Just then Count Treurenberg joined the group, and informed the ladies that he had been congratulating Minona upon her magnificent success.
"What did you say to her?" the truth-loving Agatha asked, almost angrily.
""In you I hail our modern Sappho." That is what I told her."
"And she replied----?" asked Constance Muhlberg.
The Count fanned himself with his opera-hat with a languishing air, and lisped, ""_Ah, oui, Sappho; c"est bien Sappho, toujours la meme histoire_, after more than two thousand years.""
"Poor Minona! and to think that she cudgels it all out of her imagination!" Fraulein Agatha remarked, ironically. "She has no more personal experience than--well, than I."
""Sh!--not so loud," Constance whispered, laughing. "She never would forgive you for betraying her thus."
"I have known her from a child," Fraulein von Horn continued, composedly. "She once exchanged love-letters with her brother"s tutor, and since then she has always played the game with a dummy."
The dry way in which she imparted this piece of information was irresistibly comical, but in the midst of the laughter which it provoked a loud voice was heard declaiming at the other end of the room, where, in the midst of a circle of listeners, stood a black-bearded individual with a Mephistophelian cast of countenance, holding forth upon some subject.
"Who is that?" asked Countess Muhlberg.
"I do not know the fellow," said the Count. "Not in my line."
"A writer from Vienna," Fraulein von Horn explained. "He was invited here, that he might write an article upon Minona."
"What is he talking about?" asked the Count.
Countess Muhlberg, who had been stretching her delicate neck to listen, replied, "About love."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Count Treurenberg, springing up from his seat: "I must hear what the fellow has to say." And, followed shortly afterwards by Constance Muhlberg, he joined the circle about the black-bearded seer.
Erika remained sitting with Fraulein Agatha on the sofa beneath the palm. They could hear the seer"s drawling voice as he announced very distinctly, "Love is the instinctive desire of an individual for union with a certain individual of the opposite s.e.x."
Fraulein von Horn meditatively smoothed her gray hair with one of her long knitting-needles, and said, carelessly, "I know that definition: it is Max Norden"s." Whereupon she left her seat beside Erika to devote herself to the three artists, her _proteges_.
Erika was left entirely alone under the palm, in a state of angry discontent. Never before, wherever she had been, had she been so little regarded. She was of no more importance here than Fraulein Agatha,--hardly of as much. For the first time it occurred to her that under certain circ.u.mstances it was quite inconvenient to be unmarried.
At the same time she was conscious of a great disappointment: she had not come hither to study the Baroness Neerwinden"s eccentricities, or to listen to Minona von Rattenfels"s love-plaints: she had come---- What, in fact, had she come for?
From the other end of the room came the seer"s voice: "The only strictly moral union is founded upon elective affinity."
"Very true!" exclaimed Frau von Neerwinden.
A short pause followed. The servants handed about refreshments.
Rosenberg, the black-bearded seer, stood with his left elbow propped upon the back of his friend Minona"s chair; in his right he held his opera-hat.
A French _litterateur_, who had understood enough of the whole performance to be jealous of his German colleague, began to proclaim his view of love: "_L"amour est une illusion, qui--que_----" There he stuck fast.
Then somebody whom Erika did not know exclaimed, "Where is Lozoncyi? He knows more of the subject than we do; he ought to be able to help us."
"I think his knowledge is practical rather than theoretical," said Count Treurenberg.
Not long afterwards a few guests took leave, as it was growing late.
The circle was smaller, and Erika discovered Lozoncyi seated on a lounge between two ladies, Frau von Geroldstein and the Princess Gregoriewitsch. The Princess was a beauty in her way, tall, stout, very _decolletee_, and with long, languishing eyes. Lozoncyi was leaning towards her, and whispering in her ear.
Erika rose with a sensation of disgust and walked out upon a balcony, where she had scarcely cast a glance upon the veiled magnificence of the opposite palaces when Lozoncyi stood beside her. "Good-evening, Countess. I had no idea that you were here; I discovered you only this moment."
In her irritated mood she did not offer him her hand. "You are astonished that my grandmother should have brought me here," she said, with a shrug.
But, to her surprise, she perceived that nothing of the kind had occurred to him: his sense of what was going on about him was evidently blunted.
"Why?" he asked. "Because--because of the antecedents of the hostess?
It is long since people have troubled themselves about those, and it is the brightest salon in Venice."
"There has certainly been nothing lacking in the way of animation to-night," Erika observed, coldly.
She was leaning with both hands on the bal.u.s.trade of the balcony, and she spoke to him over her shoulder. He cared little for what she said, but her beauty intoxicated him. Always strongly influenced by his surroundings, the least n.o.ble part of his nature had the upper hand with him to-night.
"Rosenberg has taken great pains to entertain his audience," he remarked, carelessly.
"And his efforts have a.s.suredly been crowned with success," Erika replied, contemptuously. Then, with a shade more of scorn in her voice, she asked, "Is there always as much--as much talk of love here?"
"It is frequently discussed," he replied. "And why not? It is the most important thing in the world." Then, with his admiring artist-stare, he added, in a lower tone, "As you will discover for yourself."
She frowned, turned away, and re-entered the room.
He stayed outside, suddenly conscious of his want of tact, but inclined to lay the fault of it at her door. ""Tis a pity she is so whimsical a creature," he muttered between his teeth; "and so gloriously beautiful; a great pity!" Nevertheless he was vexed with himself, and was firmly resolved, if chance ever gave him another interview with her, to make better use of his opportunity.
Shortly afterwards Countess Lenzdorff, with Erika and Constance Muhlberg, took her leave. She was in a very good humour, and exchanged all sorts of witticisms with Constance with regard to their evening.
"And how did you enjoy yourself?" she asked Erika, when, after leaving Constance at home, the two were alone in the gondola on their way to the "Britannia."
"I?" asked Erika, with a contemptuous depression of the corners of her mouth. "How could I enjoy myself in an a.s.semblage where there was nothing talked of but love?"
Her grandmother laughed heartily: "Yes, it was rather a silly way to pa.s.s the time, I confess. I cannot conceive why they waste so many words upon what is perfectly plain to any one with eyes. They grope about, and no one explains in the least the nature of love." She threw back her head, and, without for an instant losing the slightly mocking smile which was so characteristic of her beautiful old face, she said, "Love is an irritation of the fancy, produced by certain natural conditions, which expresses itself, so long as it lasts, in the exclusive glorification of one single individual, and robs the human being who is its victim of all power of discernment. All things considered, those people are very lucky who, when the torch of pa.s.sion is extinguished, can find anything save humiliation in the memory of their love."
The old Countess was privately very proud of her definition, and looked round at Erika with an air of self-satisfaction at having clothed what was so self-evident, so cheerful a view, in such uncommonly appropriate words. But Erika"s face had a.s.sumed a dark, pained expression. Her grandmother"s words had aroused in her the old anguish,--anguish for her mother. It was not to be denied that in some cases her grandmother"s view was the true one. Was it true always? No! Something in the girl"s nature rebelled against such a thought. No! a thousand times no!
"But the love of which you speak, grandmother, is only sham love," she said, in a husky, trembling voice. "There is surely another kind,--a genuine, sacred, enn.o.bling love!"
"There may be," said her grandmother. "The pity is that one never knows the true from the false until it is past."
Erika said no more.
The air was mild; the scent of roses was wafted across the sluggish water of the lagoon; there was a faint sound of distant music. But an icy chill crept over Erika, and in her heart there was a strange, aching, yearning pain.
CHAPTER XXI.