"My wife is incomprehensible to me," the master of the house remarks, after the above interchange of civilities, glancing uneasily at the clock on the chimney-piece. "It is now just half an hour since I helped her half dead out of a fiacre, with I cannot tell how many packages. I trust she is not----"
The portiere rustles apart. Extremely slender, bringing with her the odour of violets, and shrouded in a ma.s.s of black crepe de Chine and black lace, dying with fatigue and sparkling with vivacity, the Baroness Rohritz enters, fastening the clasp of a bracelet as she does so.
"Good-evening. I beg a thousand pardons! I am excessively glad to make your acquaintance, Baroness Meineck. Can you forgive my ill-breeding in keeping you waiting on this the first evening that you have given me the pleasure of seeing you here? It is terrible!"
"Ah, don"t mention it," the Baroness replies, and, although the younger lady speaks German in her honour, answering in French: she is very proud of her French.
"_Mais si, mais si_, I am most unfortunate, but innocent,--quite innocent. It is positively impossible to be in time in Paris. Well, and how do you do?" turning to Stella and lightly pa.s.sing her hand over the girl"s cheek. "You are always twitting me with my enthusiasm, Edmund: did I exaggerate this time?"
"No, not in the least," her husband affirms: it would have been difficult, however, for him to make any other reply without infringing upon the rules of politeness.
"Who made your dress for you? It is charming. And how beautifully you have put in your roses!--but violet suits light blue better than yellow. Shall we change?" And, unfastening the roses from Stella"s shoulder, Therese Rohritz takes a bunch of dark Russian violets from her girdle and arranges them on Stella"s gown, all with the same graceful, laughing, breathless amiability.
To conquer all hearts, to make everybody happy, to give every one advice, to attend to every one"s commissions, to oblige all the world,--this is the mania of Edgar"s sister-in-law. He once declared that she went whirling through existence, a perfect hurricane of over-excellent qualities.
"What are we waiting for, Therese?" the master of the house interrupts the flow of his wife"s eloquence, in a rather impatient tone.
"For Zino."
"He excused himself. I put his note on your dressing-table. When he received your invitation he was unfortunately--_very unfortunately_, underscored--engaged; but he hopes to be here soon after ten," Rohritz explains, having rung the bell meanwhile, whereupon the maitre-d"hotel, throwing open the folding-doors, announces,--
"_Madame la Baronne est Servie_."
CHAPTER XXII.
FRENCH INFERIORITY.
One observation Stella makes during the dinner,--namely, that married people apparently living happily together in Paris suffer quite as much from a chronic difference of opinion as those in Austria. Baron Rohritz and Therese do not quarrel one iota less than Jack Leskjewitsch and his wife.
Although Rohritz, as a former diplomatist,--a career which he abandoned five years ago on account of a difference with his chief and an absolute lack of ambition,--and from long residence in Paris, speaks perfect French, the conversation at his special request is carried on in German.
During dinner he incessantly makes all kinds of comparisons between Austria and France, of course to the disadvantage of the latter country. Nothing suits him in Paris; he abuses everything, from the perfect cooking, as it appears at his own table, to the exquisite troop of actors at the Francais.
"I have no objection to make to the fish," he says, condescendingly. "I am entirely without prejudice; and when there is anything to be praised in France I always do it justice. But look at the game: French game is deplorable,--marshy, tasteless, without flavour. Even the Strasburg pie can be had better in Vienna. Do you not think so?"
"You will be thought an actual ogre, Edmund," Therese remonstrates, half laughing, half vexed. "You talk of nothing to-day but food."
"Perhaps so; but, as you will have observed, only from a lofty, strictly patriotic point of view," her husband remarks, composedly.
"Of course," Therese replies. "I can, however, a.s.sure you," she says, turning to her guests, "that although I cannot defend the Parisians in all respects, in one thing they are far beyond the Viennese: although they do not fall behind them in cookery, they think much less of things to eat."
"True," Edmund agrees, "and very naturally; they think less of their eating because they can"t eat; they have no digestion. They certainly are a weak, degenerate race. Did you ever watch a regiment of French soldiers march past, ladies, either cavalry or infantry? It is quite pitiable, their military. Do you not think so?"
The Baroness cannot help admitting that he is measurably right this time, and as the widow of a soldier she indulges in a hymn of praise of the Austrian army, thus enchanting the Baron, who before entering the diplomatic corps served, to complete his education, in a cavalry regiment.
"I should really like to know why these people are in such a hurry," he begins again, after a while, calling attention to the speed with which dinner is being served. "I suppose the rascals intend to go to Valentino"s after dinner."
"Their hurry will do them no good then," Therese remarks, shrugging her shoulders; "they will have to serve tea later in the evening. I simply suppose that they take it as a personal affront that we should converse in a language which they do not understand."
"Possibly," sighs Rohritz. "These Parisian lackeys are intolerable; their pretensions far outstrip our modest Austrian means. You may read plainly in their faces, "I serve, "tis true, but I adhere to the immortal principles of "89." Every fellow is convinced that his period of servitude is only an intermezzo in his life, and that some fine day he shall be Duke of Persigny or Malakoff,--in short, a far grander gentleman than I. Am I not right, Therese?"
"Perfectly," his wife a.s.serts. "But let me ask you one question, my dear: if you find Paris so inferior in everything, from Strasburg pie to the domestics, why did you not stay in Vienna?"
"Oh, that is another question,--quite a different question," Rohritz replies.
"Ah, yes," Therese says, triumphantly. "You must know, ladies, that my husband"s patriotism is not so ardent as would seem, but rather of a platonic character; he loves his country at a distance. When, five years ago, after we had been here some time, he gave up his career and wanted to go back to Vienna, I made no objections whatever, and we established ourselves in his beloved native city, at first only provisionally. At the end of six months he was so frightfully bored that he actually longed for Paris."
Edmund dips his fingers in his finger-gla.s.s with a slightly embarra.s.sed air.
"That is true," he admits. "Paris is the Manon Lescaut of European capitals: worthless thing that she is, we can never be rid of her if she has once bewitched us."
And as Therese prepares to rise from table he asks, "Do you object to a cigarette, ladies, and are you fond of children? Then, Therese, let us take coffee in the smoking-room, where I am sure the children are waiting for me."
CHAPTER XXIII.
PRINCE ZINO CAPITO.
The smoking-room is a somewhat narrow apartment, with a large Oriental rug before the broad double windows, with very beautiful old weapons in a couple of stands against the wall, and with heavy antique carved oaken chests. The broad low arm-chairs and divans are covered with Oriental rugs and carpets which Rohritz, as he informs Stella, brought from Cairo himself.
The two children, a little boy twelve years old, with tight red stockings and very short breeches, and a little girl hardly three, in a white gown, with bare legs and arms, help their mamma to serve the coffee. Momond takes the ladies their cups, and Baby is steady enough on her legs to trip after him with a face of great solemnity, carrying the silver sugar-bowl tightly hugged up in her arms. After she has happily completed her round she puts the sugar-bowl down before her mother, with a sigh of relief as over a difficult duty fulfilled, and smooths down her short, stiff skirts with a very decorous air. But when her father, from the other side of the room, where he is talking with Stella, smiles at her, she runs to him with a glad cry, forgetting all decorum springs into his lap, and is petted and caressed by him to his heart"s content.
"Do you know whom that picture represents, Baroness Stella?" the host now asks, pointing to a life-size photograph hanging beneath the portrait in oil of a beautiful, fair woman. Although Stella had noticed the photograph as soon as she entered the smoking-room, she pretends to have her attention attracted by it for the first time.
"Yes, the likeness can still be recognized," she replies, bestowing a critical glance upon the picture, "although if it ever looked really like Baron Edgar Rohritz he must have altered very much."
"Of course," says Rohritz: "the picture was taken twelve years ago.
Edgar had it taken for our mother, just before he went to Mexico. When he returned to Europe, three years later, our mother was dead, and he was gray,--gray at twenty-seven! As he was always our mother"s favourite, I have hung his picture below hers."
"I maintain that photograph to be the handsomest head of a man which I know," Therese interrupts her conversation with the Baroness to declare. "We often dispute about it with my brother Zino, who always cites the Apollo Belvedere as the highest type of manly beauty----"
"Because he himself resembles that arrogant fellow in the Vatican," her husband interposes, dryly.
It is strange how constantly the elder brother recalls Baron Edgar, although considerably older, and by no means so distinguished in looks.
Meanwhile, Therese runs on with her usual fluency:
"It is an immense pity that my brother-in-law cannot make up his mind to marry. You really cannot imagine, ladies, the pains I have taken to throw the la.s.so over his head. Quite in vain! And such superb matches as I have made for him,--Marguerite de Lusignan, who has just married the Duke Cesarini, and the charming Marie de Galliere,--in short, the loveliest, wealthiest girls,--_tout ce qu"il y a de mieux_. Oddly enough, the mothers liked him as well as the daughters. In vain! I never have seen a man with so decided a distaste for matrimony as Edgar"s. Did you chance to hear of the scheme by which he contrived in Gratz to rid himself of man[oe]uvring mammas?"
"Yes," says Stella, very coldly: "he spread abroad a report that he had suddenly lost his property."
"A delicious idea," Therese laughs. "Do you not think so?"