Part 49 (1/2)
”Oh, it is only now and then that I feel thus,” she murmurs. ”Shall I tell you the cause of my wretched mood?”
”Utter fatigue, the natural consequence of yesterday's pleasures.”
”Not at all. I accidentally came upon the picture of my cousin Ada to-day. Do you remember her? There she is.” She hands him a photograph.
”Exquisitely beautiful, is it not?”
”Yes,” he says, looking at the picture; ”the eyes are bewitching, and there is such womanly tenderness, such delicate refinement, about the mouth.”
”Nothing could surpa.s.s Ada,” says Countess Lori; ”she was a saint, good, self-sacrificing, not a trace in her of frivolity or selfishness.”
”And yet she married Hugo Reinsfeld, if I am not mistaken?” says Lato.
”I have heard nothing of her lately. News from your world rarely reaches me.”
”No one mentions her now,” Lori murmurs. ”She married without love; not from vanity as I did, but she sacrificed herself for her family,--sisters unprovided for, father old, no money. She was far better than I, and for a long time she honestly tried to do her duty,----and so she finally had to leave her husband!”
The Countess stops; a long pause ensues. The steps of the pa.s.sers-by sound through the languid September air; an Italian hurdy-gurdy is grinding out the lullaby from ”Trovatore,” sleepy and sentimental. The clatter from the barracks interrupts it now and then. A sunbeam slips through the window-shade into the half-light of the room and gleams upon the buhl furniture.
”Well, she had the courage of her opinions,” the Countess begins afresh at last. ”She left her husband and lives with--well, with another man,--good heavens! you knew him too, Niki Gladnjik, in Switzerland; they live there for each other in perfect seclusion. He adores her; the world--our world, the one I do not want to meet at your ball--ignores Ada, but I write to her sometimes, and she to me. I have been reading over her letters to-day. She seems to be very happy, enthusiastically happy, so happy that I envy her; but I am sorry for her, for--you see, Niki really loves her, and wants to marry her--they have been waiting two years for the divorce which her husband opposes; and Niki is consumptive; you understand, if he should die before----”
Lato's heart throbs fast at his cousin's tale. At this moment the door opens, and Count Wodin enters.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.
AT LAST.
Flammingen's affairs are satisfactorily adjusted. Treurenberg is relieved of that anxiety. He can devote his thoughts to his own complications, as he rides back from X---- to Dobrotschau.
The dreamy lullaby from ”Trovatore” still thrills his nerves, and again and again he recalls the pair living happily in Switzerland. He sees their valley in his mental vision enclosed amid lofty mountains,--walls erected by G.o.d Himself to protect that green Paradise from the intrusion and cruelty of mankind,--walls which shut out the world and reveal only the blue heavens. How happy one could be in that green seclusion, forgotten by the world! In fancy he breathes the fresh Alpine air laden with the wholesome scent of the pines; upon his ear there falls the rus.h.i.+ng murmur of the mountain-stream. He sees a charming home on a mountain-slope, and at the door stands a lovely woman dressed in white, with large, tender eyes filled with divine sympathy. She is waiting for some one's return; whence does he come?
From the nearest town, whither he is forced to go from time to time to adjust his affairs, but whither she never goes; oh, no! People pain her,--people who despise and envy her. But what matters it? He opens his arms to her, she flies to meet him; ah, what bliss, what rapture!
His horse stumbles slightly; he rouses with a start. A shudder thrills him, and, as in the morning, he is horrified at himself. Will it always be thus? Can he not relax his hold upon himself for one instant without having every thought rush in one direction, without being possessed by one intense longing? How can he thus desecrate Olga's image?
Meanwhile, the expected guests have arrived at Dobrotschau. They came an hour ago,--three carriage-loads of distinction from, Vienna, some of them decorated with feudal t.i.tles. A very aristocratic party will a.s.semble at table in Dobrotschau to-day. Countess Weiseneck, a born Grinzing, wife of a rather disgraceful _mauvais sujet_, whose very expensive maintenance she contests paying, and from whom she has been separated for more than a year; Countess Mayenfeld, _ne_ Gerstel, the wife of a gentleman not quite five feet in height, who is known in Vienna by the _sobriquet_ of ”the numismatician.” When his betrothal to the wealthy Amanda Gerstel was announced, society declared that he had chosen his bride to augment his collection of coins. His pa.s.sion for collecting coins enables this knightly aristocrat to endure with philosophy the cold shoulders which his nearest relatives turned to him after his marriage; moreover, he lives upon excellent terms with his wizened little wife. One more couple with a brand-new but high-sounding t.i.tle; then an unmarried countess, with short hair and a masculine pa.s.sion for sport,--an acquaintance made at a watering-place; then Baron Kilary, the cleverest business-man among Vienna aristocrats, who is always ready to eat oysters and _pte de foie gras_ at any man's table, without, however, so far forgetting himself as to require his wife and daughter to visit any one of his entertainers who is socially his inferior. The famous poet, Paul Angelico Orchys, and little Baron Knigsfeld, complete the list of arrivals.
The first greetings are over; ended also is the running to and fro of lady's-maids looking for mislaid handbags, with the explanations of servants, who, having carried the trunks to the wrong rooms, are trying to make good their mistakes. All is quiet. The ladies and gentlemen are seated at small tables in a shady part of the park, drinking tea and fighting off a host of wasps that have attacked the delicacies forming part of the afternoon repast.
The castle is empty; the sound of distant voices alone falls on Lato's ear as he returns from his expedition to X---- and goes to his room, desirous only of deferring as long as possible the playing of his part in this tiresome entertainment. The first thing to meet his eyes on his writing-table is a letter addressed to himself. He picks it up; the envelope is stamped with a coronet and Selina's monogram.
He tears the letter open; it encloses nothing save a package of bank-notes,--eighteen hundred guilders in Austrian currency.
Lato's first emotion is anger. What good will the wretched money do him now? How rejoiced he is that he no longer needs it, that he can return it within the hour to Selina! The address arrests his attention; there is something odd about it. Is it Selina's handwriting? At first sight he had thought it was, but now, upon a closer inspection can it be his mother-in-law's hand? Is she trying to avoid a domestic scandal by atoning thus for her daughter's harshness? He tosses the money aside in disgust. Suddenly a peculiar fragrance affects him agreeably. What is it?--a faint odour of heliotrope. Could it be----? His downcast eyes discover a tiny bunch of faded purple blossoms lying on the floor almost at his feet. He stoops, picks it up, and kisses it pa.s.sionately: it is the bunch of heliotrope which Olga wore on her breast at breakfast. It is she who has cared for him, who has thought of him!
But instantly, after the first access of delight, comes the reaction.
How could Olga have known? Selina, in her irritation, may have proclaimed his request to the entire household; the servants may be discussing in the kitchen Count Treurenberg's application to his wife for eighteen hundred guilders, and her angry refusal to grant them to him. He clinches his fist and bites his lip, when on a sudden he recalls the rustle of a robe in the next room, which he thought he heard at one time during his interview with Selina. The blood mounts to his forehead. Olga had been in the library; she had heard him talking with his wife. And if she had heard him ask Selina for the money, she had also heard---- Ah! He buries his face in his hands.