Part 51 (1/2)
”What is the matter, old fellow?” he asks, good-humouredly. ”I do not like your looks to-day.”
”I cannot get Ada Reinsfeld out of my head,” Treurenberg rejoins, in a low tone.
”Did you know her?” asks Harry.
”Yes; did you?”
”Yes, but not until after her marriage. I liked her extremely; in fact, I have rarely met a more charming woman. And she seemed to me serious-minded and thoroughly sincere. The story to-day affected me profoundly.”
”Did you notice that not one of the women had a good word to say for the poor thing until they knew that she was dead?” Treurenberg asks, his voice sounding hard and stern.
”Yes, I noticed it,” replies Harry, scanning his friend attentively.
”They may perhaps waste a wreath of immortelles upon her coffin,”
Treurenberg goes on, in the same hard tone, ”but not one of them would have offered her a hand while she lived.”
”Well, she did not lose much in the friends.h.i.+p of the women present to-day,” Harry observes, dryly; ”but, unfortunately, I am afraid that far n.o.bler and more generous-minded women also withdrew their friends.h.i.+p from poor Ada; and, in fact, we cannot blame them. We cannot require our mothers and sisters to visit without remonstrance a woman who has run away from her husband and is living with another man.”
”Run away; living with another man: how vulgar that sounds!”
Treurenberg exclaims, angrily.
”Our language has no other words for this case.”
”I do not comprehend you; you judge as harshly as the rest.”
They have walked on and have reached a rustic seat quite in the shade, beyond the light even of the coloured lamps. Harry sits down; Lato follows his example.
”How am I to judge, then?” Harry asks.
”In my eyes Ada was a martyr,” Treurenberg a.s.serts.
”So she was in mine,” Harry admits.
”I have the greatest admiration for her.”
”And I only the deepest compa.s.sion,” Harry declares, adding, in a lower tone, ”I say not a word in blame of her; Niki was the guiltier of the two. A really n.o.ble woman, when she loves, forgets to consider the consequences of her conduct, especially when pity sanctifies her pa.s.sion and atones in her eyes for her sin. She sees an ideal life before her, and does not doubt that she shall attain it. Ada believed that she should certainly procure her divorce, and that all would be well. She did not see the mire through which she should have to struggle to attain her end, and that even were it attained, no power on earth could wash out the stains incurred in attaining it. Niki should have spared her that; he knew life well enough to be perfectly aware of the significance of the step she took for him.”
”Yes, you are right; women never know the world; they see about them only what is fair and sacred, a young girl particularly.”
”Oh, in such matters a young girl is out of the question,” Harry sharply interrupts.
There is an oppressive silence. Lato s.h.i.+vers.
”You are cold,” Harry says, with marked gentleness; ”come into the house.”
”No, no; stay here!”
Through the silence come the strains of a waltz of Arditi's ”_La notte gia stendi suo manto stellato_,” and the faint rustle of the dancers'