Mrs. Ferguson smiled rather like some pretty little wild beast showing its teeth.
"Ah!" she said, "I suppose you think I have none of that pathetic grace that M. Barillat is so fond of talking about."
"No more than of saving grace," said Sempaly solemnly. Then, while the women were disputing over the matter, he found an opportunity of whispering a few words to Barillat; Barillat looked up delighted. At this moment they were joined by Countess Ilsenbergh.
"I have another suggestion to offer Madame la Comtesse; I have thought of some one...."
"Some newly-imported American," laughed Madame de Gandry, "or a painter"s model with studied grace and yellow hair?"
"You may rest a.s.sured that I should not for an instant think of proposing to employ a model," Barillat emphatically declared; "no, the lady in question is a very charming person: Fraulein Sterzl. I saw her the day before yesterday at Lady Julia Ellis"s; she is an Austrian--you must know her surely?"
"I have not that pleasure," said the countess drily.
"You do not think she will do?" murmured the artist abashed. The countess cleared her throat.
"Bless me!" cried Madame de Gandry furious at the pride of her Austrian friend, "you take the matter really too much in earnest. Why on earth should not the girl act with us? On these occasions, in Vienna, as I have been informed, even actors are invited to help."
"That is quite different," said the countess.
Madame de Gandry shrugged her shoulders and turned away and the countess beckoned to her cousin Sempaly. "I am heartily sick of the whole business," she exclaimed. "At home I have got this sort of thing up a score of times, and everything has gone well ... while here...."
"Yes, there is more method among us," replied Sempaly sympathetically.
"The people here are so unmanageable; every one wants to play the best parts," said the countess.
"That is the result of the republican element," observed Sempaly.
"And now there is all this difficulty about the Lady Jane Grey tableau," sighed the countess. "Why need that English girl take the measles now, just when she is wanted."
"The English are always so inconsiderate," said Sempaly gravely.
"Do you happen to have met this little Sterzl girl?"
"Yes."
"What does she look like?"
"Well, she looks like a very pretty girl...."
"And besides that?"
"Besides that she looks very much like our own girls; it is really a most extraordinary freak of nature! She seems to be very presentable on further acquaintance; Princess Vulpini is quite in love with her."
"Indeed!--Well, Barillat is possessed with the idea of having her to play the part of Lady Jane Grey and in Heaven"s name let him have his own way!" cried the countess. "If Marie Vulpini will bring her here I will make the best of it."
"What, you mean to say that you will let her figure in your tableau and not invite her mother?" laughed Sempaly.
"Invite her!--to the performance of course. I invite Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry, and all the English parsons and all the foreign artists."
"And all their families. Fritzi, you are an admirable woman!" retorted Sempaly ironically.
"But the rehearsals are so perfectly intimate," she murmured. Time pressed however. "Well, have it so for all I care;" said the countess resignedly and next morning she paid a polite call on the Baroness Sterzl to request Zinka"s a.s.sistance; and as she had as much tact as pride she had soon reconciled not only Zinka, but her sensitive thin-skinned brother, to the fact that the young girl had only been asked at the last moment and under the pressure of necessity to take part in the performance. Cecil did not altogether like the idea of displaying his pretty sister in a tableau and only consented because he did not like to deprive Zinka of the pleasure which she looked forward to with great delight. He adored the child and could refuse her nothing.
The evening of the festival arrived; the performances took place in a vast room almost lined with mirrors and lighted by wonderful Venetian chandeliers that hung from the decorated ceiling where frescoes were framed in tasteless gilt scroll work. In spite of its size the room was crowded; the most ill.u.s.trious of the company sat in solitary dignity in the front row, and behind them was packed a fashionable but somewhat mixed crowd. Manly forms of consummate elegance were squeezed against the walls, and the a.s.sembly sparkled like a sea of sheeny silks and glittering jewels. Princess Vulpini, who was helping the countess to do the honors, hovered on the margin, graceful and kindly, but a little pale and tired, and the countess herself reigned supreme in that regal dignity which she could so becomingly a.s.sume on fitting occasions.
There were very few women who could wear a diamond coronet with such good grace as Fritzi Ilsenbergh--even her intractable cousin Sempaly did her that much justice.
The great success of the evening was not the little French play, in which Madame de Gandry and the all-accomplished Barillat made and parried their hits after the accepted methods of the _Theatre Francais_; it was not the operetta, in which Mrs. Ferguson looked bewitchingly pretty and sang "_le Sentier convert_" to admiration; it was not even the children"s tableau, in which the little Vulpinis looked like a bunch of freshly-gathered roses; the great success of the evening was the tableau of Lady Jane Grey. Sterzl"s face in this scene was a perfect tragedy, all the misery of an executioner who adores his victim was legible there. And Zinka!--gazing up to heaven with ecstatic pathos, her whole att.i.tude expressive of sacred resignation and childlike awe, she was the very embodiment of the hapless and innocent being before whom the executioner lowers his gaze. A string quartet played the _allegretto_ from Beethoven"s seventh symphony and the melancholy music heightened the effect of the poetical tableau, thrilling the audience like a lullaby sung by angels to soothe the struggling, suffering human soul.
The whole artistic corps who had been invited from the Villa Medici, with the director at their head, unanimously decided that this performance far excelled all that had gone before, and Countess Ilsenbergh forgot in its success all the annoyance it had occasioned her. After the collection, which produced a magnificent sum, most of the company dispersed. Ilsenbergh, with his most feudal smile, expressed his thanks to all the performers in turn and presented elegant bouquets to the ladies. The entertainment lost its formal character and became a social gathering.
Zinka was sitting in a side room, surrounded by a host of young Romans and Frenchmen. As she was one of those rare natures who derive not the smallest satisfaction from the homage of men for whom they have no regard, she listened to their enthusiastic compliments with absolute indifference.
She had asked for an ice and Norina had offered it to her on his knees, remaining in that position to pour out a string of high-flown compliments. Zinka, unaccustomed to this Southern effusiveness, was remonstrating with some annoyance but without the slightest effect, when Sempaly came in and exclaimed in the abrupt tone he commonly used to younger men: "Get up, Norina, do you not see that your devotion is not appreciated."
The prince rose with a scowl, Sempaly drew a seat to Zinka"s side and in five minutes had, as usual, entirely monopolized her.
"My cousin the countess owes everything to you," he said in his most musical tones; "you saved the whole thing. I detest all amateur performances, but that tableau of Lady Jane Grey was really beautiful."
"I liked the French play very much. Madame de Gandry"s acting was full of spirit."
"Bah! I have had more than enough of such spirit."
"Indeed!" laughed she, "it seems to me that you are suffering from general weariness of life. You are blase."
"What do you understand by being blase?" he asked.
"Why, that exhaustion of heart and soul which comes of the fatigue produced by a life of perpetual enjoyment; it is I believe an essential element in the character of a man of fashion."
"Something between a malady and an affectation," remarked Sempaly.
"Just so; in short, to be blase is the heartsickness of a fop."
Sempaly glanced at her keenly. "Your definition is admirable," he said, "I will make a note of it; but the cap does not fit me. I am not blase, I am not indifferent to anything. Shams, hypocrisy, and meretriciousness irritate me, but when I meet with anything really good or lovely or genuine I can recognize it and admire it--more perhaps than most men."
Meanwhile the winner of the musical prize from the Villa Medici had sat down to the piano and plunged straightway out of a maundering improvisation into a waltz by Strauss. The countess had no objection if they liked to dance, and several couples were soon spinning under the flaring candles.
Sempaly rose: "May I have the honor?" he said to Zinka, and they went together into the dancing-room.
Zinka had the pretty peculiarity of turning pale rather than red as she danced; her movements were not sprightly, but gliding and dreamy; in fact she waltzed with uncommon grace. Sempaly had long since lost the subaltern"s delight in a dance; he only asked ladies who had some special interest or charm for him, and every one knew it.
"Hm!" said Siegburg, shaking his head as he went up to General von Klinger who was watching the graceful couple from a recess, "my little game has come to nothing it seems to me."
"Have you retired then?" asked the general.
"By no means--quite the contrary; but my chances are small enough at present I fancy; what do you say?" He looked straight into the old man"s eyes; he understood and said nothing.
"She dances beautifully, I never saw a girl dance better. How well she holds her head," he murmured. Suddenly a flash of amus.e.m.e.nt lighted up his eyes. "Look at Fritzi"s face!" he exclaimed: "What a horrified expression! a perfect Niobe."