"Is it an unsuitable ball?" asks Mascha, quickly.
"No; but it is a ball which such a young girl as you does not visit with a superficial chaperon like Countess d"Olbreuse. If one of the patronesses had taken you with her, it would be quite different."
"The patronesses?" Mascha shrugs her shoulders. "The patronesses are great ladies, with whom I have nothing to do; I am no one, only papa"s daughter." Her voice trembles a little. "That does not count here in foreign parts; Anna tells me so every day. I did not know it; it was certainly very necessary, but it pained me." She fans herself with her large fan, and smiles as one smiles to keep from weeping.
Barenburg pulls his mustache.
"And except your cousin, have you no one in Paris who is near to you?"
he begins anew.
"Yes, one--one person whom I love with my whole heart," says Mascha, with the exaggeration to which hurt and vexed people are always inclined. "She is sweet to me. It is your cousin, Fraulein von Sankjewitch."
"Do you ever go to the studio?"
"Yes," says Mascha, shortly.
"H-m! Will you be there to-morrow morning?"
She throws back her little head, looks at him from her dark eyes with unspeakable, reproving pride, and says: "No!"
A longer silence follows. He knows that she was justified in repelling him; knows that he acts unresponsibly to her. This consciousness only a.s.sists in robbing him of his self-control. He loves her pa.s.sionately, unspeakably. He must have her, only her. More and more the recollection of his betrothal shrinks to a purely theoretical hinderance which can and shall be removed.
Then a large, bearded man comes up to Mascha, a man with round shoulders and the insolently careless manner of men of good family who have long moved in dubious circles of society. His eyes are watery, his lips twitch, while bowing to Mascha, he says in French: "Do you remember me, Miss Marie?"
"Prince Orbanoff," replies Mascha, affirmatively, nodding cordially, "from Nice."
Behind the Russians stand two young men who have admired Mascha with unconcealed boldness, and watch the scene.
"May I ask for this waltz?" stammers the Russian.
With the greatest readiness Mascha rises.
"You forget that you are already engaged to me," Barenburg interposes.
"You are entirely mistaken, Count," replies Mascha arrogantly, and takes a step toward the Russian.
"For Nikolai"s sake, listen to me, do not dance," Barenburg whispers in her ear.
Softly, hastily, and in a strange language as the words were whispered, the prince still has heard them.
"May I ask who the young man is who so insolently wishes to influence your resolve?" he asks Mascha, with still more difficult utterance, and his red face becomes yet redder.
Barenburg draws out his card and hands it to him; at the same moment the Countess d"Olbreuse comes up to her.
The Russian has disappeared. "Have you entertained yourself well, my child?" says she. "I have danced _comme une perdue_; it is not suitable for a woman of my age. Now we can go, the ball begins to be too amusing."
Silently, laying the extreme tips of her fingers in Barenburg"s offered arm, Mascha follows the Countess and her cavalier into the ante-room.
Suddenly she raises her head. "Why did you prevent me from dancing with the Prince?" she asks in an angry tone.
"First, he was intoxicated; secondly--but that you do not understand-- secondly, he has such a horrible reputation that I would rather see my sister dance with a clown from the circus ring, for example, than with him. To dance with Orbanoff at a public ball when you had not moved your foot before, and at two o"clock in the morning, would be something so fearful, so ambiguous, so--well, I would rather have my right arm cut off than let you do it."
They now stand in the ante-room. Barenburg takes Mascha"s wrap from the servant and lays it about her shoulders. But Mascha"s rage flames stronger than ever. More than before she feels the need to pain him, to injure him, to insult him.
"So you would let your right arm be cut off for me! How easily that is said," mocks she. Then looking him full in the face:
"I am very much obliged to you for your good intentions, but I should have preferred that you had not further troubled yourself with my affairs. I have known the Prince longer than you."
Scarcely has she said these impolite words when she would give everything in the world to recall them. It is too late.
"I was wrong; pardon me," says he, shortly. And taking leave with a deep bow, first of her and then of Countess d"Olbreuse, he retires without another word.
"Now, _ma pet.i.te_, come!" says the Countess, looking for her _protegee_. Mascha stands there, pale, petrified, and looks at the crowd in which he has disappeared. He did not once notice that, repenting her rudeness, she had stretched her hand out shyly to him; he did not even look at it.
Yes, she has shown him how little she thinks of him, how arrogant she can be. But now that it is over, she has little pleasure in her heroic achievement; on the contrary, torments herself over it, and would take it back at any price. She suddenly knows that she loves him with all her heart; loves him so that she would die to spare him one pang. And this poor, physically mature, mentally still childish little being suddenly longs for one thing only; namely, to see him very, very soon again in order to expiate her harshness and intolerance.
But how should she see him again? she thought, as in the early morning hours she sleeplessly tossed her curly head here and there on the pillow. After her repellant manner, he would scarcely wish to come to the Avenue Wagram. Ah! why had she not simply rejoiced in him, and let herself be so happy and confidential with him!
XVII.
The following day was a Sunday. When Mascha came home from church, Anna had just returned from a ride in the Bois. The Marquis de Lusignan had come for her early with his horses, and accompanied her in the Bois.
Several diplomats had there joined her; they had been attentive to her.
She was in the best of humors, and so hungry that she did not take time before lunch to take off her habit, but sat down to the table in it.
Anna told of her ride, of the leaps she had taken, of the enthusiasm she had excited, and that she certainly must have a new habit from Wolmerhausen. Maschenka listened with the childish, quite reverential astonishment which the elder cousin always caused in her when she told of the triumphs she had achieved in the great world.
"Did you see Barenburg at the ball?" asked Anna, suddenly, turning to her.
"Yes."
"Did he dance with you?"
"No; I did not dance at all."
"That is better," said Anna. "Young girls do not dance at such b.a.l.l.s.
At such baccha.n.a.ls in honor of charity, all sorts of things are permitted. Have you a suspicion who the young lady was whom Barenburg was so attentive to?"
"Miss Anthropos."
"Not she, every one knows her; a new beauty whom n.o.body knows. It must have been one of his Austrian cousins--a very young girl, exquisitely dressed in white, with a wreath of red flowers on her head. It seems that he had a scene on her account with Orbanoff, whom he would not permit to dance with her. Evidently, it must be a girl who is very near to him, one whom he thinks a great deal of, or else he would not have interfered with the old tiger for her sake. As it seems, Orbanoff has challenged him. It is a bad season for duelling; Monteglin told me that three men of our set have already fallen in a duel since autumn. I felt quite upset, especially as they say Orbanoff is the most unconscientious man and the best pistol shot in Paris. He seems very angry with Barenburg-- But what is the matter? You are deathly pale.
Heavens; if you take the fate of every superficial acquaintance so to heart!"
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