammerfeldt. I had dreamed how this night should knit her and me so
closely that we could never again drift apart, that now we knew one
another and for each of us what was superficial in the other existed no
more, but was swept away by the flood of full sympathy. She and I
against the world if need be!

A shiver ran through her; she opened her eyes wide and wider, looking
round the room no longer in fear, but in a sort of wonder. Her gaze
rested an instant on my face, she drew her arm from round my neck and
rose to her feet, pushing away my arm. There she stood for a moment with
a strange, fretful, ashamed look on her face. She tossed her head,
flinging her hair back behind her shoulders. I had taken her hand and
still held it; now she drew it also away.

"What must you think of me?" she said. "Good gracious, I'm in my
nightgown."

She walked across to the looking-glass and stood opposite to it.

"What a fright I look!" she said. "How long have I been here?"

"I don't know; more than an hour."

"It was horrid in bed to-night," she said in a half-embarrassed yet
half-absent way. "I got thinking about--about all sorts of things, and I
was frightened."

The change in her mood sealed my lips.

"I hope mother hasn't noticed that my room's empty. No, of course not;
she must be in bed long ago. Will you take me back to my room,
Augustin?"

"Yes," said I.

She came up to me, looked at me for a moment, then bent down to me as I
sat in my chair and kissed my forehead.

"You're a dear boy," she said. "Was I quite mad?"

"I meant what I said," I declared, as I stood up. "I mean it still."

"Ah," said she, flinging her hands out, "poor Augustin, you mean it
still! Take me along the corridor, dear, I'm afraid to go alone."

Sometimes I blame myself that I submitted to the second mood as
completely as I had responded to the first; but I was staggered by the
change, and the old sense of distance scattered for an hour was
enveloping me again.

One protest I made.

"Are we to do nothing, then?" I asked in a low whisper.

"We're to go to our beds like good children," said she with a mournful
little smile. "Come, take me to mine."

"I must see you in the morning."

"In the morning? Well, we'll see. Come, come."

Now she was urgent, and I did as she bade me. But first she made me
bring her a pair of my slippers; her feet were very cold, she said, and
they felt like ice against my hand as I touched them in putting on the
slippers for her. She passed her hand through my arm and we went
together. The door of her room stood wide open; we went in; I saw the
bed in confusion.

"Fancy if any one had come by and seen!" she whispered. "Now,
good-night, dear."

I opened my lips to speak to her again.

"No, no; go, please go. Good-night, dear." I left her standing in the
middle of her room. Outside the door I waited many minutes; I heard her
moving about and getting into bed; then all was quiet; I returned to my
own room.

I was up early the next morning, for I had been able to sleep but
little. I wanted above all things to see Victoria again. But even while
I was dressing Baptiste brought me a note. I opened it hurriedly, for it
was from her. I read:

"Forget all about last night; I was tired and ill. I rely on your honour
to say nothing to anybody. I am all right this morning."

She was entitled to ask the pledge of my honour, if she chose. I tore
the note in fragments and burned them.

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning when I went out into the
garden. There was a group on the terrace--my mother, Victoria, and
William Adolphus. They were laughing and talking and seemed very merry.
As a rule I should have waved a "good morning" and passed on for my
solitary walk. To-day I went up to them. My mother appeared to be in an
excellent temper, the Prince looked quite easy and happy. Victoria was a
little pale but very vivacious. She darted a quick look at me, and cried
out the moment I had kissed my mother:

"We're settling the bridesmaids! You're just in time to help, Augustin."

We "settled" the bridesmaids. I hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry
during this important operation. Victoria was very kind to her _fiance_,
receiving his suggestions with positive graciousness: he became radiant
under this treatment. When our task was done, Victoria passed her arm
through his, declaring that she wanted a stroll in the woods; as they
went by me she laid her hand lightly and affectionately on my arm,
looking me full in the face the while. I understood; for good or evil my
lips were sealed.

My mother looked after the betrothed couple as they walked away; I
looked at my mother's fine high-bred resolute face.

"I'm so glad," said she at last, "to see Victoria so happy. I was afraid
at one time that she'd never take to it. Of course we had other hopes."

The last words were a hit at me. I ignored them; that battle had been
fought, the victory won, and paid for by me in handsome fashion.

"Has she taken to it?" I asked as carelessly as I could. But my mother's
eyes turned keenly on me.

"Have you any reason for thinking she hasn't?" came in quick question.

"No," I answered.

The sun was shining and Princess Heinrich opened her parasol very
leisurely. She rose to her feet and stood there for a moment. Then in a
smooth, even, and what I may call reasonable voice, she remarked:

"My dear Augustin, from time to time all girls have fancies. We mothers
know that it doesn't do to pay any attention to them. They soon go if
they're let alone. We shall meet at lunch, I hope?"

I bowed respectfully, but perhaps I looked a little doubtful.

"It really doesn't do to take any notice of them," said my mother over
her shoulder.

So we took no notice of them; my sister's midnight flight to my room and
to my arms was between her and me, and for all the world as though it
has never been, save that it left behind it a little legacy of renewed
kindliness and trust. For that much I was thankful; but I could not
forget the rest.

A month later she was married to William Adolphus at Forstadt.




CHAPTER VIII.

DESTINY IN A PINAFORE.


The foreign tour I undertook in my eighteenth year has been
sufficiently, or even more than sufficiently, described by the
accomplished and courtly pen of Vohrenlorf's secretary. I travelled as
the Count of Artenberg under my Governor's guidance, and saw in some
ways more, in some respects less, than most young men on their travels
are likely to see. Old Hammerfeldt recommended for my reading the
English letters of Lord Chesterfield to his son, and I studied them with
some profit, much amusement, and an occasional burst of impatience; I
believe that in the Prince's opinion I, like Mr. Stanhope, had hitherto
attached too little importance to, and not attained enough proficiency
in, "the graces"; concealment was the life's breath of his statescraft,
and "the graces" help a man to hide everything--ideals, emotions,
passions, his very soul. It must have been an immense satisfaction to
the Prince, on leaving the world at a ripe age, to feel that nobody had
ever been sure that they understood him; except, of course, the fools
who think that they understood everybody.

As far as my private life is concerned, one incident only on this
expedition is of moment. We paid a visit to my father's cousins, the
Bartensteins, who possessed a singularly charming place in Tirol. The
Duke was moderately rich, very able, and very indolent. He was a
connoisseur in music and the arts. His wife, my Cousin Elizabeth, was a
very good-natured woman of seven or eight and thirty, noted for her
dairy and fond of out-of-door pursuits; her devotion to these last had
resulted in her complexion being rather reddened and weather-beaten. We
were to stay a week, an unusually long halt; and even before we arrived
I detected a simple slyness in my good Vohrenlorf's demeanour. When a
secret was afoot, Vohrenlorf's first apparent effort was to draw
everybody's attention to the fact of its existence. Out of perversity I
asked no questions, and left him to seethe in his over-boiling mystery.
I knew that I should be enlightened soon enough. I was quite right;
before I had been a day with my relatives it became obvious that Elsa
was the mystery. I suppose that it is not altogether a common thing for
a youth of eighteen, feeling himself a man, trying to think himself one,
just become fully conscious of the power and attraction of the women he
meets, to be shown a child of twelve, and given to understand that in
six years' time she will be ready to become his wife. The position, even
if not as uncommon as I suppose, is curious enough to justify a few
words of description.

I saw Elsa first as she was rolling down a hill, with a scandalized
governess in full chase. Elsa rolled quickly, marking her progress by
triumphant cries. She "brought up" at the foot of the slope in an
excessively crumpled state; her short skirts were being smoothed down
when her mother and I arrived. She was a pretty, fair, blue-eyed child,
with a natural merriment about her attractive enough. She was well
made, having escaped the square solidity of figure that characterized
Cousin Elizabeth. Her features were still in an undeveloped condition,
and her hair, brushed smooth and plastered down on her forehead, was
tormented into ringlets behind. She looked at my lanky form with some
apprehension.

"Was it a good roll, Elsa?" I asked.

"Splendid!" she answered.

"You didn't know Cousin Augustin was looking on, did you?" asked her
mother.

"No, I didn't." But it was plain that she did not care either.

I felt that Cousin Elizabeth's honest eyes were searching my face.

"Give me a kiss, won't you, Elsa?" I asked.

Elsa turned her chubby cheek up to me in a perfection of indifference.
In fact, both Elsa and I were performing family duties. Thus we kissed
for the first time.

"Now go and let nurse put on a clean frock for you," said Cousin
Elizabeth. "You're to come downstairs to-day, and you're not fit to be
seen. Don't roll any more when you've changed your frock."

Elsa smiled, shook her head, and ran off. I gathered the impression that
even in the clean frock she would roll again if she chanced to be
disposed to that exercise. The air of Bartenstein was not the air of
Artenberg. A milder climate reigned. There was no Styrian discipline for
Elsa. I believe that in all her life she did at her parents' instance
only one thing that she seriously disliked. Cousin Elizabeth and I
walked on.

"She's a baby still," said Cousin Elizabeth presently, "but I assure
you that she has begun to develop."

"There's no hurry, is there?"

"No. You know, I think you're too old for your age, Augustin. I suppose
it was inevitable."

I felt much younger in many ways than I had at fifteen; the gates of the
world were opening, and showing me prospects unknown to the lonely boy
at Artenberg.

"And she has the sweetest disposition. So loving!" said Cousin
Elizabeth.

I did not find anything appropriate to answer. The next day found me
fully, although delicately, apprised of the situation. It seemed to me a
strange one. The Duke was guarded in his hints, and profuse of
declarations that it was too soon to think of anything. Good Cousin
Elizabeth strove to conceal her eagerness and repress the haste born of
it by similar but more clumsy speeches. I spoke openly on the subject to
Vohrenlorf.

"Ah, well, even if it should be so, you have six years," he reminded me
in good-natured consolation. "And she will grow up."

"She won't roll down hills always, of course," I answered rather
peevishly.

In truth the thing would not assume an appearance of reality for me; it
was too utterly opposed to the current of my thoughts and dreams. A boy
of my age will readily contemplate marriage with a woman ten years his
senior; in regard to a child six years younger than himself the idea
seems absurd. Yet I did not put it from me; I had been well tutored in
the strength of family arrangements, and the force of destiny had been
brought home to me on several occasions. I had no doubt at all that my
visit to Bartenstein was part of a deliberate plan. The person who
contrived my meeting with Elsa had a shrewd knowledge of my character;
he knew that ideas long present in my mind became as it were domiciled
there, and were hard to expel. I discovered afterward without surprise
that the stay with my relatives was added to my tour at Prince von
Hammerfeldt's suggestion.

Many men, or youths bordering on manhood, have seen their future brides
in short frocks and unmitigated childhood, but they have not been aware
of what was before them. I was at once amused and distressed; my humour
was touched, but life's avenue seemed shortened. Even if it were not
Elsa it would be some other little girl, now playing with her toys and
rolling down banks. Imagination was not elastic enough to leap over the
years and behold the child transformed. I stuck in the present, and was
whimsically apprehensive of a child seen through a magnifying glass,
larger, but unchanged in form, air, and raiment. Was this my fate? And
for it I must wait till the perfected beauties who had smiled on me
passed on to other men, and with them grew old--aye, as it seemed, quite
old. I felt myself ludicrously reduced to Elsa's status; a long boy, who
had outgrown his clothes, and yet was no nearer to a man.

My trouble was, perhaps unreasonably, aggravated by the fact that Elsa
did not take to me. I did my best to be pleasant; I made her several
gifts. She accepted my offerings, but was not bought by them; myself she
considered dull. I had not the flow of animal spirits that appeals so
strongly to children. I played with her, but her young keenness detected
the cloven hoof of duty. She told me I need not play unless I liked.
Cousin Elizabeth apologized for me; Elsa was gentle, but did not change
her opinion. The passage of years, I reflected, would increase in me all
that the child found least to her taste. I was, as I have said, unable
to picture her with tastes changed. But a failure of imagination may
occasionally issue in paradoxical rightness, for the imagination relies
on the common run of events which the peculiar case may chance to
contradict. As a fact, I do not think that Elsa ever did change greatly.
I began to be sorry for her as well as for myself. Considered as an
outlook in life, as the governing factor in a human being's existence, I
did not seem to myself brilliant or even satisfactory. I had at this
time remarkable forecasts of feelings that were in later years to be my
almost daily companions.

"And what shall your husband be like, Elsa?" asked the Duke, as his
little daughter sat on his knee and he played with her ringlets.

I was sitting by, and the Duke's eyes twinkled discreetly. The child
looked across to me and studied my appearance for some few moments. Then
she gave us a simple but completely lucid description of a gentleman
differing from myself in all outward characteristics, and in all such
inward traits as Elsa's experience and vocabulary enabled her to touch
upon. I learned later that she took hints from a tall grenadier who
sometimes stood sentry at the castle. At the moment it seemed as though
her ideal were well enough delineated by the picture of my opposite. The
Duke laughed, and I laughed also; Elsa was very grave and business-like
in defining her requirements. Her inclinations have never been obscure
to her. Even then she knew perfectly well what she wanted, and I was not
that.

By the indiscretion of somebody (the Duke said his wife, his wife said
the governess, the governess said the nurse) on the day before I went,
Elsa got a hint of her suggested future. Indeed it was more than a hint;
it was enough to entangle her in excitement, interest, and, I must add,
dismay. Children play with the words "wife" and "husband" in a happy
ignorance; their fairy tales give and restrict their knowledge. Cousin
Elizabeth came to me in something of a stir; she was afraid that I
should be annoyed, should suspect, perhaps, a forcing of my hand, or
some such manoeuvre. But I was not annoyed; I was interested to learn
what effect the prospect had upon my little cousin. I was so different
from the Grenadier, so irreconcilable with Elsa's fancy portrait.

"I'm very terribly vexed!" cried Cousin Elizabeth. "When it's all
so--all no more than an idea!"

"She's so young she'll forget all about it," said I soothingly.

"You're not angry?"

"Oh, no. I was only afflicted with a sense of absurdity."

Chance threw me in Elsa's way that afternoon. She was with her nurse in
the gardens. She ran up to me at once, but stopped about a yard from the
seat on which I was sitting. I became the victim of a grave, searching,
and long inspection. There was a roundness of surprise in her baby blue
eyes. Embarrassed and amused (I am inclined sometimes to think that more
than half my life has been a mixture of these not implacable enemies), I
took the bull by the horns.

"I'm thin, and sallow, and hook-nosed, and I can't sing, and I don't
laugh in a jolly way, and I can't fly kites," said I, having the
description of her ideal in my mind. "You wouldn't like me to be your
husband, would you?"

Elsa, unlike myself, was neither embarrassed nor amused. The mild and
interested gravity of her face persisted unchanged.

"I don't know," she said meditatively.

With most of the faults that can beset one of my station, I do not plead
guilty to any excessive degree of vainglory. I was flattered that the
child hesitated.

"Then you like me rather?" I asked.

"Yes--rather." She paused, and then added: "If I married you I should be
queen, shouldn't I, Cousin Augustin?"

"Yes," I assured her.

"I should think that's rather nice, isn't it?"

"It isn't any particular fun being king," said I in a burst of
confidence.

"Isn't it?" she asked, her eyes growing rounder. "Still, I think I
should like it." Her tone was quite confident; even at that age, as I
have observed, she knew very well what she liked. For my part I
remembered so vividly my own early dreams and later awakenings that I
would not cut short her guileless visions; moreover, to generalize from
one's self is the most fatal foolishness, even while it is the most
inevitable.

During the remaining hours of my visit Elsa treated me, I must not say
with more affection, but certainly with more attention. She was
interested in me; I had become to her a source of possibilities, dim to
vision but gorgeous to imagination. I knew so well the images that
floated before a childish mind, able to gape at them, only half able to
grasp them. I had been through this stage. It is odd to reflect that I
was in an unlike but almost equally great delusion myself. I had ceased
to expect immoderate enjoyment from my position, but I had conceived an
exaggerated idea of its power and influence on the world and mankind. Of
this mistake I was then unconscious; I smiled to think that Elsa could
play at being a queen, the doll, the bolster, the dog, or whatever else
might chance to come handy acting the regal _role_ in my place. I do not
now altogether quarrel with my substitutes.

The hour of departure came. I have a vivid recollection of Cousin
Elizabeth's overwhelming tact; she was so anxious that I should not
exaggerate the meaning or importance of the suggestion which had been
made, that she succeeded in filling my mind with it, to the exclusion of
everything else. The Duke, having tried in vain to stop her, fell into
silence, cigarettes, and drolly resigned glances. But he caught me alone
for a few moments, and gave me his word of advice.

"Think no more about this nonsense for six years," said he. "The women
will match-make, you know."

I promised, with a laugh, not to anticipate troubles. He smiled at my
phrase, but did not dispute its justice. I think he shared the sort of
regret which I felt, that such things should be so much as talked about
in connection with Elsa. A man keeps that feeling about his daughter
long after her mother has marked a husband and chosen a priest.

My visit to my cousins was the last stage of my journey. From their
house Vohrenlorf and I travelled through to Forstadt. I was received at
the railway station by a large and distinguished company. My mother was
at Artenberg, where I was to join her that evening, but Hammerfeldt
awaited me, and some of the gentlemen attached to the Court. I was too
much given to introspection and self-appraisement not to be aware that
my experiences had given me a lift toward manhood; my shyness was
smothered, though not killed, by a kind of mechanical ease born of
practice. After greeting Hammerfeldt I received the welcome of the
company with a composed courtesy of which the Prince's approval was very
manifest. Ceremonial occasions such as these are worthy of record and
meditation only when they surround, and, as it were, frame some incident
really material. Such an incident occurred now. My inner mind was still
full of my sojourn with the Bartensteins, of the pathetic, whimsical,
hypothetical connection between little Elsa and myself, and of the
chains that seemed to bind my life in bonds not of my making. These
reflections went on in an undercurrent while I was bowing, saluting,
grasping hands, listening and responding to appropriate observations.
Suddenly I found the Count von Sempach before me. His name brought back
my mind in an instant from its wanderings. The Countess was recalled
very vividly to my recollection; I asked after her; Sempach, much
gratified, pointed to a row of ladies who (the occasion being official)
stood somewhat in the background. There she was, now in the maturity of
her remarkable beauty, seeming to me the embodiment of perfect
accomplishment. I saluted her with marked graciousness; fifty heads
turned instantly from me toward her. She blushed very slightly and
curtseyed very low. Sempach murmured gratification; Hammerfeldt smiled.
I was vaguely conscious of a subdued sensation running all through the
company, but my mind was occupied with the contrast between this
finished woman and the little girl I had left behind. From feeling old,
too old, sad, and knowing for poor little Elsa, I was suddenly
transported into an oppressive consciousness of youth and rawness.
Involuntarily I drew myself up to my full height and assumed the best
air of dignity that was at my command. So posed, I crossed the station
to my carriage between Hammerfeldt and Vohrenlorf.

"Your time has not been wasted," old Hammerfeldt whispered to me. "You
are ready now to take up what I am more than ready to lay down."

I started slightly; I had for the moment forgotten that the Council of
Regency was now discharged of its office, and that I was to assume the
full burden of my responsibilities. I had looked forward to this time
with eagerness and ambition. But a man's emotions at a given moment are
very seldom what he has expected them to be. Some foreign thought
intrudes and predominates; something accidental supplants what has
seemed so appropriate and certain. While I travelled down to Artenberg
that evening, with Vohrenlorf opposite to me (Vohrenlorf who himself was
about to lay down his functions), the assumption of full power was not
what occupied my mind. I was engrossed with thoughts of Elsa, with
fancies about my Countess, with strange dim speculations that touched
me--the young man, not the king about whom all the coil was. Had I been
called upon to condense those vague meditations and emotions into a
sentence, I would have borrowed what Vohrenlorf had said to me when we
were with the Bartensteins. He did not often hit the nail exactly on
the head, but just now I could give no better summary of all I felt than
his soberly optimistic reminder: "Ah, well, even if it should be so, you
have six years!"

The thought that I treasured on the way to Artenberg that evening was
the thought of my six years.




CHAPTER IX.

JUST WHAT WOULD HAPPEN.


Soon after my return my mother and I went into residence at Forstadt. My
time was divided between mastering my public duties under Hammerfeldt's
tuition, and playing a prominent part in the gaieties of the capital.
Just now I was on cordial, if not exactly intimate, terms with the
Princess. She appeared to have resigned herself to Hammerfeldt's
preponderating influence in political affairs, and to accept in
compensation the office of mentor and guide in all social matters. I was
happy in the establishment of a _modus vivendi_ which left me tolerably
free from the harassing trifles of ceremonial and etiquette. To
Hammerfeldt's instructions I listened with avidity and showed a
deference which did not forbid secret criticism. He worked me hard; the
truth is (and it was not then hidden either from him or from me) that
his strength was failing; age had not bent, but it threatened to break
him; the time was short in which he could hope to be by my side, binding
his principles and rivetting his methods on me. He was too shrewd not to
detect in me a curiosity of intellect that only the strongest and
deepest prepossessions could restrain; these it was his untiring effort
to create in my mind and to buttress till they were impregnable. To some
extent he attained his object, but his success was limited; and his
teaching affected by what I can only call a modernness of temperament in
me, which no force of tradition wholly destroyed or stifled. That many
things must be treated as beyond question was the fruit of his maxims;
it is a position which I have never been able to adopt; with me the acid
of doubt bit into every axiom. I took pleasure in the society and
arguments of the liberal politicians and journalists who began to
frequent the court as soon as a rumour of my inclinations spread. I
became the centre and object of a contention between the Right and the
Left, between Conservative and Liberal forces--or, if I apply to each
party the nickname accorded to it by the enemy, between the Reaction and
the Revolution.

Doubtless all this will find an accomplished, and possibly an impartial,
historian. Its significance for these personal memoirs is due chiefly to
the accidental fact that, whereas my mother was the social centre of the
orthodox party and in that capacity gave solid aid to Hammerfeldt, the
unorthodox gathered round the Countess von Sempach. Her husband was
considered no more than a good soldier, a man of high rank, and a
devoted husband; by her own talents and charm this remarkable woman,
although a foreigner, had achieved for herself a position of great
influence. She renewed the glories of the political _salon_ in Forstadt;
but she never talked politics. Eminent men discussed deep secrets with
one another in her rooms. She was content to please their taste without
straining their intellects or seeking to rival them in argument. By the
abdication of a doubtful claim she reigned absolute in her own dominion.
It was from studying her that I first learned both how far-reaching is
the inspiration of a woman's personality, and how it gathers and
conserves strength by remaining within its own boundaries and refusing
alien conquests. The men of the Princess's party, from Hammerfeldt
downward, were sometimes impatient of her suggestions and attempted
control; the Countess's friends were never aware that they received
suggestions, and imagined themselves to exercise control. I think that
the old Prince was almost alone in penetrating the secret of the real
power his charming enemy exercised and the extent of it. They were very
cordial to one another.

"Madame," he said to her once, "you might convince me of anything if I
were not too old."

"Why, Prince," she cried, "you are not going to pretend that your mind
has grown old?"

"No, Countess, my feelings," he replied with a smile. Her answer was a
blush.

This was told to me by Wetter, a young and very brilliant journalist who
had once given me lessons in philosophy, and with whom I maintained a
friendship in spite of his ultra-radical politics. He reminded me now
and then of Geoffrey Owen, but his enthusiasm was of a dryer sort; not
humanity, but the abstract idea of progress inspired him; not the
abolition of individual suffering, but the perfecting of his logical
conceptions in the sphere of politics was his stimulating hope. And
there was in him a strong alloy of personal ambition and a stronger of
personal passion. Rather to my surprise Hammerfeldt showed no uneasiness
at my friendship with him; I joked once on the subject and he answered:

"Wetter only appeals to your intellect, sire. There I am not afraid
now."

His answer, denying one apprehension, hinted another. It will cause no
surprise that I had renewed an old acquaintance with the Countess, and
had been present at a dinner in her house. More than this, I fell into
the habit of attending her receptions on Wednesdays; on this night all
parties were welcome, and the gathering was by way of being strictly
non-political. Strictly non-political also were the calls that I made in
the dusk of the evening, when she would recall our earlier meetings, our
glances exchanged, our thoughts of one another, and lead me to talk of
my boyhood. These things did not appeal only to the intellect of a youth
of eighteen or nineteen when they proceeded from the lips of a beautiful
and brilliant woman of twenty-eight.

I approach a very common occurrence; but in my case its progress and
result were specially modified and conditioned. There was the political
aspect, looming large to the alarmed Right; there was the struggle for
more intimate influence over me, in which my mother fought with a grim
intensity; in my own mind there was always the curious dim presence of
an inexorable fate that wore the incongruous mask of Elsa's baby face.
All these were present to me in their full force during the earlier
period of my friendship with the Countess, when I was still concealing
from myself as well as from her and all the world that I could ever
desire to have more than friendship. The first stages past, there came a
time when the secret was still kept from all save myself, but when I
knew it with an exultation not to be conquered, with a dread and a shame
that tormented while they could not prevail. But I went more and more to
her house. I had no evil intent; nay, I had no intent at all in my
going; I could not keep away. She alone had come to satisfy me; with her
alone, all of me--thoughts, feelings, eyes, and ears--seemed to find
some cause for exercise and a worthy employment of their life. The other
presences in my mind grew fainter and intermittent in their visits; I
gave myself up to the stream and floated down the current. Yet I was
never altogether forgetful nor blind to what I did; I knew the
transformation that had come over my friendship; to myself now I could
not but call it love; I knew that others in the palace, in the
chancellery, in drawing-rooms, in newspaper offices, ay, perhaps even in
the very street, called it now, not the king's friendship nor the king's
love, but the king's infatuation. Not even then could I lose altogether
the external view of myself.

We were sitting by the fire one evening in the twilight; she was playing
with a hand-screen, but suffering the flames to paint her face and throw
into relief the sensitive merry lips and the eyes so full of varied
meanings. She had told me to go, and I had not gone; she leaned back
and, after one glance of reproof, fixed her regard on the polished tip
of her shoe that rested on the fender. She meant that she would talk no
more to me; that in her estimation, since I had no business to stay, I
was already gone. An impulse seized me. I do not know what I hoped nor
why that moment broke the silence which I had imposed on myself. But I
told her about the little, fair, chubby child at the Castle of
Bartenstein. I watched her closely, but her eyes never strayed from her
shoe-tip. Well, she had never said a word that showed any concern in
such a matter; even I had done little more than look and hint and come.

[Illustration: The firelight played on the hand that held the screen.]

"It's as if they meant me to marry Tote," I ended. Tote was the pet name
by which we called her own eight-year-old daughter.

The Countess broke her wilful silence, but did not change the direction
of her eyes.

"If Tote were of the proper station," she said ironically, "she'd be
just right for you by the time you're both grown up."

"And you'd be mother-in-law?"

"I should be too old to plague you. I should just sit in my corner in
the sun."

"The sun is always in your corner."

"Don't be so complimentary," she said with a sudden twitching of her
lips. "I shall have to stand up and curtsey, and I don't want to.
Besides, you oughtn't to know how to say things like that, ought you,
Caesar?"

Caesar was my--shall I say pet-name?--used when we were alone or with
Count Max, only in a playful satire.

A silence followed for some time. At last she glanced toward me.

"Not gone yet?" said she, raising her brows. "What will the Princess
say?"

"I go when I please," said I, resenting the question as I was meant to
resent it.

"Yes. Certainly not when I please."

Our eyes met now; suddenly she blushed, and then interposed the screen
between herself and me. A glorious thrill of youthful triumph ran
through me; she had paid her first tribute to my manhood in that blush;
the offering was small, but, for its significance, frankincense and
myrrh to me.

"I thought you came to talk about Wetter's Bill," she suggested
presently in a voice lower than her usual tones.

"The deuce take Wetter's Bill," said I.

"I am very interested in it."

"Just now?"

"Even just now, Caesar." I heard a little laugh behind the screen.

"Hammerfeldt hates it," said I.

"Oh, then that settles it. You'll be against us, of course!"

"Why of course?"

"You always do as the Prince tells you, don't you?"

"Unless somebody more powerful forbids me."

"Who is more powerful--except Caesar himself?"

I made no answer, but I rose and, crossing the rug, stood by her. I
remember the look and the feel of the room very well; she lay back in a
low chair upholstered in blue; the firelight, forbidden her face, played
on the hand that held the screen, flushing its white to red. I could see
her hair gleaming in the fantastically varying light that the flames
gave as they left and fell. I was in a tumult of excitement and
timidity.

"More powerful than Caesar?" I asked, and my voice shook.

"Don't call yourself Caesar."

"Why not?"

There was a momentary hesitation before the answer came low:

"Because you mustn't laugh at yourself. I may laugh at you, but you
mustn't yourself."

I wondered at the words, the tone, the strange diffidence that infected
even a speech so full of her gay bravery. A moment later she added a
reason for her command.

"You're so absurd that you mustn't laugh at yourself. And, Caesar, if
you stay any longer, or--come again soon--other people will laugh at
you."

To this day I do not know whether she meant to give a genuine warning,
or to strike a chord that should sound back defiance.

"If ten thousand of them laugh, what is it to me? They dare laugh only
behind my back," I said.

She laughed before my face; the screen fell, and she laughed, saying
softly, "Caesar, Caesar!"

I was wonderfully happy in my perturbation. The great charm she had for
me was to-day alloyed less than ever before by the sense of rawness
which she, above all others, could compel me to feel. To-day she herself
was not wholly calm, not mistress of herself without a struggle, without
her moments of faintness. Yet now she appeared composed again, and there
was nothing but merriment in her eyes. She seemed to have forgotten that
I was supposed to be gone. I daresay that not to her, any more than to
myself, could I seem quite like an ordinary boy; perhaps the more I
forgot what was peculiar about me the more she remembered it, my
oblivion serving to point her triumph.

"And the Princess?" she asked, laughing still, but now again a little
nervously.

My exultation, finding vent in mischief and impelled by curiosity, drove
me to a venture.

"I shall tell the Princess that I kissed you," said I.

The Countess suddenly sat upright.

"And that you kissed me--several times," I continued.

"How dare you?" she cried in a whisper; and her cheeks flamed in
blushes and in firelight. My little device was a triumph. I began to
laugh.

"Oh, of course, if she asks me when," I added, "I shall confess that it
was ten years ago."

Many emotions mingled in my companion's glance as she sank back in her
chair; she was indignant at the trap, amused at having been caught in
it, not fully relieved from embarrassment, not wholly convinced that the
explanation of my daring speech covered all the intent with which it had
been uttered, perhaps not desirous of being convinced too thoroughly. A
long pause followed. Timidity held me back from further advance. For
that evening enough seemed to have passed; I had made a start--to go
further might be to risk all. I was about to take my leave when she
looked up again, saying:

"And about Wetter's Bill, Caesar?"

"You know I can do nothing."

"Can Caesar do nothing? If you were known to favour it fifty votes would
be changed." Her face was eager and animated. I looked down at her and
smiled. She flushed again, and cried hastily:

"No, no, never mind; at least, not to-night."

I suppose that my smile persisted, and was not a mirthful one. It
stirred anger and resentment in her.

"I know why you're smiling," she exclaimed. "I suppose that when I was
kind to you as a baby, I wanted something from you too, did I?"

She had detected the thought that had come so inevitably into my mind,
that she should resent it so passionately almost persuaded me of its
injustice. I turned from it to the pleasant memory of her earlier
impulsive kindness. I put out my hands and grasped hers. She let me hold
them for an instant and then drew them away. She gave rather a forced
laugh.

"You're too young to be bothered about Bills," she said, "and too young
for--for all sorts of other things, too. Run away; never mind me with my
Bills and my wrinkles."

"Your wrinkles!"

"Oh, if not now, in a year or two; by the time you're ready to marry
Elsa."

As she spoke she rose and stood facing me. A new sense of her beauty
came over me; her beauty's tragedy, already before her eyes, was to me
remote and impossible. Because it was not yet very near she exaggerated
its nearness; because it was inevitable I turned away from it. Indeed,
who could remember, seeing her then? Who save herself, as she looked on
my youth?

"You'll soon be old and ugly?" I asked, laughing.

"Yes, soon; it will seem very soon to you."

"What's the moral?" said I.

She laughed uneasily, twisting the screen in her hands. For an instant
she raised her eyes to mine, and as they dropped again she whispered:

"A short life and a merry one?"

My hand flew out to her again; she took it, and, after a laughing
glance, curtseyed low over it, as though in formal farewell. I had not
meant that, and laughed in my turn.

"I shan't be old--well, by to-morrow," she murmured, and glanced
ostentatiously at the clock.

"May I come to-morrow?"

"I never invite you."

"Shall you be here?"

"It's not one of my receiving days."

"I like a good chance better than a poor certainty. At least there will
be nobody else here."

"Max, perhaps."

"I don't think so."

"You don't think so? What do you mean by that, Caesar? No, I don't want
to know. I believe it was impertinent. Are you going?"

"Yes," said I, "when I have kissed your hand."

She said nothing, but held it out to me. She smiled, but there seemed to
me to be pain in her eyes. I pressed her hand to my lips and went out
without speaking again. As I closed the door I heard her fling herself
back into her chair with a curious little sound, half-cry, half-sigh.

I left the house quickly and silently; no servant was summoned to escort
me. I walked a few yards along the street to where Wetter lived. My
carriage was ordered to come for me at Wetter's; it had not yet arrived.
To be known to visit Wetter was to accept the blame of a smaller
indiscretion as the price of hiding a greater. The deputy was at home,
writing in his study; he received me with an admirable unconsciousness
of where I had come from. I was still in a state of excitement, and was
glad to sit smoking quietly while his animated, fluent talk ran on. He
was full of this Bill of his, and explained its provisions to me with
the air of desiring that I should understand its spirit and aim, and of
being willing then to leave it to my candid consideration. He did not
attempt to blink the difficulties.

"Of course we have the Prince and all the party of Reaction against us,"
he said. "But your Majesty is not a member of any party."

"Not even of yours yet," said I with a laugh.

He laughed in his turn, openly and merrily.

"I'm a poor schemer," he said. "But I don't know why it should be wrong
for you to hear my views any more than Hammerfeldt's."

The servant entered and announced the arrival of my carriage. Wetter
escorted me to it.

"I'll promise not to mention the Bill, if you'll honour me by coming
again, sire," he said as he held the brougham door.

"I shall be delighted to come again; I like to hear about it," I
answered. His bow and smile conveyed absolutely nothing but a respectful
gratification and a friendly pleasure. Yet he knew that the situation of
his house was more responsible for my visit than the interest of his
projects.

In part I saw clear enough even at this time. It was the design and hope
of Wetter and his friends to break down Hammerfeldt's power and obtain a
political influence over me. Hammerfeldt's political dominance seemed to
them to be based on a personal ascendency; this they must contrive to
match. Their instrument was not far to seek. The Countess was ready to
their hand, a beautiful woman, sharpest weapon of all in such a strife.
They put her forward against the Prince in the fight whereof I was the
prize. All this I saw, against it all I was forewarned, and forearmed.
Knowledge gave security. But there was more, and here with the failure
of insight safety was compromised. What was her mind? What was her part,
not as it seemed to these busy politicians, but as her own heart taught
it her? Here came to me the excitement of uncertainty, the impulse of
youth, the prick of vanity, the longing for that intimate love of which
my life had given me so little. Was I to her also only something to be
used in the game of politics, a tool that she, a defter tool, must
shape and point before it could be of use? I tried to say this to
myself and to make a barrier of the knowledge. But was it all the truth?
Remembering her eyes and tones, her words and hesitations, I could not
accept it for the whole truth. There was more, what more I knew not.
Even if there had been no more I was falling so deep into the gulf of
passion that it crossed my mind to take while I gave; and, if I were to
be used, to exact my hire. In a tumult of these thoughts, embracing now
what in the next moment I rejected, revolting in a sudden fear from the
plan which just before seemed so attractive, I passed the evening and
the night. For I had taken up that mixed heritage of good and evil, of
pain and power, that goes by the name of manhood; and when a new heir
enters on his inheritance there is a time before he can order it.




CHAPTER X.

OF A POLITICAL APPOINTMENT.


A few days later my mother informed me that Victoria and her husband had
proposed to pay us a long visit. I could make no objection. Princess
Heinrich observed that I should be glad to see Victoria again, and
should enjoy the companionship of William Adolphus. In my mind I
translated her speech into a declaration that Victoria might have some
influence over me although my mother had none, and that William Adolphus
would be more wholesome company than my countesses and Wetters and such
riff-raff. I was unable to regard William Adolphus as an intellectual
resource, and did not associate Victoria with the exercise of influence.
The weakness of the Princess's new move revealed the straits to which
she felt herself reduced. The result of the position which I have
described was almost open strife between her and me; Hammerfeldt's
powerful bridle alone held her back from declared rupture. His method of
facing the danger was very different. He sought to exercise no veto, but
he kept watch; he knew where I went, but made no objection to my going;
any liberal notions which I betrayed in conversation with him he
received with courteous attention, and affected to consider the result
of my own meditations. Had my feelings been less deeply involved I
think his method would have succeeded; even as it was he checked and
retarded what he could not stop. The cordiality of our personal
relations remained unbroken and so warm that he felt himself able to
speak to me in a half-serious, half-jesting way about the Countess von
Sempach.

"A most charming woman indeed," said he. "In fact, too charming a
woman."

I understood him, and began to defend myself.

"I'm not in love with the Countess," I said; "but I give her my
confidence, Prince."

He shook his head, smiled, and took a pinch of snuff, glancing at me
humorously.

"Reverse it," he suggested. "Be in love with her, but don't give her
your confidence. You'll find it safer and also more pleasant that way."

My confidence might affect high matters, my love he regarded as a
passing fever. He did not belong to an age of strict morality in private
life, and his bent of mind was utterly opposed to considering an
intrigue with a woman of the Countess's attractions as a serious crime
in a young man of my position. "Hate her," was my mother's impossible
exhortation. "Love her, but don't trust her," was the Prince's subtle
counsel. He passed at once from the subject, content with the seed that
he had sown. There was much in him and in his teaching which one would
defend to-day at some cost of reputation; but I never left him without a
heightened and enhanced sense of my position and my obligations. If you
will, he lowered the man to exalt the king; this was of a piece with all
his wily compromises.

Victoria arrived, and her husband. William Adolphus's attitude was less
apologetic than it had been before marriage; he had made Victoria
mother to a fine baby, and claimed the just credit. He was jovial,
familiar, and, if I may so express myself, brotherly to the last degree.
Happily, however, he interpreted his more assured position as enabling
him to choose his own friends and his own pursuits; these were not mine,
and in consequence I was little troubled with his company. As an ally to
my mother he was a passive failure; his wife was worse than inactive.
Victoria's conduct displayed the height of unwisdom. She denounced the
Countess to my face, and besought my mother to omit the Sempachs from
her list of acquaintances. Fortunately the Princess had been dissuaded
from forcing on an open scandal; my sister had to be content with
matching her mother's coldness by her rudeness when the Countess came to
Court. Need I say that my attentions grew the more marked, and gossip
even more rife?

Wetter's Bill came up for discussion, and was hurled in vain against
Hammerfeldt's solid phalanx of country gentlemen and wealthy
_bourgeoisie_. I had kept a seal on my lips, and in common opinion was
still the Prince's docile disciple. Wetter accepted my attitude with
easy friendliness, but he ventured to observe that if any case arose
which enabled me to show that my hostility to his party was not
inveterate, the proof would be a pleasure to him and his friends, and
possibly of no disadvantage to me. Not the barest reference to the
Countess pointed his remark. I had not seen her or heard from her for
nearly a week; on the afternoon of the day after the Bill was thrown out
I decided to pay her a visit. Wetter was to take luncheon at her house,
and I allowed him to drop a hint of my coming. I felt that I had done my
duty as regards the Bill; I was very apprehensive of my reception by the
Countess. The opposition that encircled me inflamed my passion for her;
the few days' separation had served to convince me that I could not live
without her.

I found her alone; her face was a little flushed and her eyes bright.
The moment the door was shut she turned on me almost fiercely.

"Why did you send to say you were coming?"

"I didn't send; I told Wetter. Besides, I always send before I go
anywhere."

"Not always before you come to me," she retorted. "You're not to hide
behind your throne, Caesar. I was going out if you hadn't prevented me."

"The hindrance need not last a moment," said I, bowing.

She looked at me for an instant, then broke into a reluctant smile.

"You haven't sent to say you were coming for a week," she said.

"No; nor come either."

"Yes, of course, that's it. Sit down; so will I. No, in your old place,
over there. Max has been giving me a beautiful bracelet."

"That's very kind of Max."

She glanced at me with challenging witchery.

"And I've promised to wear it every day--never to be without it. Doesn't
it look well?" She held up her arm where the gold and jewels sparkled on
the white skin as the sleeve of her gown fell back.

I paid to Max's bracelet and the arm which wore it the meed of looks,
not of words.

"I've been afraid to come," I said.

"Is there anything to be afraid of here?" she asked with a smile and a
wave of her hands.

"Because of Wetter's Bill."

"Oh, the Bill! You were very cowardly, Caesar."

"I could do nothing."

"You never can, it seems to me." She fixed on me eyes that she had made
quite grave and invested with a critically discriminating regard. "But
I'm very pleased to see you. Oh, and I forgot--of course I'm very much
honoured too. I'm always forgetting what you are."

On an impulse of chagrin at the style of her reception, or of curiosity,
or of bitterness, I spoke the thought of my mind.

"You never forget it for a moment," I said. "I forget it, not you."

She covered a start of surprise by a hasty and pretty little yawn, but
her eyes were inquisitive, almost apprehensive. After a moment she
picked up her old weapon, the firescreen, and hid her face from the eyes
downward. But the eyes were set on me, and now, it seemed, in reproach.

"If you think that, I wonder you come at all," she murmured.

"I don't want you to forget it. But I'm something besides."

"Yes, a poor boy with a cruel mother--and a rude sister--and----" She
sprang suddenly to her feet. "And," she went on, "a charming old
adviser. Caesar, I met Prince von Hammerfeldt. Shall I tell you what he
said to me?"

"Yes."

"He bowed over my hand and kissed it and smiled, and twinkled with his
old eyes, and then he said, 'Madame, I am growing vain of my influence
over his Majesty.'"

"The Prince was complimenting you," I remarked, although I was not so
dull as to miss either Hammerfeldt's mockery or her understanding of
it.

"Complimenting me? Yes, I suppose he was--on not having done you any
harm. Why? Because I couldn't!"

"You wouldn't wish to, Countess?"

"No; but I might wish to be able to, Caesar."

She stood there the embodiment of a power the greater because it feigned
distrust of its own might.

"No, I don't mean that," she continued a moment later. "But I
should----" She drew near to me and, catching up a little chair, sat
down on it, close to my elbow. "Ah, how I should like the Prince to
think I had a little power!" Then in a low coaxing whisper she added,
"You need only to pretend--pretend a little just to please me, Caesar."

"And what will you do just to please me, Countess?" My whisper was low
also, but full where hers had been delicate; rough, not gentle, urging
rather than imploring. I was no match for her in the science of which
she was mistress, but I did not despair. She seemed nervous, as though
she distrusted even her keen thrusts and ready parries. I was but a boy
still, but sometimes nature betrays the secrets of experience. Suddenly
she broke out in a new attack, or a new line of the general attack.

"Wouldn't you like to show a little independence?" she asked. "The
Prince would like you all the better for it." She looked in my face.
"And people would think more of you. They say that Hammerfeldt is the
real king now--or he and Princess Heinrich between them."

"I thought they said that you----"

"I! Do they? Perhaps! They know so little. If they knew anything they
couldn't say that."

To be told they gossiped of her influence seemed to have no terror for
her; her regret was that the talk should be all untrue and she in fact
impotent. She stirred me to declare that power was hers and I her
servant. It seemed to me that to accept her leading was to secure
perennial inspiration and a boundless reward. Was Hammerfeldt my
schoolmaster? I was not blind to the share that vanity had in her mood
nor to ambition's part in it, but I saw also and exulted in her
tenderness. All these impulses in her I was now ready to use, for I also
had my vanity--a boy's vanity in a tribute wrung from a woman. And,
beyond this, passion was strong in me.

She went on in real or affected petulance:

"Can they point to anything I have done? Are any appointments made to
please me? Are my friends ever favoured? They are all out in the cold,
and likely to stay there, aren't they, Caesar? Oh, you're very wise. You
take what I give you; nobody need know of that. But you give nothing,
because that would make talk and gossip. The Prince has taught you well.
Yes, you're very prudent." She paused, and stood looking at me with a
contemptuous smile on her lips; then she broke into a pitying little
laugh. "Poor boy!" said she. "It's a shame to scold you. You can't help
it."

It is easy enough now to say that all this was cunningly thought of and
cunningly phrased. Yet it was not all cunning; or rather it was the
primitive, unmeditated cunning that nature gives to us, the instinctive
weapon to which the woman flew in her need, a cunning of heart, not of
brain. However inspired, however shaped, it did its work.

"What do you ask?" said I. In my agitation I was brief and blunt.

"Ask? Must I ask? Well, I ask that you should show somehow, how you
will, that you trust us, that we are not outcasts, riff-raff, as
Princess Heinrich calls us, lepers. Do it how you like, choose anybody
you like from among us--I don't ask for any special person. Show that
some one of us has your confidence. Why shouldn't you? The King should
be above prejudice, and we're honest, some of us."

I tried to speak lightly, and smiled at her.

"You are all I love in the world, some of you," I said.

She sat down again in the little chair, and turned her face upward
toward me.

"Then do it, Caesar," she said very softly.

It had been announced a few days before that our ambassador at Paris had
asked to be relieved of his post; there was already talk about his
successor. Remembering this, I said, more in jest than seriousness:

"The Paris Embassy? Would that satisfy you?"

Her face became suddenly radiant, merry, and triumphant; she clapped her
hands, and then held them clasped toward me.

"You suggested it yourself!" she cried.

"In joke!"

"Joke? I won't be joked with. I choose that you should be serious. You
said the Paris Embassy! Are you afraid it'll make Hammerfeldt too angry?
Fancy the Princess and your sister! How I shall love to see them!" She
dropped her voice as she added, "Do it for me, Caesar."

"Who should have it?"

"I don't care. Anybody, so long as he's one of us. Choose somebody
good, and then you can defy them all."

She saw the seriousness that had now fallen on me; what I had idly
suggested, and she caught up with so fervent a welcome, was no small
thing. If I did it, it would be at the cost of Hammerfeldt's confidence,
perhaps of his services; he might refuse to endure such an open rebuff.
And I knew in my heart that the specious justifications were unsound; I
should not act because of them, they were the merest pretext. I should
give what she asked to her. Should I not be giving her my honour also,
that public honour which I had learned to hold so high?

"I can't promise to-day; you must let me think," I pleaded.

I was prepared for another outburst of petulance, for accusations of
timidity, of indifference, again of willingness to take and
unwillingness to give. But she sat still, looking at me intently, and
presently laid her hand in mine.

"Yes, think," she said with a sigh.

I bent down and kissed the hand that lay in mine. Then she raised it,
and held her arm up before him.

"Max's bracelet!" she said, sighing again and smiling. Then she rose to
her feet, and walking to the hearth, stood looking down into the fire. I
did not join her, but sat in my chair. For a long while neither of us
spoke. At last I rose slowly. She heard the movement and turned her
head.

"I will come again to-morrow," I said.

She stood still for a moment, regarding me intently. Then she walked
quickly across to me, holding out her hands. As I took them she laughed
nervously. I did not speak, but I looked into her eyes, and then, as I
pressed her hands, I kissed her cheek. The nervous laugh came again, but
she said nothing. I left her standing there and went out.

I walked home alone through the lighted streets. It has always been, and
is still, my custom to walk about freely and unattended. This evening
the friendly greetings of those who chanced to recognise me in the glare
of the lamps were pleasant to me. I remember thinking that all these
good folk would be grieved if they knew what was going on in the young
King's mind, how he was torn hither and thither, his only joy a crime,
and the guarding of his honour become a sacrifice that seemed too great
for his strength. There was one kind-faced fellow in particular, whom I
noticed drinking a glass at a _cafe_. He took off his hat to me with a
cheery "God bless your Majesty!" I should have liked to sit down by him
and tell him all about it. He had been young, and he looked shrewd and
friendly. I had nobody whom I could tell about it. I don't remember ever
seeing this man again, but I think of him still as one who might have
been a friend. By his dress he appeared to be a clerk or shopkeeper.

I had an appointment for that evening with Hammerfeldt, but found a note
in which he excused himself from coming. He had taken a chill, and was
confined to his bed. The business could wait, he said, but went on to
remark that no time should be lost in considering the question of the
Paris Embassy. He added three or four names as possible selections; all
those mentioned were well-known and decided adherents of his own. I was
reading his letter when my mother and Victoria came in. They had heard
of the Prince's indisposition, but on making inquiries were informed
that it was not serious. I sent at once to inquire after him, and handed
his note to the Princess.

"Any of those would do very well," she said when she finished it. "They
have all been trained under the Prince and are thoroughly acquainted
with his views."

"And with mine?" I asked, smiling.

A look of surprise appeared on my mother's face; she looked at me
doubtfully.

"The Prince's views are yours, I suppose?" she said.

"I'm not sure I like any of his selections," I observed.

I do not think that my mother would have said anything more at the time;
her judgment having been convinced, she would not allow temper to lead
her into hostilities. Here, as so often, the unwise course was left to
my dear Victoria, who embraced it with her usual readiness.

"Doesn't Wetter like any of them?" she asked ironically.

I remained silent. She came nearer and looked into my face, laughing
maliciously.

"Or is it the Countess? Haven't they made enough love to the Countess,
or too much, or what?"

"My dear Victoria," I said, "you must make allowances. The Countess is
the prettiest woman in Forstadt."

My sister curtseyed with an ironical smile.

"I mean, of course," I added, "since William Adolphus carried you off to
Gronenstahl."

My mother interrupted this little quarrel.

"I'm sure you'll be guided by the Prince's judgment," she observed.

Victoria was not to be quenched.

"And not by the beauty of the prettiest woman in Forstadt." And she
added, "The creature's as plebeian as she can be."

As a rule I was ready enough to spar with my sister; to-night I had not
the spirit. To-night, moreover, she, whom as a rule I could treat with
good-humoured indifference, had power to wound. The least weighty of
people speaking the truth can not be wholly disregarded. I prepared to
go to my room, remarking:

"Of course, I shall discuss the matter with the Prince."

Again Victoria rushed to the fray.

"You mean that it's not our business?" she asked with a toss of her
head.

I was goaded beyond endurance, and it was not their business. Princess
Heinrich might find some excuse in her familiarity with public affairs,
Victoria at least could urge no such plea.

"I am always glad of my mother's advice, Victoria," said I, and with a
bow I left them. As I went out I heard Victoria cry, "It's all that
hateful woman!"

Naturally the thing appeared to me then in a different light from that
in which I can see it now. I can not now think that my mother and sister
were wrong to be anxious, disturbed, alarmed, even angry with the lady
who occasioned them such discomfort. A young man under the influence of
an older woman is no doubt a legitimate occasion for the fears and
efforts of his female relatives. I have recorded what they said not in
protest against their feelings, but to show the singularly unfortunate
manner in which they made what they felt manifest; my object is not to
blame what was probably inevitable in them, but to show how they
overreached themselves and became not a drag on my infatuation, as they
hoped, but rather a spur that incited my passion to a quicker course.

That spur I did not need. She seemed to stand before me still as I had
left her, with my kiss fresh on her cheeks, and on her lips that
strange, nervous, helpless laugh, the laugh that admitted a folly she
could not conquer, expressed a shame that burned her even while she
braved it, and owned a love so compact of this folly and this shame that
its joy seemed all one with their bitterness. But to my younger heart
and hotter man's blood the folly and shame were now beaten down by the
joy; it freed itself from them and soared up into my heart on a
liberated and triumphant wing. I had achieved this thing--I, the boy
they laughed at and tried to rule. She herself had laughed at me. She
laughed thus no more. When I kissed her she had not called me Caesar; she
had found no utterance save in that laugh, and the message of that laugh
was surrender.




CHAPTER XI.

AN ACT OF ABDICATION.


The night brought me little rest and no wisdom. As though its own
strength were not enough, my passion sought and found an ally in a
defiant obstinacy, which now made me desirous of doing what the Countess
asked for its own sake as well as for hers. Being diffident, I sought a
mask in violence. I wanted to assert myself, to show the women that I
was not to be driven, and Hammerfeldt that I was not to be led. Neither
their brusque insistence nor his suave and dexterous suggestions should
control me or prevent me from exercising my own will. A distorted view
of my position caused me to find its essence in the power of doing as I
liked, and its dignity in disregarding wholesome advice because I
objected to the manner in which it was tendered. This mood, ready and
natural enough in youth, was an instrument of which my passion made
effective use; I pictured the consternation of my advisers with hardly
less pleasure than the delight of her whom I sought to serve. My sense
of responsibility was dulled and deadened; I had rather do wrong than do
nothing, cause harm than be the cause of nothing, that men should blame
me rather than not canvass my actions or fail to attribute to me any
initiative. I felt somehow that the blame would lie with my
counsellors; they had undertaken to guide and control me. If they failed
they, more than I, must answer for the failure. Sophistry of this kind
passes well enough with one who wants excuses, and may even array itself
in a cloak of plausibility; it was strong in my mind by virtue of the
strong resentment from which it sprang, and the strong ally to which its
forces were joined. Passion and self-assertion were at one; my conquest
would be two-fold. While the Countess was brought to acknowledge my
sway, those who had hitherto ruled my life would be reduced to a
renunciation of their authority. The day seemed to me to promise at once
emancipation and conquest; to mark the point at which I was to gain both
liberty and empire, when I should become indeed a king, both in my own
palace and in her heart a king.

In the morning I was occupied in routine business with one of the
Ministers. This gentleman gave me a tolerably good account of
Hammerfeldt, although it appeared that the Prince was suffering from a
difficulty in breathing. There seemed, however, no cause for alarm, and
when I had sent to make inquiries I did not deem it necessary to remain
at home and await the return of my messenger. I paid my usual formal
visit to my mother's apartments. The Princess did not refer to our
previous conversation, but her manner toward me was even unusually stiff
and distant. I think that she had expected repentance. When I in my turn
ignored the matter she became curt and disagreeable. I left her, more
than ever determined on my course. I was glad to escape an interview
with Victoria, and was now free to keep my appointment with Wetter. I
had proposed to lunch with him, saying that I had one or two matters to
discuss. Even in my obstinacy and excitement I remained shrewd enough to
see the advantage of being furnished with well-sounding reasons for the
step that I was about to take. Wetter's forensic sharpness, ready wit,
and persuasive eloquence would dress my case in better colours than I
could contrive for myself. It mattered little to me how well he knew
that arguments were needed, not to convince myself, but to flourish in
the faces of those who opposed and criticised me. It was also my
intention to obtain from him the name of two or three of his friends
who, apart from their views, were decently qualified to fulfil the
duties of the post in the event of their nomination.

It was no shock, but rather a piquant titillation of my bitter humour,
when I disentangled from Wetter's confident and eloquent description of
the Ideal Ambassador a tolerably accurate, if somewhat partial, portrait
of himself. I was rather surprised at his desire for the position.
Subsequently I learned that pecuniary embarrassments made him willing to
abandon, for a time at least, the greater but more uncertain chances of
active political warfare. However, given that he desired the Embassy, it
caused me no surprise that he should ask for it. To appoint him would be
open war indeed; he was the Prince's _bete noire_, my mother's pet
aversion; that he was totally untrained in diplomacy was a minor, but
possibly serious, objection; that he was extreme in his views seemed to
me then no disqualification. I allowed him to perceive that I read his
parable, but, remembering the case of the Greek generals and
Themistocles, ventured to ask him to give me another name.

"The only name that I could give your Majesty with perfect confidence
would be that of my good friend Max von Sempach," said he, with an
admirable air of honesty, but, as I thought, a covert gleam of amusement
in his deep-set eyes. I very nearly laughed. The only man fit for the
Embassy, except himself, was Count Max! And if Count Max went, of course
the Countess would go with him; equally of course the King must stay in
Forstadt. I saw Wetter looking at me keenly out of the corner of his
eye; it did not suit me that he should read my thoughts this time. I
appeared to have no suspicion of the good faith of his suggestion, and
said, with an air of surprise:

"Max von Sempach! Why, how is he suitable?"

With great gravity he gave me many reasons, proving not that Max was
very suitable, but that everybody else was profoundly unsuitable, except
the unmentioned candidate whose name was so well understood between us.

"These," I observed, "would seem to be reasons for looking elsewhere--I
mean to the other side--for a suitable man."

He did not trouble to argue that with me. He knew that his was not the
voice to which I should listen.

"If your Majesty comes to that conclusion, my friends and I will be
disappointed," he said, "but we must accept your decision."

There was much to like in Wetter. Men are not insincere merely because
they are ambitious, dishonest merely because they are given to intrigue,
selfish merely because they ask places for themselves. There is a
grossness of moral fibre not in itself a good thing, but very different
from rottenness. Wetter was a keen and convinced partisan, and an ardent
believer in himself. His cause ought to win, and, if his hand could take
the helm, would win; this was his attitude, and it excused some want of
scruple both in promoting the cause and in insuring to it his own
effective support. But he was a big man, of a well-developed nature,
hearty, sympathetic, and free from cant, full of force, of wit, of
unblunted emotion. He would not, however, have made at all a good
ambassador; and he would not have wanted to be one had he not run into
debt.

Max von Sempach, on the other hand, would fill the place respectably,
although not brilliantly. Wetter knew this, and the fact gave to the
mention of the Count's name a decent appearance without depriving it of
its harmlessness. He named a suitable but an impossible person--a person
to me impossible.

Soon after the meal I left him, telling him that I should come in again
later, and had ordered my carriage to call for me at his house at five
o'clock. Turning down the quiet lane that led to the Countess's, I soon
reached my destination. I was now in less agitation than on the day
before. My mind was made up; I came to give what she asked. Wetter
should have his Embassy. More than this, I came no longer in
trepidation, no longer fearing her ridicule even while I sought her
love, no more oppressed with the sense that in truth she might be
laughing while she seemed to encourage. There was the dawning of triumph
in my heart, an assurance of victory, and the fierce delight in a
determination come to at great cost and to be held, it may be, at
greater still. In all these feelings, mighty always, there were for me
the freshness, the rush of youth, and the venturous joy of new
experience.

On her also a crisis of feeling had come; she was not her old self, nor
I to her what I had been. There was a strained, almost frightened look
in her eyes; a low-voiced "Augustin" replacing her bantering "Caesar."
Save for my name she did not speak as I led her to a couch and sat down
by her side. She looked slight, girlish, and pathetic in a simple gown
of black; timidity renewed her youth. Well might I forget that she was
not a maiden of meet age for me, and she herself for an instant cheat
time's reckoning. She made of me a man, of herself a girl, and prayed
love's advocacy to prove the delusion true.

"I have been with Wetter," said I. "He wants the Embassy."

I fancy that she knew his desire; her hand pressed mine, but she did not
speak.

"But he recommended Max," I went on.

"Max!" For a moment her face was full of terror as she turned to me;
then she broke into a smile. Wetter's advice was plain to her also.

"You see how much he wants it for himself," said I. "He knows I would
sooner send a gutter-boy than Max. And you know it?"

"Do I?" she murmured.

I rose and stood before her.

"It is yours to give, not mine," said I. "Do you give it to Wetter?"

As she looked up at me her eyes filled with tears, while her lips curved
in a timid smile.

"What--what trouble you'll get into!" she said.

"It's not a thousandth part of what I would do for you. Wetter shall
have it then--or Max?"

"Not Max," she said; her eyes told me why it should not be Max.

"Then Wetter," and I fell on one knee by her, whispering, "The King
gives it to his Queen."

"They'll blame you so; they'll say all sorts of things."

"I shan't hear them; I hear only you."

"They'll be unkind to you."

"They can't hurt me if you're kind to me."

"Perhaps they'll say I--I got it from you."

"I am not ashamed. What is it to me what they say?"

"You don't care?"

"For nothing in the world but you and to be with you."

She sat looking up at me for an instant; then she threw her arm over the
end of the sofa and laid her face on the cushion; I heard her sob
softly. Her other hand lay in her lap; I took it and raised it to my
lips. I did not know the meaning of her tears. I was triumphant. She
sobbed, not loudly or violently, but with a pitiful gentleness.

"Why do you cry so, darling?" I whispered.

She turned her face to me; the tears were running down her cheeks. "Why
do I cry?" she moaned softly. "Because I'm wicked--I suppose I'm
wicked--and so foolish. And--and you are good, and noble, and--and
you'll be great. And"--the sobs choked her voice, and she turned her
face half away--"and I'm old, Augustin."

I could not enter into her mood; joy pervaded me; but neither did I
scorn her nor grow impatient. I perceived dimly that she struggled with
a conflict of emotions beyond my understanding. Words were unsafe,
likely to be wrong, to make worse what they sought to cure. I caressed
her, but trusted my tongue no further than to murmur endearments. She
grew calmer, sat up, and dried her eyes.

"But it's so absurd," she protested. "Augustin, lots of boys are just as
absurd as you; but was any woman ever as absurd as I am?"

"Why do you call it absurd?"

"Oh, because, because"--she moved near me suddenly--"because, although
I've tried so hard, I can't feel it the least absurd. I do love you."

Here was her prepossession all the while--that the thing would seem
absurd, not that there was sin in it. I can see now why her mind fixed
on this point; she was, in truth, speaking not to me who was there by
her, me as I was, but to the man who should be; she pleaded not only
with herself, but with my future self, praying the mature man to think
of her with tenderness and not with a laugh, interceding with what
should one day be my memory of her. Ah, my dear, that prayer of yours is
answered! I do not laugh as I write. At you I could never have laughed;
and if I set out to force a laugh even at myself I fall to thinking of
what you were, and again I do not laugh. Then what is it that the world
outside must have laughed with a very self-conscious wisdom? Its
laughter was nothing to us then, and to-day is to me as nothing. Is it
not always ready to weep at a farce and laugh at a tragedy?

"But you've nobody else," she went on softly. "I shouldn't have dared if
you'd had anybody else. Long ago--do you remember?--you had nobody, and
you liked me to kiss you. I believe I began to love you then; I mean I
began to think how much some woman would love you some day. But I
didn't think I should be the woman. Oh, don't look at me so hard, or--or
you'll see----"

"How much you love me?"

"No, no. You'll see my wrinkles. See, if I do this you can't look at my
face." And putting her arms round my neck she hid her face.

I was strangely tongue-tied, or, perhaps, not strangely; for there comes
a time when the eyes say all that there is desire or need to say. Her
pleadings were in answer to my eyes.

"Oh, I know you think so now!" she murmured. "But you won't go on
thinking so--and I shall." She raised her head and looked at me; now a
smile of triumph came on her face. "Oh, but you do think so now!" she
whispered in a voice still lower, but full of delight. "You do think so
now," and again she hid her face from me. But I knew that the triumph
had entered into her soul also, and that the shadows could no longer
altogether dim its sunshine for her.

The afternoon became full, and waned to dusk as we sat together. We said
little; there were no arrangements made; we seemed in a way cut off from
the world outside, and from the consideration of it. The life which we
must each lead, lives in the main apart from one another, had receded
into distance, and went unnoticed; we had nothing to do save to be
together; when we were together there was little that we cared to say,
no protestations that we had need to make. There was between us so
absolute a sympathy, so full an agreement in all that we gave, all that
we accepted, all that we abandoned. Doubts and struggles were as though
they had never been. There is a temptation to think sometimes that
things so perfectly justify themselves that conscience is not
discrowned by violence, but signs a willing abdication, herself
convinced. For passion can simulate right, even as in some natures the
love of right becomes a turbulent passion in the end, like most of such,
destructive of itself.

"Then I am yours, and you are mine? And the Embassy is Wetter's?"

"The Embassy is whose you like," she cried, "if the rest is true."

"It is Wetter's. Do you know why? That everybody may know how I am
yours."

She did not refuse even the perilous fame I offered.

"I should be proud of it," she said, with head erect.

"No, no; nobody shall breathe a letter of your name," I exclaimed in a
sudden turn of feeling. "I will swear that you had nothing to do with
it, that you hate him, that you never mentioned it."

"Say what you like," she whispered.

"If I did that, I should say to all Forstadt that there's no woman in
the world like you."

"You needn't say it to all Forstadt. You haven't even said it to me
yet."

We had been sitting together. Again I fell on one knee, prepared to
offer her formal homage in a sweet extravagance. On a sudden she raised
her hand; her face grew alarmed.

"Hark!" she said. "Hark!"

"To your voice, yours only!"

"No. There is a noise. Somebody is coming. Who can it be?"

"I don't care who it is."

"Why, dearest! But you must care. Get up, get up, get up!"

I rose slowly to my feet. I was indeed in a mood when I did not care.
The steps were close outside. Before they could come nearer, I kissed
her again.

"Who can it be? I am denied to everybody," she said, bewildered.

There was a knock at the door.

"It is not Max," she said, with a swift glance at me. I stood where I
was. "Come in," she cried.

The door opened, and to my amazement Wetter stood there. He was panting,
as though he had run fast, and his air displayed agitation. The Countess
ran to him instantly. His coming seemed to revive the fears which her
love had laid to rest.

"What is it?" she cried. "What's the matter?"

Wetter took absolutely no notice of her. Walking on as though she were
not there, he came straight up to me. He spoke in tones of intense
emotion, and with the bluntness that excitement brings.

"You must come with me at once," he said in an imperious way. "They've
sent for you to my house; we can get in together by the back door."

"But what's the matter, man?" I cried, divided between puzzle and anger.

"You're wanted; you must go to Hammerfeldt's."

"To Hammerfeldt's?"

"Yes. He's dying. Come along."

"Dying! My God!"

"The message is urgent. There's no time to lose. If you want to see him
alive, come. I said you were lying down in my study. If you don't come
quickly, it will be known where you are."

"I don't care for that."

"He's sent for you himself."

The Countess had moved to my side.

"You must go," she said now, laying her hand on my arm.

I turned to look at her. Her eyes were full of a vague alarm. I was like
a man suddenly roused half-way through a vivid entrancing dream, unable
still to believe that the real is true and the phantasm not the only
substance.

"Come, come," repeated Wetter urgently and irritably. "You can't let him
die without going to him."

"Go, Augustin," she whispered.

"Yes, I'll go. I'm going; I'm going at once," I stammered. "I'm ready,
Wetter. Take me with you. Is he really dying?"

"So they say."

"Hammerfeldt dying! Yes, I'll come with you."

I turned to the Countess; Wetter was already half-way to the door. He
looked back over his shoulder, and his face was impatient. My eyes met
hers, I read the fear that was in hers. I was strangely fearful myself,
appalled at such a breaking of our dream.

"Good-bye," I said. "I'll come again soon; to-morrow, some time
to-morrow."

"Yes, yes," said she, but hardly as though she believed me.

"Good-bye." I took her hand and kissed it; Wetter looked on, saying
nothing. The thought of concealment did not occur to me. I kissed her
hand two or three times.

"Shall you find him alive?" she murmured, in speculation more than in
question.

"I don't know. Good-bye."

She herself led me to where Wetter was standing.

"It's his breathing," said Wetter. "He can't get his breath; can't speak
at all. Come along."

"I'm ready; I'll follow you."

As I reached the door I turned. She was not looking at me; she had sat
down in a chair by the fire and was gazing fixedly at the flames. I have
had that picture of her often in my mind.

Wetter led me downstairs and out into the street at a rapid pace. I
followed him, trying to gather myself together and think coherently. Too
sudden a change paralyzes; the mind must have time for readjustment.
Hammerfeldt was and had always been so large a figure and a presence so
important in my life; I could only whisper to myself, "He's dying; it's
his breathing; he can't get his breath."

We went in by the back door as we had arranged, and gained the study.

"Quick!" whispered Wetter. "Remember you were in here. Don't make any
excuses about delay. Or put it on me; say I hesitated to rouse you."

I listened little to all that he said, and paid small heed to the
precautions that his wariness suggested.

"I hope he won't be dead when you get there," he added as we started for
the hall. "Here's your hat."

I caught at the word "dead."

"If he's dead----" I repeated aimlessly. "If he's dead, Wetter----"

Then for an instant he turned to me, his face full of expression, his
eyes keen and eager. He shrugged his shoulders.

"He's an old man," said he. "We must all die. And if he's dead----"

"Well, Wetter, well?"

"Well, then you're king at last."

With this he opened the door of my carriage and stood holding it. I
looked him full in the face before I stepped in. He did not flinch; he
nodded his head and smiled.

"You're king at last," he seemed to say again.




CHAPTER XII.

KING AT A PRICE.


The death of Prince von Hammerfeldt furnished the subject of a picture
exhibited at Forstadt with great success a few years ago. The old man's
simple room, its plain furniture, the large window facing the garden,
were faithfully given; the bed was his bed and no other bed; the nurses
were portraits, the doctors were portraits, the Prince's features were
exactly mapped; I myself was represented sitting in an armchair by his
side, with a strong light on my face as I leaned forward to catch his
faint words. The artist's performance was, in fact, a singularly
competent reproduction of every external object, human or other, in the
room; and with the necessary alteration of features and title the
picture would have served to commemorate the death-bed of any aged
statesman who had a young prince for his pupil. Hammerfeldt is evidently
giving a brief summary of his principles, providing me with a _vade
mecum_ of kingship, a manual on the management of men. I listen with an
expression of deep attention and respectful grief. By a touch which no
doubt is dramatic, the other figures are gazing intently at me, on whom
the future depends, not at the dying man whose course is run. Looking at
the work as a whole, I am not in the least surprised that I was
recommended to bestow the Cross of St. Paul on the painter. I consented
without demur. In mere matters of taste I have always considered myself
bound to reflect public opinion.

Now for reality. An old man struggling hard for breath; gasps now
quicker, now slower; a few words half-formed, choked, unintelligible;
eyes that were full of an impotent desire to speak; these came first.
Then the doctors gathered round, looked, whispered, went away. I rose
and walked twice across the room; coming back, I stood and looked at
him. Still he knew me. Suddenly his hand moved toward me. I bent my head
till my ear was within three inches of his lips; I could hear nothing. I
saw a doctor standing by, watch in hand; he was timing the breath that
grew slower and slower. "Will he speak?" I asked in a whisper; a shake
of the head answered me. I looked again into his eyes; now he seemed to
speak to me. My face grew hot and red; but I did not speak to him. Yet I
stroked his hand, and there was a gleam of understanding in his eyes. A
moment later his eyes closed; the gasps became slower and slower. I
raised my head and looked across at the doctor. His watch had a gold
front protecting the glass; he shut the front on the face with a click.

Very likely there were no proper materials for a picture here; the
sentiment, the historical interest, the situation would all have been
defective. Men die in so very much the same way, and in so very much the
same way men watch them dying. Death is the triumph of the physical. I
must not complain that the painter imported some sentiment.

In twenty minutes I was back again in my carriage, being driven home
rapidly. My dinner was ready and Baptiste in attendance. "Ah, he is
dead?" said Baptiste, as he fashioned my napkin into a more perfect
shape.

"Yes, Baptiste, he's dead," said I. "Bring me some slippers."

"Your Majesty will not dress?"

"A smoking jacket," said I.

While I ate my dinner Baptiste chattered about the Prince. There was a
kindly humanity in the man that gave a whimsical tenderness to what he
said.

"Ah, now, M. le Prince knew the world well. And where is he gone? Well,
at least he will not be disappointed! To die at eighty! It is only to go
to bed when one is tired. What use would there be in sitting up with
heavy eyes? That is to bore yourself and the company."

"Has the Princess expressed a wish to see me?" I asked.

"Certainly, sire, at your leisure. I said, 'But his Majesty must dine.'
The Princess is much upset it seems. She was greatly attached to the
Prince." He looked at me shrewdly. "She valued the Prince very highly,"
he added, as though in correction of his previous statement.

"I'll go directly I've done dinner. Send and say so."

I was not surprised that consternation reigned in the heart of my mother
and extended its sway to Victoria. Victoria was crying, Princess
Heinrich's eyes were dry, but her lips set in a despairing closeness.
Both invited me to kiss them.

"What will you do without him?" asked Victoria, dabbing her eyes.

"You have lost your best, your only guide," said my mother.

I told them what I had to tell about Hammerfeldt's death. Victoria broke
into compassionate comments, my mother listened in silence.

"Poor old Hammerfeldt!" I ended reflectively.

"Where were you when you got the news?" asked Victoria.

I looked at her. Then I answered quietly:

"I was calling on the Countess von Sempach. I lunched with Wetter and
went on there."

There was a pause. I believe that my candour was a surprise; perhaps it
seemed a defiance.

"Did you tell the Prince that?" my mother asked.

"The Prince," I answered, "was not in a state to listen to anything that
I might have said, not even to anything of importance."

"Fancy if he'd known! On his death-bed!" was Victoria's very audible
whisper.

My mother looked at me with a despairing expression. I am unwilling to
do either her or my sister an injustice, but I wondered then how much
thought they were giving to the old friend we had lost. It seemed to me
that they thought little of the man we knew, the man himself; not grief,
but fear was dominant in them. Wetter's saying, "You're king at last,"
came into my mind. Perhaps their mood was intelligible enough and did
not want excuse. They had seen in Hammerfeldt my schoolmaster; his hand
was gone, and could no longer guide or restrain me. To one a son, to the
other a younger brother, by both I was counted incapable of standing
alone or choosing my own path. Hammerfeldt was gone; Wetter remained;
the Countess von Sempach remained. There was the new position. The
Prince's death then might well be to them so great a calamity as to lose
its rank among sorrows, regrets for the past be ousted by terror for the
future, and the loss of an ally obliterate grief for a friend.

"But you know his wishes and his views," said my mother. "I hope that
they will have an increased sacredness for you now."

"He may be looking down on you from heaven," added Victoria, folding her
handkerchief so as to get a dry part uppermost.

I could not resist this provocation: I smiled.

"If it is so, Victoria," I remarked, "nobody will be more surprised than
the Prince himself."

Victoria was very much offended. She conceived herself to have added an
effective touch: I ridiculed her.

"You might at least pretend to have a little decent feeling," she cried.

"Come, come, my dear, don't let's squabble over him before he's cold,"
said I, rising. "Have you anything else to say to me, mother?"

At this instant my brother-in-law entered. He smelt very strongly of
tobacco, but wore an expression of premeditated misery. He came up to
me, holding out his hand.

"Good evening," said I.

"Poor Hammerfeldt!" he murmured. "Poor Hammerfeldt! What a blow! How
lost you must feel!"

He had been talking over the matter with Victoria. That was beyond
doubt.

"I happen to have been thinking," I rejoined, "more of him than of
myself."

"Of course, of course," muttered William Adolphus in some confusion,
and (as I thought) with a reproachful glance at his wife.

"We have lost the Prince," said my mother, "but we can still be guided
by his example and his principles. To follow his counsels will be the
best monument you can raise to his memory, Augustin."

I kissed her hand and then she gave me her cheek. Going to Victoria, I
saluted her with brotherly heartiness. I never allowed myself to forget
that Victoria was very fond of me, and I never lost my affection for
her.

"Now don't be foolish, Augustin," she implored.

"What is being foolish?" I asked perversely.

"Oh, you know! You know very well what people say, and so do I."

"And poor old Hammerfeldt in heaven--does he know too?"

She turned away with a shocked expression. William Adolphus hid a
sheepish smile with a large hand. In the lower ranges of humour William
Adolphus sometimes understood one. I declined his offer of company over
a cigar, but bade him good-night with a mild gratitude; he desired to be
pleasant to us all, and the realization of his ambition presented
difficulties.

I was very tired and fell into a deep sleep almost the moment I was in
bed. At four o'clock in the morning I awoke. My fatigue seemed gone; I
did not think of sleeping again. The events of the day before came back
to me with an extraordinary vividness of impression, the outcome of
nerves strained to an unhealthy sensitiveness. It would have needed but
a little self-delusion, a little yielding to the current of my thoughts,
to make me see Hammerfeldt by my bed. The Countess and Wetter were in
mental image no less plain. I rose and pulled up the blinds; the night
had begun to pass from black to gray; for a moment I pictured the
Prince, not looking down from heaven, but wandering somewhere in such a
dim cold twilight. The message that his eyes had given me became very
clear to me. It had turned my cheek red; it sent an excitement through
me now. It would not go easily into words, but, as I sought to frame it,
that other speech came back to me--the speech of the Prince's enemy.
Wetter had said, "You're king at last." What else had Hammerfeldt meant
to say? Nothing else. That was his message also. From both it came, the
same reminder, the same exhortation. The living man and the dead joined
their voices in this brief appeal. It did not need my mother's despair
or Victoria's petulance to lend it point. I was amazed to find how it
came home to me. Now I perceived how, up to this time, my life had been
centred in Hammerfeldt. I was obeying him or disobeying, accepting his
views or questioning them, docile or rebellious; when I rebelled, I
rebelled for the pleasure of it, for the excitement it gave, the spice
of daring, the air of independence, for curiosity, to see how he would
take it, what saying he would utter, what resource of persuasion or
argument he would invoke. It was strange to think that now if I obeyed I
should not gratify, if I disobeyed I could make him uneasy no more. If I
went right, there was none to reap credit; if I went wrong, none who
should have controlled me better; none to say, "You are wise, sire";
none to smile as he said, "We must all learn wisdom, sire." It was very
strange to be without old Hammerfeldt.

"You're king at last." By Wetter's verdict and by the Prince's own, his
death made me in very truth king. So they said; what did they think?
Wetter's thought was, "Here is a king, a king to be shaped and used." I
read Wetter's thought well enough. But the old man's? His was a plea, a
hope, a prayer. "Be king." A sudden flash of feeling came upon me--too
late! For I had gone to his bedside fresh from signing my abdication. It
mattered nothing at whose bidding or with what eager obedience I had
taken off the crown. My sovereignty was my possession and my trust. I
had laid it down. In those dim hours of the night, when men die (so they
say), passion is cold, the blood chill, and we fall prey to the
cruelties of truth, then I knew to what I had put my hand, why Wetter
exulted, why Hammerfeldt's eyes spoke one unspoken prayer. It was not
that Wetter went Ambassador, but that he went not of my will, by my act,
or out of my mind; he went by another's will, that other on whose head I
had put my crown.

Strange thoughts for a man not yet grown? I am not altogether of that
mind. For then my trust seemed very great, almost holy, armed with
majesty; I had not learned the little real power that lay in it. To-day,
if I threw away my crown, I should not exaggerate the value of my
sacrifice. Then it seemed that I gave a great thing, and great was my
betrayal. Therefore I could not rest for the thought of what I had put
my hand to, chafed at Wetter's words that sounded now like a taunt, and
seemed again to see old Hammerfeldt dying and to flush red in shame
before the utterance of his eyes. The Prince had served his masters, his
country, and the cause that he held right. Wetter, if he served
himself, served his principles also. What and whom did I serve in this
thing that I was about to do? I could answer only that I served her
whose image rose now before me. But when I turned to her for comfort she
accused, and did not delight.

I am aware that my feelings will probably appear exaggerated to those
not brought up in the habit of thought nor subjected to the influences
which had ruled my mind. I give them for what they are worth. At this
moment the effect of the contrast between my position and my desires was
a struggle of peculiar severity--one of the battles of my life.

Irony was not to be wanting, comedy claimed her accustomed share. The
interview which I have already set down might seem enough to have
satisfied my sister. It was not; after I had breakfasted Victoria sent
William Adolphus to me. I am inclined now and then to think that there
is, after all, something mystic in the status of husbandhood, some
supernatural endowment that in the wife's eyes attaches to her own man,
however little she values him, at however low a rate she sets his
natural qualities. How otherwise could Victoria (whose defect was more
in temper than in perception) send William Adolphus to talk to me?

He came; the _role_ of the man of the world was his choice. "I'm a bit
older than you, you know," he began; then he laughed, and said that
women were all very well in their places. I must not suppose that he was
a Puritan. Heavens, I supposed nothing about him! I knew he was a fool,
and rested in that sufficient knowledge. The Countess, he said, was a
damned pretty woman. "We shan't quarrel about that, anyhow," he added,
with the sort of laugh that I had so often seen poor old Hammerfeldt
wince at. But come now, did I mean to----? Well, I knew what he meant,
didn't I?

"My dear William Adolphus," said I, "I am so infinitely obliged to you.
You have made me see the matter in quite a new light. It's surprising
what a talk with a man of the world does for one. I am very young, of
course."

"Oh, you'll learn. You're no fool," said William Adolphus.

"I suppose Victoria doesn't know you've come?"

He turned rather red, and, like a fool, lied where he need not, out of
pride, not policy.

"No; I came off my own bat," he answered.

"You have done me a great service."

"My dear fellow!" beamed he with the broadest of smiles. "Now
Hammerfeldt's gone, I thought a friendly word or two would not come
amiss."

Hammerfeldt was dead; now came William Adolphus. _Il n'y a pas d'homme
necessaire._

"Of course you can do nothing abrupt," he continued. "But I should think
you might gradually----"

"I understand you absolutely," said I, rising to my feet.

"What I mean is----"

"My dear fellow, not another word is needed."

"You don't mind if I mention to Victoria that I have----?"

"Put it in the evening papers, if you like," said I.

"Ha, ha!" he laughed. "That wouldn't be a bad joke, would it?"

What a man! With his little bit of stock wisdom, "You can do nothing
abruptly"! Nothing abruptly! I must not check myself abruptly on the
edge of the precipice, but go quietly down half-way to the gulf, and
then come up again! If I were ever to do anything, it must be done
abruptly--now, to-day; while the strength was on me, while there was
still a force, fresh and vigorous, to match the other great force that
drew me on. And across this consciousness came a queer little remorse
for not having rescued Victoria from this husband whom she sent to teach
me. When Baptiste brought me lunch I was laughing.

That afternoon the thought of Geoffrey Owen was much with me. Perhaps I
summoned it first in a sort of appeal against Hammerfeldt. But I knew in
my heart that the two could not be antagonists here. Geoffrey would wish
me to show favour, or at least impartiality, toward Liberal opinions;
for the sake of such a manifestation he might overlook certain
objections and acquiesce in my giving the Embassy to Wetter. But with
what face would he hear an honest statement of the case--that Wetter was
to have the Embassy because the King desired to please Countess von
Sempach? I smiled drearily as I imagined his incredulous indignation.
No; everybody was against me, saints and sages, Geoffrey and
Hammerfeldt, women and men; even the fools gave no countenance to my
folly. William Adolphus thought that I might gradually----!

At five o'clock I sent for Wetter. He came with remarkable promptness.
He was visibly excited, and could hardly force himself to spend a moment
on the formal and proper expressions of regret for the Prince's death.
He seemed to be watching me closely and eagerly. I made him sit down,
and gave him a cigar. I had meant to approach the matter with a
diplomatic deviousness. I had overrated my skill and self-control.
Wetter made me feel young and awkward. I was like a schoolboy forced to
confess the neglect of his task, and speaking in fear of the cane.
Ignoring the reserve that had marked our former conversation, I blurted
out:

"I can't send you to Paris."

The man's face went white, but he controlled himself.

"Your Majesty knows that I did not ask for it," he said with
considerable dignity.

"I know; but you wanted it."

He looked straight at me; he was very pale.

"Truly, yes," he said. "I wanted it; since your Majesty is plain, I'll
be plain too."

"Why did you want it? Why are you pale, Wetter?"

He put his cigar in his mouth and smoked fiercely, but did not answer.

"You must have wanted it," I said, "or you wouldn't have tried to get it
in that way."

"My God, I did want it."

"Why?"

"If I can't have it, what matter?" He rose to his feet and bowed.
"Good-bye, sire," said he. Then he gave a curious laugh. "_Moriturus te
saluto_," he added, laughing still.

"What's the matter, man?" I cried, springing up and catching him by the
arm.

"I haven't a shilling in the world; my creditors are in full chase; I'm
posted for a card debt at the club. If I had this I could borrow. Good
God, you promised it to her!"

"Yes, I promised it to her."

"Have you seen her again?"

"No. I must."

"To whom will you give it?"

"I don't know. Not to you."

"Why not?"

"You're not fit for it."

He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

"I was no more fit for it yesterday," he said.

"I won't argue it."

"As you please, sire," said he with a shrug, and he seemed to pull
himself together. He rose and stood before me with a smile on his lips.

I sat down, took a piece of paper, wrote a draft, leaving the amount
unstated, and pushed it across to him. He looked down at it in wonder.
Then his face lit up with eagerness.

"You mean--you mean----?" he stammered.

"My ransom," said I.

"Mine!" he cried.

"No, it is mine, the price of my freedom."

[Illustration: "My ransom," said I. "The price of my freedom."]

He lifted the piece of paper in a hand that trembled.

"It's a lot of money," he said. "Eighty or ninety thousand marks."

"My name is good for that."

He looked me in the face, opening his lips but not speaking. Then he
thrust out his hand to me. I took it; I was as much moved as he.

"Don't tempt me again," I said.

He gripped my hand hard and fiercely; when he released it I waved it
toward the door. I could trust myself no more. He turned to go; but I
called to him again:

"Don't say anything to her. I must see her."

He faced me with an agitated look.

"What for?" he asked.

I made him no answer, but lay back in my chair. He came toward me slowly
and with hesitation. I looked up in his face.

"I'll pay you back," he said.

"I don't want the money."

"And I don't mean the money. In fact, I'm bad at paying money back. Why
have you done it?"

"I have done it for myself, not for you. You owe me nothing. My honour
was pawned, and I have redeemed it. I was bound; I am free."

His eyes were fixed intently on me with a sort of wonder, but I motioned
him again to the door. He obeyed me without another word; after a bow he
turned and went out. I rose, and having walked to the window, looked
down into the street. I saw him crossing the roadway with a slow step
and bent head. He was going toward his club, not to his house. I stood
watching him till he turned round a corner and disappeared. Then I drew
a long breath and returned to my chair. I had hardly seated myself when
Baptiste came in with a note. It was from the Countess. "Aren't you
coming to-day?" That was all.

"There is no answer," I said, and Baptiste left me.

For I must carry the answer myself; and the answer must be, "Yes,
to-day, but not to-morrow."

There was doubtless some extravagance in my conception of the situation,
and I have not sought to conceal or modify it. It seemed to me that I
could play my part only at the cost of what was dearest to me in the
world. Money had served with Wetter; it would not serve here. My heart
must pay, my heart and hers. I remember that I sat in my chair murmuring
again and again, "To-day, but not to-morrow."




CHAPTER XIII.

I PROMISE NOT TO LAUGH.


I take it that generally when middle age looks back on the emotions of
youth and its temptations, it is to smile at the wildness of the first
and to marvel at the victories of the second. That is not my mood when I
recall the relation between the Countess and myself. For sometimes,
while passion becomes less fierce, aspiration grows less exalted. The
man who calls most, if not all, things vanity, will yield to desires
which some high-strung ideal in the boy would rout. At forty the
feelings are not so strong as at twenty, but neither are the ambitions,
the dreams, the conception of self. It is easier to resist, but it may
not seem so well worth while. Thus it is with me. I wonder not at the
beginning or progress of my first love, but at the manner of its end,
asking myself incredulously what motive or what notion had power to hold
back the flood of youth, seeking almost in vain to re-discover the
spring that moved me then. Yet, though I can not feel it again, I know
dimly what it was, that high, strange, noble, ludicrous ideal of my
office which so laid hold on me as to scatter passion's forces and wrest
me from the arms of her I loved. I can not now so think of my kingship,
so magnify its claim, or conceive that it matters so greatly to the
world how I hold it or what manner of man I show myself. I come to the
conclusion (though it may seem to border on paradox) that in a like case
I could not, or should not, do now what I did then. I suppose that it is
some such process as this, a weakening of emotion parallel with a
lowering of ideal, that makes us, as we grow older, think ourselves so
much wiser and know ourselves to be so little better.

I had charged Wetter to say nothing to the Countess, but he disobeyed
me. He had been to her and told her all that passed between us. I knew
this the moment I entered her room. Her agitated nervous air showed me
that she had been informed of the withdrawal of my gift, was aware that
the Embassy was no longer hers to give to Wetter or another, and was
wondering helplessly what the meaning of the change might be. To her, as
to Wetter, the death of Hammerfeldt must have seemed the removal of an
impediment; only through the curious processes of my own mind did it
raise an obstacle insurmountable. She had liked the Prince, but feared
him; she imagined my feelings to have been the same, and perhaps in his
lifetime they were. Then should not I, who had been brought to defy him
living, more readily disregard him dead?

But against her knowledge of me and her quick wit no preconception could
hold out long. She was by me in a moment, asking:

"What has happened? What's wrong, Augustin?"

I had pictured myself describing to her what I felt, making her
understand, sympathize, and, even while she grieved, approve. The notion
was so strong in me that I did not doubt of finding words for it--words
eloquent of its force and dignity. But before her simple impulsive
question I was dumb. A wave of shyness swept over me; not even to her
could I divulge my thoughts, not even from her risk the smile of
ridicule or the blankness of non-apprehension. I became wretchedly
certain that I should be only absurd and priggish, that she would not
believe me, would see only excuse and hypocrisy in what I said. It was
so difficult also not to seem to accuse her, to charge her with grasping
at what I had freely offered, with having, as the phrase runs, designs
on me, with wishing to take power where she had been impelled to bestow
love. She pressed me with more questions, but still I found no answer.

"I can't do it," I was reduced to stammering. "I can't do it. He's not
the man. I must find another."

"Of the Prince's party?" she asked quickly.

"I don't know. I must find somebody; I must find somebody for myself."

I had sat down, and she was standing opposite to me.

"Find somebody for yourself?" she repeated slowly. "For yourself? What
do you mean by that, Augustin?"

"I must choose a man for myself."

"You mean--you mean without my help?"

I returned no answer, but sat looking at her with a dreary appealing
gaze. She was silent for a few moments; then she said suddenly:

"You haven't offered to kiss me."

I rose and kissed her on the lips; she stood still and did not kiss me.

"Thank you," she said. "I asked you to kiss me, and you've kissed me.
Thank you." She paused and added, "Have I grown so much older in a day?"

"It is not that. It's----"

"It is that," she said. She turned away and seated herself on the sofa,
where she sat with her eyes fixed on the ground. Then she gave a short
laugh. "I knew it would come," she said, "but this is--is rather
sudden."

I ran to her and threw myself on my knees by her. I lifted my arm and
put it round her neck and drew her face down to mine.

"No, no, no," I whispered passionately. "It's not that."

She let me kiss her now many times, and presently returned my kisses.
Her breath caught in gasps, and she clutched my hand imploringly.

"You do love me?" she murmured.

"Yes, yes."

"Then why--why? Why do you do this?" She drew back, looking in my face
in a bewildered way. Then a sudden brightness came into her eyes. "Is it
for me? Are you thinking of me?"

"No," said I in stubborn honesty, "I was not thinking of you."

"Don't!" she cried, for she did not believe me. "What do I care? I cared
once; I don't care now."

"It wasn't because of you," I repeated obstinately.

"Then tell me, tell me! Because I believe you still love me."

I made shift to tell her, but my stumbling words belittled the great
conception: I could not find the phrases that alone might convey the
truth to her; but I held on, trying to say something of what I meant.

"I never tried to interfere," she broke in once.

"I made you interfere, I myself," was my lame answer; and the rest I
said was as lame.

"I don't understand," she murmured forlornly and petulantly. "Oh, I
suppose I see what you mean in a way; but I don't believe it. I don't
see why you should feel like that about it. Do men feel like that? Women
don't."

"I can't help it," I pleaded, pressing her hand. She drew it away
gently.

"And what will it mean?" she asked. "Am I never to see you?"

"Often, often, I hope, but----"

"I'm not to talk to you about--about important things, things we both
care about?"

I felt the absurdity of such a position. The abstract made concrete is
so often made absurd.

"Then you won't come often; you won't care about coming." Something in
her thoughts made her flush suddenly. She met my eyes and took courage.
"You asked a good deal of me," she said.

I made no answer; she understood my silence. She rose, leaving me on my
knees. I threw myself on the sofa and she went to the hearthrug. She
knew that what I had asked of her I asked no more. There was a long
silence between us. At last she spoke in a very low voice.

"It's only a little sooner than it must have been," she said. "And I--I
suppose I must be glad that it's come home to me now instead of--later.
I daresay you'll be glad of that too, Augustin."

"How are we to live, how are we to meet, what are we to be to one
another?" she broke out the next moment. "We can't go on as if nothing
had happened."

"I don't know."

"You don't know! Yet you're hard as iron about it. Oh, I daresay you're
right; you must be. It's only a little sooner."

She turned her back to me, and stood looking down into the fire. I was
trying to answer her question, to realize how it would be between us,
how, having lived in the real, we must now dwell in the unreal with one
another. I was wondering how I could meet her and not show that I loved
her, how I could love her and yet be true to my idol, the conception
that governed me. Suddenly she spoke, without turning or lifting her
head.

"Whom shall you send to Paris?"

"I don't know. I haven't settled."

"Wetter mentioned somebody else--besides himself?"

"Only Max," said I, with a dreary laugh.

"Hadn't you better send Max? That is, if you think him fit for it."

I thought that she was relieving her petulance by a bitter jest; but a
moment later she said again, still without turning round:

"Send Max."

I rose and walked slowly to where she stood. Hearing my movement, she
faced me.

"Send Max," she said again, holding out her hands toward me, clasped
together. "I--I can't stay here like--in the way you say. And you? How
could you do it?"

"You would go with him?" I exclaimed.

"Of course."

"For five years?"

"When I come back," she said, "you will be twenty-five. You will be
married to Elsa. I shall be thirty-four. There will be no difficulty
about how we are to treat one another when I come back, Augustin."

"My God!" I murmured, looking in her eyes. As I looked they filled with
tears.

"My dear, my dear," she said, raising her arms and setting her hands on
my shoulders, "I have never forgotten that I was a fool. Yes, once, for
a few moments yesterday. I shall remember at Paris what a fool I was,
and I shan't forget it when I come back. Only I wish it didn't break
one's heart to be a fool."

"I won't let you go; I won't send him. I can't."

"Will it be better to have it happen here gradually before my eyes every
day? I should kill myself. I couldn't bear it. I should see you finding
out, changing, forgetting, laughing. Oh, what a miserable woman I am!"
She turned away suddenly and flung herself into an armchair.

"Why did you do it?" she cried. "Why did you?"

"I loved you."

"Yes, yes, yes. That's the absurdity, the horrible absurdity. And I
loved you, and I love you. Isn't it funny?" She laughed hysterically.
"How funny we shall think it soon! When I come back from Paris! No,
before then! We shall laugh about it!" She broke into sobs, hiding her
face in her hands.

"I shall never laugh about it," I said.

"Shan't you?" she asked, looking up and gazing intently at me. Then she
rose and came toward me. "No, I don't think you will. Don't, dear. But
I don't think you will. You won't laugh about it, will you? You won't
laugh, Caesar?"

I bent low and kissed her hand. I should have broken down had I tried to
speak. As I raised my head from her hand, she kissed my brow. Then she
wiped her eyes, saying:

"You'll send Max to Paris? You promised me this Embassy. You shall be
good and great and independent, and all you say you mean to be and must
be afterward. But you promised me this Embassy. Well, I ask your promise
of you. I ask it for Max."

"You would go away from me?"

"Yes. I want to grow old away from you. I ask the Embassy for Max."

I stood silent, wretched, undecided. She came near to me again.

"Don't refuse me, dear," she said in a low unsteady voice. "I don't ask
much of you; just to let me go, and not to laugh. I shall never ask
anything again of you. I have given you so much, and I would have given
you anything you asked. Don't refuse me."

"It breaks my heart."

"Poor heart, poor heart!" she whispered softly, with a sad mocking
smile. "It will mend, Caesar."

"You--you mean it?"

"With all my heart and soul."

"Then so be it."

She came to me and held out her arms. I clasped her in mine, and we
kissed one another. Then both of us sat down again, and there was
silence. Only once she spoke.

"How soon shall we go?" she asked.

"In about three weeks or a month, I suppose," I answered.

We were sitting silent when we heard a step on the stairs. "Hark!" she
said. "It's Max's step." She rose quickly and turned the lamp lower,
then seated herself in shadow. "May I tell him about it now?" she asked.

"Yes--if it must be so."

"Yes, it must." She kissed her hand to me, saying, "Good-bye." The door
opened, and Max von Sempach came in. Before he could greet me she began:

"Max, what do you think brings the King here to-day?"

Max professed himself at a loss.

"He's come about you," she said. "We've been talking about you."

"Have you? What about me?" he asked, going up to her. She rose and laid
her hand on his arm.

"The King is going to give our side a turn," she said with a marvellous
composure and even an appearance of gaiety.

"What?" cried Max. "Are you going to send Wetter to Paris, sire?"

"No," said I. "Not Wetter. He doesn't want it now, and anyhow he's not
fit for it."

"He doesn't want it! Oh, but he does!"

"Max, you mustn't contradict the King. But one of our people is to have
it. Guess who it is!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know who it is if it's not Wetter."

"It's you," she said. "Isn't it, sire?"

"If he likes it," said I. "Do you like it?"

"Like it!" he exclaimed. "Oh, but I can't believe it! Something of the
sort has been the dream of my life."

"It is yours if you will have it," said I.

"And the dream of your life will come true," she said. "Fancy that! I
didn't know it ever happened." And she glanced at me.

"Yes, the dream of his life shall come true," said I. "You're very fit
for it, and I'm very glad to give it to one of your side."

"The King belongs to no party," said she. She paused and added, "And to
no person. He stands apart and alone."

I hardly heeded Max's profuse thanks and honest open exultation.

"It's too good to be true," said he.

This has always seemed to me a strange little scene between us three.
The accepted conventions of emotion required that it should raise in me
and in her a feeling of remorse; for Max was so honest, so simple, so
exclusively given over to gratitude. So far as I recollect, however, I
had no such feeling, and I do not think that the Countess differed from
me in this respect. I was envious of him, not because he took her with
him (for he did not take her love), but simply because he had got
something he liked, was very pleased, and in a good temper with the
world and himself. The dream of his life, as he declared impetuously,
was fulfilled. The dream of ours was shattered. How were we to reproach
ourselves on his account? It would have been the Quixotry of conscience.

"I daresay you won't like it so much as you think," said I, with a
childish desire to make him a little less comfortable.

"Oh, yes, I shall! And you'll like it, won't you?" He turned to his wife
affectionately.

"As if I should let you take it if I didn't like it," she answered,
smiling. "Think how I shall show off before all my good countrywomen in
Paris!"

"I don't know how to thank your Majesty," said Max.

"I don't want any thanks. I haven't done it for thanks. I thought you
the best man."

"No, no," he murmured. "I like to think it's partly friendship for my
wife and me. Everybody will say so."

I looked up with a little start.

"I suppose they will," said I.

"Yes, you'll be handsomely abused."

"That'll be rather funny," I remarked almost unconsciously, as I looked
across to the Countess, smiling.

"I mean--you don't mind my saying?" asked Max; and when I nodded, he
went on, "They'll point out that you're turning to our side the moment
that the Prince is dead. Yes, it will make a good deal of talk; they'll
call it the beginning of a new era."

"Perhaps they'll be right," said she in a low voice.

I rose to my feet. I recognised the truth in what Max said, and it
seemed to add a touch of irony that the situation had lacked.
Hammerfeldt himself, if he looked down from heaven (as Victoria
picturesquely suggested), would be amused at the interpretation put on
my action; it would suit his humour well to see the great sacrifice that
I had made at the shrine of his teaching twisted into a repudiation of
his views and a prompt defiance of the authority which he in life had
exercised. His partisans would be furious with me, they would say I
flouted his memory. That would be strange to hear when the figure of the
Countess was still fresh before my eyes, and the sound of her sobs rang
yet in my ears. I shrugged my shoulders.

"There are harder things to bear than a little abuse and a little
gossip. I can't help it if they don't understand the grounds of my
action."

"It's so soon after the Prince's death," said Max.

"The thing could not be delayed; it had to be done at once," said I.

I moved toward her to take my leave. She was standing close by her
husband's side; her face was still in shadow.

"We shall have so much to do before we go," she said, "that we can hope
to see very little more of your Majesty."

"Yes," broke in Max, "we must go down and arrange everything on the
estate; we're going to be away for so long."

"Oh, but I shall hope to see you again. You must come and say good-bye
to me. Now I must leave you."

"Good-bye, and again thank you," she said.

She came with me to the door, and down the stairs. Max walked in front,
and went on to open the door and see that my carriage was in readiness.
For an instant I clasped her hand.

"I shan't see you again," she whispered. "Good-bye."

I left her standing on the lowest step, her head proudly erect and a
smile on her lips. It was as she said, I did not see her again; for they
went to the country the next day, and when Max came to take a formal
leave of me she excused herself on the score of indisposition.

To complete the picture I ought to describe the wrath of those who had
formed Hammerfeldt's _entourage_, the gleeful satisfaction of the
opposing party, the articles in the journals, the speculations, guesses,
and assertions as to my reasons, temper, intention, and expressions. I
should paint also my mother's mingled annoyance and relief, vexation
that I favoured the Liberals, and joy that the Countess von Sempach went
to Paris; Victoria's absolute bewilderment and ineffectual divings and
fishings for anything that might throw light on so mysterious a matter;
William Adolphus' intense self-complacency in my following of his
advice, accompanied by a patronizing rebuke for my having thought it
necessary to "do it so abruptly." All these good people, as they acted
their little parts and filled their corners of the stage, had their own
ideas of the meaning of the play and their own estimate of the
importance of the characters. They all fitted into their places in my
conception of it, so that not one was superfluous; all were needed, and
all worked in unconsciousness to heighten the irony, to point the
comedy, and to frame the tragedy in its most effective, most incongruous
setting. For in this real life the stage-manager takes no pains to have
all things in harmony nor to lead us through gradual and well-attempered
emotions to the climax of exalted feeling, nor to banish from our sight
all that jars and clashes with the pathos of the piece. Rather he works
by contrasts, by strange juxtapositions, by surprises, careless how many
of the audience follow his mind, not heeding dissatisfaction or
pleasure, recking nothing whether we applaud or damn his play.

Well, here was I, Augustin, twenty years of age, and determined to reign
alone. And my Countess was gone to Paris. Did you look down from heaven,
old Hammerfeldt? Victoria thought you did. Well, then, was not the boy's
work absurdly, extravagantly, bravely done?




CHAPTER XIV.

PLEASURE TAKES LEAVE TO PROTEST.


During the months that followed the departure of the Sempachs I engaged
myself busily in public affairs, in the endeavour to gain better
acquaintance with the difficult trade which was mine. I do not throw off
impressions lightly, and I was disinclined for gaiety, or for more
society than the obligations of my position demanded. My mother approved
of my zeal; a convinced partisan, she enjoyed that happy confidence in
her own views which makes people certain that everybody can study their
opinions only to embrace them. Attention is the sole preliminary to
conversion. I will not speak further of this matter here than to say
that I was doomed to disappoint Princess Heinrich in this respect. I am
glad of it. The world moves, and although it is very difficult for
persons so artificially situated as I have been to move with it, yet we
can and must move after it, lumbering along in its wake more or less
slowly and awkwardly. We hold on this tenure; if we do not perform
it--well, we end in country-houses in England.

It was, I suppose, owing to these occupations that I failed to notice
the relations between Victoria and her husband until they had reached a
rather acute crisis. Either from a desire to re-enforce the number of my
guardian angels, or merely because they found themselves very
comfortable, the pair had taken up a practically permanent residence
with me. I was very glad to have them, and assigned them a handsome set
of apartments quite at the other end of the house. Here they lived in
considerable splendour, seeing a great deal of company and assuming the
position of social leaders. Victoria at least was admirably suited to
play such a part, and I certainly did not grudge it to her; for my
mother I can not speak so confidently. William Adolphus, having
abandoned his military pursuits, led an idle lounging life. In
consequence he grew indolent; his stoutness increased. I mention this
personal detail merely because I believe that it had a considerable
influence on Victoria's feelings toward him. Her varied nature included
a vivid streak of the romantic, and with every expansion in his belt and
every multiplication of the folds of his chin William Adolphus came to
satisfy this instinct in her less and less. She sought other interests;
she contrived to combine very dexterously the _femme incomprise_ with
the leader of fashion; she posed as a patron of letters and the arts,
indulging in intellectual flirtations with professors and other learned
folk. There was no harm in this, and William Adolphus would not have
been in the smallest degree disturbed by it. He had all the
self-confidence given by a complete want of imagination. Unhappily,
however, she began to treat him with something very like contempt,
allowed him to perceive that his company did not satisfy her spiritual
and mental requirements, and showed herself more than willing that he
should choose his own associates and dispose of his own time. He was not
resentful; he confessed that his wife's friends bored him, and availed
himself amply and good-naturedly of the liberty which her expressed
preferences afforded him. He devoted himself to his sport, his dogs, and
his horses; this was all very well. He also became a noted patron of the
lighter forms of the drama; this, for reasons that I shall indicate
directly, was not quite so well. Out of this last taste of William
Adolphus came the strained relations between his wife and himself to
which I have referred.

Among those who have crossed my path few have stamped themselves more
clearly on my memory than Coralie Mansoni. She was by no means so great
a force in my life as was the Countess von Sempach, but she remains a
singularly vivid image before my eyes. Born heaven knew where, and of
parents whom I doubt whether she herself could name, seeming to hail
from the borderland of Italy and France, a daughter of the Riviera, she
had strayed and tumbled through a youth of which she would speak in
moments of expansion. I, however, need say nothing of it. When I saw her
first she was playing a small part in a light opera at Forstadt. A few
weeks later she had assumed leading _roles_, and was the idol of the
young men. She was then about twenty-three, tall, dark, of full figure,
doomed to a brevity of beauty, but at the moment magnificence itself.
Every intellectual gift she appeared to lack, except a strangely
persistent resolution of purpose and an admirably lucid conception of
her own interest. She was not in the least brilliant or even amusing in
general conversation. She worshipped her own beauty; she owed to it all
she was, and paid the debt with a defiant assertion of its supremacy.
None could contradict her. She was very lazy as regards physical
exertion, extremely fond of eating and drinking, a careful manager of
her money. All this sounds, and was, very unattractive. On the other
side of the account may be put a certain simplicity, an indolent
kindness, a desire to make folks comfortable, and (what I liked most) a
mental honesty which caused her to assess both herself and other people
with a nearness to her and their real value that was at times absolutely
startling. It seemed as though a person, otherwise neither clever nor of
signally high character, had been gifted with a _clairvoyance_ which
allowed her to read hearts, and a relentless fine sincerity that forced
her to declare what she read to all who cared to listen to her. Whatever
she did or did not in that queer life of hers, she never flattered man
or woman, and fashioned no false image of herself.

William Adolphus made her the rage, so strangely things fall out. He
went five nights running to see her. Next week came a new piece, with
Coralie in the chief part. My brother-in-law had sent for her to his
box. He was a Prince, a great man, exalted, of what seemed boundless
wealth. Coralie was languidly polite. William Adolphus' broad face must
have worn a luxurious smile. He did Coralie the honour of calling on her
at her pretty villa, where she lived with her aunt-in-law (oddly
selected relationship!), Madame Briande. He was received with
acquiescence; enthusiasm was not among Coralie's accomplishments.
However, she lazily drawled out the opinion that _Monseigneur_ was _bon
enfant_. William Adolphus mounted into the seventh heaven. He came home
and did not tell his wife where he had been. This silence was
significant. As a rule, if he but visited the tailor or had his hair
cut, he told everybody all about it. He had really no idea that some
things were uninteresting. I do not mean to say that this trait
constitutes exactly a peculiarity.

My brother-in-law and I were very good friends. He proposed that I
should accompany him to the theatre, and afterward be his guest, for he
was to entertain Coralie at supper.

"But where?" I asked with a smile.

"There is an excellent restaurant where I have a private room," he
confessed.

"And they don't know you?"

"Of course they know me."

"I mean, where they would be willing to know neither you nor me."

"Oh, I see what you mean. That's all right."

So I went with William Adolphus. Several men whom I knew were present,
among them Wetter and M. le Vicomte de Varvilliers, second secretary of
the French Embassy and a mirror of fashion. We were quite informal.
Varvilliers sat on my left and employed himself in giving me an account
of my right-hand neighbour Coralie. I listened absently, for the sight
of Wetter had stirred other thoughts in my mind. I had not yet spoken to
Coralie; my brother-in-law monopolized her.

"I ought to speak to her, I suppose?" I said to Varvilliers at last.

"A thousand pardons for engrossing your Majesty!" he cried. "Yes, I
think you should."

William Adolphus' voice flowed on in the account of a match between one
of his horses and one of somebody else's. I turned to follow
Varvilliers' advice; rather to my surprise, I found Coralie's eyes fixed
on me with an appearance of faint amusement. She began to address me
without waiting for me to say anything.

"Why do you listen to what Varvilliers says about me instead of finding
out about me yourself?" she asked.

"How do you know he talked of you, mademoiselle?"

She shrugged her shoulders and returned to her salad. William Adolphus
asked her a question; she nodded without looking up from the salad. I
began to eat my salad.

"It's a good salad," I observed, after a few mouthfuls.

"Very," said Coralie; she turned her great eyes on me. "And, _mon Dieu_,
what a rare thing!" she added with a sigh.

Probably she would expect a touch of gallantry.

"The perfection of everything is rare," said I, looking pointedly in her
face. She put up her hand, lightly fingered the curls on her forehead,
smiled at me, and turned again to her salad. I laughed. She looked up
again quickly.

"You laugh at me?" she asked, not resentfully, but with an air of frank
inquiry.

"No, at the human race, mademoiselle. It is we, not you, who excite
laughter."

She regarded me with apparent curiosity, and gradually began to smile.
"Why?" she asked, just showing her level white teeth.

"You haven't learned yet?"

William Adolphus began to speak to her. You would have sworn she had a
deaf ear that side. She had finished her salad and sat turned toward me.
If a very white shoulder could at all console my brother-in-law, he had
an admirable view of one. Apparently he was not content; he pushed his
chair back with a noise and called to me:

"Shall we smoke? I have eaten enough."

"With all my heart," I answered.

"In fact he has eaten too much," observed Coralie, by no means in an
"aside." "He and I--we both eat too much. He is fat already. I shall
be."

"You are talkative to-night, mademoiselle," said Varvilliers, who was
offering her a cigarette.

"I believe there is to-night some one worth talking to," she retorted.

"Alas, and not last night?" he cried in affected despair.

I, however, thinking that it would ill become me to eat my
brother-in-law's supper and then spoil his sport, bowed to the lady and
crossed over to where Wetter was standing. Near him was a group of young
men laughing and talking with Madame Briande; he seemed to pay little
heed to their chatter. Varvilliers followed me, and William Adolphus sat
down by Coralie. But I had not been talking to Wetter more than two
minutes when the lady rose, left my brother-in-law, and came to join our
group. She took her stand close by me. Half attracted and half repelled
by her, young enough still to be shy, I was much embarrassed; the other
men were smiling--I must except William Adolphus--and Varvilliers
whispered to me:

"_Les beaux yeux de votre couronne, sire._"

Coralie overheard his warning; she was not in the least put out.

"Don't disturb yourself," she said to Varvilliers. "The King is not a
fool; he doesn't suppose that people forget what he is."

"You've judged him on short acquaintance," said Varvilliers, rather
vexed.

"It's my way; and why shouldn't I give my opinion?"

Wetter laughed, and said to the Frenchman:

"You had better not ask for your character, I think, Vicomte."

"Heavens, no!" cried he. "Come, I see Monseigneur all alone!"

"You are right," said Coralie. "Go and talk to him. The King and I will
talk."

They went off, Wetter laughing, Varvilliers still a little ruffled by
his encounter. Coralie passed her arm through mine and led me to a sofa.
I had recovered my composure, was interested, and amused.

"Briande," she said suddenly, "is always deploring my stupidity. 'How
will you get on,' she says, 'without wit? Men are ruled by wit though
they are won by faces.' So she says. Well, I don't know. Wit is not in
my line." She looked at me half questioningly, half defiantly.

"I perceive no deficiency in the quality, mademoiselle," said I.

"Then you have not known witty women," she retorted tranquilly. "But I
am not altogether dull. I am not like Monseigneur there."

"My brother-in-law?"

"So I am told."

As she said this she looked again at me and began to laugh. I laughed
also. But I could not very well discuss William Adolphus with her.

"What man do you desire to rule with this wit?" I asked.

"One can't tell when it might be useful," said she, with a barely
perceptible smile.

"Surely beauty is more powerful?"

"With Monseigneur?"

"Oh, never mind Monseigneur."

"But not with men of another kind."

"Some men are not to be ruled by any means."

"You think so?"

"Take Wetter now?"

"I would give him a week's resistance."

"Varvilliers?"

"A day."

I did not put the third question, but I looked at her with a smile. She
saw my meaning, of course, but she did not tell me how long a resistance
she would predict for me. I thought that I had talked enough to her,
and, since she would not let me alone, I determined to take my leave. I
wished her good-night. She received my adieu with marked indifference.

"I am very glad to have made your acquaintance," said I.

"Why, yes," she answered. "You are thinking that I am a strange
creature, a new experience," and with this she turned away, although I
was about to speak again.

Varvilliers' way lay in the same direction as mine, and I took him with
me. He chatted gaily as we went. What I liked in the Vicomte was his
confident denial of life's alleged seriousness. He seemed much amused at
the situation which he proceeded to unfold to me. According to him,
Wetter was passionately, my brother-in-law inanely, enamoured of
Coralie. Wetter was ready to ruin himself in purse and prospects for
her, and would gladly marry her. William Adolphus would be capable of
defying his wife, his mother-in-law, and public opinion. But Coralie, he
explained, cared little for either. Wetter could give her nothing, from
William Adolphus she had already gained the advancement which it was in
his power to secure for her.

"She wanted something new, so she made him bring your Majesty," he
ended, laughing.

"Was my brother-in-law unwilling?"

"Oh, no. He didn't understand," laughed Varvilliers. "He was proud to
bring you."

"It's rather awkward for me. I suppose I oughtn't to have come?"

"Ah, sire, when we have enjoyed ourselves, let us not be ungrateful. She
amused you?"

"She certainly interested me."

He shrugged his shoulders. "What more do you want?" he seemed to ask.
But I was wondering whether I should be justified in lending countenance
to these distractions of William Adolphus. The Frenchman's quick wit
overtook my thoughts.

"If you wish to rescue the Prince from danger, sire," he said, laughing,
"you can't do better than come often."

"It seems to me that I'm in danger of quarrelling either with my sister
or with my brother-in-law."

"If I were you, I should feel myself in a danger more delightful."

"But why not yourself equally, Vicomte? Aren't you in love with her?"

"Not I," he answered, with a laugh and a shake of his head.

"But why not?" I asked, laughing also.

"Can you ask? There is but one possible reason for a man's not being in
love with Coralie Mansoni."

"Tell me it, Vicomte."

"Because he has been, sire."

"A good safeguard, but of no use to me."

"Why, no, not at present," answered Varvilliers.

The carriage drew up at his lodgings. I was not inclined for sleep, and
readily acceded to his request that I should pay him a visit. Having
dismissed the carriage (I was but a little way from my own house), I
mounted the stairs and found myself in a very snug room. He put me in an
armchair and gave me a cigar. We talked long and intimately as the hours
of the night rolled on. He spoke, half in reminiscence, half in merry
rhapsody, of the joys of living, the delight of throwing the reins on
the neck of youth. As I looked at his trim figure, his handsome face,
merry eyes, and dashing air, all that he said seemed very reasonable and
very right; there was a good defence for it at the bar of nature's
tribunal. It was honest too, free from cant, affectation, and pretence;
it was a recognition of facts, and enlisted truth on its side. It needed
no arguing, and he gave it none; the spirit that inspired also
vindicated it. I could not help recalling the agonies and struggles
which my passion for the Countess von Sempach had occasioned me. At
first I thought that I would tell him about this affair, but I found
myself ashamed. And I was ashamed because I had resisted the passion; it
would have been very easy to tell him had I yielded. But the merry eyes
would twinkle in amusement at my high-strung folly, as I had seen them
twinkle at my brother-in-law's stolidity. He said something incidentally
which led me to fancy that he had heard about the Countess and had
received a mistaken impression of the facts; I did not correct what
appeared to be his idea. I neither confirmed nor contradicted it. I said
to myself that it was nothing to me what notion he had of my conduct; in
reality I did not desire him to know the truth. I clung to the
conviction that I could justify what had seemed my hard-won victory,
but I did not feel as though I could justify it to him. He would laugh,
be a little puzzled, and dismiss the matter as inexplicable. His own
creed was not swathed in clouds, nor dim, nor hard clearly to see and
picture; it was all very straightforward. Properly it was no creed; it
was a course of action based on a mode of feeling which neither demanded
nor was patient of defence or explanation. The circumstances of my life
were such that never before had I been brought into contact with a
similar temperament or a similar practice. When they were thus suddenly
presented to me they seemed endowed with a most attractive simplicity,
with a naturalness, with what I must call a wholesomeness; the
objections I felt to be overstrained, unreal, morbid. Varvilliers' feet
were on firm ground; on what shaking uncertain bog of mingled impulses,
emotions, fancies, and delusions might not those who blamed him be found
themselves to stand?

I am confident that he spoke without premeditation, with no desire to
win a proselyte, merely as man to man, in unaffected intimacy. I think
that he was rather sorry for me, having detected a gloominess in my view
of life and a tendency to moody and fretful introspection. Once or twice
he referred, in passing jest, to the difference of national
characteristics, the German tendency to make love by crying (so he put
it) as contrasted with the laughing philosophy of his own country. At
the end he apologized for talking so much, and pointed out to me a
photograph of Coralie that stood on the mantelpiece more than
half-hidden by letters and papers, saying, "I suppose she set me off;
somehow she seems to me a sort of embodiment of the thing."

It was three o'clock when I left him; even then I went reluctantly,
traversing again in my mind the field that his tongue had easily and
lightly covered, and reverting to the girl who, as he said, was a sort
of embodiment of the thing. The phrase was definite enough for its
purpose, and struck home with an undeniable truth. He and she were the
sort of people to live in that sort of world, and to stand as its
representatives. A feeling came over me that it was a fair fine world,
where life need not be a struggle, where a man need not live alone,
where he would not be striving always after what he could never achieve,
waging always a war in which he should never conquer, staking all his
joys against most uncertain shadowy prizes, which to win would bring no
satisfaction. I cried out suddenly, as I walked by myself through the
night, "There's no pleasure in my life." That protest summed up my
wrongs. There was no pleasure in my life. There was everything else, but
not that, not pure, unmixed, simple pleasure. Had I no right to some? I
was very tired of trying to fill my place, of subordinating myself to my
position, of being always Augustin the King. I was weary of my own
ideal. I felt that I ought to be allowed to escape from it sometimes, to
be, as it were, _incognito_ in soul as well as in body, so that what I
thought and did should not be reckoned as the work of the King's mind or
the act of the King's hand. I envied intensely the lot and the temper of
my friend Varvilliers. When I reached the palace and entered it, it
seemed to me as though I were returning to a prison. Its walls shut me
off from that free existence whose sweetness I had tasted, and forbade
me to roam in the fields whither youth beckoned and curiosity lured me.
That joy could never be mine. My burden was ever with me; the woman I
had loved was gone; the girl I must be made husband to was soon to come.
I was not and could not be as other young men.

That all this, the conversation with Varvilliers, its effect on me, my
restless discontent and angry protests against my fate, should follow on
meeting Coralie Mansoni at supper will not seem strange to anybody who
remembers her.




CHAPTER XV.

THE HAIR-DRESSER WAITS.


When my years and my mood are considered, it may appear that I had
enough to do in keeping my own life in the channel of wisdom and
discretion. So it seemed to myself, and I was rather amused at being
called upon to exert a good influence or even a wholesome authority over
William Adolphus; it was so short a time since he had been summoned to
perform a like office toward me. Yet after breakfast the next day
Victoria came to me, dressed in a subdued style and speaking in low
tones; she has always possessed a dramatic instinct. She had been, it
seemed, unable to remain unconscious of the gossip afoot; of her own
feelings she preferred to say nothing (she repeated this observation
several times); what she thought about was the credit of the family; and
of the family, she took leave to remind me, I was (I think she said, by
God's will) the head. I could not resist remarking how times had
changed; less than a year ago she had sent William Adolphus, sober,
staid, panoplied in the armour of contented marriage, to wrestle with my
errant desires. Victoria flushed and became just a little less meek.

"What's the good of going back to that?" she asked.

"None; it is merely amusing," said I.

The flush deepened.

"Will you allow me to be insulted?" she cried.

"Let us be cool. You've yourself to thank for this, Victoria. Why aren't
you pleasanter to him?"

"Oh, he's--I'm all I ought to be to him."

"I don't know what you are to him, you're very little with him."

I suppose that these altercations assume much the same character in all
families. They are necessarily vulgar, and the details of them need not
be recalled. For myself, I must confess that my sister found me in a
perverse mood; she, on her side, was in the unreasonable temper of a
woman who expects fidelity but does not show appreciation. I suggested
this point for her consideration.

"Well, if I don't appreciate him, whose fault was it I married him?" she
cried.

"I don't know. Whose fault is it that I'm going to marry Elsa
Bartenstein? Whose fault is anything? Whose fault is it that Coralie
Mansoni is a pretty woman?"

"I've never seen her."

"Ah, you wouldn't think her pretty if you had."

Victoria looked at me for a few seconds; then she suddenly drew up a low
chair and sat down at my feet. She turned her face up toward mine and
took my hand. Well, we never really disliked one another, Victoria and
I.

"Mother's so horrid about it," she said.

It was an appeal to an old time-honoured alliance, sanctified by common
sorrows, endeared by stolen victories shared in fearful secrecy.

"She says it's my fault, just as you do. But you know her way."

I became conscious that what I had said would be, in fact, singularly
hard to bear when it fell from Princess Heinrich's judicial lips.

"She told me that I had lost him, and that I had only myself to thank
for it; and--she said it was perhaps partly because my complexion had
lost its freshness." Victoria paused, and then ended, "That's a lie, you
know."

I seemed to be young again; we were again laying our heads together,
with intent to struggle against our mother. I cared not a groat for
William Adolphus, but it would be pleasant to me to help my sister to
bring him back to his bearings; and the more pleasant in view of
Princess Heinrich's belief that the things could not be done.

"As far as being pleasant to him goes," Victoria resumed, "I don't
believe that the creature's pleasant to him either. At least he came
home in a horribly bad temper last night."

"And what did you say to him?"

"Oh, I--I told him what I thought."

"How we all waste opportunities!" I reflected. "You ought to have
soothed him down. He was annoyed last night."

Of course she asked how I knew it, and in the fresh-born candour of
revived alliance I told her the story of our evening. I have observed
before on the curious fact that women who think nothing of their
husbands are nevertheless annoyed when other people agree in their
estimate. Victoria was very indignant with Coralie for slighting William
Adolphus and showing a ready disposition to transfer her attentions to
me.

"It's only because you're king," she said. But she did not allow her
vexation to obscure her perception. Her frown gave place to a smile as
she looked up, saying: "It would be rather fun if you flirted with
her."

I raised my eyebrows. Whence came this new complaisance toward my
flirtations?

"Just enough, I mean, to disgust William Adolphus," she added. "Then, as
soon as he'd given up, you could stop, you know. Everything would be
right then."

"Except mother, you mean."

"Why, yes, except mother. And she'd be splendidly wrong," laughed
Victoria.

Nobody who studies himself honestly or observes his neighbours with
attention will deny value to an excuse because it may be merely
plausible. After all, to wear even a transparent garment is not quite
the same thing as to go naked. I do not maintain that Victoria's
suggestion contributed decisively to the prosecution of my acquaintance
with Coralie Mansoni, but it filled a gap in the array of reasons and
impulses which were leading me on, and gave to the matter an air of
sport and adventure most potent in attraction for such a mood as mine. I
was in rebellion against the limits of my position and the repression of
my manner of life. To play a prank like this suited my humour exactly.
When Victoria left me, I sent word of my intention to be present at
Coralie's theatre that evening, and invited William Adolphus to join me
in my box. I received the answer that he would come.

When we arrived at the theatre Coralie was already on the stage. She was
singing a song; she had a very fine voice; her delivery and air, empty
of real feeling, were full nevertheless of a sensuous attraction. My
brother-in-law laid his elbows on the front of the box and stared down
at her; I sat a little back, and, after watching the scene for a few
moments, began to look at the house. Immediately opposite me I saw
Varvilliers with a party of ladies and men; he bowed and smiled as I
caught his eye. In another box I saw Wetter, gazing at the singer as
intently as William Adolphus himself. There must certainly be something
in a girl who exercised power over two men so different. And Wetter was
a person of importance and prominence, accepted as a political leader,
and consequently a fine target for gossip; his feelings must be strongly
engaged before he exposed himself to comment. I fell to studying his
face; he was pale; when I took my glass I could see the nervous frown on
his brow and the restless gleam of his eyes. By my side William Adolphus
was chuckling with bovine satisfaction at an allusion in Coralie's song;
his last night's pique seemed forgotten. I leaned forward and looked
again at Coralie. She saw me and sang the next verse straight at me.
(She did the same thing once more in later days.) I saw people's heads
turn toward my box, and drew back behind the shelter of the hangings.

At the end of the act my brother-in-law turned to me, blew his nose, and
ejaculated, "Superb!" I nodded my head. "Splendid!" said he. I nodded
again. He launched on a catalogue of Coralie's attractions, but seemed
to check himself rather suddenly.

"I don't suppose she's your sort, though," he remarked.

"Why not?" I asked with a smile.

"Oh, I don't know. You like clever women who can talk and so on. She'd
bore you to death in an hour, Augustin."

"Would she?" said I innocently. I was amused at William Adolphus' simple
cunning. "I daresay I should bore her too."

"Perhaps you would," he chuckled. "Only she wouldn't tell you so, of
course."

"But Wetter doesn't seem to bore her," I observed.

"Good God, doesn't he?" cried my brother-in-law.

There were limits to the amusement to be got out of him. I yawned and
looked across the house again. Wetter's place was empty. I drew William
Adolphus' attention to the fact.

"I wonder if the fellow's gone behind?" he said uneasily.

"We'll go after the next act."

"You'll go?"

"Of course I shall send and ask permission."

William Adolphus looked puzzled and gloomy.

"I didn't know you cared for that sort of thing; I mean the theatre and
all that."

"We haven't a Coralie Mansoni here every day," I reminded him. "I don't
care for the ordinary run, but she's something remarkable, isn't she?"

He muttered a few words and turned away. A moment later Varvilliers
knocked at the door of my box and entered. Here was a good messenger for
me. I sent him to ask whether Coralie would receive me after the next
act. He went off on his errand laughing.

I need not record the various stages and the gradual progress of my
acquaintance with Coralie Mansoni. It would be for the most part a
narrative of foolish actions and a repetition of trivial conversations.
I have shown how I came to enter on it, led by a spirit of rebellion
and the love of a joke, weary of the repression that was partly
inevitable, partly self-imposed, glad to find an outlet for my youthful
impulses in a direction where my action would involve no political
danger. On one good result I can pride myself; I was undoubtedly the
instrument of sending my brother-in-law back to his wife a humbled and
repentant man. Coralie had no scruple about allowing him to perceive
that her attentions had been paid to his rank, not to himself; and his
rank was now eclipsed. A few days of sulking was followed by a violent
outburst; but my position was too strong. He could not quarrel seriously
with his wife's brother on such a ground. He returned to Victoria, and,
I had no doubt, received the castigation which he certainly deserved. My
interest in him vanished as he vanished from the society that centred
round Mlle. Mansoni. At the same time my share in his defeat and
humiliation left a soreness between us which lasted for a long while.

I myself had by this time fallen into a severe conflict of feeling. My
temperament was not like Varvilliers'. For an hour or two, when I was
exhilarated with society and cheered by wine, I could seem to myself
such as he naturally and permanently was. But I was not a native of the
clime. I raised myself to those heights of unmoral serenity by an effort
and an artifice. He forgot himself easily. I was always examining
myself. That same motive, or instinct, or tradition of feeling (I do not
know how best to describe it) on whose altar I had sacrificed my first
passion was still strong in me. I did not fear that Coralie would or
could exercise a political influence over me, but I was loth that she
should possess a control of any sort. I clung obstinately to the
conception of myself as standing alone, as being independent and under
the power of nobody in any respect. This was to me a stronger check than
the restraint of accepted morality. Looking back on the matter, and
judging myself as I should judge any young man, I am confident that my
passion would easily have swept away the ordinary scruples. It was my
other conscience, my King's conscience, that raised the barrier and
protracted the resistance. Here is another case of that reaction of my
position on myself which has been such a feature of my life.
Varvilliers' unreasoned philosophy did not cover this point. Here I had
to fight out the question for myself. It was again a struggle between
the man and the king, between a natural impulse and the strength of an
intellectual conception. I perceived with mingled amusement and
bitterness how entirely Varvilliers failed to appreciate the condition
of my mind or to conceal his surprise at my alternate hot and cold fits,
urgency followed by a drawing-back, eagerness to be moving at moments
when nothing could be done, succeeded by refusals to stir when the road
was clear. I believe that he came to have a very poor opinion of me as a
man of the world; but his kindness toward me never varied.

But there was one to whom my mind was an open book, who read easily and
plainly every thought of it, because it was written in the same
characters as was his own. The politician who risked his future, the
debtor who every day incurred new expenses, the devotee of principles
who sacrificed them for his passion, the deviser of schemes who ruined
them at the demand of his desires, here was the man who could understand
the heart of his King. Wetter was my sympathizer, and Wetter was my
rival. The relations between us in those days were strange. We did not
quarrel, we felt a friendliness for one another. Each knew the price the
other paid or must pay as well as he knew his own price. But we were
rivals. Varvilliers was wrong when he said that Coralie cared nothing
about Wetter. She cared, although it was in a peculiar fashion that she
cared. Truly he could give her little, but he was to her a sign and a
testimony of her power, even as I myself in another way. Mine was the
high rank, the great position. In conquering me lay the open and
notorious triumph, but she was not insensible to the more private joy
and secret exultation that came to her from dominating a ruling mind,
and filling with her own image a head capacious enough to hold imperial
policies and shape the destinies of kingdoms. Wetter and I, each in our
way, broke through the crust of seemingly consistent frivolity that was
on her, and down to a deep-seated tendency toward romance and the love
of power. She could not rule directly, but she could rule rulers. I am
certain that some such idea was in her head, alloying, or at least
refining, a grosser self-interest. Therefore Wetter, no less than I, was
of value to her. She would not willingly have let him go, even although
he could give her nothing and she did not care for him in the only sense
of which my friend the Vicomte took account. I came to realize how it
was between her and him before very long, and to see how the same
ultimate instinct of her nature made her long to gather both him and me
into her net. Thus she would have bowing before her the highest and the
strongest heads in Forstadt. That she so analyzed and reasoned out her
wishes it would be absurd to suppose, but we--he and I--performed the
task for her. Each knew that the other was at work on it; each chafed
that she would consent to be but half his; each desired to rule alone,
not to be one of two that were ruled. All this had been dimly
foreshadowed to me when I sat in the theatre, looking now at Coralie as
she sang her song, now at Wetter's frowning brows and tight-set lips. I
must add that my position was rendered peculiarly difficult by the fact
that Wetter not only owed me deference, but was still in my debt for the
money I had lent him. He had refused to consider it a gift, but was, and
became every day more, incapable of repaying it.

We were at luncheon at her villa one day, we three, and with us, of
course, Madame Briande, an exceedingly well-informed and tactful little
woman. Coralie had been very silent and (as usual) attentive to her
meal. The rest had chattered on many subjects. Suddenly she spoke.

"It has been very amusing," she said, with a little yawn that ended in a
rather weary smile. "For my part I can conceive only one thing that
could increase the entertainment."

"What's that, Coralie?" asked Madame Briande.

Coralie waved her right hand toward me and her left toward Wetter.

"Why, that we should have for audience and as spectators of our little
feast your subjects, sire, and, monsieur, your followers."

Clearly Coralie had been maturing this rather startling speech for some
time; she launched it with an evident enjoyment of its malice. A moment
of astonished silence followed; madame's tact was strained beyond its
uttermost resources; she smiled nervously and said nothing; Wetter
turned red. I looked full in Coralie's eyes, drained my glass of
cognac, and laughed.

"But why should that be amusing?" I asked. "And, at least, shall we not
add to our imaginary audience the crowd of your admirers?"

"As you will," said she with a shrug. "Whomever we add they would see
nothing but two gentlemen getting under the table, oh, so quickly!"

Madame Briande became visibly distressed.

"Is it not so?" drawled Coralie in lazy enjoyment of her excursion.

"Why," said I, "I should most certainly invoke the shelter of your
tablecloth, mademoiselle. A king must avoid being misunderstood."

"I thought so," said she with a long look at me. "And you, monsieur?"
she added, turning to Wetter.

"I should not get under the table," said he. He strove to render his
tone light, but his voice quivered with suppressed passion.

"You wouldn't?" she asked. "You'd sit here before them all?"

"Yes," said he.

Madame Briande rose. Her evident intention was to break up the party.
Coralie took no notice; we men sat on, opposite one another, with her
between us on the third side of the small square table.

"Must not a politician avoid--being misunderstood?" she asked Wetter.

"Unless there is something else that he values more," was the reply.

She turned to me, smiling still.

"Would not that be so with a king also?"

"Certainly, if there could be such a thing."

"But you think there could not?"

"I can't call such a thing to mind, mademoiselle."

"Ah, you can't call it to mind! No, you can't call it to mind. It seems
to me that there is a difference, then, between politicians and kings."

Madame Briande was moving about the room in evident discomfort. Wetter
was sitting with his hand clenched on the table and his eyes downcast.

Coralie looked long and intently at him. Then she turned her eyes on me.
I took out a cigarette, lit it, and smiled at her.

"You--you would get under the table?" she asked me.

"You catch my meaning perfectly."

"Then aren't you ashamed to sit at it?"

"Yes," said I, and laughed.

"Ah!" she cried, shaking her fist at me, and herself laughing. Then she
leaned over toward me and whispered, "You shall retract that."

Wetter looked up and saw her whispering to me, and laughing as she
whispered. He frowned, and I saw his hand tremble on the table. Though I
laughed and fenced with her and defied her, I was myself in some
excitement. I seemed to be playing a match; and I had confidence in my
game.

Wetter spoke abruptly in a harsh but carefully restrained voice.

"It is not for me to question the King's account of himself," he said,
"but so far as I am concerned your question did me a wrong. Openly I
come here, openly I leave here. All know why I come, and what I desire
in coming. I ask nothing better than to declare it before all the city."

She rose and made him a curtsey, then she gave a slight yawn and
observed:

"So now we know just where we are."

"The King has defined his position with great accuracy," said Wetter
with an open sneer.

"Yes? What is it?" she asked.

"His own words are enough; mine could add no clearness--and--"

"Might give offence?" she asked.

"It is possible," said he.

"Then we come to this: which is better, a king under the table or a
politician at it?" She burst out laughing.

Madame Briande had fled to a remote corner. Wetter was in the throes of
excitement. A strange coolness and recklessness now possessed me. I was
insensible of everything at this moment except the impulse of rivalry
and the desire for victory. Nothing in the scene had power to repel me,
my eyes were blind to everything of ugly aspect in it.

"To define the question, mademoiselle, should be but a preliminary to
answering it," said I, with a bow.

"I would answer it this minute, sire, but----"

"You hesitate, perhaps?"

"Oh, no; but my hair-dresser is waiting for me."

"Let no such trifle detain you then," I cried. "For I, even I the
coward, had sooner----"

"Be misunderstood?"

"Why, precisely. I had sooner be misunderstood than that your hair
should not be perfectly dressed at the theatre."

Wetter rose to his feet. He said "Good-bye" to Coralie, not a word more.
To me he bowed very low and very formally. I returned his salutation
with a cool nod. As he turned to the door Coralie cried:

"I shall see you at supper, _mon cher_?"

He turned his head and looked at her.

"I don't know," he said.

"Very well. I like uncertainty. We will hope."

He went out. I stood facing her for a moment.

"Well?" said she, looking in my eyes, and seeming to challenge an
expression of opinion.

"You are pleased with yourself?"

"Yes."

"You have done some mischief."

"How much?"

"I don't know. But you love uncertainty."

"True, true. And you seem to think that I love candour."

"Don't you?"

"I think that I love everything and everybody in the world except you."

I laughed again. I knew that I had triumphed.

"Behold your decision," I cried, "and the hair-dresser still waits!"

She did not answer me. She stood there smiling. I took her hand and
kissed it with much and even affected gallantry. Then I went and paid a
like attention to Madame Briande. As the little woman made her curtsey
she turned alarmed and troubled eyes up to me.

"Oh, _mon Dieu_!" she murmured.

"Till to-night," smiled Coralie.




CHAPTER XVI.

A CHASE OF TWO PHANTOMS.


I was reading the other day the memoirs of an eminent English man of
letters, now dead. He had paid a long visit to Forstadt, and had much to
say (sometimes, I think, in a vein of veiled irony) about Victoria, her
literary tastes and her literary circle. Finding amusement enough to
induce me to turn over a few more pages, I came on the following
passage:

"With the King himself I conversed once only; but I saw him often and
heard much about him. He was then twenty-four--a tall and very thin
young man, with dark brown hair and a small mustache of a lighter tint.
His nose was aquiline, his eyes rather deep set, his face long and
inclining to the hatchet-shape. He had beautiful hands, of which he was
said to be proud. He stooped a little when walking, but displayed
considerable dignity of carriage. He was accused of haughtiness, except
toward a few intimates. Unquestionably his late adviser, Hammerfeldt,
had imbued him with some notions as to his position which it is hardly
unjust to call mediaeval. A wit, or would-be wit, said of him that he
postulated God in order to legitimize the powers of Augustin, his
deputy. Certain persons very closely acquainted with him (I withhold
names) gave a curious account of his character. Usually he was reserved
and even secretive, cautious, cold, and free from enthusiasms and
follies alike. But at times he appeared to be taken with moods of strong
feeling. Then he would speak freely to the first person who might be by,
was eager for merriment and dissipation, not fastidious as to how he
came by what he wanted, seeming forgetful of the sterner rule by which
his daily life was governed. A reaction would generally follow, and the
King would appear to take a revenge on himself by acid and savagely
humorous comments on his own acts and on the companions of his hours of
relaxation. So far as I studied him for myself, I was led to conclude
that he possessed a very impressionable and passionate temperament, but
contrived, in general, to keep it in repression. There were one or two
scandals related about him; but when we consider his position and
temptations, we must give credit either to his virtues or to his
discretion that such stories were not more numerous. I liked him and
thought well of him, but I do think that he enjoyed a disposition likely
to result in a happy life for himself. He was said to have great
attractions for women; but I am not aware that he admitted persons of
either sex to his confidence or friendship. He was, I imagine, jealous
of even appearing to be under any influence."

This impression of me was written just about the time of my acquaintance
with Coralie Mansoni and of the events which led to a sudden break in
it. The judgment of me seems very fair and marked by considerable
acumen. I have quoted it because it may serve in some degree to explain
my conduct at the time. It also appears to have an interest of its own
as an independent appreciation formed by a fair-minded and competent
observer. I wish that the same hand had painted an adequate portrait of
Wetter, for his character better deserved study than my own; but with
the curious prejudice against politicians that so often affects the
minds of students and men of letters (those hermits of brain-cells) the
writer dismisses Wetter, briefly and almost contemptuously, as an able
but unscrupulous politician, addicted to extravagances and irregularity
in private life. He gives more space to William Adolphus than to Wetter!
So difficult it is even for superior minds to remain altogether
unaffected by the lustre of rank; the old truism could not be better
exhibited.

I kept my appointment and went again to Coralie's in the evening. I took
with me Vohrenlorf, my aide-de-camp (brother to the General, my former
governor); there had been a dinner at the palace, and we were both in
uniform. I had hardly expected Wetter to come that evening, but he was
already there when I arrived. He seemed in an excited state; I found
afterward that he was fresh from the delivery of a singularly brilliant
and violent speech in the Chamber. I saluted him with intentional and
marked politeness. He made no more response than purest formality
demanded. I was aggrieved at this, for I desired to be friendly with him
in spite of our rather absurd rivalry. Turning away from him, I sat down
by Coralie and asked her if supper were ready.

"We're waiting for Varvilliers," she answered.

"But where is Madame Briande?"

"She went upstairs. I wanted a word with Wetter. She'll be down
directly."

"A word with Wetter?"

"Why not, sire?" she asked with aggressive innocence.

"There can be no reason why not, mademoiselle," I replied, smiling.

We were interrupted by Varvilliers' arrival. He also had dined at the
palace, and was in full dress.

"How gay my little house is to-night," drawled Coralie, as she rang the
bell and ordered, in exactly the same manner, the descent of Madame
Briande and the ascent of supper. Both orders were promptly obeyed, and
we were left alone. Servants were never allowed to remain in waiting on
these occasions.

Varvilliers was in fine vein that night, and Wetter seconded him. The
one glittered with sharp-cut gems of speech, the other struck chords of
deep and touching music. I played a more modest part, madame and
Vohrenlorf were audience, Coralie seemed the judge whose hand was to
award the prize. Yet she was indolent, and appeared to listen to no more
than half of what was said. We finished eating and began to smoke; the
wine still went round. Suddenly a pause fell on us. A _mot_ from
Varvilliers had set _finis_ to our subject, and another delayed
presenting itself. To my surprise Wetter turned to me.

"In the Chamber to-night, sire," he said, "there was a question about
your marriage."

I perceived at once the malice which inspired his remark, but I answered
him gaily, and in a tone that was in harmony with the scene.

"I wish to heaven," said I, "there were a question about it anywhere
else. Alas, it is a certainty."

"Why, so is death, sire," cried Varvilliers, "but we do not discuss it
at supper."

"Does M. de Varvilliers quarrel with my choice of a subject?" asked
Wetters. He spoke calmly now, but it was not hard to discern his great
excitement.

"I quarrel, sir, with nobody except quarrellers," answered the Frenchman
impatiently.

"Well, then----" began Wetter.

"I think you forget my presence," I said coldly, "and this lady's also."
I waved my hand toward Coralie. She lay back in her chair, smiling and
holding an unlighted cigarette between her fingers.

"I forget, sire, neither your presence nor your due," said Wetter. With
that he took a pocket-book from his pocket and flung it on the table
before me. "There is my debt," he said.

I sat back in my chair and did not move.

"You choose a strange time for business," I observed. "Vohrenlorf, see
what is in this pocket-book."

Vohrenlorf examined it, then he came and whispered in my ear, "Notes for
90,000 marks." It was the amount Wetter owed me with accrued interest. I
was amazed. He could not have raised the money except at a most
extravagant rate. I made no remark, but I knew that he had risked ruin
by this repayment, and I knew well why he had made it. He would not have
me for creditor as well as for king and rival.

Varvilliers burst out laughing.

"Upon my word," said he, "these gentlemen of the Chamber can think of
nothing but money. Don't you wonder at them, mademoiselle?"

"Money is good to think of," said Coralie reflectively.

"An admirable candour, isn't it, sire?" he said, turning to me and
pointing to Coralie.

I was disturbed and out of humour. Again I was in conflict. I thought of
what she was, and wondered that such men, and men so placed, as Wetter
and I should quarrel about her; I looked in her face and felt a
momentary conviction that all the world might fall to fighting on her
account; at least things more absurd have surely happened. But I
answered smoothly and composedly. (That trick at least I had learned.)

"Sincerity is our hostess's greatest charm," said I.

Wetter laughed loudly and sneeringly. Coralie turned a gaze of
indifferent curiosity on him. He puzzled her, tiresomely sometimes. I
knew that he meant an insult. My blood runs hot at such moments. I was
about to speak when Varvilliers forestalled me. He leaned across the
table and said in a very low voice to Wetter:

"Sir, his Majesty is the only gentleman in Forstadt who can not resent
an insult."

I recollect well little Madame Briande's pale face, as she half rose
from her seat with clasped hands. Coralie still smiled. Vohrenlorf was
red and fierce, with his hand on the hilt of his sword. Varvilliers was
calm, cool, polished in demeanour.

For a moment or two Wetter sat silent, his eyes intently fixed on the
Vicomte's face. Then he said in a tone as low as Varvilliers' had been:

"I think his Majesty remembers his disabilities too late--or has them
remembered for him."

Vohrenlorf rose to his feet, carried away by anger and excitement.

"Sir----" he cried loudly.

"Vohrenlorf, be quiet. Sit down," said I. "M. Wetter is right."

None spoke. Even Coralie seemed affected to gravity; or was it that we
had touched the spring of her dramatic instinct? After a few minutes I
turned to Madame Briande and introduced some indifferent topic. I spoke
alone and found no answer. Coralie was now regarding me with obvious
curiosity.

"The air of this room is hot," said I. "Shouldn't we be better in the
other? If the ladies will lead the way, we'll follow immediately."

"I'm very well here," said Coralie.

"Oblige me," said I, rising and myself opening the door that led to the
inner room.

After a moment's hesitation Coralie passed out, and madame followed her.
I closed the door behind them and, turning, faced the three men. Wetter
stood alone by the mantelpiece; the others were still near the table.

"In everything but the moment of his remark M. Wetter was right," said
I. "I didn't remember in time that I am not placed as other men; I will
not remember it now. Varvilliers, you mustn't be concerned in this.
Vohrenlorf, I put myself in your hands."

"Good God, you won't fight?" cried Varvilliers.

"Vohrenlorf will do for me what he would for any gentleman who put
himself in his hands," said I.

The position was too hard for young Vohrenlorf. He sank into a chair and
covered his face with his hands. "No, no, I can't," he muttered. Wetter
stood still as a rock, looking not at any of us, but down toward the
floor. Varvilliers drank a glass of wine and then wiped his mustache
carefully with a napkin.

"Your Majesty," said he, "will not do me the injustice to suppose that
I am not in everything and most readily at your command. But I would beg
the honour of representing your Majesty in this affair."

"Impossible!" said I briefly.

"Consider, sire. To fight you is ruin to M. Wetter."

"As regards that, would not M. Wetter in his turn reflect too late?" I
asked stiffly.

Vohrenlorf looked up with a hopeless dazed expression. Varvilliers was
at a loss. Wetter's figure and face were still unmoved. A sudden idea
came into my head.

"There is no need for M. Wetter to be ruined," said I. "Whatever the
result may be it shall seem an accident."

Wetter looked up with a quick jerk of his head. I glanced at the clock.

"In four hours it will be light," I said. "Let us meet at six in the
Garden Pavilion at the Palace. Varvilliers, since you desire to assist
us, I have no doubt M. Wetter will accept your services. It will be well
to have no more present than necessary. The Pavilion, gentlemen, I need
hardly remind you, is fitted up for revolver practice. Well, there are
targets at each end. It will be unfortunate, but not strange, if one of
us steps carelessly into the line of fire."

They understood my idea. But Varvilliers had an objection.

"What if both of you?" he asked, lifting his brows.

"That's so unlikely," said I. "Come, shall it be so?"

Wetter looked me full in the face, and bowed low.

"I am at his Majesty's orders," said he. He spoke now quite calmly.

Varvilliers and Vohrenlorf seemed to regard him with a sort of wonder.
At the risk of ridicule I must confess to something of the same feeling.
A bullet is no respecter of persons, and has no sympathy with ideas
which (as the Englishman observes) it is hardly unjust to call mediaeval.
Yes, even I myself was a little surprised that Wetter should meet me in
a duel. But, while I was surprised, I was glad.

"I am greatly indebted to M. Wetter," I said, returning his bow, "in
that he does not insist on my disabilities."

For the briefest moment he smiled at me; I think my speech touched his
humour. Then he grew grave again, and thanked Varvilliers formally for
the offer of his services.

"There remains but one thing," said I. "We must assure the ladies that
any difference of opinion there was between us is entirely past. Let us
join them."

Vohrenlorf opened the door of the inner room and I entered, the rest
following. Madame Briande sat in a straight-backed chair at the table;
she had a book before her, but her restless anxious air made me doubt
whether she had read much of it. I looked round for Coralie. There on
the sofa she lay, her head resting luxuriously on the cushions and her
bosom rising and falling in gentle regular breathing. The affair had not
been interesting enough to keep Coralie awake. But now Vohrenlorf shut
the door rather noisily; she opened her eyes, stretched her arms and
yawned.

"Ah! You've done quarrelling?" she asked.

"Absolutely. We're all friends again, and have come to say farewell."

"Well, I'm very sleepy," said she, with much resignation. "Go and sleep
well, my friends."

"We're forgiven for our bad manners?"

"Oh, but you were very amusing. You're all going home now?"

"So we propose, mademoiselle."

Her eyes chanced to fall on Wetter. She pointed her finger at him and
began to laugh.

"What makes you as pale as a ghost, my friend?" she asked.

"It's late; I'm tired," he answered lamely and awkwardly.

She turned a shrewd glance on me. I smiled composedly.

"Ah, well, it's no affair of mine," she said.

In turn we took farewell of her and of madame. But, as I was going out,
she called me.

"In a minute, Vohrenlorf," I cried, waving my hand toward the door. The
rest passed out. Madame had wandered restlessly to the fireplace at the
other end of the room. I returned to Coralie's sofa.

"You're going too?" she asked.

"Certainly," said I. "I must rest. I have to rise early, and it's close
on two o'clock."

"You don't look sleepy."

"I depart from duty, not from inclination."

"You'll come to see me to-morrow?"

"If I possibly can. Could you doubt it?"

"And why might you possibly not be able?"

"I am a man of many occupations."

"Yes. Quarrelling with Wetter is one."

"Indeed that's all over."

"I'm not sure I believe you."

"You reduce me to despair. How can I convince you?"

Madame Briande walked suddenly to the door and went out. I heard her
invite Vohrenlorf to take a glass of cognac, and his ready acceptance.
Coralie was sitting on the sofa now, looking at me curiously.

"I have liked you very much," she said slowly. "You are a good fellow, a
good friend. I don't know how it is--I feel uncomfortable to-night. Will
you draw back a curtain and open a window? It's hot."

I obeyed her; the cool night air rushed in on us, fresh and delicious.
She drew her legs up sideways on the sofa, clasping her ankles with her
hand.

"Don't you know," she cried impatiently, "how sometimes one is
uncomfortable and doesn't know why? It seems as though something was
going to happen, one's money to be lost, or one's friends to die or go
away; that somehow they had misfortunes preparing for one."

"I know the feeling well enough, but I'm sure you needn't have it
to-night."

"Oh, I don't know. It doesn't come without a reason. You've no
superstitions, I suppose? I have many; as a child I learned them all.
They're never wrong. Yes, something is to happen."

I shrugged my shoulders and laughed.

"You'll come to-morrow?" she asked, with increased and most unusual
urgency.

"If possible," I answered again.

"But why won't you promise? Why do you always say 'if possible'? You're
tiresome with your 'if possible.'" She shrugged her shoulders
petulantly.

"I might be ill."

"Yes, and you might be dead, but----" She had begun petulantly and
impatiently, as though she were angry at my excuse and meant to exhibit
its absurdity. But now she stopped suddenly. In the pause the wind
moaned.

"I hate that sound," she cried resentfully. "It comes from the souls of
the dead as they fly through the air. They fly round and round the
houses, crying to those who must join them soon."

"Ah, well, these people were, doubtless, often wrong when they were
alive. Why must they be always right when they're dead?"

"No, death is near to-night. I wish you would stay with me--here,
talking and forgetting it's night. I would make you coffee and sing to
you. We would shut the window and light all the lights, and pretend it
was day."

"I can't stay," I said. "I must get back. I have business early."

It is difficult to be in contact with such a mood as hers was that night
and not catch something of its infection. Reason protests, but
imagination falls a ready prey. I had no fear, but a sombre apprehension
of evil settled on me. I seemed to know that our season of thoughtless,
reckless merriment was done, and I mourned for it. There came over me a
sorrow for her, but I made no attempt to express what she certainly
would not have understood. To feel for others what they do not feel for
themselves is a distortion of sympathy which often afflicts me. Her
discomfort was purely childish, a sudden fear of the dark night, the
dark world, the ways of fortune so dark and unknowable. No
self-questioning and no sting of conscience had any part in it. She had
been happy, and she wanted to go on being happy; but now she was afraid
she was going to be unhappy, and she shrank from unhappiness as from a
toothache. I took her hand and kissed and caressed it.

"Go to bed, my dear," said I. "You'll be laughing at this in the
morning. And poor Vohrenlorf is waiting all this while for me."

"Go, then. You may kiss me though."

I bent down and kissed her.

"Your lips are very hot," she said. "Yet you look cool enough."

"I am even rather cold. I must walk home briskly. Good-night."

"You'll make it up with poor Wetter?"

"Indeed our difference is over, or all but over."

"Good. I hate my friends to quarrel seriously. As for a little, it's
amusing enough."

With that she let me go. The last I saw of her was as she ran hastily
across the room, slammed down the window, and drew the curtain across
it. She was afraid of hearing more of those voices of the night that
frightened her. I thought with a smile that candles would burn about her
bed till she woke to rejoice in the sun's new birth. Ah, well, I myself
do not love a blank darkness.

Vohrenlorf and I walked home together. We entered by the gardens, the
sentry saluting us and opening the gate. There was the Pavilion rising
behind my apartments, a long, high, glass-roofed building. The sight of
it recalled my thought from Coralie to the work of the morning. I nodded
my head toward the building and said to Vohrenlorf:

"There's our rendezvous."

He did not answer, but turned to me with his lips quivering.

"What's the matter, man?" I asked.

"For God's sake, sire, don't do it. Send him a message. You mustn't do
it."

"My good Vohrenlorf, you are mad," said I.

Yet not Vohrenlorf was mad, but I, mad with the vision of my two
phantoms--freedom and pleasure.




CHAPTER XVII.

DECIDEDLY MEDIAEVAL.


I was in the Garden Pavilion only the other morning with one of my sons,
teaching him how to use his weapons. Suddenly he pointed at a
bullet-mark not in any of the targets, but in the wainscoting above and
a little to the right of them.

"There's a bad shot, father!" he cried.

"But you don't know what he aimed at," I objected.

"At a target, of course!"

"But perhaps his target was differently placed. That shot is many years
old."

"Anyhow he missed what he shot at, or he wouldn't have struck the
wainscoting," the boy persisted.

"Why, yes, he missed, but he may have missed only by a hair's breadth."

"Do you know who fired the shot?"

"Yes. It's a strange story; perhaps you shall hear it some day."

This little scene recalled with vividness my memories of the morning
when Wetter and I met in the Pavilion. I had hit on a good plan. I was
known to practise often, and Wetter was given to the same pursuit.
Indeed we had shot against one another in club matches before now, and
come off very equal. It was not likely that suspicion would be aroused;
the very early hour was our vulnerable point, but this could not be
helped. Had we come later, we should have been pestered by attendants
and markers. In other respects the ordinary arrangements for matches
suited our purpose well. There was a target at either end of the
Pavilion; each man chose an end to fire from. When he had discharged his
bullet he retreated to a little shelter, of which there were two at each
end, one for the shooter, one for the marker. His opponent then did the
like. To account for what was meant to occur this morning we had only to
make it believed that one of us, Wetter or I, as chance willed, had
incautiously stepped out of his shelter at the wrong time. To render
this plausible we agreed to pretend a misunderstanding; the man hit was
to have thought that his opponent would fire only one shot, the man who
escaped would express deepest regret, but maintain that the arrangement
had been for two successive shots. I had very little doubt that these
arrangements for baffling inconvenient inquiry would prove thoroughly
adequate. For the rest, I made up a packet for Varvilliers containing a
present for Coralie. To make any other preparations would not have been
fair to Wetter; for my death, if it happened, must seem absolutely
accidental. After all I did not feel such confidence in my value to the
country, or in my wisdom, as to desire to leave my last will and
testament. Victoria would do very well, no doubt. It was odd to think of
her sleeping peacefully in the opposite wing, without an idea that
anything touching her fortunes was being done in the Garden Pavilion.

The external scene is clearer to me than the picture of my own mind;
yet there also I can trace the main outlines. The heat of passion was
past; I was no longer in the stir of rivalry. I knew that it was through
and because of Coralie that I had come into this position, and that
Wetter had done what he had. But the thought of her, and the desire to
conquer him in her favour or punish him for seeking it, were no more my
foremost impulses. I can claim no feeling so natural, so instinctive, so
pardonable because so natural. I was angry with him. I had waived my
rank and set aside my state; that still I was eager and glad to do; but
I waived them and forgot them, because only thus could I avenge them. By
his challenge, his insult, his defiance, he had violated what I held
sacred in me, and almost the only thing that I held sacred. I hear now
the Englishman's mocking epithet in my ears--"Mediaeval!" I did not hear
it then. Wetter had insulted the King; the King would cease to be the
King to punish him. I had this cool anger in my heart when I went with
Vohrenlorf to the Pavilion at six in the morning. But half the
bitterness of it was due to my own inmost knowledge that my acts had led
him on; that, if he had committed the sacrilege, my hand had flung open
the doors of the shrine. He had defaced the image; it was I who had
taught him no more to reverence it. Because he reminded me of this, I
thought that I hated him, as we took our way to the Pavilion.

Men who have been through many of these affairs have told me that on the
first occasion they felt some fear, or, at least, an excitement so great
as to seem like fear. I recollect no such feeling. This was not because
I was especially courageous or more indifferent to death than other men;
it did not occur to me that I should be killed or even hit. Coralie had
a strong presentiment of evil for some one; I had none for myself. If
she were right, it seemed to me that Wetter's fate must prove her so.

The other pair came punctually. They had encountered some slight
obstacle in entering. The sentry had been seized with scruples, and the
officer of the guard had been summoned. Varvilliers pleaded an express
appointment with me, and the officer, surprised but conquered, had let
them pass. All this Varvilliers told us in his usual airy manner, Wetter
sitting apart the while. The clock struck a quarter past six.

"We waste time, Vicomte," said I, and I sat down in a chair, leaving him
to make the arrangements with Vohrenlorf, or, rather, to announce them
to Vohrenlorf; for my second was unmanned by the business, and had quite
lost his composure.

Varvilliers had just measured the distance and settled the places where
we were to stand, when there was a step outside and a knock at the door.
The seconds looked round. Wetter sprang to his feet.

"Open it, Vohrenlorf. We're doing nothing secret," I said, with a smile.

Varvilliers nodded approvingly.

"But our visitor mustn't stay long," he observed.

"It's one of my privileges to send people away," said I reassuringly.

The door opened, and in walked William Adolphus! He was in riding boots
and carried a whip. It was his custom to rise early for a gallop in the
park; he must have heard our voices as he passed by.

"You're early," he cried in boisterous merriment. "What's afoot?"

"Why, a wager between Wetter and myself," I answered. "A match."

"What for?"

"Upon my word, we haven't fixed the stakes; it's pure rivalry." Then I
began to laugh. "How odd you should come!" I said. Indeed it seemed
strange, for, if the whole affair were traced back to the egg, William
Adolphus' flirtation was the origin of it. His appearance had the
appropriateness of an ironically witty comment on some hot-headed folly.

"I've half a mind to stay and see you shoot."

"By no means; you'd make me nervous."

"I'll bet a hundred marks on Wetter."

"I take you there," said I. "But I hear your horse being walked up and
down outside."

"Yes, he's there."

"It's a chilly morning. Don't keep him waiting. Vohrenlorf, see the
Prince mounted."

Varvilliers laughed; even Wetter smiled.

"All right, you needn't be in such a hurry. I'm going," said William
Adolphus.

"But I'm glad you came," said I, laughing again, and, as the door closed
behind him, I added, "Most lucky! His evidence will be invaluable.
Fortune is with us, Varvilliers."

"A man of ready wit is with us, sire," he answered in his pleasant
courtliness; then, as we heard William Adolphus trotting off and
Vohrenlorf came back, he went on, "All is ready."

Wetter seemed absolutely composed. I marvelled at his composure. No
doubt his ideas were not mediaeval, as mine were; yet it seemed strange
to me that he should fire at me as he would at any other man. I did not
then understand the despair which underlay his iron quietness. I was set
thinking, though, the next moment, when Varvilliers stepped forward
holding a pair of single-barrelled pistols, Wetter opened his lips for
the first time:

"Why not revolvers?"

"If we allow a second shot, Vohrenlorf and I will reload. Pardon, sire,
have you any other weapon about you?"

I answered "No," and Wetter made the same reply to a like question. But
I had seen a sudden change pass over his face when he was told that
revolvers were not to be used. An idea entered my head and would not be
dislodged; a man might fire more calmly at the King if he were resolved
in no case to outlive the King. I said nothing; what could I say or do
now? But strangely and suddenly, under the influence of this thought, my
anger died away. I saw with his eyes and felt with his heart; I saw how
he stood, and I knew that I had brought him to that pass. Was it strange
that he fired at me without faltering, although I might be ten times a
king? It seemed to me almost just that he should kill me. Varvilliers
would not give him a revolver. Did Varvilliers also suspect? I think his
fear was rather of our extreme rage against one another. It occurred to
me that I would not aim at my opponent. But then I thought I had no
right to act thus; it would make matters worse for him if I fell.
Besides my own life did not seem to me a thing to be thrown away
lightly.

Varvilliers produced another pair of pistols, similar to those which
Wetter and I now held. He loaded both, fired them into the targets, and
placed one on a shelf at either end of the room.

"Those are the first shots. You understand? The gentleman who is hit
made the mistake of not expecting a second shot. Now, sire--if you are
ready?"

We took up our positions, each six feet in front of the targets; a
bullet which hit me would, but for the interruption, have struck on, or
directly above or below, the outermost target on the right-hand side.

Vohrenlorf and Varvilliers stood on either side of the room; the latter
was to give the signal. Indeed Vohrenlorf could not have been trusted
with such a duty.

"I shall say fire, one--two--three," said Varvilliers. "You will both
fire before the last word is ended. Are you ready?"

We signified our assent. Wetter was pale, but apparently quite
collected. I was very much alive to every impression. For example, I
noticed a man's tread outside and the tune that he was whistling. I
lifted my pistol and took aim. At that moment I meant to kill Wetter if
I could, and I thought that I could. It did not even occur to me that I
was in any serious danger myself.

"Are you ready? Now!" said Varvilliers, in his smooth distinct tones.

I looked straight into Wetter's eyes, and I did not doubt that I could
send my bullet as straight as my glance. I felt that I saw before me a
dead man.

I am unable to give even to myself any satisfactory explanation of my
next act. It was done under an impulse so instantaneous, so single, so
simply powerful as to defy analysis. I have the consciousness of one
thought or feeling only; but even to myself it seems absurd and
inadequate to account for what I did. Yet I can give no other reason. I
had no relenting toward Wetter as a man, as companion, or as former
friend. I was not remorseful about my own part in the affair, and did
not now accuse myself of being responsible for the quarrel.
Suddenly--and I record the feeling for what it is worth--it came upon me
that I must not kill him. Why? That Englishman would laugh. I am
inclined to laugh myself. Well, I was only twenty-four, and, moreover,
in a state of high tension, fresh from great emotional excitement and a
sleepless night. Because he was one of my people, and great among them;
because he might do great things for them; because he was one of those
given to me, for whom I was answerable. I can get no nearer to it--it
was something of that kind. Some conception of it may be gained if I say
that I have never signed a death-warrant without a struggle against a
somewhat similar feeling. Whatever it was, it resulted in an inability
to try to kill him. As Varvilliers' voice pronounced in clear quiet
tones "Fire!" I shifted my aim gently and imperceptibly. If it were true
now, the ball would pass his ear and bury itself in the wainscoting
behind.

"One--two--three!"

I fired on the last word; I saw the smoke of Wetter's pistol; he stood
motionless. In an instant I felt myself hit. I was amazed. I was hit,
shot through the body. I staggered, and should have fallen; Vohrenlorf
ran to me, and I sank back in his arms. My head was clear, and I saw the
order of events that followed. Varvilliers also had started toward me.
Suddenly he stopped. Wetter had rushed across the room toward where the
cartridges lay. Varvilliers sprang upon him and caught him resolutely by
the shoulders. I myself cried, "Stop him!" even as I sank on the
ground, my shoulders propped up against the wall. Before more could
happen there was a loud rapping at the door, and the handle was twisted
furiously. Somebody cried, "Go for a doctor!" Then came Varvilliers'
voice, "You go, Wetter. We trust you to go. Who the devil's at the
door?" He sprang across and opened it. Vohrenlorf was asking me in
trembling whispers where I was hit. I paid no heed to him. The door
opened, and to my amazement William Adolphus ran in, closely followed by
Coralie Mansoni. I was past speaking, soon I became past consciousness.
The last I remember is that Coralie was kneeling by me, Vohrenlorf still
supporting me, the rest standing round. Yet, though I did not know it, I
spoke. Varvilliers told me afterward that I muttered, "An accident--my
fault." I heard what they said, though I was unconscious of speaking
myself.

"It wasn't!" Coralie cried.

"On my honour, a pure accident," said Varvilliers.

Then the whole scene faded away from me.

[Illustration: "On my honour, a pure accident," said Varvilliers.]

There can be no doubt that it was Wetter's intention to take his own
life in case he hit me. I had discovered this resolution; Varvilliers
was not behind me. Had revolvers been employed no power could have
hindered Wetter from carrying out his purpose. But Varvilliers had
prevented this, and by despatching my antagonist to seek medical aid had
put him on his _parole_. He returned with one of my surgeons in a very
short space of time; perhaps the desperate fit had passed then, perhaps
he had come to feel that he must face the consequences of his act. I
know that Varvilliers spoke to him again and very urgently, obtaining at
last a pledge from him that he would at least await the verdict on my
case. But when he had fired at me he had considered himself as a man in
any event doomed to death. We are strangely at fault in our forecasts of
fate. He was uninjured; I, who had been confident of escaping unhurt,
lay on the edge between life and death. My presentiment was signally
falsified.

But we must be just even to superstitions. I had my presentiment, and it
was wrong. Coralie Mansoni also had hers, and most unfortunately, for
from hers came the sole danger that threatened the success of our scheme
and impaired the perfection of our pretences. Had William Adolphus been
a man of strong will no harm would have been done; but he was as wax in
her hands. When he left us, he went on his ride, and in the park he met
her, driving herself in her little pony-chaise. She had been quite
unable to sleep, she said, and had been tempted by the fine morning; had
he seen the King? William Adolphus, without a thought of indiscretion,
described how he had found us in the Pavilion. In an instant her mind,
inflamed by her fancies and readily suspicious, was on fire with fear;
fear turned to an instinctive certainty. My brother-in-law was amazed at
her agitation; she swept away his opposition; he must take her to the
Pavilion, or she would go alone; nothing else would serve. But he should
have held her where she was by main force rather than bring her; the one
fatal thing was to allow her to appear in the affair at all. He could
not withstand her; he did not know the extent of his error, but he knew
that to bring her within the precincts of the palace was a sore
indiscretion. She overbore him; they burst together into the room, as I
have described. And, being there, she would not go, and was seen by two
doctors, by Baptiste, and by the shooting-master, who came to carry me
to my apartments. Then at last Varvilliers prevailed on her to allow
herself to be smuggled out through the back gate of the gardens, and
himself took her to her house in a condition of great distress and
collapse. She, at least, was not deceived by the pretence of an
accident.

Were other people? I feel myself on doubtful ground. What was said at
the moment I know only by hearsay, for I was incapable of attending to
anything for three months. There was an enormous amount of gossip and of
talk; there were, I think, many hints and smiles; there were hundreds of
people who knew the truth, but were careful not to submit their versions
to the test of publicity. But what could be done? Varvilliers and
Vohrenlorf, men of unblemished honour, were firm in their assertions and
unshaken in their evidence; Wetter's obvious consternation at the event
was invoked as confirmatory evidence. As soon as I was able to give my
account, my voice and authority were cast decisively into the same
scale. Men might suspect and women might gossip. Nothing could be done;
and as soon as the first stir was over, Wetter left for a tour abroad
without any opposition, and carrying with him a good deal of sympathy.
The King's own carelessness was of course responsible, but it was very
terrible for Wetter, so they said.

But a point remains; how did we account for Coralie and the presence of
Coralie? In fact we never did account very satisfactorily for Coralie.
We sacrificed--or rather Varvilliers and Vohrenlorf sacrificed--William
Adolphus without hesitation, saying truly enough that he had brought
her. Victoria was extremely angry and my brother-in-law much aggrieved.
But I must admit that the story met with very hesitating acceptance.
Some denied it altogether, the more clear-sighted perceived that, even
were its truth allowed, it presupposed more than it told. There was
something in the background; that was what everybody thought. What? That
was what nobody knew. However I am afraid that there were quite enough
suspicion and enough talk to justify my English friend in his remark
about the one or two scandals which attached themselves to my name. I
beg leave to hope that his charitable expression of surprise that there
were not more may be considered equally well justified.

While I lay ill, Princess Heinrich was the dominant influence in the
administration of affairs. When I recovered, I found that Coralie
Mansoni was no longer playing in Forstadt, and had left the town some
weeks before. I put no questions to my mother. I also found that
Varvilliers had resigned his official position in the French service,
and remained in Forstadt as a private person. Here again, at
Varvilliers' own request, I put no questions to my mother. Finally I was
informed that the Bartensteins had offered themselves for a visit. Again
I put no questions to my mother. I determined, however, not to be laid
on the shelf again for three months, if I could help it.

Such is the history of my secret duel with Wetter and of my acquaintance
with Coralie Mansoni up to the date of that occurrence. Such also is the
story of that apparently very bad shot which my little son found in the
wainscoting of the Garden Pavilion. But it was not such a very bad shot;
not everybody would have gone so near and yet made sure of not hitting.




CHAPTER XVIII.

WILLIAM ADOLPHUS HITS THE MARK.


At Artenberg, whither we went when I was convalescent, the family
atmosphere recalled old days. We were all in disgrace--Victoria because
she had not managed her husband better, William Adolphus for behaviour
confessedly scandalous, I by reason of those rumours at which I have
hinted. My sister and brother-in-law were told of their faults and
warned, the one against professors, the other against actresses. My
delinquencies were treated with absolute silence. Princess Heinrich
reminded me how I had degraded my office by a studious, though cold,
deference toward it on her own part. The king was the king, be he never
so unruly. His mother could only disapprove and grieve in silence. But
in the hands of Princess Heinrich silence was a trenchant weapon.
William Adolphus also was very sulky with me. I found some excuse for
him. Toward his wife he wore a hang-dog air; from Princess Heinrich he
fairly ran away whenever he could. In these relations toward one another
we settled down to pass a couple of summer months at Artenberg. Now was
early July. In August would come the visit of the Bartensteins.

Beside this great fact all else troubled me little. I fell victim to an
engrossing selfishness. The quarrels and woes of my kindred went
unnoticed, except when they served for a moment's amusement. To the
fortunes of those with whom I had lately been so much concerned, of
Wetter and of Coralie, I was almost indifferent. Varvilliers wrote to
me, and I answered in friendly fashion, but I did not at that time
desire his presence. So far as my thoughts dwelt on the past, they
overleaped what was immediately behind, and took me back to my first
rebellion, my first struggle against the fate of my life, my first
refusal to run into the mould. I remembered my Governor's comforting
assurance that I had still six years; I remembered the dedication of my
early love to the Countess. Then I had cherished delusions, thinking
that the fate might be avoided. Herein lay the sincerity and honesty of
that first attachment, and an enduring quality which made good for it
its footing in memory. In it I was not passing the time or merely
yielding to a desire for enjoyment. I was struggling with necessity. The
high issue had seemed to lend some dignity even to a boy's raw
love-making, a dignity that shone dimly through thick folds of
encircling absurdity. I had not been particularly absurd in regard to
Coralie Mansoni, but neither had there been in that affair any redeeming
worthiness or dignity of conception or of struggle. Now all seemed over,
struggle and waywardness, the dignified and undignified, the absurdly
pathetic and the recklessly impulsive. The six years were nearly gone.
Princess Heinrich's steady pressure contracted their extent by some
months. The coming of the Bartensteins was imminent. The era of Elsa
began.

Old Prince Hammerfeldt had left a successor behind him in the person of
his nephew, Baron von Bederhof, and this gentleman was now my
Chancellor and my chief official adviser. He was a portly man of about
fifty, with red cheeks and black hair. He was high in favour with my
mother, the husband of a buxom wife, and the father of nine children. As
is not unusual in cases of hereditary succession, he was adequate to his
office, although he would certainly not have been selected for it unless
he had been his uncle's nephew; but, being the depositary of
Hammerfeldt's traditions (although not of his brains), he contrived to
pass muster. He came at this time to Artenberg, and urged on me the
necessity of a speedy marriage.

"The recent danger, so providentially averted," he said, "is a stronger
argument than any I could use."

"It certainly is," said I politely. As a fact, it might be stronger than
any he would be likely to use, and yet not be impregnable.

"For the sake of your people, sire, do not delay."

"My dear Baron," said I, "send for the young lady to-morrow. I haven't
seen her since she was a child, so let her bring a letter of
identification."

"You joke!" said he. "There can be no doubt. Her parents will accompany
her."

"True, true!" I exclaimed, in a tone of relief. "There will be really no
substantial risk of having an impostor planted on us."

"I am confident," observed Bederhof, "that the marriage will be most
happy."

"You are?"

"Undoubtedly, sire."

"Then we won't lose a moment," I cried.

Bederhof looked slightly puzzled, but also rather complimented. He
cleared his throat (if only he could have cleared his head as often and
as thoroughly as he did his throat!) and asked, "Er--there are no
complications?"

"I beg your pardon, Baron."

"I am ashamed to suggest it, but people do talk. I mean--no other
attachment?"

"I have yet to learn, Baron," said I with dignity, "that such a thing,
even if it existed, would be of any importance compared to the welfare
of the kingdom and the dynasty."

"Not of the least!" he cried hastily.

"I never suspected you of such a paradox really," I assured him with a
smile. "And if the lady should harbour such a thing that would be of
equal insignificance."

"My uncle, the Prince----" he began.

"Knew all this just as well as we do, my dear Baron," I interrupted.
"Come, send for Princess Elsa. I am all impatience."

Even the stupidest of men may puzzle a careful observer on one point--as
to the extent of his stupidity. I did not always know whether Bederhof
was so superlatively dull as to believe a thing, or merely so
permissibly dull as to consider that he ought to pretend to believe it.
Perhaps he had come himself not to know the difference between the two
attitudes; certain ecclesiastics would furnish an illustration of what I
mean. Princess Heinrich's was quite another complexion of mind. She
assumed a belief with as much conscious art as a bonnet or a mantle;
just as you knew that the natural woman beneath was different from the
garment which covered her, so you were aware that my mother's real
opinion was absolutely diverse from the view she professed. In both
cases propriety forbade any reference to the natural naked substratum.
The Princess, with an art that scorned concealment, congratulated me
upon my approaching happiness, declared that the marriage was one of
inclination, and, having paid it this seemly tribute, at once fell to
discussing how the public would receive it. I believe, however, that she
detected in me a certain depression of spirits, for she rallied me
(again with a superb ignoring of what we were both aware of) on being
moped at the moment when I should have been exultant.

"I am looking at it from Elsa's point of view," I explained.

"Elsa's? Really I don't see that Elsa has anything to complain of. The
position's beyond what she had any right to expect."

All was well with Elsa; that seemed evident enough; it was a better
position than Elsa had any right to expect. Poor dear child, I seemed to
see her rolling down the bank again, expecting and desiring no other
position than to be on her back, with her little legs twinkling about in
the air.

"I think," said I meditatively, "that it would be a good thing if, in
providing wives, they reverted to the original plan and took out a rib.
One wouldn't feel that one's rib had any particular right to complain at
having its fortunes mixed up with one's own."

My mother remained silent. I looked across the terrace and saw
Victoria's three-year-old girl playing about.

"The child's so like William Adolphus," said I, sighing.

My mother rose with deliberate carelessness and walked away.

It may be wondered why I did not rebel. I must answer, first, from the
binding force of familiarity; I hated the thing, but it had made good
its place in the map of my life; secondly, from the impossibility of
inflicting a slight; thirdly, because I rather chose to bear the ills I
had than fly to others that I knew not of. Who revolts save in the
glowing hope of bettering his lot? I must marry; who was there to be
preferred before Elsa? It did not occur to me that I might remain
single; I should have shared the general opinion that such an act was
little removed from treason. It would not only be to end my own line, it
would be to install the children of William Adolphus. I did not grant
even a moment's hospitality to such an idea. Bederhof was right, the
marriage was urgent; I must marry--just as occasionally I was compelled
to review the troops. I had as little aptitude for one duty as for the
other, but both were among my obligations. I was so rooted in this
attitude that I turned to Victoria with a start of surprise when she
said to me one day:

"She's very pretty; I daresay you'll fall in love with her."

She was pretty, if her last portrait spoke truth; she was a slim girl,
of very graceful figure, with small features and large blue eyes, which
were merry in the picture, but looked as if they could be sad also. I
had studied this attractive shape attentively; yet Victoria's suggestion
seemed preposterous, incongruous--I had nearly said improper. A moment
later it set me laughing.

"Perhaps I shall," I said with a chuckle.

"I don't see anything amusing in the idea," observed Victoria. "I think
you're being given a much better chance than I ever had."

The old grudge was working in her mind; by covert allusion she was
recalling the part I had taken in the arrangement of her future. Yet she
had contrived to be jealous of her husband; that old puzzle recurs.

"I suppose," I mused, "that I'm having a very good chance." I looked
inquiringly at my sister.

"If you use it properly. You can be very pleasant to women when you
like. She's sure to come ready to fall in love with you. She's such a
child."

"You mean that she'll have no standard of comparison?"

"She can't have had any experience at all."

"Not even a baron over at Waldenweiter?"

"What a fool I was!" reflected Victoria. "Mother was horrid, though,"
she added a moment later. She never allowed the perception of her own
folly to plead on behalf of Princess Heinrich. "I expect you'll go mad
about her," she resumed. "You see, any woman can manage you, Augustin.
Think of----"

"Thanks, dear, I remember them all," I interposed.

"The question is, how will mother treat her," pronounced Victoria.

It was not the question at all; that Victoria thought it was merely
illustrated the Princess's persistent dominance over her daughter's
imagination. I allow, however, that it was an interesting, although
subordinate speculation.

The Bartensteins' present visit was to be as private as possible. The
arrangement was that Elsa and I should be left to roam about the woods
together, to become well known to one another, and after about three
weeks to fall in love. The Duke was not to be of the party on this
occasion (wise Duke!) and, when I had made my proposal, mother and
daughter would return home to receive the father's blessing and to wait
while the business was settled. When all was finished, I should receive
my bride in state at Forstadt, and the wedding would be solemnized. In
reply to my questions Bederhof admitted that he could not at present fix
the final event within a fortnight or so; he did not, however, consider
this trifling uncertainty material.

"No more do I, my dear Baron," said I.

"Here," said he, "is the picture of your Majesty which Princess Heinrich
has just sent to Bartenstein."

I looked at the lanky figure, the long face, and the pained smile which
I had presented to the camera.

"Good gracious!" I murmured softly.

"I beg your pardon, sire?"

"It is very like me."

"An admirable picture."

What in the world was Elsa feeling about it? Thanks to this picture, I
was roused from the mood of pure self-regard and allowed my mind to ask
how the world was looking to Elsa. I did not find encouragement in the
only answer that I could honestly give to my question.

Just at this time I received a letter from Varvilliers containing
intelligence which was not only interesting in itself, but seemed to
possess a peculiar appositeness. He had heard from Coralie Mansoni, and
she announced to him her marriage with a prominent operatic impresario.
"You have perhaps seen the fellow," Varvilliers wrote. "He has small
black eyes and large black whiskers; his stomach is very big, but, for
shame or for what reason I know not, he hides it behind a bigger gold
locket. Coralie detests him, but it has been her ambition to sing in
grand opera. 'It is my career, _mon cher_,' she writes. Behold,
sentiment is sacrificed, and we shall hear her in Wagner! She thinks
that she performs a duty, and she is almost sure that it need not be
very onerous. She is a sensible woman, our dear Coralie. For the rest I
have no news save that Wetter is said to have broken the bank at
baccarat, and may be expected shortly to return home and resume his task
of improving the condition and morals of the people. I hear reports of
your Majesty that occasion me concern. But courage! Coralie has led the
way!"

"Come," said I to myself aloud, "if Coralie, although she detests him,
yet for her career's sake marries him, it little becomes me to make wry
faces. Haven't I also, in my small way, a career?"

But Coralie hoped that her duty would not be very onerous. I had nothing
to do with that. The difference there was in temperament, not
circumstances.

I have kept the Duchess and Elsa an intolerably long while on their
journey to Artenberg. In fact they came quickly and directly; we were
advised of their start, and two days of uncomfortable excitement brought
us to the hour of their arrival. For once in her life Princess Heinrich
betrayed signs of disturbance; to my wonder I detected an undisguised
look of appeal in her eyes as she watched me at my luncheon which I took
with her on the fateful day. I understood that she was imploring me to
treat the occasion properly, and that its importance had driven her from
her wonted reserve. I endeavoured to reassure her by a light and
cheerful demeanour, but my effort was not successful enough to prevent
her from saying a few words to me after the meal. I assured her that
Elsa should receive from me the most delicate respect.

"I'm not afraid of your being too precipitate," she said. "It's not
that."

"No, I shall not be too precipitate," I agreed.

"But remember that--that she's quite a girl, and"--my mother broke off,
looked at me for a moment, and then looked away--"she'll like you if you
make her think you like her," she went on in a moment.

I seemed suddenly to see the true woman and to hear the true opinion.
The crisis then was great; my mother had dropped the veil and thrown
aside her finished art.

"I hope to like her very much," said I.

Princess Heinrich was a resolute woman; the path on which she set her
foot she trod to the end.

"I know what you've persuaded yourself you feel about it," she said
bluntly and rather scornfully. "Well, don't let her see that."

"She would refuse me?"

"No. She'd marry you and hate you for it. Above all, don't laugh at
her."

I sat silently looking at Princess Heinrich.

"You're so strange," she said. "I don't know what's made you so. Have
you no feelings?"

"Do you think that?" I asked, smiling.

"Yes, I do," she answered defiantly. "You were the same even as a boy.
It was no use appealing to your affections."

I had outgrown my taste for wrangles. But I certainly did not recollect
that either Krak or my mother had been in the habit of appealing to my
affections; Krak's appeals, at least, had been addressed elsewhere. Yet
my mother spoke in absolute sincerity.

"It's only just at first that it matters," she went on in a calmer tone.
"Afterward she won't mind. You'll learn not to expect too much from one
another."

"I assure you that lesson is already laid to my heart," said I, rising.

My mother ended the interview and resumed her mask. She called Victoria
to her and sent her to make a personal inspection of the quarters
prepared for our guests. I sat waiting on the terrace, while William
Adolphus wandered about in a state of conscious and wretched
superfluousness. I believe that Victoria had forbidden him to smoke.

They came; there ensued some moments of embracing. Good Cousin Elizabeth
was squarer and stouter than six years ago. Her cheeks had not lost
their ruddy hue. She was a favourite of mine, and I was glad to find
that her manner had not lost its heartiness as she kissed me
affectionately on both cheeks. At the same time there was a difference.
Cousin Elizabeth was a little flurried and a little apologetic. When she
turned to Elsa I saw her eye run in a rapid anxious glance over her
daughter's raiment. Then she led her forward.

"She's changed since you saw her last, isn't she?" she asked in a
mixture of pride and uneasiness. "But you've seen photographs, of
course," she added immediately.

I bent low and kissed my cousin's hand. She was very visibly
embarrassed, and her cheeks turned red. She glanced at her mother as
though asking what she ought to do. In the end she shook hands and
glanced again, apparently in a sudden conviction that she had done the
wrong thing. There can be very little doubt that we ought to have kissed
one another on the cheek. Victoria came up, and I turned away to give my
arm to Cousin Elizabeth.

"She's so young," whispered Cousin Elizabeth, hugging my arm.

"She's a very pretty girl," said I, responsively pressing Cousin
Elizabeth's fingers.

Cousin Elizabeth smiled, and I felt her pat my arm ever so gently. I
could not help smiling, in spite of my mother's warning. I heard
Victoria chattering merrily to Elsa. A gift of inconsequent chatter is
by no means without its place in the world, although we may prefer that
others should supply the commodity. I heard Elsa's bright sweet laugh in
answer. She was much more comfortable with Victoria. A minute later the
arrival of Victoria's little girl made her absolutely happy.

I had been instructed to treat the Duchess with the most distinguished
courtesy and the highest tributes of respect. My mother and I put her
between us and escorted her to her rooms. Elsa, it was considered, would
be more at her ease without such pomp. My mother was magnificent. On
such occasions she shone. Nevertheless she rather alarmed honest Cousin
Elizabeth. A perfect manner alarms many people; it seems so often to
exhibit an unholy remoteness from the natural. Cousin Elizabeth was, I
believe, rather afraid of being left alone with my mother. For her sake
I rejoiced to meet her servants hurrying up to her assistance. I
returned to the garden.

Elsa had not gone in; she sat on a seat with Victoria's baby in her
arms. Victoria was standing by, telling her how she ought and ought not
to hold the little creature. William Adolphus also had edged near and
stood hands in pockets, with a broad smile on his excellent countenance.
I paused and watched. He drew quite near to Victoria; she turned her
head, spoke to him, smiled and laughed merrily. Elsa tossed and tickled
the baby; both Victoria and William Adolphus looked pleased and proud.
It is easy to be too hard on life; one should make a habit of reflecting
occasionally out of what very unpromising materials happiness can be
manufactured. These four beings were at this moment, each and all of
them, incontestably happy. Ah, well, I must go and disturb them!

I walked up to the group. On the sight of me Victoria suppressed her
kindliness toward her husband; she did not wish me to make the mistake
of supposing that she was content. William Adolphus looked supremely
ashamed and uncomfortable. The child, being suddenly snatched by her
mother, puckered lips and brows and threatened tears. Elsa sprang up
with heightened colour and stood in an attitude of uneasiness. Why, yes,
I had disturbed their happiness very effectually.

"I didn't mean to interrupt you," I pleaded.

"Nonsense; we weren't doing anything," said Victoria. "I'll show you
your rooms, Elsa, shall I?"

Elsa, I believe, would have elected to be shown something much more
alarming than a bedroom in order to escape from my presence. She
accepted Victoria's offer with obvious thankfulness. The two went off
with the baby. William Adolphus, still rather embarrassed, took out a
cigar. We sat down side by side and both began to smoke. There was a
silence for several moments.

"She's a pretty girl," observed my brother-in-law at last.

"Very," I agreed.

"Seems a bit shy, though," he suggested, with a sidelong glance at me.

"She seemed to be getting on very well with you and the baby."

"Oh, yes, she was all right then," said William Adolphus.

"I suppose," said I, "that I frighten her rather."

William Adolphus took a long pull at his cigar, looked at the ash
carefully, and then gazed for some moments across the river toward
Waldenweiter. It was a beautiful evening, and my eyes followed in the
same direction. Thus we sat for quite a long time. Then William Adolphus
gave a laugh.

"She's got to get used to you," he said.

"Precisely," said I.

For that was pretty Elsa's task in life.




CHAPTER XIX.

GREAT PROMOTION.


I should be doing injustice to my manners and (a more serious offence)
distorting truth, if I represented myself as a shy gaby, afraid or
ashamed to make love because people knew the business on which I was
engaged. Holding a position like mine has at least the virtue of curing
a man of such folly; I had been accustomed to be looked at from the day
I put on breeches, and, thanks to unfamiliarity with privacy, had come
not to expect and hardly to miss it. The trouble was unhappily of a
deeper and more obstinate sort, rooted in my own mind and not due to the
covert stares or open good-natured interest of those who surrounded me.
There is a quality which is the sign and soul of high and genuine
pleasure, whether of mind or body, of sight, feeling, or imagination; I
mean spontaneity. This characteristic, with its included incidents of
unexpectedness, of suddenness, often of unwisdom and too entire
absorption in the moment, comes, I take it, from a natural agreement of
what you are with what you do, not planned or made, but revealed all at
once and full-grown; when the heart finds it, it knows that it is
satisfied. The action fits the agent--the exercise matches the faculty.
Thenceforward what you are about does itself without your aid, but
pours into your hand the treasure that rewards success, the very
blossom of life. There may be bitterness, reproaches, stings of
conscience, or remorse. These things are due to other claims and
obligations, artificial, perhaps, in origin, although now of binding
force. Beneath and beyond them is the self-inspired harmony of your
nature with your act, sometimes proud enough to claim for itself a
justification from the mere fact of existence, oftener content to give
that question the go-by, whispering softly, "What matters that? I am."

By some such explanation as this, possibly not altogether wide of the
mark, I sought to account for my disposition in the days that followed
Elsa's arrival. I was conscious of an extreme reluctance to set about my
task. I have used the right word there; a task it seemed to me. The
trail of business and arrangement was over it; it was defaced by an
intolerable propriety, ungraced by a scrap of uncertainty; its stages
had been marked, numbered, and catalogued beforehand. Bederhof knew the
wedding-day to within a fortnight, the settlement to within a shilling,
the addresses of congratulation to a syllable. To this knowledge we were
all privy. God save us, how we played the hypocrite!

I am fully aware that there are men to whom these feelings would not
have occurred. There are probably women in regard to whom nobody would
have experienced them in a very keen form. Insensibility is infectious.
We have few scruples in regard to the unscrupulous. We feel that the
exact shade of colour is immaterial when we present a new coat to a
blind man. Had Hammerfeldt left as his legacy the union with some rude
healthy creature, to follow his desire might have been an easy
thing--one which, on a broad view of my life, would have been
relatively insignificant. I should have disliked my duty and done it, as
I did a thousand things I disliked. But I should not have been afflicted
with the sense that where I endured ten lashes another endured a
thousand; that, being a fellow-sufferer, I seemed the executioner; that,
myself yearning to be free, I was busied in forging chains. It was in
this light that Elsa made me regard myself, so that every word to her
from my lips seemed a threat, every approach an impertinence, every hour
of company I asked a forecast of the lifelong bondage that I prepared
for her. This was my unhappy mood, while Victoria laughed, jested, and
spurred me on; while William Adolphus opined that Elsa must get used to
me; while Cousin Elizabeth smiled open motherly encouragement; while
Princess Heinrich moved through the appropriate figures as though she
graced a stately minuet. I had come to look for little love in the
world; I was afflicted with the new terror that I must be hated.

Yet she did not hate me; or, at least, our natures were not such as to
hate one another or to be repugnant naturally. Nay, I believe that we
were born to be good and appreciative friends. Sometimes in those early
days we found a sympathy of thought that made us for the moment intimate
and easy, forgetful of our obligation, and frankly pleased with the
society which we afforded one another. Soon I came to enjoy these
intervals, to look and to plan for them. In them I seemed to get
glimpses of what my young cousin ought to be always; but they were brief
and fleeting. An intrusion ended them; or, more often, they were doomed
to perish at my hands or at hers. A troubled shyness would suddenly
eclipse her mirth; or I would be seized with a sense that my cheating
of fate was useless, and served only to make the fate more bitter. She
seemed to dread any growth of friendship, and to pull herself up
abruptly when she felt in danger of being carried away into a genuine
comradeship. I was swiftly responsive to such an attitude; again we drew
apart. Here is an extract from a letter which I wrote to Varvilliers:

     "MY DEAR VARVILLIERS: The state of things here is absurd enough.
     My cousin and I can't like, because we are ordered to love; can't
     be friends, because we must be mates; can't talk, because we must
     flirt; can't be comfortable alone together, because everybody
     prepares our _tete-a-tete_ for us. She is in apprehension of an
     amourousness which I despair of displaying; I am ashamed of a
     backwardness which is her only comfort. And the audience grows
     impatient; had the gods given them humour they would laugh
     consumedly. Surely even they must smile soon, and so soon as they
     smile I must take the leap; for, my dear friend, we may be
     privately unhappy, but we must not be publicly ludicrous. To-day,
     as we walked a yard apart along the terrace, I seemed to see a
     smile on a gardener's face. If it were of benevolence, matters
     may not advance just yet; if I conclude that amusement inspired
     it, even before you receive this I may have performed my duty and
     she her sacrifice. Pray laugh at and for me from your safe
     distance; in that there can be no harm. I laugh myself sometimes,
     but dare not risk sharing my laugh with Elsa. She has humour, but
     to ask her to turn its rays on this situation would be too
     venturous a stroke. An absolute absorption in the tragic aspect
     is probably the only specific which will enable her to endure.
     Unhappily the support of pure tragedy, with its dignity of
     unbroken gloom, is not mine. I forget sometimes to be unhappy in
     reflecting that I am damnably ridiculous. What, I wonder, were
     the feelings of Coralie at the first attentions of her
     big-bellied impresario? Did stern devotion nerve her? Was her
     face pale and her lips set in tragic mode? Or did she smile and
     yawn and drawl and shrug in her old delightful fashion? I would
     give much to be furnished with details of this parallel.
     Meanwhile Bederhof tears his hair, for I threaten to be behind
     time, and the good Duchess tells me thrice daily that Elsa is
     timid. Princess Heinrich has made no sign yet; when she frowns I
     must kiss. So stands the matter. I must go hence to pray her to
     walk in the woods with me. She will flush and flutter, but, poor
     child, she will come. What I ask she will not and must not
     refuse. But, deuce take it, I ask so little! There's the rub! I
     hear your upbraiding voice, 'Pooh, man, catch her up and kiss
     her!' Ah, my dear Varvilliers, you suffer under a confusion. She
     is a duty; and who is impelled by duty to these sudden cuttings
     of a knot? And she does a duty, and would therefore not kiss me
     in return. And I also, doing duty, am duty. Thus we are both of
     us strangled in the black coils of that belauded serpent."

I did not tell Varvilliers everything. Had I allowed myself complete
unreserve I must have added that she charmed me, and that the very charm
I found in her made my work harder. There was a dainty delicacy about
her, the freshness of a flower whose velvet bloom no finger-touch has
rubbed. This I was to destroy.

But at last from fear, not of the gardener's smiles, but of my own
ridicule, I made my start, and, as I foreshadowed to Varvilliers, it was
as we walked in the woods that I began.

"What of that grenadier?" I asked her--she was sitting on a seat, while
I leaned against a tree-trunk--"the grenadier you were in love with when
I was at Bartenstein. You remember? You described him to me."

She blushed and laughed a little.

"He married a maid of my mother's, and became one of the hall-porters.
He's grown so fat."

"The dream is ended then?"

"Yes, if it ever began," she answered. "How amused at me you must have
been!"

Suddenly she perceived my gaze on her, and her eyes fell.

"He was Romance, Elsa," said I. "He has married and grown fat. His
business now is to shut doors; he has shut the door on himself."

"Yes," she answered, half-puzzled, half-embarrassed.

"He had an unsuccessful rival," said I. "Do you recollect him? A lanky
boy whom nobody cared much about. Elsa, the grenadier is out of the
question."

Now she was agitated; but she sat still and silent. I moved and stood
before her. My whole desire was to mitigate her fear and shrinking. She
looked up at me gravely and steadily. It went to my heart that the
grenadier was out of the question. Her lips quivered, but she maintained
a tolerable composure.

"You should not say that about--about the lanky boy, Augustin," said
she. "We all liked him, I liked him."

"Well, he deserved it a little better then than now. Yet perhaps, since
the grenadier----"

"I don't understand what you mean about the grenadier."

"Yes, don't you?" I asked with a smile. "No dreams, Elsa, that you told
to nobody?"

She flushed for a moment, then she smiled. Her smiling heartened me, and
I went on in lighter vein.

"One can never be sure of being miserable," I said.

"No," she murmured softly, raising her eyes a moment to mine. The glance
was brief, but hinted a coquetry whose natural play would have
delighted--well, the grenadier.

She seemed very pretty, sitting there in the half-shade, with the sun
catching her fair hair. I stood looking down on her; presently her eyes
rose to mine.

"Not of being absolutely miserable," said I.

"You wouldn't make anybody miserable. You're kind. Aren't you kind?"

She grew grave as she put her question. I made her no answer in words; I
bent down, took her hand, and kissed it. I held it, and she did not draw
it away. I looked in her eyes; there I saw the alarm and the shrinking
that I had expected. But to my wonder I seemed to see something else.
There was excitement, a sparkle witnessed to it; I should scarcely be
wrong if I called it triumph. I was suddenly struck with the idea that I
had read my feelings into her too completely. It might be an
exaggeration to say that she wished to marry me, but was there not
something in her that found satisfaction in the thought of marrying me?
I remembered with a new clearness how the little girl who rolled down
the hill had thought that she would like to be a queen. At that moment
this new idea of her brought me pure relief. I suppose there were
obvious moralizings to be done; it was also possible to take the matter
to heart, as a tribute to my position at the cost of myself. I felt no
soreness, and I did no moralizing. I was honestly and fully glad that
for any reason under heaven she wished to marry me.

Moreover this touch of a not repulsive worldliness in her sapped some of
my scruples. What I was doing no longer seemed sacrilege. She had one
foot on earth already then, this pretty Elsa, lightly poised perhaps,
and quite ethereal, yet in the end resting on this common earth of ours.
She would get used to me, as William Adolphus put it, all the sooner. I
took courage. The spirit of the scene gained some hold on me. I grew
less repressed in manner, more ardent in looks. I lost my old desire not
to magnify what I felt. The coquetry in her waged now an equal battle
with her timidity.

"You're sure you like me?" she asked.

"Is it incredible? Have they never told you how pretty you are?"

She laughed nervously, but with evident pleasure. Her eyes were bright
with excitement. I held out my hands, and she put hers into them. I drew
her to me and kissed her lightly on the cheek. She shrank suddenly away
from me.

"Don't be frightened," I said, smiling.

"I am frightened," she answered, with a look that seemed almost like
defiance.

"Shall we say nothing about it for a little while?"

This proposal did not seem to attract her, or to touch the root of the
trouble, if trouble there were.

"I must tell mother," she said.

"Then we'll tell everybody." I saw her looking at me with earnest
anxiety. "My dear," said I, "I'll do what I can to make you happy."

We began to walk back through the wood side by side. Less on my guard
than I ought to have been, I allowed myself to fall into a reverie. My
thoughts fled back to previous love-makings, and, having travelled
through these, fixed themselves on Varvilliers. It was but two days
since I sent him a letter almost asserting that the task was impossible
to achieve. He would laugh when he heard of its so speedy
accomplishment. I began in my own mind to tell him about it, for I had
come to like telling him my states of feeling, and no doubt often bored
him with them; but he seemed to understand them, and in his constant
minimizing of their importance I found a comfort. I had indeed almost
followed the advice he would have given me--almost taken her up and
kissed her, and there ended the matter. A low laugh escaped from me.

"Why are you laughing?" Elsa asked, turning to me with a puzzled look.

"I've been so very much afraid of you," I answered.

"You afraid of me!" she cried. "Oh, if you only knew how terrified I've
been!" She seemed to be seized with an impulse to confidence. "It was
terrible coming here to see whether I should do, you know."

"You knew you'd do!"

"Oh, no. Mother always told me I mightn't. She said you were--were
rather peculiar."

"I don't know enough about other people to be able to say whether I'm
peculiar."

She laughed, but not as though she saw any point in my observation (I
daresay there was none), and walked on a few yards, smiling still. Then
she said:

"Father will be pleased."

"I hope everybody will be pleased. When you go to Forstadt the whole
town will run mad over you."

"What will they do?"

"Oh, what won't they do? Crowds, cheers, flowers, fireworks, all the
rest of it. And your picture everywhere!"

She drew in her breath in a long sigh. I looked at her and she blushed.

"You'll like that?" I asked with a laugh.

She did not speak, but nodded her head twice. Her eyes laughed in
triumph. She seemed happy now. My pestilent perversity gave me a shock
of pain for her.

When we came near the house she asked me to let her go alone and tell
her mother. I had no objection to offer. Indeed I was glad to escape a
hand-in-hand appearance, rather recalling the footlights. She started
off, and I fell into a slower walk. She almost ran with a rare buoyancy
of movement. Once she turned her head and waved her hand to me merrily.
I waited a little while at the end of the terrace, and then effected an
entry into my room unperceived. The women would lose no time in telling
one another; then there would be a bustle. I had now a quiet half-hour.
By a movement that seemed inevitable I sat down at my writing-table and
took up a pen. For several minutes I sat twirling the quill between my
fingers. Then I began to write:

     "MY DEAR VARVILLIERS: The impossible has happened, and was all
     through full of its own impossibility. I have done it. That now
     seems a little thing. The marvel remains. 'An absolute absorption
     in the tragic aspect'--you remember, I daresay, my phrase; that
     was to have been her mood--seen through my coloured glasses. My
     glasses! Am I not too blind for any glasses? She has just left me
     and run to her mother. She went as though she would dance. She is
     merry and triumphant. I am employed in marvelling. She wants to
     be a queen; processions and ovations fill her eyes. She is happy.
     I would be happy for her sake, but I am oppressed by an
     anticipation. You will guess it. It is unavoidable that some day
     she will remember myself. We may postpone, but we can not
     prevent, this catastrophe. What I am in myself, and what I mean
     to her, are things which she will some day awake to. I have to
     wait for the time. Yet that she is happy now is something, and I
     do not think that she will awake thoroughly before the marriage.
     There is therefore, as you will perceive, no danger of anything
     interfering with the auspicious event. My dear friend, let us
     ring the church bells and sing a _Te Deum_; and the Chancellor
     shall write a speech concerning the constant and peculiar favour
     of God toward my family, and the polite piety with which we have
     always requited His attentions. For just now all is well. She
     sleeps.

     "Your faithful friend,

     "AUGUSTIN."

I had just finished this letter when Baptiste rushed in, exclaiming that
the Duchess had come, and that he could by no means prevent her entry.
The truth of what he said was evident; Cousin Elizabeth herself was hard
on his heels. She almost ran in, and made at me with wide-opened arms.
Her honest face beamed with delight as she folded me in an enthusiastic
embrace. Looking over her shoulder, I observed Baptiste standing in a
respectful attitude, but struggling with a smile.

"You can go, Baptiste," said I, and he withdrew, smiling still.

"My dearest Augustin," panted Cousin Elizabeth, "you have made us all
very, very happy. It has been the dream of my life."

I forget altogether what my answer was, but her words struck sharp and
clear on my mind. That phrase pursued me. It had been the dream of Max
von Sempach's life to be Ambassador. There had been a dream in his
wife's life. It was the dream of Coralie's life to be a great singer;
hence came the impresario with his large locket and the rest. And now,
quaintly enough, I was fulfilling somebody else's dream of life--Cousin
Elizabeth's! Perhaps I was fulfilling my own; but my dream of life was a
queer vision.

"So happy! So happy!" murmured Cousin Elizabeth, seeking for her
pocket-handkerchief. At the moment came another flurried entry of
Baptiste. He was followed by my mother. Cousin Elizabeth disengaged
herself from me. Princess Heinrich came to me with great dignity. I
kissed her hand; she kissed my forehead.

"Augustin," she said, "you have made us all very happy."

The same note was struck in my mother's stately acknowledgment and in
Cousin Elizabeth's gushing joy. I chimed in, declaring that the
happiness I gave was as nothing to what I received. My mother appeared
to consider this speech proper and adequate, Cousin Elizabeth was
almost overcome by it. The letter which lay on the table, addressed to
Varvilliers, was fortunately not endowed with speech. It would have
jarred our harmony.

Later in the day Victoria came to see me. I was sitting in the window,
looking down on the river and across to the woods of Waldenweiter. She
sat down near me and smiled at me. Victoria carried with her an
atmosphere of reality; she neither harboured the sincere delusions of
Cousin Elizabeth nor (save in public) sacrificed with my mother on the
shrine of propriety. She sat there and smiled at me.

"My dear Victoria," said I, "I know all that as well as you do. Didn't
we go through it all before, when you married William Adolphus?"

"I've just left Elsa," my sister announced. "The child's really half off
her head; she can't grasp it yet."

"She is excited, I suppose."

"It seems that Cousin Elizabeth never let her count upon it."

"I saw that she was pleased. It surprised me rather."

"Don't be a goose, Augustin," said Victoria very crossly. "Of course
she's pleased."

"But I don't think she cares for me in the very least," said I gravely.

For a moment Victoria stared. Then she observed with a perfunctory
politeness:

"Oh, you mustn't say that. I'm sure she does." She paused and added: "Of
course it's great promotion for her."

Great promotion! I liked Victoria's phrase very much. Of course it was
great promotion for Elsa. No wonder she was pleased and danced in her
walk; no wonder her eyes sparkled. Nay, it was small wonder that she
felt a kindliness for the hand whence came this great promotion.

"Yes, I suppose it is--what did you say? Oh, yes--great promotion," said
I to Victoria.

"Immense! She was really a nobody before."

A hint of jealousy lurked in Victoria's tones. Perhaps she did not like
the prospect of being no longer at the head of Forstadt society.

"There's nobody in Europe who would have refused you, I suppose," she
pursued. "Yes, she's lucky with a vengeance."

I began to laugh. Victoria frowned a little, as though my laughter
annoyed her. However I had my laugh out; the picture of my position,
sketched by Victoria, deserved that. Then I lit a cigarette and stood
looking out of the window.

"Poor child!" said I. "How long will it last?"

Victoria made no answer. She sat where she was for a few moments; then
she got up, flung an arm round my neck, and gave me a brief
business-like kiss.

"I never knew anybody quite so good as you at being miserable," she
said.

But I was not miserable. I was, on the whole, very considerably
relieved. It would have been much worse had Elsa really manifested an
absolute absorption in the tragic aspect. It was much better that her
thoughts should be filled by her great promotion.

I heard suddenly the sound of feet on the terrace. A moment later loud
cheers rang out. I looked down from the window. There was a throng of
the household, stable, and garden servants gathered in front of the
window of my mother's room. On the steps before the window stood Elsa's
slim graceful figure. The throng cheered; Elsa bowed, waved, and kissed
her hand to them. They cried out good wishes and called blessings on
her. Again she kissed her hand to them with pretty dignity. A pace
behind her on either side stood Princess Heinrich and Cousin Elizabeth.
Elsa held the central place, and her little head was erect and proud.

Poor dear child! The great promotion had begun.




CHAPTER XX.

AN INTERESTING PARALLEL.


I had a whimsical desire that somebody, no matter who, should speak the
truth about the affair. That I myself should was out of the question,
nor would candour be admissible from any of my family; even Victoria
could do no more than kiss me. Elsa did not know the truth; her
realization of it lay in the future--the future to me ever so present.
Varvilliers would not tell it; his sincerity owned always the limit of
politeness. I could not look to have my whim indulged; perhaps had there
seemed a chance of fulfilment I should have turned coward. Yet I do not
know; the love of truth has been a constant and strong passion in my
mind. Hence come my laborious trackings of it through mazes of moods and
feelings; painful trifling, I daresay. But my whim was accomplished; why
and under what motive's spur it is hard to guess.

I sent a message to the Chamber announcing my betrothal; a debate on the
answer to be returned followed. Here was a proper and solemn formality,
rich in coloured phrases and time-honoured pretence. No lie was allowed
place that could not prove its pedigree for five hundred years. Then
when Bederhof and the rest had prated, there rose (_O si audissem_) a
man with a pale-lined face, in which passion had almost destroyed
mirth, or at least compelled it to put on the servile dress of
bitterness, but with eyes bright still and a voice that rang through the
Chamber. Wetter was back, back from wounding me, back from his madness
of Coralie, back from his obscure wanderings and his reported
bank-breakings. Somewhere and somehow he had got money enough to keep
him awhile; and with money in his pocket he was again and at once a
power in Forstadt. There must have been strange doings in that man's
soul, worthy of record; but who would be so bold as to take up the pen?
His reappearance was remarkable enough. I asked whether he did what he
did in malice, in a rivalry that our quarrel and our common defeat at
the hands of the paunchy impresario could not wipe out, or whether he
discerned that I should join in his acid laugh, and, as I read his
speech, cry to myself, "Lo, here is truth and a man who tells it!"

For he rose, there in the Chamber, when Bederhof's sticky syrup had
ceased to flow. He spoke of my betrothal, sketching in a poet's mood,
with the art of an orator, that perfect love whereof men dream; painting
with exquisite skill the man's hot exultation and the girl's tremulous
triumph, the spontaneous leap of heart to heart, the world without
eclipsed and invisible; the brightness, the glory, and the unquestioning
confidence in their eternity. His voice rose victorious out of
falterings; his eyes gleamed with the vision that he made. Then, while
still they wondered as men shown new things in their own hearts, his
lips curved in a smile and his tones fell to a moderate volume. "Such,"
said he, "are the joys which our country shares with its King. Because
they are his they are ours; because they are his they are hers. Hers
and his are they till their lives' end; ours while our hearts are worthy
to conceive of them."

They were silent when he sat down. He had outraged etiquette; nobody had
ever said that sort of thing before on such an occasion. Bederhof
searched in vain through an exhaustive memorandum prepared in the
Chancellery. He consulted the clerks. Nobody had ever said anything in
the least like it. They were puzzled. It was all most excellent, most
loyal, calculated to impress the people in the most favourable way. But,
deuce take it, why did the man smile while he talked, and why did his
voice change from a ring of a trumpet to the rasp of a file? The Chamber
at large was rather upset by Wetter's oration.

Ah, Wetter, but you had an audience fit though small! I read it--I read
it all. I, in my study at Artenberg; I, alone. My mind leaped with
yours; my lips bent to the curve of yours. Surely you spoke to please
me, Wetter? To show that one man knew? To display plainest truth by the
medium of a giant's lies? I could interpret. The language was known to
me; the irony was after my own heart.

"It's dashed queer stuff," said William Adolphus, scratching his head.
"All right in a story book, you know; but in the Chamber! Do you think
he's off his head?"

"I don't think so, William Adolphus," said I.

"Victoria says it's hardly--hardly decent, you know."

"I shouldn't call it exactly indecent."

"No, not exactly indecent," he admitted. "But what the devil did he want
to say it there for?"

"Ah, that I can't answer."

My brother-in-law looked discontented. Yet as a rule he resigned himself
readily enough to not understanding things.

"Victoria says that Princess Heinrich requested the Duchess to manage
that Elsa----"

"My dear William Adolphus, the transaction sounds complicated."

"Complicated? What do you mean? Princess Heinrich requested the Duchess
not to let Elsa read it."

"Ah, my mother has always good reasons."

"But Elsa had read it already."

"How unfortunate wisdom always is! Did Elsa like it?"

"She told Victoria that it seemed great nonsense."

"Yes, she would think so."

"Well, it is, you know," said William Adolphus.

"Of course it is, my dear fellow," said I.

Yet I wanted to know more about it, and observing that Varvilliers was
stated to have been present in the Diplomatic Gallery, I sent for him to
come to Artenberg and describe the speech as it actually passed. When I
had sent my message I went forth in search of my _fiancee_. She had read
the report already; my mother's measures had been taken too late. What
did pretty Elsa think? She thought it was all great nonsense. Poor
pretty Elsa!

My heart was hungry. Wetter had broken--as surely he had meant to
break--the sleep of memory and the sense of contrast. I went to her not
with love, but with some vague expectation, a sort of idea that,
contrary to all likelihood, I might again have in some measure what had
come to me before, springing now indeed not whence I would, but whence
it could, yet being still itself though grown in an alien soil. The
full richness of native bloom it could not win, yet it might attain some
pale grace and a fragrance of its own. For these I would compound and
thank the malicious wit that gave them me. But she thought it all great
nonsense; nay, that was only what she had told Victoria. My mother was
wise, and my mother had requested that she should not read it.

When I came to her she was uncertain and doubtful in mood. She did not
refer to the speech, but a consciousness of it showed in her
embarrassment and in the distrustful mirth of her eyes. She did not know
how I looked upon it, nor how I would have her take it; was she to laugh
or to be solemn, to ridicule or to pretend with handsome ampleness?
There were duties attached to her greatness; was it among them to
swallow this? But she knew I liked to joke at some things which others
found serious; might she laugh with me at this extravagance?

"Well, you've read the debate?" I asked. "They all said exactly the
proper things."

"Did they? I didn't know what the proper things were."

"Oh, yes; except that mad fellow Wetter. It's a sad thing, Elsa; if only
he weren't a genius he'd have a great career."

She threw a timid questioning glance at me.

"Victoria says that he talked nonsense," she remarked.

"Victoria declares that it was you who said it."

"Well, I don't know which of us said it first," she laughed. "Princess
Heinrich said so too; she said he must have been reading romances and
gone mad, like Don Quixote."

"You've read some?"

"Oh, yes, some. Of course, it's different in a story."

So had observed William Adolphus. I marked Victoria as the common
origin.

"You see," said I tolerantly, "he's a man of very emotional nature. He's
carried away by his feelings, and he thinks other people are like
himself." And I laughed a little.

Elsa also laughed, but still doubtfully. She seemed ill at ease. I found
her venturing a swift stealthy glance at me; there was something like
fear in her eyes. I was curiously reminded of Victoria's expression when
she came to Krak with only a half of her exercise written, and
mistrusted the validity of her excuse. (Indeed it was always a bad one.)
What, then, had Wetter done for her? Had he not set up a hopeless
standard of grim duty, frowning and severe? My good sister had meant to
be consolatory with her "great nonsense," remembering, perhaps, the
Baron over there at Waldenweiter. Elsa was looking straight before her
now, her brows puckered. I glanced down at the hand in her lap and saw
that it trembled a little. Suddenly she turned and found me looking; she
blushed vividly and painfully.

"My dearest little cousin," said I, taking her hand, "don't trouble your
very pretty head about such matters. Men are not all Wetters; the
fellow's a poet if only he knew it. Come, Elsa, you and I understand one
another."

"You're very kind to me," she said. "And--and I'm very fond of you,
Augustin."

"It's very charming of you, for there's little enough reason."

"Victoria says several people have been." She hazarded this remark with
an obvious effort. I laughed at that. There was also a covert hint of
surprise in her glance. Either she did not believe Victoria fully, or
she was wondering how the thing had come about. Alas, she was so
transparent! I found myself caught by a momentary wish that I had chosen
(as if I could choose, though!) a woman of the world, whose accomplished
skill should baffle all my scrutiny and leave me still the consolations
of uncertainty; it is probable that such a one would have extorted from
me a belief in her love for five minutes every day. Not for an instant
could that delusion live with Elsa's openness. Yet perhaps she would
learn the trick, and I watch her mastery of it in the growth. But at
least she should not learn it on my requisition.

Elsa sat silent, but presently a slight meditative smile came on her
lips and made a little dimple in her chin. Her thoughts were pleasant
then; no more of that grim impossible duty. Had Wetter's wand conjured
any other idea into her mind? Had his picture another side for her
imagination? It seemed possible enough; it may well have seemed possible
to Princess Heinrich when she requested that Elsa should not read the
speech. Princess Heinrich may have preferred that such notions should
not be suggested at all under the circumstances of the case. There was
always a meaning in what Princess Heinrich did.

"What are you thinking of, Elsa?"

"Nothing," she answered with a little start. "Is he a young man?"

"You mean Wetter?"

"Yes."

"Oh, a few years over thirty. But he's made the most of his time in the
world. The most, not the best, I mean, you know."

Her thoughts had been on Wetter and Wetter's words. Since she had smiled
I concluded that my guess was not far off. Elsa turned to me with a
blush and the coquettish air that now and then sat so prettily on her
innocence.

"I should think he might have made love rather well," she said.

"I shouldn't wonder in the least," said I. "But he might be a little
tempestuous."

"Yes," Elsa acquiesced. "And that wouldn't be nice, would it?"

"Not at all nice," said I, and laughed. Elsa joined in my laugh, but
doubtfully and reluctantly, as though she had but a dim glimmer of the
reason for it. Then she turned to me with a sudden radiant smile.

"Fancy!" said she. "Mother says I must have forty frocks."

"My dear," said I, "have four hundred."

"But isn't it a lot?"

"I suppose it is," I remarked. "But have anything you ought to have. You
like the frocks, Elsa?"

She gave that little emphatic double nod of hers.

We talked no more of the frocks then, but during the few days which
followed Elsa's perusal of Wetter's speech there was infinite talk of
frocks and all the rest of the furnishings and appurtenances of Elsa's
new rank. The impulse which moved women so different as my mother, the
Duchess, and Victoria, to a common course of conduct was doubtless based
on an universal woman's instinct. All the three seemed to set themselves
to dazzle the girl with the glories and pomp that awaited her; at the
same time William Adolphus became pressing in his claims on my company.
Now Victoria never really supposed that I desired to spend my leisure
with William Adolphus; she set him in motion when she had reason to
believe that I had better not spend it with some other person. So it had
been in the days of the Countess and in Coralie's epoch; so it was now.
The idea was obvious; just at present it was better for Elsa to think of
her glories than to be too much with me; she was to be led to the place
of sacrifice with a bandage over her eyes, a bandage that obscured the
contrasted visions of Wetter's imagination and of my actual self. I saw
their plan and appreciated it, but seeing did not forbid yielding. I was
not hoodwinked, but neither was I stirred to resistance. It seemed to me
then that kindness lay in not obtruding myself upon her, in being as
little with her as courtesy and appearances allowed, in asking the
smallest possible amount of her thoughts and making the least possible
claim on her life. They asked me to efface myself, to court oblivion, to
hide behind the wardrobe. It was all done with a soothing air, as though
it were a temporary necessity, as though with a little patience the mood
would pass, almost as though Elsa had some little ailment which would
disappear in a few days; while it lasted, men were best out of the way,
and would show delicacy by asking no questions. The way in which women
act, look, and speak, when they desire to create that impression, is
clear and unmistakable; a wise man goes about his business or retires to
his smoking-room, his papers, and his books.

The treatment seemed to answer well, and its severity was gradually
relaxed. William Adolphus, sighing relief I doubt not (for I was
well-nigh as tedious to him as he to me), went off to his horses. I was
again encouraged to be more with Elsa, under a caution to say nothing
that could excite her. She met me with a quiet gay contentment, seemed
pleased to be with me, and was profuse and sincere in thanks for my
kindness. Sometimes now she talked of our life after we were married,
when Princess Heinrich would be gone and we alone together. She was
occupied with innocent wonderings how we should get on, and professed an
anxiety lest she should fail in keeping me amused. Then she would take
refuge in reminding herself of her many and responsible duties. She
would have nearly as much to do as I had, she said, and was not her work
really almost as important as mine?

"Princess Heinrich says that the social influence I shall wield is just
as important to the welfare of the country," she would say, with that
grave inquiring look in her pretty blue eyes.

"All the fashionable folk in Forstadt will think it much more
important," said I, laughing. "Especially the young men, Elsa."

"As if I should care about that!" she cried scornfully.

Now and then, at intervals, while I talked to her, the idea of doing
what my mother had meant by exciting her came into my head, the idea of
satisfying her unconscious longings and of fulfilling for her the dream
which had taken shape under the wand of that magician Wetter. I believed
then that I could have succeeded in the task; there may be vanity in
that opinion, but neither lapse of time nor later experience has brought
me to renounce it. Why, then, did I yield to the women's prescription,
and renounce the idea of gaining and chaining her love and her fancy
for myself? Nothing in her gives the answer to that question; it must be
sought in my mind and my temper. I believed and I believe that if I
could have stirred myself I could have stirred her. The claim is not
great; Wetter had done half the work for me, and nature was doing the
better part of the rest. I should have started with such an advantage
that the battle must have been mine. This is not merely perceived in
retrospect; it was tolerably clear to me even at the time. But the
impulse in me was wanting. I could have won, but I did not truly desire
to win. I could have given what she asked, but my own heart was a
niggard. It was from me more than from her that the restraint came; it
was with me to move, and I could not stir. She was lovable, but I did
not love her; she had love to give, but I could not ask for it. To marry
her was my duty, to seem to desire the marriage my _role_. There
obligation stopped; inclination refused to carry on the work. I had
driven a bargain with fate; I would pay the debt to the last farthing,
but I could not open my purse again for a gratuity or a bounty. I
acquiesced with fair contentment in it, and in the relations which it
produced between Elsa and myself. There was a tacit agreement among all
of us that a calm and cousinly affection was the best thing, and fully
adequate to the needs of the situation. The advice of the women chimed
in with my own mood. Making love to her would have seemed to them a
dangerous indiscretion, to me a rather odious taking advantage of one
who was not a free agent, and a rather humiliating bit of pretence
besides. We had all made up our minds that matters had better be left
considerably below boiling-point.

While things stood thus I received a letter from Varvilliers (who was at
Forstadt) accepting my invitation to Artenberg. His acceptance
signified, he went on:

     "Of course all the town is full of you and your _fiancee_--her
     portrait is everywhere, your name and hers in every mouth. There
     is another coupled with them, surely in a strange conjunction!
     When they speak of you and the Princess they speak of Wetter
     also. It is recalled that you and he were friends and associates,
     companions in amusement and sport (especially, of course, in
     pistol practice!). Hence springs a theory that the fellow's odd
     rhapsody (mad and splendid!) was directly inspired by yourself,
     that you chose him as your medium, desiring to add to the formal
     expressions usual on such occasions an unofficial declaration of
     your private feelings. So you are hailed as a model and most
     romantic lover, and every tea-table resounds with your praises.
     Early indiscretions (forgive a pen itself indiscreet) are
     forgotten, and you are booked for the part of the model husband,
     an example of the beauty (and the duty) of marriages of
     inclination in high places. Believe me, your popularity is
     doubled. And the strange fellow himself, having money in his
     pocket and that voice of his in magnificent order, is to be seen
     everywhere, smiling mysteriously and observing a most significant
     reticence when he is pressed to say that he spoke at your request
     and to your pattern. But for your Majesty's own letters I should
     not have ventured to be a dissenter from the received opinion; if
     you bid me, at any moment I will gladly renounce my heresy and
     embrace the orthodox faith. Meanwhile I am wondering what imp
     holds sway in Wetter's brain; and I am laughing a little at this
     new example of the eternal antagonism between what is the truth
     and what is thought to be the truth. If mankind ever stumbled on
     absolute naked verity, what the devil would they make of it? By
     the way, I hear that Coralie is to make her _debut_ in Paris in a
     week or two. She being now reputably impresarioed, the Sempachs
     have shown her some civility. I told Wetter this when I last ran
     against him at the club. He raised his brows, twisted his lips,
     scratched his chin, looked full in my face and said with a smile,
     'My dear Vicomte, Madame Mansoni is passionately attached to her
     husband. They are ideal lovers.' Your Majesty shall interpret, if
     it be your pleasure. I leave the matter alone."

This fellow Wetter was very impertinent with his speeches and his
parallels. But, good heavens, he had eyes to see! Madame Mansoni and her
impresario were ideal lovers! Surely the world was grown young again!
Elsa also made her _debut_ in a few weeks; I was her impresario. And she
was passionately attached to her impresario! I lay back in my chair,
laughing and wishing with all my heart that I could have a talk with
Wetter.




CHAPTER XXI.

ON THE ART OF FALLING SOFT.


The economy of belief which wisdom practices forbids us to embrace
fanciful theories where commonly observed facts will serve our turn.
They talk now about strange communications of mind to mind, my thought
speaking to yours a thousand miles away. Perhaps; or perhaps there is a
new fashion in ghost stories. In any case there was no need of these
speculations to account for Wetter being near me at the very time when I
was longing for his presence. From the moment I read his speech I knew
that he was thinking of me; that my doings were stuff for his
meditations; that his mind entered into mine, read its secrets, and was
audience to all its scenes. Is not the desire to meet, at least to see,
the natural sequence of such an interest and such a pre-occupation?
Given the wish, what was simpler than its gratification? He need ask no
leave from me, and need run no risk of my rebuff or of Princess
Heinrich's stiffness. He knew all the world of Forstadt. From favour or
fear every door opened when he knocked at it. He knew, among the rest,
Victoria's Baron over at Waldenweiter. From no place could he better
observe the King. Nowhere else was it so easy for a man to meet the
King. He came to Waldenweiter; I jumped to the conclusion that to be
near me was his only object. By a stableman's chance remark, overheard
as I was looking at my horses, I learned of his presence on the morning
of the day when Varvilliers was to arrive at Artenberg. We were coming
together again, we three who had met last for pistol practice in the
Garden Pavilion.

About two o'clock I went out alone and got into my canoe. It was a
beautiful day; no excuse was needed for a lounge on the water. I paddled
up and down leisurely, wondering how soon the decoy would bring my bird.
A quarter of an hour proved enough. I saw him saunter down to the
water's edge. He perceived me, lifted his soft hat, and bowed. I shot
across the space between, and brought the canoe up to the edge of the
level lawn that bordered on the river.

"Why, what brings you here?" I cried.

[Illustration: "Why, what brings you here?" I cried.]

His lips curved in a smile, as he replaced his hat in obedience to a
sign from me.

"A passion for the Baroness, sire," said he.

"Ah, that's only a virtuous pretence," I laughed. "You've a less
creditable motive?"

"Why, possibly; but who tells his less creditable motives?"

I looked at him curiously and attentively. He had grown older, the hair
by his ears was gray, and life had ploughed furrows on his face.

"Well," said I, "a man might do even that who talks romance to the
Chamber."

He gave a short laugh as he lit his cigarette.

"Your Majesty has done me the honour of reading what I said?"

"I am told that I suggested it. So runs the gossip in town, doesn't it?"

"And your opinion on it?"

"I think I won't expose myself to your fire again," said I. "It was
careless last time; it would be downright folly now."

"Then we are to say no more about it?" he asked gravely.

"Not a word. Tell me, how came you to know that Coralie loves her
impresario? You told Varvilliers so."

His lips twitched for a moment, but he answered, smiling:

"Because she has married him."

"I heard something of ambition in the case, of her career demanding the
sacrifice."

"A slander, sire, depend on it. It is said in envy of her good fortune."

"Come, come, you love the Baroness so much, that you must have all the
world in love."

"Indeed I can think of nobody more in love than I am."

"Think of me, Wetter."

"As though your Majesty could ever be absent from my thoughts," said he
with a bow, a wave of his cigarette, and a smile.

I laughed outright in sheer enjoyment of his sword-play.

"And since we parted where have you been?" I asked.

"I have walked through hell, in such company as the place afforded," he
answered, with a shrug that spoke ill for hell's resources.

"And you've come out the other side?"

"Is there another side?"

"Then you're still there?"

"Upon my word I don't know. It's so like other places--except that I
picked up money there."

"I heard that."

"My resurrection made it obvious."

A silence fell on both of us; then our eyes met, and he smiled kindly.

"I knew you meant the speech for me," I said.

"I was not entitled to congratulate you officially."

"You have raised a mountain of misconception about me in Forstadt," I
complained.

"A mountain-top is a suitable regal seat, and perhaps the only safe
one."

"Won't you speak plainly to me?"

"Yes, if it's your pleasure."

"I have least of it of any pleasure in the world."

"Well, then, the Countess von Sempach grows no younger."

"No?"

"And Coralie Mansoni has married her impresario."

"I know it."

"And my hair is gray, and your eyes are open."

We both laughed and fell again to smoking in silence. At last I spoke.

"Her hair is golden and her eyes are shut," said I. "Why did you try to
open them?"

"Wasn't it to look on a fine sight?"

"But you knew that the sight wasn't there."

"She looked?"

"For an instant. Then they turned her head the other way."

"It was pure devilry in me. You should have seen the Chamber! Good God!
Bederhof, now!"

His eyes twinkled merrily, and my laugh answered their mirth.

"One can always laugh," said I with a shrug.

"It was invented for the world before the Fall, and they forgot to take
it away afterward," he said. "But you? You take things seriously?"

"What I have to do, yes."

"But what you have to feel?"

"In truth I am not even there a consistent laugher."

"Nor I, or we shouldn't talk so much about it. Look at Varvilliers. Does
he laugh on a theory?"

"He's coming to Artenberg to-day. There at least he'll laugh without any
effort. Are you staying here long?"

"No, sire. One scene of despair, and I depart."

"I should like to see you oftener."

"Why not? You are finally, and I for the time, respectable. Why not,
while my money lasts?"

"I have money of yours."

"You have more than money of mine."

He looked me in the face and held out his hand. I grasped it firmly.

"Are you making a fool of this Baroness?" I asked.

"Don't be afraid. She's making one of me. She is very happy and content.
I am born to make women happy."

I laughed again. He was whimsically resigned to his temperament, but the
mischief had not touched his brain. Then the Baroness' hold on him was
not like Coralie Mansoni's; he would fight no duel for her. He would
only make a fool of the greatest man in Forstadt. That feat was always
so easy to him.

"Well," he said, "I must return to my misery."

"And I to my happiness," said I. "But you'll come to Artenberg?"

"It's Princess Heinrich's house," he objected with a smile.

"For the time, yes. Then come to me at Forstadt."

"Yes; unless I have disappeared again."

He put his hand on the bows of my canoe and thrust me out into the
stream. Then he stood baring his head and crumpling up the soft hat in
his fist. I noticed now that his hair was gray all over his head. He
resumed his hat, put his hands in his pockets, and waited without
moving, till I turned my back to him. Having reached the opposite bank,
I looked round. He was there still. I waved my hand to him; he returned
the signal. Then we both began to climb the hill, I to Artenberg, he to
Waldenweiter; he to his misery, I to my happiness. And--which is better,
who knows? At any rate the Baroness was pleased.

I mounted through the woods slowly, although I had been detained longer
than I expected, and was already too late to greet Varvilliers on his
arrival. As I came near the terrace I heard the ring of merry voices.
The ladies and gentlemen of the household were all there, making a brave
and gay group. In the centre I saw my family and Elsa. Varvilliers
himself was standing by Princess Heinrich's side, talking fast and with
great animation. Bursts of glad laughter marked his points. There was
not a hint of care nor a touch of bitterness. Here was no laughing on a
theory, as Wetter called it, but a simple enjoyment, a whole-hearted
acceptance of the world's good hours. Were they not nearer truth? Were
they not, at least, nearer wisdom? A reaction came on me. In a sudden
moment a new resolve entered my head; again Varvilliers roused the
impulse that he had power to rouse in me. I would make trial of this
mode of living and test this colour of mind. I had been thinking about
life when I might have been exulting in it. I ran forward to the group,
and, as they parted to let me through, I came quickly to Varvilliers
with outstretched hands. He seemed to me a good genius. Even my mother
looked smiling and happy. The faces of the rest were alight with gaiety.
Victoria was in the full tide of a happy laugh, and did not interrupt it
on account of my arrival. Elsa's lips were parted in a smile that was
eager and wondering. Her eyes sparkled; she clasped her hands and nodded
to me in a delicious surprised merriment. I caught Varvilliers by the
arm and made him sit by me. A cry arose that he should repeat the last
story for the King's benefit. He complied at once, and launched on some
charming absurdity. Renewed applause greeted the story's point. A
rivalry arose who should cap it with a better. The contact of brains
struck sparks. Every man was wittier than his wont; every woman more
radiant. What the plague had I and Wetter been grumbling and snarling at
down there on the river?

The impulse lasted the evening out. After dinner we fell to dancing in
the long room that faced the gardens. My mother and the Duchess retired
early, but the rest of us set the hours at defiance and revelled far on
into the night. It was as though a new spirit had come to Artenberg; the
very servants wore broad grins as they bustled about, seeming to declare
that here at last was something like what a youthful king's court should
be. William Adolphus was boisterous, Victoria forgot that she was
learned and a patroness of the arts, Elsa threw herself into the fun
with the zest and abandonment of a child. I vied with Varvilliers
himself, seeking to wrest from him the title of master of the revels. He
could not stand against me. A madman may be stronger than the finest
athlete. No native temper could vie with my foreign mood.

Suddenly I knew that I could do to-night what I had vainly tried to do;
that to-night, for to-night at least, I felt something of what I desired
to feel. The blood ran free in my veins; if I did not love her, yet I
loved love, and for love's sake would love Elsa. If to-night the barrier
between us could be broken down, it need never rise again; the vision,
so impossible a few hours before, seemed now a faint reflection of what
must soon be reality. I looked round for her, but I could not see her. I
started to walk across the room, threading my way through the merry
company, who danced no longer, but stood about in groups, bandying chaff
and compliments. Engrossed with one another, they hardly remembered to
give me passage. Presently I came on William Adolphus, making himself
very agreeable to one of his wife's ladies.

"Have you seen Elsa?" I asked him.

"What, you've remembered your duty at last, have you?" he cried, with a
burst of laughter.

"No; I believe I've forgotten it at last," I answered. "Where is she?"

"I saw her with Varvilliers on the steps outside the window."

I turned in the direction which he indicated, and stepped out through
the open window. Day was dawning; I could make out the gray shape of
Waldenweiter. Was the scene of despair played there yet? I gave but a
passing thought to old Wetter, his mad doings and wry reflections. I was
hot on another matter, and, raising my voice, I called, "Varvilliers!
Where are you, Varvilliers?"

"I am not Varvilliers, but here I am," came in answer from across the
terrace.

"Wetter!" I whispered, running down the steps and over to where he
stood. "What brings you here?"

"I couldn't sleep. I saw your lights and I rowed across. I've been here
for an hour."

"You should have come in."

"No. I have been very well here, in the fringe of the trees."

"You have had your scene?"

"No; he would not sleep after dinner. Early to-morrow! And then I go.
Enough of that. I have seen your Princess."

"You have? Wetter, I am in love with her. Tell me where she went. She
has suddenly become all that I want. I have suddenly become all that I
ought to be. Tell me where she is, Wetter!"

"It is not your Princess; it is the dance, the wine, the night."

"By God, I don't care what it is."

"Well, then, she's with Varvilliers, at the end of the terrace, I
imagine; for they passed by here as I lay in my hole watching."

"But he would have heard my cry."

"It depends upon what other sounds were in his ears. They seemed very
happy together."

I saw that he rallied me. I smiled, answering:

"I'm not in the mood for another duel."

He shrugged his shoulders, and then caught me by the hand.

"Come, let's slink along," he said. "We may get a sight of them."

"I can't do that."

"No? Perhaps you can't. Walk up to them, send him away, and make your
love to her. I'll wait for you here. You'll like to see me before the
night's out."

I looked at him for a moment.

"Shall I like to see you?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered. "The olive after the sweets." He laughed, not
bitterly, I thought, but ruefully.

"So be it," I said. "Stay here."

I started off, but he had laid a cold hand on my heart. I was to want
him; then I should be no lover, for a lover wants but one. Yet I nerved
myself and cried again loudly, "Varvilliers!" This time I was answered.
I saw him and Elsa coming toward me; his voice sounded merry and
careless as he shouted, "Here I am, sire"; a moment later they stood
before me. No, there was no ground for Wetter's hint, and could be none.
Both were merely happy and gay, both utterly unembarrassed.

"Somebody wants you inside, Varvilliers," said I, with a nod.

He laughed, bowed gracefully to Elsa, and ran off. He took his dismissal
without a sign of grudge. I turned to her.

"Oh, dear," she said with a little yawn, "I'm tired. It must be very
late."

I caught her by both hands.

"Late!" I cried. "Not too late, Elsa!" I bent down and kissed both her
hands. "Why did you run away?" I asked.

"I didn't know you wanted me," she said in a sort of wonder.

I looked full in her eyes, and I knew that there was in mine the look
that declares love and asks for it. If her eyes answered, the vision
might be reality. I pressed her hands hard. She gave a little cry, the
sparkle vanished from her eyes, and their lids drooped. Yet a little
colour came in her cheeks and the gray dawn showed it me. I hailed it
with eagerness and with misgiving. I thought of Wetter waiting there
among the trees, waiting till the moment when I wanted him.

"Do you love me, Elsa?" I asked.

The colour deepened on her cheeks. I waited to see whether her eyes
would rise again to mine; they remained immovable.

"You know I'm very fond of you," she murmured.

"But do you love me?"

"Yes, of course I love you. Please let my hands go, Augustin."

If Wetter were listening, he must have smiled at the peal of laughter
that rang out from me over the terrace. I could not help it. Elsa
started violently as I loosed her hands; now she looked up at me with
frightened eyes that swam in tears. Her lips moved; she tried to speak
to me. I was full of brutal things and had a horrible longing to say
them to her. There was a specious justice in them veneering their
cruelty; I am glad to say that I gave utterance to none of them. We were
both in the affair, and he is a poor sort of villain who comforts
himself by abusing his accomplice.

"You're tired?" I asked gently.

"Very. But it has been delightful. M. de Varvilliers has been so kind."

"He's a delightful fellow, Varvilliers. Come, let me take you in, and
we'll send these madcaps to bed."

She put her hand on my arm in a friendly trustful fashion, and I found
her eyes fixed on mine with a puzzled regretful look. We walked most of
the way along the terrace before she spoke.

"You're not angry with me, Augustin?"

"Good heavens, no, my dear," said I.

"I'm very fond of you," she said again as we reached the window.

At last they were ready for bed--all save myself. I watched them as they
trooped away, Elsa on Victoria's arm. Varvilliers came up to me, smiling
in the intervals that he snatched from a series of yawns.

"A splendid evening!" he said. "You surpassed yourself, sire."

"I believe I did," said I. "Go to bed, my friend."

"And you?"

"Presently. I'm not sleepy yet."

"Marvellous!" said he, with a last laugh and a last yawn.

For a few moments I stood alone in the room. There were no servants
about; they had given up waiting for us, and the lights were to burn at
Artenberg till the hour of rising. I lit a cigarette and went out on the
terrace again. I had no doubt that Wetter would keep his tryst. I was
right; he was there.

"Well, how did you speed?" he asked with a smile.

"Marvellously well," said I.

He took hold of the lapels of my coat and looked at me curiously.

"Your love scene was short," he said.

"Perhaps. It was long enough."

"To do what?"

"To define the situation."

"Did it need definition?"

"I thought so half an hour ago."

"Ah, well, the evening has been a strange one, hasn't it?"

"Let's walk down to the river through the woods," said I. "I'll put you
across to Waldenweiter."

He acquiesced, and I put my arm through his. Presently he said in a low
voice:

"The dance, the wine, the night."

"Yes, yes, I know," I cried. "My God, I knew even when I spoke to her.
She saw that a brute asked her, not a man."

"Perhaps, perhaps not; they don't see everything. She shrank from you?"

"The tears were very ready."

"Ah, those tears! Heavens, why have we no such appeals? What matter,
though? You don't love her."

"Do you want me to call myself a brute again? Wetter, any other girl
would have been free to tell me that I was a brute."

"Why, no. No man is free even to tell you that you're a fool, sire. The
divinity hedges you."

I laughed shortly and bitterly. What he said was true enough.

"There is, however, nothing to prevent you from seeing these things for
yourself, just as though you were one of the rest of us," he pursued.
"Ah, here's the river. You'll row me across?"

"Yes. Get into the boat there."

We got in, and I pulled out into mid-stream. It was almost daylight now,
but there was still a grayness in the atmosphere that exactly matched
the tint of Wetter's face. Noticing this suddenly I pointed it out to
him, laughing violently.

"You are Lucifer, Son of the Morning," I cried. "How art thou fallen
from heaven, O Lucifer, Son of Morning!"

"I wouldn't care for that if I had the trick of falling soft," said he.
"Learn it, O King, learn it! On what padded bed falls William Adolphus!"

My laugh broke again through the morning loud and harsh. Then I laid
myself to the oars, and we shot across to the bank of Waldenweiter. He
shook my hand and sprang out lightly.

"I must change my clothes and have my scene, and then to Forstadt," said
he. "Good-day to you, sire. Yet remember the lesson of the moralist.
Learn to fall soft, learn to fall soft." With a smile he turned away,
and again I watched him mount the slope of Waldenweiter.

In such manner, on that night at Artenberg, did I, having no wings to
soar to heaven and no key wherewith to open the door of it, make to
myself, out of dance, wine, night, and what not, a ladder, mount
thereby, and twist the door-handle. But the door was locked, the ladder
broke, and I fell headlong. Nor do I doubt that many men are my masters
in that art of falling soft.




CHAPTER XXII.

UT PUTO, VESTIS FIO.


The next morning all Artenberg had the air of being rather ashamed of
itself. Styrian traditions had been set at naught. Princess Heinrich
considered that the limits of becoming mirth had been overstepped; the
lines of her mouth had their most downward set. Nothing was said because
the King had led the dance, but disgrace was in the atmosphere. We had
all fallen from heaven--one may mean many things by heaven--and landed
with more or less severity, according to the resources of padding with
which Nature furnished us. To Varvilliers' case, indeed, the metaphor is
inadequate; he had a parachute, sailed to earth gaily with never a
bruise, and was ready to mount again had any of us offered to bear him
company. His invitation, given with a heartiness that mocked his bidden
companions, found no acceptance. We were all for our own planet in the
morning. It was abundantly clear that revels must be the exception at
Artenberg. Victoria was earnestly of this opinion. In the first place,
the physical condition of William Adolphus was deplorable; he leered
rueful roguishness out of bilious eyes, and Victoria could not endure
the sight of him; secondly, she was sure that I had said something--what
she did not know, but something--to Elsa; for Elsa had been found
crying over her coffee in bed in the morning.

"And every word you say to her now is of such supreme importance,"
Victoria observed, standing over my writing-table.

I took my cigarette out of my mouth and answered perversely enough, but
with an eye to truth all the same.

"Nothing that I say to her now is of the very least importance,
Victoria."

"What do you mean?" she cried.

"Much what you do," I rejoined, and fell to smoking again.

Victoria began to walk about the room. I endured patiently. My eyes were
fixed on Waldenweiter. I wondered idly whether the scene of despair had
been enacted yet.

"It's not the smallest good making ourselves unhappy about it," Victoria
announced, just as she was on the turn at the other end of the room.

"Not the smallest," I agreed.

"It's much too late."

"A great deal too late."

Victoria darted down and kissed my cheek.

"After all, she ought to think herself very lucky," she decided. "I'm
sure everybody else considers her so."

"Under such circumstances," said I, "it's sheer perversity in her to
have her own feelings on the matter."

"But you said something that upset her last night," remarked my sister,
with a return to the point which I hoped she had lost sight of. This
time I lowered my guard in surrender.

"Certainly. I tried to make love to her," said I.

"There, you see!" she cried reproachfully. Her censure of the irrelevant
intrusion of such a subject was eloquent and severe.

"It was all Wetter's fault," I remarked, sighing.

"Good gracious! what's it got to do with Wetter? I hate the man!" As she
spoke her eyes fell on a box which stood on my writing-table. "What's
that?" she asked.

"Diamonds," I answered. "The necklace for Elsa."

"You bought the big one you spoke of? Oh, Augustin, how fortunate!"

I looked up at Victoria and smiled.

"My dear Victoria," said I, "it is the finger of Providence. I'll
present them to her after luncheon."

"Yes, do; and mind you don't upset her again."

Alas! I had no desire to "upset" her again. The fit had passed; my only
relations toward it were those of an astonished spectator or a baffled
analyst. It was part of the same mood that had converted Artenberg into
a hall of revelry, of most unwonted revelry. But to-day, with Princess
Heinrich frowning, heaven at a discount, and everybody rather ashamed of
themselves, was it likely that I should desire to upset her again? The
absence of any such wish, combined with the providential diamonds, would
(it might reasonably be hoped) restore tranquillity to Elsa. Victoria
was quite of this optimistic opinion.

Our interview was interrupted by the arrival of Bederhof, who came to
take my final commands with regard to the marriage arrangements. The
whole programme was drawn out neatly on a sort of chart (minus the rocks
and shoals, of course). The Duchess and her daughter were to stay at
Artenberg for another week; it would then be the end of August. On the
1st of September they would reach home, remain there till the 1st of
October, when they and the Duke would set out for Forstadt; they were to
make their formal entry on the 4th, and on the 12th (a week being
allowed for repose, festivities, and preparations) the marriage would be
solemnized; in the evening of that day Elsa and I were to come back to
Artenberg to pass the first days of our married life.

"I hope your Majesty approves?" said Bederhof.

"Perfectly," said I. "Let us go and find the Princess. Hers must be the
decisive word;" and with my programme in one hand and my diamonds in the
other I repaired to the Duchess's room, Bederhof following in high
contentment.

I imagine that there must have been a depression in my looks,
involuntary but reassuring. It is certain that Elsa received me with
more composure than I had ventured to hope. She studied Bederhof's chart
with grave attention; she and her mother put many questions as to the
ceremonial; there was no doubt that Elsa was very much interested in the
matter. Presently my mother came in; the privy council round Bederhof
grew more engrossed. The Chancellor was delighted; one could almost see
the flags and hear the cannon as his descriptive periods rolled out.
Princess Heinrich sat listening with a rather bitter smile, but she did
not cut him short. I leaned over the back of her chair. Once or twice
Elsa glanced at me, timidly but by no means uncheerfully. Behind the
cover of the chair-back I unfastened my box and got out my necklace.
Then I waited for Elsa's next look. It seemed entirely in keeping with
the occasion that I, as well as Bederhof, should have my present for
her, my ornament, my toy.

"Their Majesties' carriage will be drawn by four gray horses," said
Bederhof. The good Duchess laughed, laid her hand on Elsa's, and
whispered, "Their Majesties!" Elsa blushed, laughed, and again glanced
at me. My moment had come. I held up my toy.

"Their Majesties will be dressed in their very best clothes," said I,
"with their hair nicely brushed, and perhaps one of them will be so
charming as to wear a necklace," and I tossed the thing lightly over the
chair-back into Elsa's lap.

She caught it with a little cry, looked at it for a moment, whispered in
her mother's ear, jumped up, and, blushing still, ran round and kissed
me.

"Oh, thank you!" she cried.

I kissed her hand and her cheek. My mother smiled, patiently it seemed
to me; the Duchess was tremulously radiant; Bederhof obviously benign.
It was a pretty group, with the pretty child and her pretty toy for the
centre of it. Suddenly I looked at my mother; she nodded ever so
slightly. I was applauded and commanded to persevere.

Bederhof pursued his description. He went through it all; he rose to
eloquence in describing our departure from Forstadt. This scene ended,
he seemed conscious of a bathos. It was in a dull, rather apologetic
tone that he concluded by remarking:

"Their Majesties will arrive at Artenberg at seven o'clock, and will
partake of dinner."

There appeared to be no desire to dwell on this somewhat inglorious
conclusion to so eventful a day. A touch of haste betrayed itself in my
mother's manner as she asked for the list of the guests. Elsa had
dropped her necklace in her lap, and sat looking before her with an
absent expression. The names of distinguished visitors, however, offered
a welcome diversion. We were all in very good spirits again in a few
minutes. Presently the names bored Elsa; she jumped up, ran to a mirror,
and tried on her necklace. The names bored me also, but I stood where I
was. Soon a glance from her summoned me, and I joined her. The diamonds
were round her neck, squeezed in above the high collar of her morning
gown.

"They'll look lovely in the evening," she said.

"You'll have lots more given you," I assured her.

"Do you think so?" she asked, in gleefulness dashed with incredulity.

"Scores," said I solemnly.

"I am very grateful to you for--for everything," she said almost in a
whisper, with a sort of penitence that I understood well enough, and an
obvious desire to show every proper feeling toward me.

"I delight to please you above all things now," I answered; but even to
myself the words sounded cold and formal. Yet they were true; it was
above all things my wish to persuade her that she was happy. To this end
I used eagerly the aid of the four (or was it six?) gray horses, the
necklace, and "Their Majesties."

In the next few days I was much with Elsa, but not much alone with her.
There was, of course, no want of ready company, but most of those who
offered themselves merely intensified the constraint which their
presence was expected to remove. Even Victoria overdid her part rather,
betraying an exaggerated fear of leaving us to ourselves. Varvilliers'
admirable tact, his supreme apparent unconsciousness, and his
never-failing flow of gaiety made him our ideal companion. I missed in
him that sympathy with my sombre moods which bound me to Wetter, spirit
to spirit; but for lighter hours, for hours that must be made light, he
was incomparable. With him Elsa bloomed into merriment, and being, as it
were, midway between us, he seemed to me to bridge the gulf of mind and
temperament that separated her from me. Hour by hour she grew happier,
less timid, more her true self. I took great comfort from this excellent
state of things. No doubt I must be careful not to upset her (as
Victoria said), but she was certainly getting used to me (as William
Adolphus said). Moreover, I was getting used to her, to the obligations
she expressed, and to the renunciations she involved. But I had no more
wish to try to upset her.

It must be a familiar fact to many that we are very prone to mistake or
confuse the sources of our pleasure and the causes of such contentment
as we achieve. We attribute to our surroundings in general what is due
to one especial part of them; for the sake of one feature the
landscape's whole aspect seems pleasant; we rob Peter with intent to pay
Paul, and then in the end give the money to somebody else. It is not
difficult to see how Elsa and I came to think that we got on better with
one another because we both got on so well with Varvilliers, that we
were more comfortable together because he made us both comfortable, that
we came nearer to understanding each other because he understood us so
admirably. We did not perceive even that he was the occasion of our
improved relations, far less did we realize that he was their cause and
their essence; that it was to him I looked, to him she looked; and that
while he was between there could be no rude direct contact of her eyes
with mine, nor of mine with hers. Onlookers see most of the game, they
say, but here the onlookers were as blind as the players; there was an
air of congratulation at Artenberg; the King and his bride were drawing
closer together. The blindness was complete; Varvilliers himself shared
it. Of his absolute good faith and utter unconsciousness I, who doubt
most things, can not doubt. Had he been Wetter, I should have been alert
for the wry smile and the lift of the brows; but he was his simple self,
a perfect gentleman unspoiled by thought. Such are entirely delightful;
that they work infinite havoc with established relations between other
people seems a small price to pay for the privilege which their
existence confers upon the world. My dear friend Varvilliers, for whom
my heart is always warm, played the mischief with the relations between
Elsa and myself, which we all (very whimsically) supposed him to be
improving.

It was a comparatively small, although an interestingly unusual, thing
that I came to enjoy Elsa's society coupled with Varvilliers', and not
to care much about it taken alone; it was a more serious, though far
more ordinary, turn of affairs that Elsa should come to be happy enough
with me provided that Varvilliers were there to--shall I say to take the
edge off me?--but cared not a jot to meet me in his absence. The latter
circumstance is simply and conventionally explained (and, after all,
these conventional expressions are no more arbitrary than the alphabet,
which is admitted to be a useful means of communicating our ideas) by
saying that Elsa was falling in love with Varvilliers; my own state of
mind would deserve analysis, but for a haunting notion that no states
of mind are worth such trouble. Let us leave it; there it was. It was
impossible to say which of us would miss Varvilliers more. He had become
necessary to both of us. The conclusion drawn by the way of this world
is, of course, at once obvious; it followed pat from the premise. We
must both of us be deprived of him as soon as possible. I am not
concerned to argue that the world is wrong; and the very best way to
advance a paradox is to look as though you were uttering a platitude. In
this art the wittiest writer cuts a poor figure beside the laws of
society.

The end of the week approached. Elsa was to go; Varvilliers was to go.
So the arrangement stood; Elsa was to return, about Varvilliers' return
nothing had been said. The bandage was still over the eyes of all of us;
we had not perceived the need of settling anything about him. He was
still as insignificant to us as he was to Princess Heinrich herself.

This being the state of the case, there enters to me one morning my good
Cousin Elizabeth, tearfully radiant and abundantly maternal. The reason
was soon declared. Elsa had been found crying again, and wondering
vaguely what she was crying about. It was suggested to her that her
grief was due to approaching departure; Elsa embraced the idea at once.
It was pointed out that a month's absence from me was involved; Elsa
sighed deeply and dabbed her eyes. Cousin Elizabeth dabbed hers as she
told the story; then she caught me in her arms, kissed me, and said that
her happiness was complete. What was I to do? I was profoundly
surprised, but any display of that emotion would have been
inappropriate and ungracious. I could appear only compassionate and
gratified.

"Things do happen right sometimes, you see," pursued Cousin Elizabeth,
triumphing in this refutation of some little sneer of mine which she had
contested the day before. "I knew you had come to care for her, and now
she cares for you. I never was indifferent to that side of it. I always
hoped. And now it really is so! Kiss me, Augustin dear."

I kissed Cousin Elizabeth. I was miles away in thought, lost in
perplexed musings.

"I comforted her, and told her that the time would soon pass, and that
then she would have you all to herself, with no tiresome people to
interrupt. But the poor darling still cried a little. But one can't
really grieve, can one? A little sorrow means so much happiness later
on, doesn't it? And though I couldn't comfort her, you'll be able to, I
daresay. What's a month?"

"Nothing," said I. I was conscious of realizing that it was at all
events very little.

"I shall expect to see her quite smiling after she's had a little talk
with you," was Cousin Elizabeth's parting speech. It won from me a very
reassuring nod, and left me in mazes of bewilderment. There was nothing
in particular which I believed, but I disbelieved one thing very
definitely. It was that Elsa wept because she must be absent from me for
a month--a month delightfully busied with the making of four hundred
frocks.

Impelled partly by duty but more by curiosity, I went in search of her.
Having failed to find her in the house or on the terrace, I descended
into the hanging woods, and made for an arbour which she and I and
Varvilliers had fallen into the habit of frequenting. A broad grass
path ran up to the front of it, but, coming as I did, I approached it by
a side track. Elsa sat on the seat and Varvilliers stood before her. He
was talking; she leaned forward listening, with her hands clasped in her
lap and her eyes fixed on his face. Neither perceived me. I walked
briskly toward them, without loitering or spying, but I did not call
out. Varvilliers' talk was light, if it might be judged by his
occasional laughs. When I was ten yards off I called, "Hallo, here you
are!" He turned with a little start, but an easy smile. Elsa flushed
red. I had not yet apprehended the truth, although now the idea was
dimly in my mind. I sat down by Elsa, and we talked. Of what I have
forgotten. I think, in part, of William Adolphus, I laughing at my
brother-in-law, Varvilliers feigning to defend him with good-humoured
irony. It did not matter of what we talked. For me there was
significance in nothing save in Elsa's eyes. They were all for
Varvilliers, for him sparkled, for him clouded, for him wondered,
laughed, applauded, lived. Presently I dropped out of the conversation
and sat silent, facing this new thing. It was not bitter to me; my mood
of desire had gone too utterly. There was no pang of defeated rivalry.
But I knew why Elsa had cried, who had power to bring, and who also had
power to dry, her tears.

Suddenly I saw, or seemed to see, a strange and unusual restraint in
Varvilliers' manner. He missed the thread of a story, stumbled, grew
dull, and lost his animation. He seemed to talk now for duty, not for
pleasure, as a man who covers an awkward moment rather than employs to
the full a happy opportunity. Then his glance rested for an instant on
my face. I do not know what or how much my face told him, but I did not
look at him unkindly.

"I must go, if I may," he said addressing me. "I promised to ride with
Vohrenlorf, and the time is past."

He bowed to Elsa and to me.

"We shall see you this afternoon?" she asked.

He bowed again in acquiescence, but with an air of discomfort. Elsa
looked at him, and from him to me. She flushed again, opened her lips,
but did not speak; then she bent her head down, and the blush spread
from neck to forehead.

"Go, my dear friend, go," said I.

He looked at me as though he would have spoken, almost as though he
would have protested or excused himself, inadmissible as such a thing
plainly was. I smiled at him, but waved my hand to dismiss him. He
turned and walked quickly away along the broad grass path. I watched him
till he was out of sight; all the while I was conscious of an utter
motionlessness in Elsa's figure beside me.

We must have sat there a long while in that unbroken eloquent silence,
hardly moving, never looking at one another. For her I was full of
grief; a wayward thing it was, indeed, of fate to fashion out of
Varvilliers' pleasant friendship this new weapon of attack. She had been
on the way to contentment--at least to resignation--but was now thrust
back. And she was ashamed. Poor child! why, in Heaven's name, should she
be ashamed? Should she not better have been ashamed of a fancy so ill
directed as to light on me when Varvilliers was by? For myself I seemed
to see rising before me the need for a new deception, a hoodwinking of
all the world, a secret that none must know or suspect, that she and I
must have between us for our own. The thing might pass; she was young.
Very likely, but it would not pass in time. There were the frocks. Ah,
but the wardrobe that half hid me would not suffice to obscure
Varvilliers. Or would it? I smiled for an instant. Instead of hiding
behind the wardrobe, I saw myself becoming part of it, blending with it.
Should I take rank as the four-hundred-and-first frock? "Willingly give
thyself up to Clotho, allowing her to spin thy thread into whatever
things she pleases." Even into a frock, O Emperor? Goes the philosophy
as far as that?

At last I turned to her and laid my hand gently on her clasped hands.

"Come, my dear," said I, "we must be going back. They'll all be looking
for us. We're too important people to be allowed to hide ourselves."

As I spoke I jumped to my feet, holding out my hand to help her to rise.
She looked up at me in an oddly pathetic way. I was afraid that she was
going to speak of the matter, and there was nothing to be gained by
speaking of it. "Give me your hand," I said with a smile, and she
obeyed. The pleading in her eyes persisted. As she stood up, I kissed
her lightly on the forehead. Then we walked away together.

That afternoon I was summoned to Princess Heinrich's room to drink tea
with her and the Duchess. Cousin Elizabeth was still exuberant; it
seemed to me that a cold watchfulness governed my mother's mood.
Relations between my mother and myself have not always been cordial; but
I have never failed to perceive and respect in her a fine inner
sincerity, an aptitude for truth and a resolute facing of facts. While
Cousin Elizabeth talked, the Princess sat smiling with her usual faint
smile; it never showed the least inclination to become a laugh. She
acquiesced politely in the rose-coloured description of Elsa's feelings
and affections. She had perception enough to know that the picture could
not be true. Presently I took the liberty of informing her by a glance
that I was not a partner in the delusion. She showed no surprise; but
the fruit of my act was that she detained me by a gesture, after Cousin
Elizabeth had taken her leave. For a few moments she sat silent; then
she remarked:

"The Duchess is a very kind woman, very anxious to make everybody
happy."

"Yes," said I carelessly.

"But it must be in her own way. She is romantic. She thinks everybody
else must be the same. You and I know, Augustin, that things of that
kind occupy a very small part of a man's life. My sex deludes itself.
And when a man occupies the position you do, it's absurd to suppose that
he pays much attention to them."

"No doubt Cousin Elizabeth exaggerates," said I, standing in a
respectful attitude before my mother.

"Well, I daresay you remember the time when Victoria was a girl. You
recollect her folly? But you and I were firm--you behaved very well
then, Augustin--and the result is that she is most suitably and most
happily married."

I bowed. I did not think that any agreement of mine could be worthy of
the magnificent boldness of Princess Heinrich's statement.

"Girls are silly; they pass through a silly time," she pursued, smiling.

A sudden remembrance shot across me.

"It doesn't do to take any notice of such things," said I gravely.

Happily, perhaps, Princess Heinrich was not awake to the fact that she
herself was being quoted to herself.

"I'm glad to hear you say so," she said. "You have your work to do.
Don't waste your time in thinking of girls' megrims--or of their
mothers' nonsense."

I left her presence with a strong sense that Providence had erred in not
making her a saint, a king, or anything else that demands a resolute
repression of human infirmities. Some people are content to triumph over
their own weaknesses; my mother had an eye also for the frailty of
others.

She made no reference at all to Varvilliers. There was always something
to be learned from Princess Heinrich. From early youth I was inured to a
certain degree of painfulness in the lesson.

"Willingly give thyself up to Clotho." My mother was more than willing.
She was proud; and, if I may be allowed to vary the metaphor, she
embarked on the ship of destiny with a family ticket.




CHAPTER XXIII.

A PARADOX OF SENSIBILITY.


To many the picture presented by my life might seem that of a man who
detects the trap and yet walks into it, sinks under burdens that he
might cast aside, groans at chains that he could break, and will not
leave the prison although the door-key is in his pocket. Such an
impression my record may well give, unless it be understood that what
came upon me was not an impossibility of movement, but a paralysis of
the will to move. In this there is nothing peculiar to one placed as I
was. Most men could escape from what irks, confines, or burdens them at
the cost of effacing their past lives, breaking the continuity of
existence, cutting the cord that binds together, in a sequence of
circumstances and incidents, youth, and maturity, and age. But who can
do the thing? One man in a thousand, and he generally a scoundrel.

Our guests returned to Bartenstein, the Duchess still radiant and
maternal, Elsa infinitely kind, infinitely apologetic, a little tearful,
never for an instant wavering in her acceptance of the future.
Varvilliers took leave of me with great friendliness; there was in his
air now just a hint of amusement, most decorously suppressed; he was
charmingly unconscious of any possible seriousness in the position. My
mother went to visit Styrian relatives. Victoria and William Adolphus
had taken a villa by the seaside. I was quite alone at Artenberg, save
for my faithful Vohrenlorf, and Vohrenlorf was bored to death. That will
not appear strange; to me it seemed enviable. A prisoner under sentence
probably discerns much that is attractive even in the restricted life of
his jailer.

In a day or two there came upon me a persistent restlessness, and with
it constant thoughts of Wetter. I wondered where he was and what he did;
I longed to share the tempestuousness of his life and thoughts. He
brought with him other remembrances, of the passions and the events that
we two had, in friendship or hostility, witnessed together. They had
seemed, all of them, far behind in the past, belonging to the days when,
as old Vohrenlorf had told me, I had still six years. Now I had only a
month; but the images were with me, importunate and pleading. I was
asking whether I could not, even now, save something out of life.

Three days later found me established in a hotel in the Place Vendome at
Paris, Vohrenlorf my only companion. I was in strictest _incognito_;
Baron de Neberhausen was my name. But in Paris in August my _incognito_
was almost a superfluity for me, although a convenience to others. It
was very hot; I did not care. The town was absolutely empty. Not for me!
Here is my secret. Wetter was in Paris. I had seen it stated in the
newspaper. What brought the man of moods to Paris in August? I could
answer the question in one way only: the woman of his mood. I did not
care about her; I wanted to see him and hear again from his own lips
what he thought of the universe, of my part and his in it, and of the
ways of the Power that ruled it. In a month I should be on my honeymoon
with Cousin Elsa. I fought desperately against the finality implied in
that.

On the second evening I gave Vohrenlorf the slip, and went out on the
Boulevards alone. In great cities nobody is known; I enjoyed the luxury
of being ignored. I might pass for a student, a chemist, at a pinch,
perhaps, for a poet of a reflective type. My natural manner would seem
no more than a touch of youth's pardonable arrogance. I sat down and had
some coffee. It was half-past ten, and the pavements were full. I bought
a paper and read a paragraph about Elsa and myself. Elsa and myself both
seemed rather a long way off. It was delicious to make believe that this
here and this now were reality; the kingship, Elsa, the wedding and the
rest, some story or poem that I, the student, had been making
laboriously before working hours ended, and I was free to seek the
Boulevards. I was pleased when a pretty girl, passing by, stared hard at
me and seemed to like my looks; this tribute was my own; she was not
staring at the king.

Satisfaction, not surprise, filled me when, in about twenty minutes, I
saw Wetter coming toward the _cafe_. I had taken a table far back from
the street, and he did not see me. The glaring gaslight gave him a
deeper paleness and cut the lines of his face to a sharper edge. He was
talking with great animation, his hands moving constantly in eager
gesture. I was within an ace of springing forward to greet him--so my
heart went out to him--but the sight of his companion restrained me, and
I sat chuckling and wondering in my corner. There they were, large as
life, true to Varvilliers' description; the big stomach and the locket
that a hyperbole, so inevitable as to outstrip mere truth in fidelity,
had called bigger. Besides there were the whiskers, the heavy jowl, the
infinite fatness of the man, a fatness not of mere flesh only, but of
manner, of air, of thought, of soul. There was no room for doubt or
question. This was Coralie's impresario, Coralie's career, her duty, her
destiny; in a word, everything to Coralie that poor little Cousin Elsa
was to me. Nay, your pardon; that I was to Cousin Elsa. I put my cigar
back in my mouth and smoked gravely; it seemed improper to laugh.

The two men sat down at an outer table. Wetter was silent now, and
Struboff (I remembered suddenly that I had seen Coralie described as
Madame Mansoni-Struboff) was talking. I could almost see the words
treacling from his thick lips. What in Heaven's name made him Wetter's
companion? What in Heaven's name made me such a fool as to ask the
question? Men like Struboff can have but one merit, and, to be fair, but
one serious crime. It is the same; they are the husbands of their wives.

I could contain myself no longer. I rose and walked forward. I laid my
hand on Wetter's shoulder, saying:

"My dear friend, have you forgotten me--Baron de Neberhausen?"

[Illustration: "My dear friend, have you forgotten me?"]

He looked up with a start, but when he saw me his eyes softened. He
clasped my hand.

"Neberhausen?" he said.

"Yes; we met in Forstadt."

"To be sure," he laughed. "May I present my friend to you? M. le Baron
de Neberhausen, M. Struboff. You will know Struboff's name. He gives us
the best operas in the world, and the best singing."

"M. Struboff's fame has reached me," said I, sitting down.

Evidently Struboff did not know me; he received the introduction without
any show of deference. I was delighted. I should have seen little of the
true man had he been aware from the first who I was. Things being as
they were, I could flatter him, and he had no motive for flattering me.
A mere baron had no effect on him. He resumed the interrupted
conversation; he was telling Wetter how he could make money out of
music, and then more music out of the money, then more money out of the
music, and so on, in an endless chain of music and money, money and
music, money, music, money. Wetter sat looking at him with a smile of
malicious mockery.

"Happy man!" he cried suddenly. "You love only two things in the world,
and you've married both."

Struboff pulled his whisker meditatively.

"Yes, I have done well," he said, and drained his glass. "But hasn't
Coralie done well too? Where would she have been but for me?"

"Indeed, my dear Struboff, there's no telling, but I suppose in the arms
of somebody else."

"Your own, for example?" growled the husband.

"Observe the usual reticences," said Wetter, with a laugh. "My dear
Baron, Struboff mocks my misery by a pretended jealousy. You can
reassure him. Did Madame Mansoni ever favour me?"

"I can speak only of what I know," I answered, smiling. "She never
favoured you before me."

He caught the ambiguity of my words, and laughed again. Struboff turned
toward me with a stare.

"You also knew my wife?" he asked.

"I had the honour," said I. "In Forstadt."

"In Forstadt! Do you know the king?"

"Not so well as I could wish," I answered. "About as well as I know
Wetter here."

"That's admirably well!" cried Wetter. "Well enough not to trust me."

The fat man looked from one to the other of us in an obtuse suspicion of
our hilarity.

"The king admired my wife's talents," said he. "We intend to visit
Forstadt next year."

"Do you?" said I, and Wetter's peal broke out again.

"The king will find my wife's talent much increased by training,"
pursued Struboff.

"Damn your wife's talent!" said Wetter, quite suddenly. "You talk as
much about it as she does of your beauty."

"I hope madame is well?" I interposed quickly and suavely, for Struboff
had grown very red and gave signs of temper. Wetter did not allow him to
answer. He sprang to his feet and dragged Struboff up by the arm.

"Take his other arm!" he cried to me. "Bring him along. Come, come,
we'll all go and see how madame is."

"It's nearly eleven," remonstrated Struboff sourly. "I want to go to
bed."

"You? You go to bed? You, with your crimes, go to bed? Why, you couldn't
sleep! You would cower all night! Go to bed! Oh, my dear Struboff, think
better of it. No, no, we'll none of us go to bed. Bed's a hell for men
like us. For you above all! Think again, Struboff, think again!"

Struboff shrugged his fat shoulders in helpless bad temper. I was
laughing so much (at what, at what?) that I could hardly do my part in
hustling him along. Wetter set a hot pace, and Struboff soon began to
pant.

"I can't walk. Call a cab!" he gasped.

"Cab? No, no. We can't sit still. Conscience, my dear Struboff! _Post
equitem_--you know. There's nothing like walking for sinners like us.
Bring him along, Baron, bring him along!"

"Perhaps M. Struboff doesn't desire our company," I suggested.

"Perhaps!" shouted Wetter, with a laugh that turned a dozen heads toward
him. "Oh, my dear Struboff, do you hear this suggestion of our friend
the baron's? What a pity you have no breath to repudiate it!"

But now we were escaping from the crowd. Crossing in front of the Opera
House, we made for the Rue de la Paix. The pace became smarter still;
not only was Struboff breathless with being dragged along, but I was
breathless with dragging him. I insisted on a cab. Wetter yielded,
planted Struboff and me side by side, and took the little seat facing us
himself. Here he sat, smiling maliciously, as the poor impresario mopped
his forehead and fetched up deep gasps of breath. Where lay the
inspiration of this horseplay of Wetter's?

"Quicker, quicker!" he cried to the driver. "I am impatient, my friends
are impatient. Quick, quick! Only God is patient."

"He's mad," grunted Struboff. "He's quite mad. The devil, I'm hot!"

Wetter suddenly assumed an air of great dignity and blandness.

"In offering to present us to madame at an hour possibly somewhat late,"
he said, "our dear M. Struboff shows his wonted amiability. We should
be failing in gratitude if we did not thank him most sincerely."

"I didn't ask you to come," growled Struboff.

Wetter looked at him with an air of grieved surprise, but said nothing
at all. He turned to me with a ridiculous look of protest, as though
asking for my support. I laughed; the mad nonsense was so welcome to me.

We stopped before a tall house in the Rue Washington; Wetter bundled us
out with immense haste. There were lights in the second-floor windows.
"Madame expects us!" he cried with a rapturous clasping of his hands.
"Come, come, dear Struboff!--Baron, Baron, pray take Struboff's arm; the
steps to heaven are so steep."

Struboff seemed resigned to his fate; he allowed himself to be pushed
upstairs without expostulation. He opened the door for us, and ushered
us into the passage. As he preceded us, I had time for one whisper to
Wetter.

"You're still mad about her, are you?" I said, pinching his arm.

"Still? Good Heavens, no! Again!" he answered.

The door that faced us was thrown open, and Coralie stood before me in a
loose gown of a dark-red colour. Before she could speak, Wetter darted
forward, pulling me after him.

"I have the distinguished honour to present my friend, M. de
Neberhausen," he said. "You may remember meeting him at Forstadt."

Coralie looked for a moment at each of us in turn. She smiled and nodded
her head.

"Perfectly," she said; "but it is a surprise to see him here, a very
pleasant surprise." She gave me her hand, which I kissed with a fine
flourish of gallantry.

"This gentleman knows the King very well," said Struboff, nodding at her
with a solemn significance. "There's money in that!" he seemed to say.

"Does he?" she asked indifferently; and added to me, "Pray come in. I
was not expecting visitors; you must make excuses for me."

She did not seem changed in the least degree. There was the same
indolence, the same languid, slow enunciation. It struck me in a moment
that she ignored her husband's presence. He had gone to a sideboard and
was fingering a decanter. Wetter flung himself on a sofa.

"It is really you?" she asked in a whisper, with a lift of her eyelids.

"Oh, without the least doubt!" I answered. "And it is you also?"

Struboff came forward, tumbler in hand.

"Pray, is your King fond of music?" he asked.

"He will adore it from the lips of Madame Struboff," I answered, bowing.

"He adored it from the lips of Mlle. Mansoni," observed Wetter, with a
malicious smile. Struboff glared at him; Coralie smiled slightly. An
inkling of Wetter's chosen part came into my mind. He had elected to
make Struboff uncomfortable; he did not choose that the fat man should
enjoy his victory in peace. My emotions chimed in with his resolve, but
reason suggested that the ethical merits were more on Struboff's side.
He was Coralie's career; the analogy of my own relation toward Elsa
urged that he who is a career is entitled to civility. Was not I Elsa's
Struboff? I broke into a sudden laugh; it passed as a tribute to
Wetter's acid correction.

"You are studying here in Paris, madame?" I asked.

"Yes," said Coralie. "Why else should we be here now?"

"Why else should I be here now?" asked Wetter. "For the matter of that,
Baron, why else should you be here now? Why else should anybody be here
now? It is even an excuse for Struboff's presence."

"I need no excuse for being in my own home," said Struboff, and he
gulped down his liquor.

Wetter sprang up and seized him by the arm.

"You are becoming fatter and fatter and fatter. Presently you will be
round, quite round; they'll make a drum of you, and I'll beat you in the
orchestra while madame sings divinely on the boards. Come and see if we
can possibly avoid this thing," and he led him off to the sofa. There
they began to talk, Wetter suddenly dropping his burlesque and allowing
a quiet, earnest manner to succeed his last outburst. I caught some
mention of thousands of francs; surely there must be a bond of interest,
or Wetter would have been turned out before now.

Coralie moved toward the other end of the room, which was long, although
narrow. I followed her. As she sat down she remarked:

"He has lent Struboff twenty thousand francs; but for that I must have
sung before I was ready."

The situation seemed a little clearer.

"But he is curious," she pursued, fixing a patiently speculative eye on
Wetter. "You would say that he was fond of me?"

"It is a possible reason for his presence."

"He doesn't show it," said she, with a shrug.

I understood that little point in Wetter's code; besides, his humour
seemed just now too bitter for love-making. If Coralie felt any
resentment, it did not go very deep. She turned her eyes from Wetter to
my face.

"You're going to be married very soon?" she said.

"In a month," said I. "I'm having my last fling. You perceived our high
spirits?"

"I've seen her picture. She's pretty. And I've seen the Countess von
Sempach."

"You know about her?"

"Have you forgotten that you used to speak of her? Ah, yes, you've
forgotten all that you used to say! The Countess is still handsome."

"What of that? So are you."

"True, it doesn't matter much," Coralie admitted. "Does your Princess
love you?"

"Don't you love your husband?"

A faint slow smile bent her lips as she glanced at Struboff--himself and
his locket.

"Nobody acts without a motive," said I. "Not even in marrying."

The bitterness that found expression in this little sneer elicited no
sympathetic response from Coralie. I was obliged to conclude that she
considered her marriage a success; at least that it was doing what she
had expected from it. At this moment she yawned in her old, pretty, lazy
way. Certainly there were no signs of romantic misery or tragic
disillusionment about her. Again I asked myself whether my sympathy were
not more justly due to Struboff--Struboff, who sat now smoking a big
cigar and wobbling his head solemnly in answer to the emphatic taps of
Wetter's forefinger on his waistcoat. The question was whether human
tenderness lay anywhere under those wrappings; if so, M. Struboff might
be a proper object of compassion, his might be the misery, his (O
monstrous thought!) the disillusionment. But the prejudice of beauty
fought hard on Coralie's side. I always find it difficult to be just to
a person of markedly unpleasant appearance. I was piqued to much
curiosity by these wandering ideas; I determined to probe Struboff
through the layers.

Soon after I took my leave. Coralie pressed me to return the next day,
and before I could speak Wetter accepted the invitation for me. There
was no very strong repugnance in Struboff's face; I should not have
heeded it had it appeared. Wetter prepared to come with me. I watched
his farewell to Coralie; his smile seemed to mock both her and himself.
She was weary and dreary, but probably only because she wanted her bed.
It was a mistake, as a rule, to attribute to her other than the simplest
desires. The moment we were outside, Wetter turned on me with a savagely
mirthful expression of my own thoughts.

"A wretched thing to leave her with him? Not the least in the world!" he
cried. "She will sleep ten hours, eat one, sing three, sleep three, eat
two, sleep---- Have I run through the twenty-four?"

"Well, then, why are we to disturb ourselves?" I asked.

"Why are we to disturb ourselves? Good God, isn't it enough that she
should be like that?"

I laughed, as I blew out my cigarette smoke.

"This is an old story," said I. "She is not in love with you, I suppose?
That's it, isn't it?"

"It's not the absence of the fact," said he, with a smile; "it's the
want of the potentiality that is so deplorable."

"Why torment Struboff, though?"

"Struboff?" he repeated, knitting his brows. "Ah, now Struboff is worth
tormenting! You won't believe me; but he can feel."

"I was right, then; I thought he could."

"You saw it?"

"My prospects, perhaps, quicken my wits."

My arm was through his, and he pressed it between his elbow and his
side.

"You see," said he, "perversity runs through it all. She should feel; he
should not. It seems she doesn't, but he does. Heavens, would you accept
such a conclusion without the fullest experiment? For me, I am
determined to test it."

"Still you're in love with her."

"Agreed, agreed, agreed. A man must have a spur to knowledge."

We parted at the Place de la Concorde, and I strolled on alone to my
hotel. Vohrenlorf was waiting for me, a little anxious, infinitely
sleepy. I dismissed him at once, and sat down to read my letters. I had
the feeling that I would think about all these matters to-morrow, but I
was also pervaded by a satisfaction. My mind was being fed. The air here
nourished, the air of Artenberg starved. I complimented Paris on a
virtue not her own; the house in the Rue Washington was the source of my
satisfaction.

There was a letter from Varvilliers; he wrote from Hungary, where he was
on a visit. Here is something of what he said:

     "There is a charming lady here, and we fall in love, all
     according to mode and fashion. (The buttons are on the foils,
     pray understand.) It is the simplest thing in the world; the
     whole process might, as I believe, be digested into twelve
     elementary motions or thereabouts. The information is given and
     received by code; it is like playing whist. 'How much have you?'
     her eyes ask. 'A passion,' I answer by the code. 'I have a
     _penchant_,' comes from her side of the table. 'I am leading up
     to it,' say I. 'I am returning the lead.' Good! But then comes
     hers (or mine), 'I have no more.' Alas! Well then, I lead, or she
     leads, another suit. It's a good game; and our stakes are not
     high. You, sire, would like signals harder to read, I know your
     taste. You're right there. And don't you make the stakes higher?
     I have plunged into indiscretion; if I did not, you would think
     that Bederhof had forged my handwriting. Unless I am stopped on
     the frontier I shall be in Forstadt in three weeks."

I dropped the letter with a laugh, wondering whether the charming lady
played the game as he did and a stake as light. Or did she suffer? Well,
anybody can suffer. The talent is almost universal. There was, it
seemed, reason to suppose that Struboff suffered. I acquiesced, but with
a sense of discontent. Pain should not be vulgarized. Varvilliers'
immunity gave him a new distinction in my eyes.




CHAPTER XXIV.

WHAT A QUESTION!


Struboff's inevitable discovery of my real name was a disaster; it
delayed my operations for three days, since it filled his whole being
with a sense of abasement and a hope of gain, thereby suspending for the
time those emotions in him which had excited my curiosity. Clearly he
had unstinted visions of lucrative patronage, dreams, probably, of a
piece of coloured ribbon for his button-hole, and a right to try to
induce people to call him "Chevalier." He made Coralie a present,
handsome enough. I respected the conscientiousness of this act; my
friendship was an unlooked-for profit, a bonus on the marriage, and he
gave his wife her commission. But he seemed cased in steel against any
confidence; he trembled as he poured me out a glass of wine. He had
pictured me only as a desirable appendage to a gala performance; it is,
of course, difficult to realize that the points at which people are
important to us are not those at which they are important to themselves.
However I made progress at last. The poor man's was a sad case; the
sadder because only with constant effort could the onlooker keep its
sadness disengaged from its absurdity, and remember that
unattractiveness does not exclude misery. The wife in a marriage of
interest is the spoiled child of romancers; scarcely any is rude enough
to say, "Well, who put you there?" The husband in such a partnership
gains less attention; at the most, he is allowed a subordinate share of
the common stock of woe. The clean case for observation--he miserable,
she miles away from any such poignancy of emotion--was presented by
Coralie's consistency. It was not in her to make a bargain and pull
grimaces when she was asked to fulfil it. True, she interpreted it in
her own way. "I promised to marry you. Well, I have. How are you
wronged, _mon cher_? But did I promise to speak to you, to like you?
_Mon Dieu!_ who promised, or would ever promise, to love you?" The
mingled impatience and amusement of such questions expressed themselves
in her neglect of him and in her yawns. Under his locket, and his
paunch, and his layers, he burned with pain; Wetter was laying the
blisters open to the air, that their sting might be sharper. At last,
sorely beset, he divined a sympathy in me. He thought it disinterested,
not perceiving that he had for me the fascination of a travesty of
myself, and that in his marriage I enjoyed a burlesque presentiment of
what mine would be. That point of view was my secret until Wetter's
quick wit penetrated it; he worked days before he found out why I was
drawn to the impresario; his discovery was hailed with a sudden laugh
and a glance, but he put nothing into words. Both to him and to me the
thing was richer for reticence; in the old phrase, the drapery enhanced
the charms which it did not hide.

A day came when I asked the husband to luncheon with me. I sent
Vohrenlorf away; we sat down together, Struboff swelling with pride,
seeing himself telling the story in the wings, meditating the
appearance and multiplication of paragraphs. I said not a word to
discourage the visions; we talked of how Coralie should make fame and he
money; he grew enthusiastic, guttural, and severe on the Steinberg. I
ordered more Steinberg, and fished for more enthusiasm. I put my purse
at his disposal; he dipped his fingers deep, with an anxious furtive
eagerness. The loan was made, or at least pledged, before it flashed
across my brain that the money was destined for Wetter--he wanted to pay
off Wetter. We were nearing the desired ground.

"My dear M. Struboff," said I, "you must not allow yourself to be
embarrassed. Great properties are slow to develop; but I have patience
with my investments. Clear yourself of all claims. Money troubles
fritter away a man's brains, and you want yours."

He muttered something about temporary scarcity.

"It would be intolerable that madame should be bothered with such
matters," I said.

He gulped down his Steinberg and gave a snort. The sound was eloquent,
although not sweet. I filled his glass and handed him a cigar. He drank
the wine, but laid the cigar on the table and rested his head on his
hand.

"And women like to have money about," I pursued, looking at the veins on
his forehead.

"I've squandered money on her," he said. "Good money."

"Yes, yes. One's love seeks every mode of expression. I'm sure she's
grateful."

He raised his eyes and looked at me. I was smoking composedly.

"Were you once in love with my wife?" he asked bluntly. His deference
wore away under the corrosion of Steinberg and distress.

"Let us choose our words, my dear M. Struboff. Once I professed
attachment to Mlle. Mansoni."

"She loved you?"

"It is discourteous not to accept any impression that a lady wishes to
convey to you," I answered, smiling.

"Ah, you know her!" he cried, bringing his fist down on the table.

"Not the least in the world," I assured him. "Her beauty, her charm, her
genius--yes, we all know those. But her soul! That's her husband's
prerogative."

There was silence for a moment, during which he still looked at me, his
thick eyelids half hiding the pathetic gaze of his little eyes.

"My life's a hell!" he said, and laid his head between his hands on the
table. I saw a shudder in his fat shoulders.

"My dear M. Struboff," I murmured, as I rose and walked round to him. I
did not like touching him, but I forced myself to pat his shoulder
kindly. "Women take whims and fancies," said I, as I walked back to my
seat.

He raised his head and set his chin between his fists.

"She took me for what she could get out of me," said he.

"Shall we be just? Didn't you look to get something out of her?"

"Yes. I married her for that," he answered. "But I'm a damned fool! I
saw that she loathed me; it isn't hard to see. You see it; everybody
sees it."

"And you fell in love with her? That was breaking the bargain, wasn't
it?" It crossed my mind that I might possibly break my bargain with
Elsa. But the peril was remote.

"My God, it's maddening to be treated like a beast. Am I repulsive, am I
loathsome?"

"What a question, my dear M. Struboff!"

"And I live with her. It is for all day and every day."

"Come, come, be reasonable. We're not lovesick boys."

"If I touch a piece of bread in giving it to her, she cuts herself
another slice."

How I understood you in that, O dainty cruel Coralie!

"And that devil comes and laughs at me."

"He needn't come, if you don't wish it."

"Perhaps it's better than being alone with her," he groaned. "And she
doesn't deceive me. Ah, I should like sometimes to say to her, 'Do what
you like; amuse yourself, I shall not see. It wouldn't matter.' If she
did that, she mightn't be so hard to me. You wonder that I say this,
that I feel it like this? Well, I'm a man; I'm not a dog. I don't dirty
people when I touch them."

I got up and walked to the hearthrug. I stood there with my back to him.
He blew his nose loudly, then took the bottle; I heard the wine trickle
in the glass and the sound of his noisy swallowing. There was a long
silence. He struck a match and lit his cigar. Then he folded up the
notes I had given him, and the clasp of his pocket-book clicked.

"I have to go with her to rehearsal," he said.

I turned round and walked toward him. His uneasy deference returned, he
jumped up with a bow and an air of awkward embarrassment.

"Your Majesty is very good. Your Majesty pardons me? I have abused your
Majesty's kindness. You understand, I have nobody to speak to."

"I understand very well, M. Struboff. I am very sorry. Be kind to her
and she will change toward you."

He shook his head ponderously.

"She won't change," he said, and stood shuffling his feet as he waited
to be dismissed. I gave him my hand. (O Coralie, you and your bread! I
understood.)

"She'll get accustomed to you," I murmured, with a reminiscence of
William Adolphus.

"I think she hates me more every day." He bowed over my hand, and backed
out with clumsy ceremony.

I flung myself on the sofa. Was not the burlesque well conceived and
deftly fashioned? True, I did not seem to myself much like Struboff.
There was no comfort in that; Struboff did not seem to himself much like
what he was. "Am I repulsive, am I loathsome?" he cried indignantly, and
my diplomacy could answer only, "What a question, my dear M. Struboff!"
If I cried out, asking whether I were so unattractive that my bride must
shrink from me, a thousand shocked voices would answer in like manner,
"Oh, sire, what a question!"

Later in the day I called on Coralie and found her alone. Speaking as
though from my own observation, I taxed her roundly with her coldness to
Struboff and with allowing him to perceive her distaste for him. I
instanced the matter of the bread, declaring that I had noticed it when
I breakfasted with them. Coralie began to laugh.

"Do I do that? Well, perhaps I do. You've felt his hand? It is not very
pleasant. Yes, I think I do take another piece."

"He observes it."

"Oh, I think not. He doesn't care. Besides he must know. Have I
pretended to care for him? Heavens, I'm no hypocrite. We knew very well
what we wanted, he and I. We have each got it. But kisses weren't in the
bargain."

"And you kiss nobody now?"

"No," she answered simply and without offence. "No. Wetter doesn't ask
me, and you know I never felt love for him; if he did ask me, I
wouldn't. These things are very troublesome. And you don't ask me."

"No, I don't, Coralie," said I, smiling.

"I might kiss you, perhaps."

"I have something to give too, have I?"

"No, that would be no use. I should make nothing out of you. And the
rest is nonsense. No, I wouldn't kiss you, if you did ask."

"Perhaps Wetter will ask you now. I have lent your husband money, and he
will pay Wetter off."

"Ah, perhaps he will then; he is curious, Wetter. But I shan't kiss him.
I am very well as I am."

"Happy?"

"Yes; at least I should be, if it were not for Struboff. He annoys me
very much. You know, it's like an ugly picture in the room, or a dog one
hates. He doesn't say or do much, but he's there always. It frets me."

"Madame, my sympathy is extreme."

"Oh, your sympathy! You're laughing at me. I don't care. You're going to
be married yourself."

"What you imply is not very reassuring."

"It's all a question of what one expects," she said with a shrug.

"My wife won't mind me touching her bread?" I asked anxiously.

"Oh, no, she won't mind that. You're not like that. Oh, no, it won't be
in that way."

"I declare I'm much comforted."

"Indeed you needn't fear that. In some things all women are alike. You
needn't fear anything of that sort. No woman could feel that about you."

"I grow happier every moment. I shouldn't have liked Elsa to cut herself
another slice."

Coralie laughed, sniffed the roses I had brought, and laughed again, as
she said:

"In fact I do. I remember it now. I didn't mean to be rude; it came
natural to do it; as if the piece had fallen on the floor, you know."

Evidently Struboff had analyzed his wife's feelings very correctly. I
doubted both the use and the possibility of enlightening her as to his.
Kisses were not in the bargain, she would say. After all, the desire for
affection was something of an incongruity in Struboff, an alien weed
trespassing on the ground meant for music and for money. I could hardly
blame her for refusing to foster the intruder. I felt that I should be
highly unjust if, later on, I laid any blame on Elsa for not satisfying
a desire for affection should I chance to feel such a thing. And as to
the bread Coralie had quite reassured me. I looked at her. She was
smiling in quiet amusement. Evidently her fancy was tickled by the
matter of the bread.

"You notice a thing like that," she said. "But he doesn't. Imagine his
noticing it!"

"I can imagine it very well."

"Oh no, impossible. He has no sensibility. You laugh? Well, yes, perhaps
it's lucky."

During the next two or three days I was engaged almost unintermittently
with business which followed me from home, and had no opportunity of
seeing more of my friends. I regretted this the less, because I seemed
now to be possessed of the state of affairs. I resigned myself to the
necessity of a speedy return to Forstadt. Already Bederhof was in
despair at my absence, and excuses failed me. I could not tell him that
to return to Forstadt was to begin the preparations for execution; a
point at which hesitation must be forgiven in the condemned. But before
I went I had a talk with Wetter.

He stormed Vohrenlorf's defences and burst into my room late one night.

"So we're going back, sire?" he cried. "Back to our work, back to
harness?"

"You're going too?" I asked quietly.

He threw back his hair from his forehead.

"Yes, I too," he said. "Struboff has paid me off; I have played, I have
won, I am rich, I desire to serve my country. You don't appear pleased,
sire?"

"When you serve your country, I have to set about saving mine," said I
dryly.

"Oh, you'll be glad of the distraction of public affairs," he sneered.

"Madame Mansoni-Struboff has not fulfilled my hopes of her. I thought
you'd have no leisure for politics for a long while to come."

"The pupil of Hammerfeldt speaks to me," he said with a smile. "You
would be right, very likely, but for the fact that madame has dismissed
me."

"You use a conventional phrase?"

"Well then, she has--well, yes, I do use a conventional phrase."

"I shall congratulate M. Struboff on an increased tranquillity."

The evening was chilly, and I had a bit of fire. Wetter sat looking into
it, hugging his knees and swaying his body to and fro. I stood on the
hearthrug by him.

"I have still time," he said suddenly. "I'm a young man. I can do
something still."

"You can turn me out, you think?"

"I don't want to turn you out."

"Use me, perhaps?"

"Tame you, perhaps."

I looked down at him and I laughed.

"Why do you laugh?" he asked. "I thought I should have roused that
sleeping dignity of yours."

"Oh, my friend," said I, "you will not tame me, and you will not do
great things."

"Why not?" he asked, briefly and brusquely.

"You'll play again, you'll do some mad prank, some other woman will--let
us stick to our phrase--will not dismiss you. When an irresistible force
encounters an immovable object---- You know the old puzzle?"

"Interpret your parable, O King!"

"When a great brain is joined to an impossible temper--result?"

"The result is nothing," said he, taking a fresh grip of his knees.

"Even so, even so," I nodded.

"But I have done things," he persisted.

"Yes, and then undone them. My friend, you're a tragedy." And I lit a
cigarette.

He sat where he was for a moment longer; then he sprang up with a loud
laugh.

"A tragedy! A tragedy! If I make one, by Heaven the world is rich in
them! Take Struboff for another. But your Majesty is wrong. I'm a
farce."

"Yes, you're a bit of a farce," said I.

He laid his hand on my arm and looked full and long in my face.

"So you've made your study of us?" he asked. "Oh, I know why you came to
Paris! Coralie, Struboff, myself--you have us all now?"

"Pretty well," said I. "To understand people is both useful and
interesting; and to a man in my position it has the further attraction
of being difficult."

"And you think Bederhof is too strong for me?"

"He is stupid and respectable. My dear Wetter, what chance have you?"

"There's a river in this town. Shall I jump in?"

"Heavens, no! You'd set it all a-hissing and a-boiling."

"To-night, sire, I thought of killing Struboff."

"Ah, yes, the pleasures of imagination! I often indulge in them."

"Then a bullet for myself."

"Of course! And another impresario for Coralie! You must look ahead in
such matters."

"It would have made a great sensation."

"Everywhere, except in the bosom of Coralie."

"Your cleverness robbed the world of that other sensation long ago. If I
had killed you!"

"It would have been another--another impresario for my Princess."

"We shall meet at Forstadt? You'll ask me to the wedding?"

"Unless you have incurred Princess Heinrich's anger."

"I tell you I'm going to settle down."

"Never," said I.

"Be careful, sire. The revolver I bought for Struboff is in my pocket."

"Make me a present of it," I suggested.

He looked hard in my eyes, laughed a little, drew out a small revolver,
and handed it to me.

"Struboff was never in great danger," he said.

"I was never much afraid for Struboff," said I. "Thanks for the
revolver. You're not quibbling with me?"

"I don't understand."

"There's no river in this town; no institution called the Morgue?"

"Not a trace of such things. Do you know why not?"

"Because it's the king's pleasure," said I, smiling and holding out my
hand to him.

"Because I'm a friend to a friend," he said, as he took my hand. Then
without another word he turned and walked out quickly. I heard him speak
to Vohrenlorf in the outer room, and laugh loudly as he ran down the
stairs.

He had reminded me that I was a pupil of Hammerfeldt's. The reminder
came home to me as a reproach. I had been forgetful of the Prince's
lessons; I had allowed myself to fall into a habit of thought which led
me to assume that my happiness or unhappiness was a relevant
consideration in judging of the merits of the universe. The assumption
is so common as to make us forget that so far from being proved it is
not even plausible. I saw the absurdity of it at once, in the light of
my recent discoveries. Was God shamed because Struboff was miserable,
because Coralie was serenely selfish, because Wetter was tempestuous
beyond rescue? I smiled at all these questions, and proceeded to the
inference that the exquisite satisfaction of my own cravings was
probably not an inherent part of the divine purpose. That is, if there
were such a thing; and if there were not, the whole matter was so purely
accidental as not to admit of any one consideration being in the least
degree more or less relevant than another. "Willingly give thyself up to
Clotho, allowing her to spin thy thread into whatever things she
pleases." That was an extremely good maxim; but it would have been of no
service to cast the pearl before Coralie's impresario. I would use it
myself, though. I summoned Vohrenlorf.

"We have stayed here too long, Vohrenlorf," said I. "My presence is
necessary in Forstadt. I must not appear wanting in interest in these
preparations."

"Undoubtedly," said he, "they are very anxious for your Majesty's
return."

"And I am very anxious to return. We'll go by the evening train
to-morrow. Send word to Bederhof."

He seemed rather surprised and not very pleased, but promised to see
that my orders were executed. I sat down in the chair in which Wetter
had sat, and began again to console myself with my Stoic maxim. But
there was a point at which I stuck. I recalled Coralie and her bread,
and regarded Struboff not in the aspect of his own misery (which I had
decided to be irrelevant), but in the light of Coralie's feelings. It
seemed to me that the philosopher should have spared more consideration
to this side of the matter. Had he reached such heights as to be
indifferent not only to his own sufferings, but to being a cause of
suffering to others? Perhaps Marcus Aurelius had attained to this;
Coralie Mansoni, by the way, seemed most blessedly to have been born
into it. To me it was a stone of stumbling. Pride came to me with
insidious aid and admired while I talked of Clotho; but where was my
ally when I pictured Elsa also making her surrender to the Fates? My
ally then became my enemy. With a violent wrench I brought myself to the
thought that neither was Elsa's happiness a relevant consideration. It
would not do, I could not maintain the position. For Elsa was young,
fresh, aspiring to happiness as a plant rears its head to the air. And
our wedding was but a fortnight off.

"Am I repulsive, am I loathsome?"

"What a question, my dear M. Struboff!"

I had that snatch of talk in my head when I fell asleep.

The next day but one found me back at Forstadt. They had begun to
decorate the streets.




CHAPTER XXV.

A SMACK OF REPETITION.


The contrast of outer and inner, of the world's myself and my own
myself, of others as they seem to me and to themselves (of the reality
they may be, through inattention or dulness, as ignorant as I), which is
the most permanent and the dominant impression that life has stamped on
my mind, was never more powerfully brought home to me than in the days
which preceded my marriage to my cousin Elsa. As I have said, they had
begun to decorate the streets; let me summarize all the rest by
repeating that they decorated the streets, and went on decorating them.
The decorative atmosphere enveloped all external objects, and wrapped
even the members of my own family in its spangled cloud. Victoria
blossomed in diamonds, William Adolphus sprouted in plumes; my mother
embodied the stately, Cousin Elizabeth a gorgeous heartiness; the Duke's
eyes wore a bored look, but the remainder of his person was fittingly
resplendent. Bederhof was Bumble in Olympus; beyond these came a sea of
smiles, bows, silks, and uniforms. Really I believe that the whole thing
was done as handsomely as possible, and the proceedings are duly
recorded in a book of red leather, clasped in gold and embellished with
many pictures, which the Municipality of Forstadt presented to Elsa in
remembrance of the auspicious event. It lies now under a glass case,
and, I understand, excites much interest among ladies who come to see my
house.

Elsa was a puzzle no longer; I should have welcomed more complexity of
feeling. The month which had passed since we parted had brought to her
many reflections, no doubt, and as a presumable result of them a fixed
attitude of mind. William Adolphus would have said (and very likely did
say to Victoria) that she had got used to me; but this mode of putting
the matter suffers from my brother-in-law's bluntness. She had not
defied Clotho, but neither had she altogether given herself up to
Clotho. She had compromised with the Formidable Lady, and, although by
no means enraptured, seemed to be conscious that she might have come off
worse. What was distasteful in Clotho's terms Elsa attempted to reduce
to insignificance by a disciplined arrangement of her thoughts and
emotions. Much can be done if one will be firm with would-be vagrants of
the mind. The pleasant may be given prominence; the disagreeable
relegated to obscurity; the attractive installed in the living
apartments; the repellant locked in a distant cellar, whence their
ill-conditioned cries are audible occasionally only and in the distance.
What might have been is sternly transformed from a beautiful vision into
a revolting peril, and in this new shape is invoked to applaud the
actual and vilify what is impossible. This attitude of mind is thought
so commendable as to have won for itself in popular speech the name of
philosophy--so even with words Clotho works her will. Elsa, then, in
this peculiar sense of the term was philosophical about the business.
She was balanced in her attitude, and, left to herself, would maintain
equilibrium.

"She's growing fonder and fonder of you every day," Cousin Elizabeth
whispered in my ear.

"I hope," said I, with a reminiscence, "that I am not absolutely
repulsive to her." And in order not to puzzle Cousin Elizabeth with any
glimmer of truth I smiled.

"My dearest Augustin" (that she seemed to say "Struboff" was a childish
trick of my imagination), "what an idea!" ("What a question, my dear M.
Struboff!")

I played too much, perhaps, with my parallel, but I was not its slave. I
knew myself to be unlike Struboff (in my case Coralie scouted the idea
of a fresh slice of bread). I knew Elsa to be of very different
temperament from Coralie's. These variances did not invalidate the
family likeness; a son may be very like his father, though the nose of
one turns up and the other's nose turns down. We were, after making all
allowances for superficial differences--we were both careers, Struboff
and I. I need none to point out to me my blunder; none to say that I was
really fortunate and cried for the moon. It is admitted. I was offered a
charming friendship; it was not enough. I could give a tender
friendship; I knew that it was not enough.

And there was that other thing which went to my heart, that possibility
which must ever be denied realization, that beginning doomed to be
thwarted. As we were talking once of all who were to come on the great
day, I saw suddenly a little flush on Elsa's cheek. She did not look
away or stammer, or make any other obvious concession to her
embarrassment, but the blush could not be denied access to her face and
came eloquent with its hint.

"And M. de Varvilliers--he will be there, I suppose?" she asked.

"I hope so; I have given directions that he shall be invited. You like
him, Elsa?"

"Yes," she said, not looking at me now, but straight in front of her, as
though he stood there in his easy heart-stealing grace. And for an
instant longer the flush flew his flag on her cheek.

But Struboff had been so mad as to fall in love with Coralie, and to
desire her love out of no compassion for her but sheerly for itself. Was
I not spared this pang? I do not know whether my state were worse or
better. For with him, even in direst misery, there would be love's own
mad hope, that denial of impossibility, that dream of marvellous change
which shoots across the darkest gloom of passion. Or at least he could
imagine her loving as he loved, and thereby cheat the wretched thing
that was. I could not. In dreary truth, I was toward her as she toward
me, and before us both there stretched a lifetime. If an added sting
were needed, I found it in a perfectly clear consciousness that a great
many people would have been absolutely content, and, as onlookers of our
case, would have wondered what all the trouble was about. There are
those who from a fortunate want of perception are called sensible; just
as Elsa by her resolute evasion of truth would be accorded the title of
philosophical.

Victoria was the prophet of the actual, picking out with optimistic eye
its singular abundance of blessedness. I do not think that she reminded
me that Elsa might have had but one eye, one leg, or a crooked back,
but her felicitations ran on this strain. Their obvious artificiality
gave them the effect of sympathy, and Victoria would always sanction
this interpretation by a kiss on departure. But she had her theory; it
was that Elsa only needed to be wooed. The "only" amused me, but even
with that point waived I questioned her position. It left out
imagination, and it left out Varvilliers, who had become imagination's
pet. Nevertheless, Victoria spoke out of experience; she did not blush
at declaring herself "after all very comfortable" with William Adolphus.
Granted the argument's sincerity, its force could not be denied with
honesty.

"We're not romantic, and never have been, of course," she conceded.

"My dear Victoria, of course not," said I, laughing openly.

"We have had our quarrels."

"The quarrels wouldn't trouble me in the least."

"We don't expect too much of one another."

"I seem to be listening to the address on the wedding day."

"You're an exasperating creature!" and with that came the kiss.

Victoria's affection was always grateful to me, but in the absence of
Wetter and Varvilliers, neither of whom had made any sign as yet, I was
bereft of all intellectual sympathy. I had looked to find some in the
Duke, and some, as I believe, there was; but its flow was checked and
turned by what I must call a repressed resentment. His wife's blind
heartiness was impossible to him, and he read with a clear eye the mind
of a loved daughter. With him also I ranked as a necessity; so far as
the necessity was distasteful to Elsa, it was unpalatable to him.
Beneath his friendliness, and side by side with an unhesitating
acceptance of the position, there lay this grudge, not acknowledged,
bound to incur instant absurdity as the price of any open assertion of
itself, but set in his mind and affecting his disposition toward me. He
was not so foolish as to blame me; but I was to him the occasion of
certain fears and shrinkings, possibly of some qualms as to his own part
in the matter, and thus I became a less desired companion. There was
something between us, a subject always present, never to be mentioned.
As a result, there came constraint. My pride took alarm, and my polite
distance answered in suitable terms to his reticent courtesy. I believe,
however, that we found one common point in a ludicrous horror of Cousin
Elizabeth's behaviour. Had she assumed the air she wore, she must have
ranked as a diplomatist; having succeeded in the great task of
convincing herself, she stands above those who can boast only of
deceiving others. To Cousin Elizabeth the alliance was a love match; had
she possessed the other qualities, her self-persuasion would have been
enough to enable her to found a religious sect and believe that she was
sent from heaven for its prophet.

Amid this group of faces, all turned toward the same object but with
expressions subtly various, I spent my days, studying them all, and
finding (here has been nature's consolation to me) relief from my own
thoughts in an investigation of the mind of others. The portentous
pretence on which we were engaged needed perhaps a god to laugh at it,
but the smaller points were within the sphere of human ridicule; with
them there was no danger of amusement suffering a sudden death, and a
swift resurrection in the changed shape of indignation.

There was already much to laugh at, but now a new occasion came, taking
its rise in a thing which seemed very distinct, and appertaining to
moods and feelings long gone by, a plaything of memory destined (as it
had appeared) to play no more part in actual life. The matter was simply
this: Count Max von Sempach was on leave, and proposed with my
permission to be in Forstadt for the wedding festivities.

Bederhof had heard legendary tales; his manner was dubious and solemn as
he submitted the Count's proposal to me; Princess Heinrich's
carelessness of reference would have stirred suspicion in the most
guileless heart; William Adolphus broke into winks and threatened
nudges; I invoked my dignity just in time. Victoria was rather excited,
rather pleased, looking forward to an amusing spectacle. Evidently
something had reached Cousin Elizabeth's ears, for she overflowed with
unspoken assurances that the news was of absolutely no importance, that
she took no notice of boyish follies, and did not for a moment doubt my
whole-hearted devotion to Elsa. Elsa herself betrayed consciousness only
by not catching my eye when the Sempachs' coming cropped up in
conversation. For my own part I said that I should be very glad to see
the Count and the Countess, and that they had a clear claim to their
invitation. My mother's manner had shown that she felt herself in no
position to raise objections; Bederhof took my commands with resigned
deference. I was aware that his wife had ceased to call on the Countess
some time before Count Max went Ambassador to Paris.

Max had done his work very well--his appointment has been quoted as an
instance of my precocious insight into character--and his work did not
appear to have done him any harm. When he called on me I found him the
same sincere simple fellow that he had been always. By consent we talked
of private affairs, rather than of business. He told me that Tote was
growing into a tall girl, that his other children also shot up, but (he
added proudly) his wife did not look a day older, and her appearance
had, if anything, improved. She had been happy at Paris, he said, "but,
to be sure, she'd be happy anywhere with the children and her home." The
modesty of the last words did not conceal his joyous confidence. I felt
very kindly toward him.

"Really you're an encouragement to me at this moment," I said. "You must
take me to see the Countess."

"She will be most honoured, sire."

"I'd much rather she'd be a little pleased."

He laughed in evident gratification, assuring me that she would be very
pleased. He answered for her emotions in the true style of the blessed
partner; that is an incident of matrimony which I am content to have
escaped. I doubted very much whether she were so eager for the renewal
of my acquaintance as he declared. I recollected the doubts and fears
that had beset her vision of that event long ago. But my part was
plain--to go, and to go speedily.

"To the Countess'?" exclaimed Victoria, to whom I mentioned casually my
plans for the afternoon. "You're in a great hurry, Augustin."

"It's no sign of hurry to go to a place at the right time," said I, with
a smile.

"I don't call it quite proper."

"I go because it is proper."

"If you flirt with her again----"

"My dear Victoria, what things you suggest!"

Victoria returned to her point.

"I see no reason why you should rush off there all in a minute," she
persisted.

Nevertheless I went, paying the tribute of a laugh to the picture of
Victoria flying with the news to Princess Heinrich. But the Princess'
eye could tell a real danger from an imaginary one; she would not mind
my seeing the Countess now.

I went quite privately, without notice, and was not expected. Thus it
happened that I was ushered into the drawing-room when the Countess was
not there to receive me. There I found Tote undeniably long-legged and
regrettably shy. The world had begun to set its mark on her, and she had
discovered that she did not know how to behave to me. I was sorry not to
be pleasant company for Tote; but, perceiving the fact too plainly to
resist it I sent her off to hasten her mother. She had not been gone a
moment before the Countess came in hurriedly with apologies on her lips.

Not a day older! O my dear Max! Shall we pray for this blindness, or
shall we not? She was older than she had been, older than by now she
should be. Yet her charm hung round her like a fine stuff that defies
time, and a gentle kindness graced her manner. We began to talk about
anything and nothing. She showed fretful dread of a pause; when she
spoke she did not look me in the face. I could not avoid the idea that
she did not want me, and would gladly see me take my leave. But such a
feeling was, as it seemed to me, inhuman--a falseness to our true
selves, born of some convention, or of a scruple overstrained, or of a
fear not warranted.

"Have you seen Elsa?" I asked presently, and perhaps rather abruptly.

"Yes," she said, "I was presented to her. She was very sweet and kind to
me."

"She's that to me too," I said, rising and standing by her chair.

She hesitated a moment, then looked up at me; I saw emotion in her eyes.

"You'll be happy with her?" she asked.

"If she isn't very unhappy, I daresay I shan't be."

"Ah!" she said with a sort of despairing sigh.

"But I don't suppose I should make anybody particularly happy."

"Yes, yes," she cried in low-voiced impetuosity.

"Yes, if----" She stopped. Fear was in her eyes now, and she scanned my
face with a close jealous intensity. I knew what her fear was, her own
expression of it echoed back across the years. She feared that she had
given me occasion to laugh at her. I bent down, took her hand, and
kissed it lightly.

"Perhaps, had all the world been different," said I, with a smile.

"I'm terribly changed?"

"No; not terribly, and not much. How has it been with you?"

Her nervousness seemed to be passing off; she answered me in a sincere
simplicity that would neither exaggerate nor hide.

"All that is good, short of the best," she said. "And with you?"

"Shall I say all that is bad, short of the worst?"

"We shouldn't mean very different things."

"No; not very. I've done many foolish things."

"Have you? They all say that you fill your place well."

"I have paid high to do it."

"What you thought high when you paid," she said, smiling sadly.

I would not do her the wrong of any pretence; she was entitled to my
honesty.

"I still think it high," I said, "but not too high."

"Nothing is too high?"

"But others must help to pay my score. You know that."

"Yes, I know it."

"And this girl will know it."

"She wouldn't have it otherwise."

"I know, I know, I know. She would not. It's strange to have you here
now."

"Max would come. I didn't wish it. Yet--" She smiled for a moment and
added: "Yet in a way I did wish it. I was drawn here. It seemed to
concern me. Don't laugh. It seemed to be part of my story, too; I felt
that I must be there to hear it. Are you laughing?"

"I've never laughed."

"You're good and kind and generous. No, I think you haven't. I'm glad of
it, because----"

"Yes? Why?"

"Because even now I can't," she whispered. "No, don't think I mean--I
mean a thing which would oblige you to laugh now. It's all over, all
over. But that it should have been, Augustin?" My name slipped from
unconscious lips. "That it should have been isn't bad to me; it's good.
That's wicked? I can't help it. It's the thing--the thing of my life.
I've no place like yours. I've nothing to make it come second. Ah, I'm
forgetting again how old I am. How you always make me forget it! I
mustn't talk like this."

"We shall never, I suppose, talk like this again. You go back to Paris?"

"Yes, soon. I'm glad."

"But it's not hard to you now?"

She seemed to reflect, as though she were anxious to give me an answer
accurately true.

"Not very hard now," she said at last, looking full at me. "Not very
hard, but very constant, always with me. I love them all, all my folk.
But it's always there."

"You mean--What do you mean? The thought of me?"

"Yes, or the thought that somehow I have just missed. I'm not miserable.
And I like to dream--to be gorgeous, splendid, wicked in dreams." She
gave a laugh and pressed my hand for a moment. "Tote grows pretty," she
said. "Don't you think so?"

"Tote was unhappy with me, and I let her go. Yes, she's pretty; she
won't be like you, though."

"I'll appeal to you again in five, in ten years," said she, smiling,
pleased with my covert praise. "Oh, it's pleasant to see you again," she
went on a moment later. "I'm a bad penitent. I wish I could be with you
always. No, I am not dreaming now. I mean, just in Forstadt and seeing
you."

"A moment ago you were glad to go back to Paris."

"Ah, you assume more ignorance of us than you have. Mayn't I be glad of
one thing and wish another?"

"True; and men can do that too."

I felt the old charm of the quick word coming from the beautiful lips,
the twofold appeal. Though passion was gone, pleasure in her remained;
my love was dead. As I sat there I wished it alive again; I longed to be
back in the storm of it, even though I must battle the storm again.

"After all," she said, with a glance at me, "I have my share in you. You
can't think of your life without thinking of me. I'm something to you.
I'm one among the many foolish things--You don't hate the foolish
things?"

"On my soul, I believe not one of them; and if you're one, I love one of
them."

"I like you to say that."

A long silence fell on us. The thing had not come in either of the
fashions in which I had pictured it, neither in weariness nor in
excitement. It came full with emotions, but emotions that were subdued
shadows of themselves, of a mournful sweetness, bewailing their lost
strength, yet shrinking from remembrance of it. Would we have gone back
if we could? Now I could not answer the question. Yet we could weep,
because to go back was impossible. But it was with a slight laugh that
at last I rose to my feet to say good-bye.

"It's like you always to laugh at the end," she said, a little in
reproach, but more, I think, in the pleasure of recognising what was
part of her idea of me. "You used often to do it, even when you
were--even before. You remember the first time of all--when we smiled at
one another behind your mother's back? That oldest memory comforts me.
Do you know why? I was never so many centuries older than you again. I'm
not so many even now. You look old, I think, and seem old; if we're
nearer together, it's your fault, not my merit. Well, you must go. Ah,
how you fill time! How you could have filled a woman's life!"

"Could have? Your mood is right."

"Surely she'll be happy with you? If you could love her?"

"Not even then. I'm not to her measure."

"Are you unhappy?"

"It's better than the worst, a great deal better. Good-bye."

I pressed her hand and kissed it. With a sudden seeming formality she
curtseyed and kissed mine.

"I don't forget what you are," she said, "because I have fancied you as
something besides. Good-bye, sire. Good-bye, Augustin."

"There's a name wanting."

"Ah, to Caesar I said good-bye five years ago." The tears were in her
eyes as I turned away and left her.

I had a fancy to walk back alone, as I had walked alone from her house
on the day when I cut the bond between us that same five years ago.
Having dismissed my carriage, I set out in the cool of the autumn
evening as dusk had just fallen, and took my way through the decorated
streets. Only three days more lay between the decorations and the
occasion they were meant to grace. There was a hum of gaiety through all
the town; they had begun their holiday-making, and the shops did
splendid trade. They in Forstadt would have liked to marry me every
year. Why not? I was to them a sign, a symbol, something they saw and
spoke of, but not a man. I reviewed the troops every year. Why should I
not be married every year? It would be but the smallest extension of my
functions, and all on the lines of logic. I could imagine Princess
Heinrich according amplest approval to the scheme.

Suddenly, as I passed in meditation through a quiet street, a hand was
laid on my shoulder. I knew only one man who would stop me in that way.
Was he here again, risen again, in Forstadt again, for work, or mirth,
or mischief? He came in fitting with the visit I had paid. I turned and
found his odd, wry smile on me, the knit brows and twinkling eyes. He
lifted his hat and tossed back the iron-gray hair.

"I am come to the wedding, sire," said he, bowing.

"It would be incomplete without you, Wetter."

"And for another thing--for a treat, for a spectacle. They've written an
epithalamium, haven't they?"

"Yes, some fool, according to his folly."

"It is to be sung at the opera the night before? At the gala
performance!"

"You're as well up in the arrangements as Bederhof himself."

"I have cause. Whence come you, sire?"

"From paying a visit to the Countess von Sempach."

He burst into a laugh, but the look in his eyes forbade me to be
offended.

"That's very whimsical too," he observed. "There's a smack of repetition
about this. Is fate hard-up for new effects?"

"There's variety enough here for me. There were no decorations in the
streets when I left her before."

"True, true; and--for I must return to my tidings--I bring you something
new." He paused and enjoyed his smile at me. "Who sings the marriage
song?" he asked.

"Heavens, man, I don't know! I'm not the manager. What is it to me who
sings the song?"

"You would like it sung in tune?"

"Oh, unquestionably."

"Ah, well, she sings in tune," he said, nodding his head with an air of
satisfaction. "She is not emotional, but she sings in tune."

"Does she, Wetter? Who is she?"

He stood looking at me for a moment, then broke into another laugh. I
caught him by the arm; now I laughed myself.

"No, no?" I cried. "Fate doesn't joke, Wetter?"

"Fate jokes," said he. "It is Coralie who will sing your song. To-morrow
they reach here, she and Struboff. Yes, sire, Coralie is to sing your
song."

We stood looking at one another; we both were laughing. "It's a great
chance in her career," he said.

"It's rather a curious chance in mine," said I.

"She sings it, she sings it," he cried, and with a last laugh turned and
fairly ran away down the street, like a mischievous boy who has thrown
his squib and flies from the scene in mirthful fear.

When Fortune jested she found in him quickwitted loving audience.




CHAPTER XXVI.

THE SECRET OF THE COUNTESS.


Princess Heinrich held a reception of all sorts and conditions of those
in Forstadt who were receivable. So comprehensive was the party that to
be included conveyed no compliment, to be left out meant a slap in the
face. But the scene was gorgeous, and the Princess presided over it with
fitting dignity. Elsa and I stood by her for a while, all in our
buckram, living monuments of bliss and exaltedness. It was like a
prolonged interview with the photographer. Then I slipped away and paid
marked and honorific courtesy to Bederhof's wife and Bederhof's
daughters, tall girls, not over-quick to be married, somehow quite
inevitable if one considered Bederhof himself. Rising from my plunge, I
looked round for Elsa. She had left my mother and taken a seat in a
recess by the window. There she sat, looking, poor soul, rather weary,
speaking now and then to those who, in passing by, paused to make their
respects and compliments to her. She wore my diamonds; all eyes were for
her; the streets were splendidly decorated. Was she content? With all my
heart I hoped that she was.

People came and buzzed about me, and I buzzed back to them. I had
learned to buzz, I believe, with some grace and facility, certainly with
an almost entire detachment of my inner mind; it would be intolerable
for the real man to be engrossed in such performances. Looking over the
head of the President of the Court of Appeal (he was much shorter than
his speeches), I saw Elsa suddenly lean forward and sign with her fan to
a lady who passed by. The lady stopped; she sat down by Elsa; they
entered into conversation. For a while I went on buzzing and being
buzzed to, but presently curiosity conquered me.

"In the pleasure of your conversation I mustn't forget what is my first
duty just now, gentlemen," I said with a smile.

They dissolved from in front of me with discreet smiles. I sauntered
toward the recess where Elsa sat. Glancing at Princess Heinrich, I saw
her watching all that went forward, but she was hemmed in by eminent
persons. And why should she interpose, if Elsa desired to talk to the
Countess von Sempach?

I leaned over the arm of my betrothed's chair. They were talking of
common affairs. From where I was I could not see Elsa's face, so I moved
and stood leaning on a third chair between them. The Countess was gay
and brilliant; kind also, with a tenderness that seemed to throw out
feelers for friendship. To me she spoke only when I addressed her
directly; her attention was all for Elsa. In Elsa's eyes, not skilled to
conceal her heart, there was, overpowering all other expression, a
curiosity, a study of something that interested and puzzled her, a
desire to understand the woman who talked to her. For Elsa had heard
something; not all, but something. She was not hostile or disturbed; she
was gracious and eager to please; but she was inquiring and searching.
At her heart's bidding her wits were on the move. I knew the maze that
they explored. She was asking for the Countess' secret. But which
secret? For to her it might well seem that there were two. Rumour said
that I had loved the Countess. It would be in the way of the natural
woman for Elsa to desire to find out why, the trick of the charm that a
predecessor (let the word pass) had wielded. But rumour said also that
the Countess had loved me. Was this the deeper harder secret that Elsa
sought to probe, this the puzzle to which she asked an answer? Perhaps,
could she find an answer that satisfied, there would be new heaven and
new earth for her. Here seemed to me the truth, the reason of the
longing question in her eyes. Jealousy could not inspire that; certainly
not a jealousy of what was long gone by, of a woman who to Elsa's fresh
girlhood must be faded and almost sunk to middle age. "How did you
contrive to love him?" That was Elsa's question, asked beneath my
understanding gaze.

There was a little stir by the door, and a man came through the group
that loitered round it, hastily shaking hands here, nodding there, as he
steered his course toward Princess Heinrich. I knew that Varvilliers
would come to the wedding, but had not been aware that he was already in
Forstadt. My companions did not notice him, but I watched his interview
with my mother. Even she unbent to him, disarmed by a courtesy that
overcame the protest of her judgment; she detained him in conversation
nearly ten minutes, and then pointed to where we were, directing him to
join us.

"Ah, here comes Varvilliers," said I. "I'm delighted to have him back.
You've met him, Countess?"

"Oh, yes, sire, in Paris," she answered.

For a few moments I kept my eyes from Elsa's face and looked toward
Varvilliers, smiling and beckoning. When I turned toward her she was
bright and composed. He joined us, and she welcomed him with cordiality.
He launched on an account of his doings; then came to our affairs,
commiserating us on the trial of our ceremonies. For a while we talked
all to all; then I began to tell the Countess a little story.
Varvilliers and Elsa fell into a conversation apart. She had made him
sit by her. I bent down over my chair back, to converse more easily with
my Countess. All this was right enough, unless the talk were to continue
general.

I do not know how long we went on thus; some time I know it was. At last
it chanced that the Countess made no answer to what I said, and leaned
back in her chair with a thoughtful smile. I sighed, raised my head, and
looked across the room. I heard the other two in animated talk and their
gay laughter; for the moment my mind was not on them. Suddenly Wetter
passed in front of me; he had once been President of the Chamber, and
Princess Heinrich knew her duty. He was with William Adolphus, who
seemed in extremely good spirits. Wetter paused opposite to me and
bowed. I returned his salutation, but did not invite him to join us; I
hoped to speak to him later. Thus it was for a bare instant that he
halted. But what matters time? Its only true measure lies in what a man
does in it. Wetter's momentary halt was long enough for one of those
glances of his to play over the group we made. From face to face it ran,
a change of expression marking every stage. It rested at last on me. I
turned my head sharply toward Elsa; her cheek was flushed; her eyes
glistened; her body was bent forward in an eagerness of attention, as
though she would not lose a word. Varvilliers was given over to the
spirit of his talk, but he watched the sparks that he struck from her
eyes. I glanced again at Wetter; William Adolphus had seized his arm and
urged him forward. For a second still he stood; he tossed his hair back,
laughed, and turned away. Why should he stay? He had said all that the
situation suggested to him, and said it with his own merciless lucidity.

I echoed his laugh. Mine was an interruption to their talk. Elsa started
and looked up; Varvilliers' face turned to me. He looked at me for a
moment, then a strange and most unusual air of embarrassment spread over
him. The Countess did not speak, and her eyes were downcast. Varvilliers
was himself again directly; he began to speak of indifferent matters; he
was not so awkward as to let this incident be the occasion of his
leave-taking. A minute or two passed. I looked at him and held out my
hand. At the same instant the Countess asked a signal from Elsa, and it
was given. We all stood together for a moment, then they left us, she
accepting his arm to cross the room. Elsa sat down again and did not
speak. I found no words either, but leaned again over my chair,
regarding the scene in absent moodiness. I was thinking how odd a thing
it was, and how perfect, that absolute contentment of the one with the
other, that mutual sufficiency, that fitting in of each to each, that
ultimate oneness of soul which is the block from which is hewn love's
image. And the block is there, though by fate's caprice it lie unshaped.
The thing had been between the Countess and myself; its virtue had
availed to abolish difference of years, to rout absurdity, to threaten
the strongest resolution of my mind. It was between Elsa and
Varvilliers. In none other had I found it for myself; in none other
would Elsa find it. It was not for her in me. Then in vain had been the
questioning of her eyes, in vain the eager longing of her parted lips.
She had not ears to hear the secret of the Countess. At this moment I
forgot again that my, or even her, happiness was not a relevant
consideration in forming a judgment of the universe. It is, in fact, a
difficult thing to remember. My pride was ablaze with hatred of being
taken because I could not be refused. I was carried away by a sudden
impulse. I threw myself into the chair by Elsa, saying:

"How it would surprise and scatter all these good people if you suddenly
announced that you'd changed your mind, Elsa! What a rout! what a
scurry! What a putting out of lights, and a pulling down of poles, and a
furling up of flags, and a countermanding of orders to the butcher and
the baker! Good heavens! Think of my mother's face, or, indeed, of your
mother's face! Think of Bederhof's face, of everybody's face!" And I
fell to laughing.

Elsa also laughed, but with a nervous discomfort. Her glance at me was
short; her eyes dropped again.

"What made you think of such a thing?" she asked in a hesitating tone.

"I don't know," said I. Then I turned and asked, "Have you never thought
of it?"

"Never," she said. "Indeed, never. How could I?"

It was impossible to doubt the sincerity of her disclaimer. She seemed
really shocked and amazed at the notion.

"And now! To do it now! When everything is ready!" She gave a pretty
little gasp. "And go back with mother to Bartenstein!" she went on,
shaking her head in horror. "How could you imagine it? Fancy Bartenstein
again!"

Evidently I was preferable to Bartenstein again, to the narrow humdrum
life there. No poles, no flags, no illuminations, no cheers, no dignity!
Diamonds even scarce and rare! I tried to take heart. It was something
to be better than Bartenstein again.

"And what would they think of me? Oh, it's too absurd! But of course you
were joking?"

"Oh, not more than usual, Elsa. You might have found me even more
tiresome than Bartenstein."

"Nonsense! It would always be better here than at Bartenstein."

Clearly there was no question in her mind on this point. Forstadt and
I--let me share, since I may not engross the credit--were much better
than going back to Bartenstein.

She was looking at me with an uneasy, almost suspicious air.

"What made you ask that question?" she said abruptly.

I looked round the room. Among the many groups in talk there were faces
turned toward us, regarding us with a discreet good-humoured amusement.
The King forgot his duties and talked with his lady-love. Every moment
buttressed the reputation of our love match. Let it be so; it was best.
Yet the sham was curiously unpleasant to me.

"Why did you ask me that question, Augustin? You had a reason?"

"No, none; except that in forty-eight hours it will be too late to ask
it."

She leaned toward me in agitated pleading.

"I do love you, Augustin. I love nobody so much as you--you and father."

I and father! Poor girl, how she admitted while she thought to deny! But
I was full of a pity and a tenderness for her, and forgot my own pride.

"You're so good to me; and there's no reason why you should like me."

"Like?" said I. "A gentleman must pretend sometimes, or so it's
thought."

"Yes. What do you mean?" Pleased coquetry gleamed for a moment in her
eyes. "Do you mean--love me?"

"It is impossible, is it?" I asked, and I looked into her eyes as though
I desired her love. Well, I did, that she might have peace.

She blushed, and suddenly, as it were by an uncontrollable immediate
impulse, glanced round. Whose face did she seek? Was it not his who last
had looked at her in that fashion? He was not in sight. Her gaze fell
downward. Ah, that you had been a better diplomatist, Elsa. For though a
man may know the truth, he loves sometimes one who will deny it to him
pleasantly. He gains thereby a respite and an intermission, the
convict's repose between his turns on the treadmill or the hour's
flouting of hard life that good wine brings. But it was impossible to
rear on stable foundations a Pleasure House of Pretence. With every
honest revelation of her heart Elsa shattered it. I can not blame her. I
myself was at my analytic undermining.

"You'll go on then?" I asked, with a laugh.

She laughed for answer. The question seemed to her to need no answer.
What, would she go back to Bartenstein--to insignificance, to dulness,
and to tutelage? Surely not!

"But I'm not very like the grenadier," I said.

She understood me and flushed, relapsing into uneasiness. I saw that I
had touched some chord in her, and I would willingly have had my words
unsaid. Presently she turned to me, and forgetting the gazers round held
out her hands to mine. Her eyes seemed dim.

"I'll try--I'll try to make you happy," she said.

[Illustration: "I'll try--I'll try to make you happy."]

And she said well. Letting all think what they would, I rose to my feet
and bowed low over the hand that I kissed. Then I gave her my arm, and
walked with her through the lane that they made for us. Surely we
pretended well, for somehow, from somewhere, a cheer arose, and they
cheered us as we walked through. Elsa's face was in an instant bright
again. She pressed my arm in a spasm of pleasure. We proceeded in
triumph to where Princess Heinrich sat; away behind her in the foremost
row of a group of men stood Wetter--Wetter leading the cheers, waving
his handkerchief, grinning in charmingly diabolical fashion. The
suitability of Princess Heinrich's reception of us I must leave to be
imagined; it was among her triumphs.

I fell at once into the clutches of Cousin Elizabeth, my regard for whom
was tempered by a preference for more restraint in the display of
emotion.

"My dearest boy," she said, pulling me into a seat by her, "I saw you.
It makes me so happy."

A thing, without being exactly good in itself, may of course have
incidental advantages.

"It was sure to happen. You were made for one another. Dear Elsa is
young and shy, and--and she didn't quite understand." Cousin Elizabeth
looked almost sly. "But now the weight is quite off my mind. Because
Elsa doesn't change."

"Doesn't she?" I asked.

"No, she's constancy itself. Once she takes up a point of view, you
know, or an impression of a person, nothing alters it. Dear me, we used
to think her obstinate. Only everybody gave way to her. That was her
father's fault. He never would have her thwarted. But she's turned out
very well, hasn't she? So I can't blame him. I know your mother thought
us rather lax."

"Ah, my mother was not lax."

"It only shows there's room for both ways, doesn't it? What was I
saying?"

I knew what she had been saying, but not which part of it she desired to
repeat. However she found it for herself in a moment.

"Oh, yes! No, she never changes. Just what she is to you now she'll be
all her life. I never knew her to change. She just loves you or she
doesn't, and there it rests. You may feel quite safe."

"How very satisfactory all this is, Cousin Elizabeth!"

"Satisfactory?" she exclaimed, with a momentary surprise at my epithet.
But her theory came to the rescue. "Oh, I know you always talk like
that. Well, I don't expect you to talk like a lover to me. It's quite
enough if you do it to Elsa. Yes, it is--satisfactory, isn't it?" The
good creature laughed heartily and squeezed my hand. "She'll never
change," she repeated once again in an ample, comfortable contentment.
"And you don't mind showing what you feel, do you?"

Cousin Elizabeth was chaffing me.

"On my word, I forgot how public we were," said I. "My feelings ran away
with me."

"Oh, why should you be ashamed? They might laugh, but I'm sure they
envied you."

It was strange enough, but it is very likely that they did. For my own
part, I have learned not to envy people without knowing a good deal
about them and their affairs.

"Because," pursued Cousin Elizabeth, "I have always in my heart hated
merely arranged marriages. They're not right, you know, Augustin. They
may be necessary, but they're not right."

"Very necessary, but quite wrong," I agreed.

"And at one time I was the least bit afraid--However I was a silly old
woman. Do look at her talking to your mother. Oh, of course, you were
looking at her already. You weren't listening to my chatter."

But I had listened to Cousin Elizabeth's chatter. She had told me
something of interest. Elsa would never change; she took a view and a
relation toward a person and maintained them. What she was to me now she
would be always.

"My dear cousin, I have listened with keen interest to every word that
you've said," I protested truthfully.

"That's your politeness. I know what lovers are," said Cousin Elizabeth.

I looked across to the Duke's passive tired face. The thought crossed my
mind that Cousin Elizabeth must have depended on observation rather than
on experience for the impressions to which she referred. However she
afforded me an opportunity for escape, which I embraced with alacrity.

As I passed my mother, she beckoned to me. Elsa had left her, and she
was alone for the moment. It seemed that she had a word to say to me,
and on the subject concerning which I thought it likely enough that she
would have something to say--the engagement of Coralie to sing at the
gala performance.

"Was there not some unpleasant talk about this Madame Mansoni?" she
asked.

"Well, there was talk," said I, smiling and allowing my eyes to rest on
the figure of William Adolphus, visible in the distance. "It would have
been better not to have her, perhaps. It can be altered, I suppose."

"Bederhof sanctioned it without referring to you or to me. It has become
public now."

"Oh, I didn't know that."

"Yes; it's in the evening papers."

"Any--any remarks?"

"No, except that the Vorwaerts calls it an extraordinarily suitable
selection."

"The Vorwaerts? Yes," said I thoughtfully. Wetter wrote for the Vorwaerts.
"Perhaps then to cancel it would make more talk than to let it stand.
The whole story is very old."

Princess Heinrich permitted a smile to appear on her face as with a wave
of her fan she relegated Coralie to a proper insignificance. She was
smiling still as she added:

"There's another old acquaintance coming to assist at the wedding,
Augustin. I telegraphed to ask her, and she has answered accepting the
invitation in the warmest terms."

"Indeed! Who is that, pray?"

"The Baroness," said my mother.

I stared at her; then I cried with a laugh, "Krak? Not Krak?"

"Yes, Krak, as you naughty children used to call her."

"Good Heavens, does the world still hold Krak?"

"Of course. She's rather an old woman, though. You'll be kind to her,
Augustin? She was always very fond of you."

"I will treat Krak," said I, "with all affection."

Surely I would, for Krak's coming put the crown of completeness on the
occasion. But I was amazed; Krak was utterly stuff of the past.

My mother did not appear to desire my presence longer; I had to take up
my own position and receive farewells.

A dreary half hour passed in this occupation; at last the throng grew
thin. I broke away and sauntered off to a buffet for a sandwich and a
glass of champagne. There I saw Wetter and Varvilliers standing together
and refreshing their jaded bodies. I joined them at once, full of the
news about Krak. It fell rather flat, I regret to say; Krak had not
significance for them, and Wetter was full of wild brilliant talk.
Varvilliers' manner, on the other hand, although displaying now no
awkwardness or restraint, showed unusual gentleness and gravity with an
added friendliness very welcome to me. I stood between my friends,
sipping my wine and detaining them, although the room was nearly empty.
I felt a reluctance to part and an invincible repugnance to my bed.

"Come to my quarters," I said, "and we'll have cigars."

Varvilliers bowed ready assent. Wetter's face twisted into a smile.

"I must plead excuse to the command," he said.

"Then you're a rascal, Wetter; I want you, man, and you ought not to be
expected anywhere this time of night."

"Not at home, sire?"

"Home least of all," said Varvilliers, smiling.

"But I have guests at home," cried Wetter. "I've left them too long. But
Her Royal Highness didn't invite them; besides it was necessary to
practise the song."

"What? Are they with you?"

"Should I send them to a hotel, sire? My friends the Struboffs! No, no!"

Sipping my wine, I looked doubtfully from one to the other.

"The King," observed Wetter to Varvilliers, "would be interested in
hearing a rehearsal of the song."

"But," said I, "Krak comes to-night, and I daren't look as if I'd sat up
beyond my hour."

Wetter laid his finger on my arm.

"One more night," he said. Varvilliers laughed. "I have the same old
servant. He's very discreet!"

"But you'll put it in the Vorwaerts!"

"No, no, not if the meeting-place is my own house."

"I'll do it!" I cried. "Come, let's have a carriage."

"Mine waits," said Varvilliers, "at your disposal. I'll see about it,"
and off he ran. Wetter turned to me.

"An interesting quartette there in the recess," said he.

"And an insolent fellow looking on at it," said I.

"I'll write an article on your impulsive love-making before all the
world."

"Do; I can conceive nothing more politic."

"It shall teem with sincerity."

"Never a jest anywhere in it? Not one for me?"

"No. Jests are in place only when one tells the truth. A lie must be
solemn, sire."

"True. Write it to your mood."

And to his mood he wrote it, eloquently, beautifully, charged with the
passion of that joy which he realized in imagination, but could not find
in his stormy life. I read it two or three days later at Artenberg.

"Hey for the wedding-song and one night more!" he cried.

We rolled off, we three, in Varvilliers' carriage.




CHAPTER XXVII.

OF GRAZES ON THE KNEE.


There was no doubt that they practised the marriage-song. Coralie's
voice echoed through the house as we entered. For a moment we paused in
the hall to listen. Then Wetter dashed up the stairs, crying, "Good God!
Wooden, wooden, wooden!" We followed him at a run; he flung the door
open and rushed in. Coralie broke off her singing and came to greet me
with a little cry of pleased surprise. Struboff sat at the piano,
looking rather bewildered. Supper was spread on a table at the other end
of the room. When Struboff tried to rise, Wetter thrust him back into
his seat. "No, no, the King doesn't want to talk to you," he said. "He
wants to hear madame sing, to hear you play. Coralie, come and sing
again, and, for God's sake sing it as if it meant something, dear
Coralie."

"It's such nonsense," said Coralie, with a pouting smile.

"Nonsense? Then it needs all your efforts. As if--as if, I say--it meant
something."

Varvilliers, laughing, flung himself on a sofa. I stood at the end of
the piano, Wetter was gesticulating and muttering on the hearthrug.
Struboff put his fingers on the keys again and began to play; after a
sigh of weariness Coralie uplifted her voice. It came fresh and full;
the weariness was of the spirit only. The piece was good, nay, very
good; there were feeling and passion in the music. I looked at Struboff.
His fingers moved tenderly, tears stood in his little eyes. Coralie
shouted perfect notes in perfect heartlessness.

"My God!" muttered Wetter from the hearthrug, and bounded across to her.
He caught her by the arm.

"Feel, feel, feel!" he cried angrily.

"Don't be so stupid," said Coralie.

"She can't feel it," said Struboff, taking his handkerchief and wiping
brow and eyes.

"She's a fortunate woman," remarked Varvilliers from his sofa.

"You'd think she could," said Wetter, taking both her hands and
surveying her from top to toe. "You'd think she could understand. Look
at her eyes, her brows, her lips. You'd think she could understand. Look
at her hands, her waist, her neck. It's a little strange, isn't it? See,
she smiles at me. She has an adorably good temper. She doesn't mind me
in the least. It's just that she happens not to be able to feel."

During all this outburst Struboff played softly and tenderly; a large
tear formed now in each of his eyes, and presently trickled over the
swelling hillocks underneath his cheek bones. Coralie was smiling
placidly at Wetter, thinking him mad enough, but in no way put out by
his criticism.

"I can feel it," said Wetter, in a whimsically puzzled tone. "Why should
I feel it? I'm not young or beautiful, and my voice is the worse for
wear, because I've had to denounce the King so much. Nevertheless I can
feel it."

"You can make a big fool of yourself," observed Coralie, breaking into a
laugh and snatching her hands away from him.

"Yes, yes, yes, I should hope so," he cried. "She catches the point! Is
there hope? No, she won't make a fool of herself. There's no hope." He
sank into a chair with every appearance of dejection.

"I think it's supper-time," she said, moving toward the table. "What are
you still playing for?" she called to Struboff.

"Let him play," said I. "Perhaps he would rather play than sup."

"It's very likely," Coralie admitted with a shrug. Struboff looked at me
for a moment, and nodded solemnly. He was playing low now, giving a
plaintive turn to the music that had been joyful.

"No, you shall try it once again," cried Wetter, leaping up. "Once
again! A verse of it! I'll stand opposite to you. See, like this; and
I'll look at you. Now try!"

She was very good-natured with him, and did as he bade her. He took his
stand just by her, behind Struboff, and gazed into her face. I could see
him; his lips twitched, and his eyes were set on her in an ardour of
passion.

"Look in my eyes and sing!" he commanded.

"Ah, you're silly," she murmured in her pleasant lazy drawl. She threw
out her chest, and filled the room with healthy tuneful sound.

"Stop!" he cried. "Stop! I can endure no more of it. Can you eat? Yes,
you can eat. In God's name, come and eat, dear Coralie."

Coralie appealed to me.

"Don't you think I sing it very well?" she asked. "I can fill the Grand
Opera House quite easily."

"You sing it to perfection," said I. "There's nothing wrong, nothing at
all. Wetter here is mad."

"Wetter is certainly mad," echoed Varvilliers, rising from the sofa.

"Wetter is damned mad," said Wetter.

"Wetter is right--ah, so right," came in a despairing grumble from poor
Struboff, who still played away.

"To supper, to supper!" cried Wetter. "You're right, all of you. And I'm
right. And I'm mad. To supper! No, let Struboff play. Struboff, you want
to play. Play on."

Struboff nodded again and played on. His notes, now plaintive, now
triumphant, were the accompaniment to our meal, filling the pauses,
enriching, as it seemed, the talk. But Coralie was deep in _foie gras_,
and paid no heed to them. Wetter engaged in some vehement discussion
with Varvilliers, who met him with good-humoured pertinacity. I had
dropped out of the talk, and sat listening dreamily to Struboff's music.
Suddenly Coralie laid down her knife and turned to me.

"Wouldn't it be nice if I were going to be married to you?" she asked.

"Charming," said I. "But what of our dear M. Struboff? And what of my
Cousin Elsa?"

"We wouldn't trouble about them." She was looking at me with a shrewd
gaze. "No," she said, "you wouldn't like it. Shall we try another
arrangement?" She leaned toward me and laid her pretty hand on my arm.
"Wetter and I--I am not very well placed, but let it pass--Wetter and I,
Varvilliers and the Princess, you and the Countess."

I made no sign of appreciating this rather penetrating suggestion.

"You're more capricious than fortune, more arbitrary than fate, madame,"
said I. "Moreover, you have again forgotten to provide for M. Struboff."

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"No," she said meditatively. "I don't like that after all. It might do
for M. de Varvilliers, but the Countess is too old, and Wetter there
would cut my throat. We can't sacrifice everything to give Varvilliers a
Princess." She appeared to reflect for a few seconds. "I don't know how
to arrange it."

"Positively I should be at a loss myself if I were called upon to govern
the world at short notice."

"I think I must let it alone. I don't see how to make it better."

"Thank you. For my own part I have the good luck to be in love with my
cousin."

Coralie lifted her eyes to mine. "Oh, no!" she drawled quietly. Then she
added with a laugh, "Do you remember when you fought Wetter?"

"Heavens! yes; fools that we were! Not a word of it! Nobody knows."

"Well, at that time you were in love with me."

"Madame, I will have the honour of mentioning a much more remarkable
thing to you."

"If you please, sire," she said, taking a bunch of grapes and beginning
to eat them.

"You were all but in love with me."

"That's not remarkable. You're too humble. I was; ah, yes, I was. I was
very afraid for you. _Mon ami_, don't you wish that, instead of being
King here, you were the Sultan?"

I laughed at this abrupt and somewhat unceremonious question.

"In fact, Coralie," said I, "there are only two really satisfactory
things to be in this life; all else is miserable compromise."

"Tell them to me."

"A Sultan or a monk. And--pardon me--give me the latter."

"Well, I once knew a monk very well, and----" began Coralie in a tone of
meditative reminiscence. But, rather to my vexation, Wetter spoiled the
story by asking what we were talking about with our heads so close
together.

"We were correcting Fate and re-arranging Destiny," I explained.

"Pooh, pooh!" he cried. "You'd not get rid of the tragedy, and only
spoil the comedy. Let it alone, my children."

We let it alone, and began to chatter honest nonsense. This had been
going on for a few minutes, when I became aware suddenly that Struboff
had ceased playing my wedding-song. I looked round; he sat on the
piano-stool, his broad back like a tree-trunk bent to a bow, and his
head settled on his shoulders till a red bulge over his collar was all
that survived of his neck. I rose softly, signing to the others not to
interrupt their conversation, and stole up to him. He did not move; his
hands were clasped on his stomach. I peered round into his face; its
lines were set in a grotesque heavy melancholy. At first I felt very
sorry for him; but as I went on looking at him something of Coralie's
feeling came over me, and I grew angry. That he was doubtless very
miserable ceased to plead for him, nay, it aggravated his offence. What
the deuce right had this fellow to make misery repulsive? And it was
over my wedding song that he had tortured himself into this ludicrous
condition! Yet again it was a pleasant paradox of Nature's to dower this
carcass with the sensibility which might have given a crowning charm to
the beauty of Coralie. In him it could attract no love, to him it could
bring no happiness. Probably it caused him to play the piano better; if
this justifies Nature, she is welcome to the plea. For my part, I felt
that it was monstrously bad taste in him to come and be miserable here
and now in Forstadt. But he overshot his mark.

"Good God, my dear Struboff!" I cried in extreme annoyance, "think how
little it matters, how little any of us care, even, if you like, how
little you ought to care yourself! You've tumbled down on the gravel;
very well! Stop crying, and don't, for Heaven's sake, keep showing me
the graze on your knee. We all, I suppose, have grazes on our knees. Get
your mother to put you into stockings, and nobody will see it. I've been
in stockings for years." I burst into a laugh.

He did not understand what I would be at; that, perhaps, was hardly
wonderful.

"The music has affected me," he mumbled.

"Then come and let some champagne affect you," I advised him irritably.
"What, are you to spoil a pleasant evening?"

He looked at me with ponderous sorrowful reproach.

"A pleasant evening!" he groaned, as he blew his nose.

"Yes," I cried loudly. "A damnably pleasant evening, M. Struboff," and I
caught him by the arm, dragged him from his stool, and carried him off
to the table with me. Here I set him down between Varvilliers and
myself; Wetter and Coralie, deep in low-voiced conversation, paid no
heed to him. He began to eat and drink eagerly and with appetite.

"You perceive, Struboff," said I persuasively, "that while we have
stomachs--and none, my friend, can deny that you have one--the world is
not empty of delight. You and I may have our grazes--Varvilliers, have
you a graze on the knee by chance?--but consider, I pray you, the case
of the man who has no dinner."

"It would be very bad to have no dinner," said Struboff, in full-mouthed
meditation.

"Besides that," said I lightly--I grew better tempered every
moment--"what are these fine-spun miseries with which we afflict
ourselves? To be empty, to be thirsty, to be cold--these are evils. Was
ever any man, well-fed, well-drunk, and well-warmed, really miserable?
Reflect before you answer, Struboff."

He drained a glass of champagne, and, I suppose, reflected.

"If he had his piano also----" he began.

"Great Heavens!" I interrupted with a laugh.

Coralie turned from Wetter and fixed her eyes on her husband. He
perceived her glance directly; his appetite appeared to become
enfeebled, and he drank his wine with apologetic slowness. She went on
looking at him with a merciless amusement; his whole manner became
expressive of a wish to be elsewhere. I saw Varvilliers smothering a
smile; he sacrificed much to good manners. I myself laughed gently.
Suddenly, to my surprise, Wetter caught Coralie by the wrist.

"You see that man?" he asked, smiling and fixing his eyes on her.

"Oh, yes, I see my husband," said she.

"Your husband, yes. Shall I tell you something? You remember what I've
been saying to you?"

"Very well; you've repeated it often. Are you going to repeat it now out
loud?"

"Where's the use? Everybody here knows. I'll tell you another thing." He
leaned forward, still holding her wrist tightly. "Look at Struboff," he
said. "Look well at him."

"I am giving myself the pleasure of looking at M. Struboff," said
Coralie.

"Very well. When you die--because you'll grow old, and you'll grow ugly,
and at last, after you have become very ugly, you'll die."

Coralie looked rather vexed, a little perturbed and protesting. Wetter
had touched the one point on which she had troubled herself to criticise
the order of the universe.

"When, I say, you die," pursued Wetter, "when, after growing extremely
ugly, you die, you will be sent to hell because you have not appreciated
the virtues or repaid the devotion of my good friend M. Struboff. And,
sire" (he turned to me), "when one considers that, it appears
unreasonable to imagine that eternity will be in any degree less
peculiar than this present life of ours."

"That's all very well," said Coralie, "but after having grown ugly I
don't think I should mind anything else."

I clapped my hands.

"I think," said I, "if M. Struboff will pardon the supposition, that
madame will be allowed to escape perdition. For, see, she will stand up
and she will say quite calmly, with that adorable smile of hers----"

"They don't mind smiles there, sire," put in Varvilliers.

"She'll smile not to please them, but because she's amused," said I.
"She'll say with her adorable smile, 'This and that I have done, this
and that I have not done. Perhaps I did wrong, I have not studied your
rules. But you can't send me to hell.'"

They all appeared to be listening with attentive ears.

"Here's a good advocate," said Wetter. "Let us hear the plea."

"'You can't send me to hell because I have not pretended. I have been
myself, and I didn't make myself. I can't go to hell with the
pretenders.'"

"But to heaven with the kings?" asked Varvilliers.

"With the kings who have not also been pretenders," said I.

"_Nom de Dieu_," said she, "I believe that I shall escape, after all. So
you and I will be separated, Wetter."

"No, no," he protested. "Unless you're there the place won't be itself
to me."

We all laughed--Struboff not in appreciation, but with a nervous desire
to make himself agreeable--and I rose from my seat. It was three o'clock
in the morning. Struboff yawned mightily as he drank a final glass and
patted his stomach. I think that we were all happier than when we sat
down.

"And after the occasion, whither?" I asked them.

"I back to France," answered Varvilliers.

"We to Munich," said Coralie, with a shrug.

"I the deuce knows where," laughed Wetter.

"I also the deuce knows where. Come, then, to our next merry supper!" I
poured out a glass of wine. They all followed my example, and we drank.

"But we shall have no more," said Wetter.

A moment's silence fell on us all. Then Wetter spoke again. He turned to
them and indicated me with a gesture.

"He's a good fellow, our Augustin."

"Yes, a good fellow," said Varvilliers.

"A very good fellow," muttered Struboff, who was more than a little gone
in liquor.

"A good fellow," said Coralie. Then she stepped up to me, put her hands
on my shoulders, and kissed me on both cheeks. "A good fellow, our
little Augustin," said she.

There was nothing much in this; casual phrases of goodwill, spoken at a
moment of conviviality, the outcome of genuine but perhaps not very deep
feeling, except for that trifle of the kisses almost an ordinary
accompaniment or conclusion of an evening's entertainment. I was a good
fellow; the light praise had been lightly won. Yet even now as I write,
looking back over the years, I can not, when I accuse myself of
mawkishness, be altogether convinced by the self-denunciation. For what
it was worth, the thing came home to me; for a moment it overleaped the
barriers that were round me, the differences that made a hedge between
me and them; for a moment they had forgotten that I was not merely their
good comrade. I would not have people forget often what I am; but now
and then it is pleasant to be no more than what I myself am. And the two
there, Wetter and Varvilliers, were the nearest to friends that I have
known. One went back to his country, the other the deuce knew where. I
should be alone.

Alone I made my way back from Wetter's house, alone and on foot. I had a
fancy to walk thus through the decorated streets; alone to pause an
instant before the Countess' door, recollecting many things; alone to
tell myself that the stocking must be kept over the graze, and that the
asking of sympathy was the betrayal of my soul's confidence to me; alone
to be weak, alone to be strong; alone to determine to do my work with my
own life, alone to hope that I must not render too wretched the life of
another. I had good from that walk of mine. For you see, when a man is
alone, above all, I think, when he is alone in the truce of night, one
day's fight done and the new morning's battle not yet joined, he can
pause and stand and think. He can be still; then his worst and his best
steal out, like mice from their holes (the cat of convention is asleep),
and play their gambols and antics before his eyes: he knows them and
himself, and reaches forth to know the world and his work in it, his
life and the end of it, the difference, if any, that he has made by
spending so much pains on living.

It was four o'clock when a sleepy night-porter let me in. My servants
had orders never to wait beyond two, and in my rooms all was dark and
quiet. But when I lit a candle from the little lamp by the door, I saw
somebody lying on the sofa in my dressing-room, a woman's figure
stretched in the luxury of quiet sleep. Victoria this must be and none
else. I was glad to see her there and to catch her drowsy smile as her
eyes opened under the glare of my candle.

"What in the world are you doing here, my dear?" said I, setting down
the candle and putting my hands in my pockets.

She sat up, whisking her skirts round with one hand and rubbing her eyes
with the other.

"I came to tell you about Krak--Krak's come. But you weren't here. So I
lay down, and I suppose I went to sleep."

"I suppose you did. And how's Krak?"

"Just the same as ever!"

"Brought a birch with her, in case I should rebel at the last?"

Victoria laughed.

"Oh, well, you'll see her to-morrow," she remarked. "She's just the
same. I'm rather glad, you know, that Krak hasn't been softened by age.
It would have been commonplace."

"Besides, one doesn't want to exaggerate the power of advancing years.
You didn't come for anything except to tell me about Krak?"

Victoria got up, came to me, and kissed me.

"No, nothing else," she said. She stopped a moment, and then remarked
abruptly, "You're not a bit like William Adolphus."

"No?" said I, divining in a flash her thought and her purpose.
"Still--have you been with Elsa to-night?"

"Yes; after Cousin Elizabeth and mother left her. You--you'll be kind to
her? I told her that she was very silly, and that I wished I was going
to marry you."

"Oh, you did? But she wishes to marry me?"

"She means to, of course."

"Exactly. My dear, you've waited a long while to tell me something I
knew very well."

"I thought perhaps you'd be glad to see me," she said, with a little
laugh. "Where have you been? Not to the Countess'?"

"Indeed, no. To Wetter's."

"Ah! The singer?"

"The singer of my marriage-song, Victoria."

Victoria looked at me in a rather despairing fashion.

"Her singing of it," I added, "will be the most perfect and appropriate
thing in the world. You'll be delighted when you hear it. For the rest,
my dear sister, Hammerfeldt looks down from heaven and is well pleased."

Victoria sat on the sofa again. I went to the window, unfastened the
shutters, and pulled up the blinds. A single star shone yet in the gray
sky. I stood looking at it for a few minutes, then lit a cigarette, and
turned round. Victoria was on the sofa still; she was crying in a quiet
matter-of-fact way, not passionately, but with a rather methodical air.
She glanced at me for a moment, but said nothing. Neither did I speak. I
leaned against the wall and smoked my cigarette. For five minutes, I
should suppose, this state of things went on. Then I flung away the
cigarette, Victoria stopped crying, wiped her eyes, and got up.

"I rather wish we'd been born in the gutter," said she. "Good-night,
dear."

She kissed me, and I bade her good-night.

"I must get some sleep, or I shall look frightful. I hope William
Adolphus won't be snoring very loud, I hear him so plainly through the
wall," she said as she started for the door.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

AS BEDERHOF ARRANGED.


Of the next day I have three visions.

I see myself with Krak and Princess Heinrich. Pride illuminated their
faces with a cold radiance, and their utterances were conceived in the
spirit of a _Nunc Dimittis_. They congratulated the world on its Ruler,
the kingdom on its King, themselves on my account, me on theirs. To Krak
I was her achievement; to my mother the vindication of the support she
had given to Krak, and the refutation of my own grumblings and
rebellion. How could I not be reminded of my coronation day? How not
smile when the Princess, after observing regretfully that the Baroness
would not be able to educate my children, bade me inculcate her
principles in the mind of their tutor or governess. She was afraid, she
said, that dear Elsa might be a little lacking in firmness, a little
prone to that indulgence which is no true kindness in the end. "The very
reverse of it, madame," added Krak.

"It's quite time enough for them to begin to do as they like when they
grow up," said the Princess Heinrich.

"By then, though," said Krak, "they will have learned, I hope, to do
what they ought."

"I hope so with all my heart, Baroness," said I.

"Victoria is absurdly weak with her child," Princess Heinrich
complained.

Krak smiled significantly. She had never expected much of Victoria; the
repression of exuberant wickedness had been the bounds of her hope.

Krak left us. There must have been some noticeable expression on my face
as I watched her go, for my mother said with a smile:

"I know you think she was severe. I used to think so too, now and then.
But see how well you've turned out, Augustin!"

"Madame," said I, "my present excellence and my impending happiness
reconcile me to everything."

"You had a very happy childhood," my mother observed. I bowed. "And now
you are going to marry the girl I should choose for you above all
others." Again I bowed. "And public affairs are quiet and satisfactory."
A third time I bowed. "Kiss me, Augustin," said my mother.

This summary of my highly successful life and reign was delivered in
Princess Heinrich's most conclusive manner. I had no thought of
disputing it; I was almost surprised that the facts themselves did not
suffer an immediate transformation to match the views she expressed.
What matter that things were not so? They were to be deemed so and
called so, so held and so proclaimed. My mother's courage touched my
heart, and I kissed her with much affection. It is no inconsiderable
achievement to be consistently superior to reality. I who fought
desperate doubtful battles, crippled by a secret traitorous love of the
enemy, could not but pay homage to Princess Heinrich's victorious front.

Next I see myself with Elsa, alone for a little while with Elsa exultant
in her pomp, observed of all, the envy of all, the centre of the
spectacle, frocked and jewelled beyond heart's desire, narcotized by
fuss and finery, laughing and trembling. I had found her alone with
difficulty, for she kept some woman by her almost all the day. She did
not desire to be alone with me. That was to come to-morrow at Artenberg.
Now was her moment, and she strove to think it eternal. It was not in
her to face and conquer the great enemy after Princess Heinrich's heroic
fashion; she could only turn and fly, hiding from herself how soon she
must be overtaken. She chattered to me with nervous fluency, making
haste always to choose the topic, leaving no gap for the entrance of
what she feared. I saw in her eyes the apprehension that filled her.
Once it had bred in me the most odious humiliation, an intense longing
to go from her, a passionate loathing for the necessity of forcing
myself on her. I was chastened now; I should not be in so bad a case as
Struboff; there would be no question of a fresh slice of bread. But I
tried to harden myself against her, declaring that, desiring the prize,
she must pay the price, and deserved no pity on the score of a bargain
that she herself had ratified. Alas, poor dear, she knew neither how
small the prize was nor how great the price, and her eyes prayed me not
to turn her fears to certainty. She would know soon enough.

Last comes the vision of the theatre, of the gala performance, where
Elsa and I sat side by side, ringed about with great folk, enveloped in
splendour, making a spectacle for all the city, a sight that men now
remember and recall. There through the piece we sat, and my mind was at
work. It seemed to me that all my life was pictured there; I had but to
look this way or that, and dead things rose from the grave and were for
me alive again. There was Krak's hard face, there my mother's
unconquerable smile; a glance at them brought back childhood with its
rigours, its pleasures snatched in fearfulness, its strange ignorance
and stranger passing gleams of insight. Victoria's hand, ringed, and
gloved, and braceleted, held her fan; I remembered the little girl's
bare, red, rapped knuckles. Away in a box to the right, close by the
stage, was the Countess with her husband; my eyes turned often toward
her and always found hers on mine. Again as a child I ran to her, asking
to be loved; again as a boy I loved her and wrung from her reluctant
love; again in the first vigour and unsparing pride of my manhood I
sacrificed her heart and my delight. Below her, standing near the
orchestra, was Wetter; through my glass I could see the smile that never
left his face as he scanned the bedizened row in which I sat. There with
him, looking on, jesting, scoffing at the parade, there was Nature's
place for me, not here playing chief part in, the comedy. What talks and
what nights had we had together; how together had we fallen from heaven
and ruefully prayed for that trick of falling soft! See, he smiles more
broadly! What is it? Struboff has stolen in and dropped heavily into a
seat. Wetter waved a hand to him and laughed. Laugh, laugh, Wetter! It
is your only gospel and therefore must be pardoned its inevitable
defects. Laugh even at poor Struboff whose stomach is so gross, whose
feelings so fine, who may not give his wife a piece of bread, and would
ask no greater joy than to kiss her feet. And laugh at Varvilliers too,
who, although he sits where he has a good view of us, never turns his
eyes toward the lady by my side, but is most courteously unobservant of
her alone among all the throng. Did she look at him? Yes, for he will
not look toward her. Why, we are all here, all except Hammerfeldt, who
looks down from heaven, and Coralie who is coming presently to sing us
the wedding-song. Even Victoria's Baron is here, and Victoria's sobs of
terror are in my ears again. Bederhof and his fellows are behind me. The
real and the unreal, the dummies and the men, they are all here, each in
his place in the tableau. When Coralie comes, we shall be complete.

The opera ended and the curtain fell. There was a buzz of talk.

"Our anthem comes now, Elsa," said I.

"Yes," she whispered, crushing the bizarre satin rag of a programme that
they had given her. "I have never heard Madame Mansoni," she added. I
glanced at her; there was a blush on her cheek. She had heard of Madame
Mansoni, although she had not heard her sing.

I put up my glass again and looked at Wetter. He nodded slightly but
unmistakably, then flung his head back and laughed again. Now we waited
only for Coralie. With her coming we should be complete.

The music began. By arrangement or impulse, I knew not which, everybody
rose to their feet. Only Elsa and I sat still. The curtain rose and
Coralie was revealed in her rare beauty and her matchless calm. A moment
later the great full feelingless voice filled the theatre; she had had
no doubt that she could fill the theatre. I saw Struboff leaning back in
his chair, his shoulders eloquent of despair; I saw Wetter with
straining eyes and curling lips, Varvilliers smiling in mischievous
remembrance of our rehearsal. By my side Elsa was breathing quick and
fast. I turned to her; her eyes were sparkling in triumph and
excitement. It was a grand moment. She felt my glance; her cheek
reddened, her eyes dropped, her lip quivered; the swiftest covert glance
flew toward where Varvilliers was. I turned away with a sort of sickness
on me.

Coralie's voice rose and fell, chanting out her words. The deadness of
her singing seemed subtle mockery, as though she would not degrade true
passion to the service of this sham, as though the words were enough for
such a marriage, and the spirit scorned to sanction it. Elsa's eyes were
on her now, and the Countess leaned forward, gazing at her. The last
verse came, and Coralie, with a low bow and a smile, sang it direct to
me--to me across all the theatre, so plainly that now all heads were
turned from her, the people facing round and looking all at me and at
Elsa by my side. Every eye was on us. The song ended. A storm of cheers
burst out. A short gasp or sob came from Elsa. The cheers swelled and
swelled, handkerchiefs waved in the air. I rose to my feet, gave Elsa my
hand, and helped her to rise. Then together we took a step forward and
bowed to all. Silence fell. Coralie's voice rose again, repeating the
last verse. Now all the chorus joined in. We stood till the song ended
again, and through the tempest of cheers. There had been no such
enthusiasm in Forstadt within the memory of man. The heart of the people
went forth to us; it was a triumph, a triumph, a triumph!

The next day we were married, and in the evening my wife and I set out
together for Artenberg. This was what Bederhof had arranged.




THE END.




BY ANTHONY HOPE.


The King's Mirror.

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Mr. Hope's new romance pictures the life of a prince and king under
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_A DUET, WITH AN OCCASIONAL CHORUS_.

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_UNCLE BERNAC. A Romance of the Empire._

"Simple, clear, and well defined.... Spirited in movement all the way
through.... A fine example of clear analytical force."--_Boston Herald_.


_THE EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD. A Romance of the Life of a Typical
Napoleonic Soldier._

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indulged in by 'The Three Musketeers.' ... Written with a dash and swing
that here and there carry one away."--_New York Mail and Express_.


_RODNEY STONE_.

"A notable and very brilliant work of genius."--_London Speaker_.

"Dr. Doyle's novel is crowded with an amazing amount of incident and
excitement.... He does not write history, but shows us the human side of
his great men, living and moving in an atmosphere charged with the
spirit of the hard-living, hard-fighting Anglo-Saxon."--_New York
Critic_.


_ROUND THE RED LAMP_.

_Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life_.

"A strikingly realistic and decidedly original contribution to modern
literature."-_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette_.


_THE STARK MUNRO LETTERS_. Being a Series of Twelve Letters written by
STARK MUNRO, M. B., to his friend and former fellow-student, Herbert
Swanborough, of Lowell, Massachusetts, during the years 1881-1884.

"Cullingworth.... a much more interesting creation than Sherlock Holmes,
and I pray Dr. Doyle to give us more of him."--_Richard le Gallienne, in
the London Star_.




By S. R. CROCKETT.

Uniform edition. Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.50.


_THE STANDARD BEARER_. An Historical Romance.

"Mr. Crockett's book is distinctly one of _the_ books of the year. Five
months of 1898 have passed without bringing to the reviewers' desk
anything to be compared with it in beauty of description, convincing
characterization, absorbing plot and humorous appeal. The freshness and
sweet sincerity of the tale are most invigorating, and that the book
will be very much read there is no possible doubt."--_Boston Budget_.

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evoke heroisms of history, making the reading of it a delight and the
memory of it a stimulus and a joy."--_New York Evangelist_.


_LADS' LOVE_. Illustrated.

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of personal experience. However modified and disguised, it is hardly
possible to think that the writer's personality does not present itself
in Saunders McQuhirr.... Rarely has the author drawn more truly from
life than in the cases of Nance and 'the Hempie'; never more typical
Scotsman of the humble sort than the farmer Peter Chrystie."--_London
Athenaeum_.


_CLEG KELLY, ARAB OF THE CITY. His Progress and Adventures._
Illustrated.

"A masterpiece which Mark Twain himself has never rivaled.... If there
ever was an ideal character in fiction it is this heroic
ragamuffin."--_London Daily Chronicle_.

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graphic picture of contemporary Scotch life than in 'Cleg Kelly.' ... It
is one of the great books."--_Boston Daily Advertiser_.


_BOG-MYRTLE AND PEAT_. Third edition.

"Here are idyls, epics, dramas of human life, written in words that
thrill and burn.... Each is a poem that has an immortal flavor. They are
fragments of the author's early dreams, too bright, too gorgeous, too
full of the blood of rubies and the life of diamonds to be caught and
held palpitating in expression's grasp."--_Boston Courier_.

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reader for its genial humor, artistic local coloring, and admirable
portrayal of character."--_Boston Home Journal_.


_THE LILAC SUNBONNET_. Eighth edition.

"A love story, pure and simple, one of the old fashioned, wholesome,
sunshiny kind, with a pure-minded, sound-hearted hero, and a heroine who
is merely a good and beautiful woman; and if any other love story half
so sweet has been written this year it has escaped our notice."--_New
York Times_.

"The general conception of the story, the motive of which is the growth
of love between the young chief and heroine, is delineated with a
sweetness and a freshness, a naturalness and a certainty, which places
'The Lilac Sunbonnet' among the best stories of the time."--_New York
Mail and Express_.




"_A BOOK THAT WILL LIVE_."

_DAVID HARUM_. A Story of American Life. By EDWARD NOYES WESTCOTT. 12mo.
Cloth, $1.50.

"Mr. Westcott has done for central New York what Mr. Cable, Mr. Page,
and Mr. Harris have done for different parts of the South, and what Miss
Jewett and Miss Wilkins are doing for New England, and Mr. Hamlin
Garland for the West.... 'David Harum' is a masterly delineation of an
American type.... Here is life with all its joys and sorrows.... David
Harum lives in these pages as he will live in the mind of the reader....
He deserves to be known by all good Americans; he is one of them in
boundless energy, in large-heartedness, in shrewdness, and in
humor."--_The Critic_.

"Thoroughly a pure, original, and fresh American type. David Harum is a
character whose qualities of mind and heart, eccentricities, and dry
humor will win for his creator notable distinction. Buoyancy, life, and
cheerfulness are dominant notes. In its vividness and force the story is
a strong, fresh picture of American life. Original and true, it is worth
the same distinction which is accorded the _genre_ pictures of peculiar
types and places sketched by Mr. George W. Cable, Mr. Joel Chandler
Harris, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, Miss Wilkins, Miss Jewett, Mr. Garland,
Miss French, Miss Murfree, Mr. Gilbert Parker, Mr. Owen Wister, and Bret
Harte.... A pretty love story also adds to the attractiveness of the
book, that will be appreciated at once by every one who enjoys real
humor, strong character, true pictures of life, and work that is 'racy
of the soil.'"--_Boston Herald_.

"Mr. Westcott has created a new and interesting type.... The character
sketching and building, so far as David Harum is concerned, is well-nigh
perfect. The book is wonderfully bright, readable, and graphic."--_New
York Times_.

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and will probably take his place in time beside Joel Chandler Harris's
and Thomas Nelson Page's and Miss Wilkins's creations."--_Chicago
Times-Herald_.

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letters--placing him as a humorist next to Mark Twain, as a master of
dialect above Lowell, as a descriptive writer equal to Bret Harte, and,
on the whole, as a novelist on a par with the best of those who live and
have their being in the heart of hearts of American readers. If the
author is dead--lamentable fact--his book will live."--_Philadelphia
Item_.

"True, strong, and thoroughly alive, with a humor like that of Abraham
Lincoln and a nature as sweet at the core. The spirit of the book is
genial and wholesome, and the love story is in keeping with it.... The
book adds one more to the interesting list of native fiction destined to
live, portraying certain localities and types of American life and
manners."--_Boston Literary World_.

"A notable contribution to those sectional studies of American life by
which our literature has been so greatly enriched in the past
generation.... A work of unusual merit."--_Philadelphia Press_.

"One of the few distinct and living types in the American
gallery."--_St. Louis Globe-Democrat_.

"The quaint character of 'David Harum' proves to be an inexhaustible
source of amusement."--_Chicago Evening Post_.

"It would be hard to say wherein the author could have bettered the
portrait he sets before us."--_Providence Journal_.

"Full of wit and sweetness."--_Baltimore Herald_.

"Merits the heartiest and most unequivocal praise.... It is a pleasure
to call the reader's attention to this strong and most original novel, a
novel that is a decided and most enduring addition to American
literature."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette_.


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.





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