"No; nor come either."
"Yes, of course, that"s it. Sit down; so will I. No, in your old place, over there. Max has been giving me a beautiful bracelet."
"That"s very kind of Max."
She glanced at me with challenging witchery.
"And I"ve promised to wear it every day--never to be without it. Doesn"t it look well?" She held up her arm where the gold and jewels sparkled on the white skin as the sleeve of her gown fell back.
I paid to Max"s bracelet and the arm which wore it the meed of looks, not of words.
"I"ve been afraid to come," I said.
"Is there anything to be afraid of here?" she asked with a smile and a wave of her hands.
"Because of Wetter"s Bill."
"Oh, the Bill! You were very cowardly, Caesar."
"I could do nothing."
"You never can, it seems to me." She fixed on me eyes that she had made quite grave and invested with a critically discriminating regard. "But I"m very pleased to see you. Oh, and I forgot--of course I"m very much honoured too. I"m always forgetting what you are."
On an impulse of chagrin at the style of her reception, or of curiosity, or of bitterness, I spoke the thought of my mind.
"You never forget it for a moment," I said. "I forget it, not you."
She covered a start of surprise by a hasty and pretty little yawn, but her eyes were inquisitive, almost apprehensive. After a moment she picked up her old weapon, the firescreen, and hid her face from the eyes downward. But the eyes were set on me, and now, it seemed, in reproach.
"If you think that, I wonder you come at all," she murmured.
"I don"t want you to forget it. But I"m something besides."
"Yes, a poor boy with a cruel mother--and a rude sister--and----" She sprang suddenly to her feet. "And," she went on, "a charming old adviser. Caesar, I met Prince von Hammerfeldt. Shall I tell you what he said to me?"
"Yes."
"He bowed over my hand and kissed it and smiled, and twinkled with his old eyes, and then he said, "Madame, I am growing vain of my influence over his Majesty.""
"The Prince was complimenting you," I remarked, although I was not so dull as to miss either Hammerfeldt"s mockery or her understanding of it.
"Complimenting me? Yes, I suppose he was--on not having done you any harm. Why? Because I couldn"t!"
"You wouldn"t wish to, Countess?"
"No; but I might wish to be able to, Caesar."
She stood there the embodiment of a power the greater because it feigned distrust of its own might.
"No, I don"t mean that," she continued a moment later. "But I should----" She drew near to me and, catching up a little chair, sat down on it, close to my elbow. "Ah, how I should like the Prince to think I had a little power!" Then in a low coaxing whisper she added, "You need only to pretend--pretend a little just to please me, Caesar."
"And what will you do just to please me, Countess?" My whisper was low also, but full where hers had been delicate; rough, not gentle, urging rather than imploring. I was no match for her in the science of which she was mistress, but I did not despair. She seemed nervous, as though she distrusted even her keen thrusts and ready parries. I was but a boy still, but sometimes nature betrays the secrets of experience. Suddenly she broke out in a new attack, or a new line of the general attack.
"Wouldn"t you like to show a little independence?" she asked. "The Prince would like you all the better for it." She looked in my face.
"And people would think more of you. They say that Hammerfeldt is the real king now--or he and Princess Heinrich between them."
"I thought they said that you----"
"I! Do they? Perhaps! They know so little. If they knew anything they couldn"t say that."
To be told they gossiped of her influence seemed to have no terror for her; her regret was that the talk should be all untrue and she in fact impotent. She stirred me to declare that power was hers and I her servant. It seemed to me that to accept her leading was to secure perennial inspiration and a boundless reward. Was Hammerfeldt my schoolmaster? I was not blind to the share that vanity had in her mood nor to ambition"s part in it, but I saw also and exulted in her tenderness. All these impulses in her I was now ready to use, for I also had my vanity--a boy"s vanity in a tribute wrung from a woman. And, beyond this, pa.s.sion was strong in me.
She went on in real or affected petulance:
"Can they point to anything I have done? Are any appointments made to please me? Are my friends ever favoured? They are all out in the cold, and likely to stay there, aren"t they, Caesar? Oh, you"re very wise. You take what I give you; n.o.body need know of that. But you give nothing, because that would make talk and gossip. The Prince has taught you well.
Yes, you"re very prudent." She paused, and stood looking at me with a contemptuous smile on her lips; then she broke into a pitying little laugh. "Poor boy!" said she. "It"s a shame to scold you. You can"t help it."
It is easy enough now to say that all this was cunningly thought of and cunningly phrased. Yet it was not all cunning; or rather it was the primitive, unmeditated cunning that nature gives to us, the instinctive weapon to which the woman flew in her need, a cunning of heart, not of brain. However inspired, however shaped, it did its work.
"What do you ask?" said I. In my agitation I was brief and blunt.
"Ask? Must I ask? Well, I ask that you should show somehow, how you will, that you trust us, that we are not outcasts, riff-raff, as Princess Heinrich calls us, lepers. Do it how you like, choose anybody you like from among us--I don"t ask for any special person. Show that some one of us has your confidence. Why shouldn"t you? The King should be above prejudice, and we"re honest, some of us."
I tried to speak lightly, and smiled at her.
"You are all I love in the world, some of you," I said.
She sat down again in the little chair, and turned her face upward toward me.
"Then do it, Caesar," she said very softly.
It had been announced a few days before that our amba.s.sador at Paris had asked to be relieved of his post; there was already talk about his successor. Remembering this, I said, more in jest than seriousness:
"The Paris Emba.s.sy? Would that satisfy you?"
Her face became suddenly radiant, merry, and triumphant; she clapped her hands, and then held them clasped toward me.
"You suggested it yourself!" she cried.
"In joke!"
"Joke? I won"t be joked with. I choose that you should be serious. You said the Paris Emba.s.sy! Are you afraid it"ll make Hammerfeldt too angry?
Fancy the Princess and your sister! How I shall love to see them!" She dropped her voice as she added, "Do it for me, Caesar."
"Who should have it?"
"I don"t care. Anybody, so long as he"s one of us. Choose somebody good, and then you can defy them all."
She saw the seriousness that had now fallen on me; what I had idly suggested, and she caught up with so fervent a welcome, was no small thing. If I did it, it would be at the cost of Hammerfeldt"s confidence, perhaps of his services; he might refuse to endure such an open rebuff.