He possesses a decided disinclination for the "if," always looks straight before him, never behind him. It does not even occur to him to-day, when he is vexed with Elsa, to complain of the serious monotony of his life, to philosophize, but he feels well, likes to amuse himself again, laughs frequently, and is not unsusceptible to the evident wish to please him which Linda shows. No objection can be found to her behavior to-day--it is animated without being loud, cordial without being coquettish.
The three-quarters of an hour are over, the daylight has become first pale, then gray, the b.a.l.l.s have flown aimlessly, like plump night birds through the air; they have laughed, ridiculed the opposite side for their faults, finally lost several b.a.l.l.s, and come to the conclusion that for the present nothing more can be done.
The players have now a.s.sembled for a light supper in the somewhat gloomy dining-room, from whose walls a few old portraits, gentlemen with huge wigs and large flowered brocade vests, ladies with wasp waists and immoderately high powdered coiffures, look down upon them.
The light of the lamps is reflected in the crystal decanters, in which red and white wine sparkles; the flowers, a mixture of transparent ribbon-gra.s.s and wild roses, move softly in their vases in the middle of the table, trembling in the night air which streams in through the open windows. Beautiful fruit shines fresh and inviting, in silver dishes, and Linda presides, somewhat flushed, cordial and wonderfully pretty. No annoying servants disturb the pleasant little repast.
Pistasch behaves like the perfect gentleman which he is when he does not consider it his duty to be a perfect boor, or does not take pleasure in representing a perfect street Arab. He entertains the little circle by gay anecdotes, is attentive without impertinence to the hostess.
Scirocco, more serious in manner, nevertheless laughs at his cousin"s jokes, and often interposes a witty little remark.
Erwin is as gay as the two others, but from time to time, however, his conscience reminds him that this is not the place for him, and that it is time for him to return home. "But can I leave my young sister-in-law alone with the two men?" he calms his inconvenient conscience.
"Impossible!" He must wait for Felix to return.
That Kamenz and Sempaly, well-bred as both are, and with no cause for importunity, would both leave as soon as he should start, he does not tell himself.
Then a carriage rolls up to the castle. Linda rises to go to the window. "Felix!" she cries in her clear, childish voice. No answer follows. Her eyes become gloomy, she listens, evidently listens to see whether he will go to his room without appearing to his guests. Then a dragging, stumbling step is heard in the corridor. "Felix!" cries Linda, excitedly and imperiously.
The door opens, Felix enters, he stumbles into the dining-room, his face is red and swollen, his eyes have a watery look, his knees bend at every step, and a repulsive flabbiness is betrayed in his whole form.
"You have guests?" he says, thickly.
"Sit down, you are not well," cries Erwin, seizing the staggering man by the arm, and forcing him into a chair.
"No--but--the----" begins Felix, and breaks off, not able to finish the sentence.
A pause ensues. The little company seem paralyzed with alarm and disgust. Then Sempaly rises. "We thank you for a very pleasant evening, Baroness," he turns politely to Linda, and he and his cousin withdraw.
Linda is as white as the table-cloth. "Come, Felix, lie down," says Erwin to his brother-in-law, whose condition he does not wish to expose to the impertinent curiosity of servile lackeys.
"A cigar," murmurs Felix, excusing himself like all drunkards.
"Come;" Erwin urges him more sharply. Felix is about to make some reply, when he discovers his wife, turns his head away, and trembling throughout his entire frame, lets himself be taken to his room without resistance.
When Erwin returns to the dining-room to bid farewell to Linda, he finds her still deathly pale, with gloomy eyes, sitting in the same place.
"Linda, you are wrong to take this so seriously," says he, softly and consolingly; "it is really often an accident, a gla.s.s of poor wine----"
At his first kind word she has burst into tears. "It is not the first time," she replies, with difficulty restraining her tears. "Ah! if it--if it was only because the wine went to his head or--but no--a year ago he was the most temperate man in the world--it began in London. It cannot all be my fault. What is the matter with him? My G.o.d! What is concealed from me?"
A new light dawns upon Erwin"s mind; Linda"s lack of tact is excused; a boundless pity overcomes him.
At a violent motion of her pretty head her hair has become loosened and now hangs in silken splendor over her shoulders.
"Calm yourself, fasten up your hair, be prudent, my poor little sister-in-law!" says Erwin. Softly and involuntarily, as one would do to a child, he strokes the hair back from her temples.
She tries to fasten it up, but suddenly she lets her arms sink, and looking directly at Erwin out of moist but not disfigured eyes, she whispers, "I cannot reach so high, and do not wish to be seen thus by my maid--it would be strange."
"Can I help you?"
She nods. Simply, but without undue haste or uneasiness, he twists the beautiful hair, fastens it firmly as one who is accustomed to perform such services. She keeps her head covered, breathes regularly, deeply, audibly--accidentally he touches her little glowing ear, then she starts. A clock strikes. "Half past ten!" cries Erwin, startled. "Good night, Baroness; poor Elsa will not know how to explain my absence,"
and he rushes out.
"Your horse must be saddled," says Linda, but he does not return--a few minutes later she hears him galloping rapidly away. "When he thinks of his wife he always calls me Baroness," she murmurs to herself with a peculiar smile.
An hour later Erwin knocks at his wife"s door. "Who is it?" an indifferent, sleepy voice asks from within.
"I."
"Ah, you, Erwin!" Elsa unlocks the door, and comes out in the corridor, where only a single lamp breaks the darkness.
"Have you anything particular to ask me?" says she, and her feverish sparkling eyes contradict the indifferent voice.
"Nothing," he whispers, softly. "I merely could not resolve to retire without having bid you good night; I felt that you must be still awake.
Do you insist upon receiving me in the corridor?" he asks, smilingly, as she has closed the door behind her.
"The baby is asleep," replies Elsa, coldly, rubbing her eyes with ostentation.
"My voice will not wake her," he says, softly, taking Elsa"s hand.
"Elsa, my dear pouting Elsa, forgive me," he whispers. "I had no right to be angry and run away, merely because you were intolerable. It has been a horrid day, let it at least have a good ending!"
He sees how she trembles, how she blushes, and tenderly he takes her thin little face between both hands. Then, then she changes color, her eyes open in wild horror, and she starts back from him with a gesture of decided aversion, but quickly collecting herself, and forcing herself to smile, she gives him her hand and says, "Good night!"
How she has pained him! Is her love dead? He cannot understand her manner. How could he? He does not notice that on his hands, in his clothes has remained the peculiar perfume which a gallant diplomat had brought Linda from Constantinople.
XVIII.
"One cannot please people," sighs Pistasch, several days after the lawn-tennis party, while, cigar between his teeth, a hat adorned with a c.o.c.k"s plume on the back of his head, his smoking jacket open over his broad chest, he tries to solve a difficult problem in billiards. "One cannot please people."
"Hm! I think this sentence belonged to Solomon"s _repertoire_ of phrases," grumbles Sempaly, who, stretched out in a deep arm-chair, is looking over an old _Revue des Deux Mondes_.
"Solomon! Solomon!" says Pistasch, clutching his soft golden hair. "Was not that the Jew in the Leopoldstadt, whose money rate was so cheap, only three per cent, _per mese_?"
Count Kamenz considers it "chic" to have forgotten his Bible history.
"Do not make yourself out stupider than you are," Scirocco admonishes him. "We can be quite satisfied without that."
"Thanks, you see one can never please people," repeats Pistasch, shrugging his shoulders in droll despair. "After the sacrificial meal, Mimi rejoices me with a remark upon my stiffness to the Lanzberg. I show the latter much-calumniated beauty some slight attention and accept an invitation to lawn-tennis at her house. Mimi reproaches me concerning my morals. In order to satisfy her demands I yesterday paid court to a sixteen-year-old dove; she reproaches me for my inconsequence, says with feeling, "One does not trifle with love!"--there, it sounds as if it were a bit from a play." Pistasch turns to Sempaly.
"Yes, it is the t.i.tle of a play in which at the end some one is stabbed," says Scirocco, looking up from his reading.
"Thank you, Rudi; one can always learn from you," a.s.sures Pistasch.
"You are the first who has discovered that--I pity you," replies Sempaly, sarcastically.