MADAME JAROVISKY’S BALL.
It was a mystery to the Karapolos how Madame Jarovisky had discovered
the existence of Andromache. It was customary for her to invite the
glorious and elegant warrior, with whom she had formed pleasing
relations at the Palace entertainments. Besides, Hadji Adam, the King’s
_aide-de-camp_ and the very particular friend of Captain Miltiades,
generally stipulated that his heroic comrade should have the right
of entrance into all the distinguished houses of Athens. But even
Hadji Adam knew nothing about his family, and how did it come that
the Desposine Andromache Karapolos received a card of invitation for
Madame Jarovisky’s great ball given in honour of an English Cabinet
Minister? Julia the elder was not invited, nor was little Themistocles,
the bank clerk. Another remarkable circumstance was the lateness of
the invitation. It came on the eve of the ball. Andromache’s mother
and Julia were strongly of opinion that no notice should be taken of
an attention conveyed with such strange discourtesy. They did not know
Madame Jarovisky, and no chaperon had been invited to accompany the
younger Miss Karapolos. But Andromache was wild with desire to go. She
had often glanced in marvelling admiration at the Jarovisky palace of
marble and statues and colonnades, though she was virtuous enough to
lower her eyes before the undraped statues of the terrace which she
regarded as scandalous. And now that the chance of entering its bronzed
gates and seeing the glories of its interior was presented to her, she
was passionately resolved to go. Miltiades was fond of Andromache, and
was easily persuaded into seconding her resolution. The head of the
house is chaperon enough for any girl, he explained to his weak mother,
and it was probably through Mademoiselle Natzelhuber that Madame
Jarovisky had learned of Andromache’s existence, which accounted for
the lateness of the invitation.
So it was decided that Andromache should go. The excitement put
Maria into a good humour, and she was heard to sing, while starching
and ironing white petticoats, the Captain’s evening shirt and lace
bodices. A little dressmaker was hired for the day, who at breakfast
sat opposite the warlike Miltiades, and blushed when Themistocles
filled her glass with wine. Everyone laughed and spoke together at
table, except the dressmaker and Themistocles, who regarded it as a
personal slight that he had not been included in the invitation, and
this insult added to the thought of the forbidden paradise in the next
street, more than ever convinced him that there was nothing for him but
to emigrate to England. After breakfast, instead of showing himself
upon Constitution Square, he retired into his own room, and his violin
dismally expressed his dissatisfaction in asthmatic strains supposed to
be Schubert’s.
Then what running about for the women, what screaming of reiterated
explanations, hysterical adjurations, differences of opinion as to the
looping of a flounce, the draping of a fold, the selection of a ribbon
or a flower! Maria was, of course, president of the house-parliament;
though her vision was frequently impeded by the tangled locks of hair
she found it so difficult to keep out of her black eyes. But the
warmest discussion has its end, and all longed-for hours eventually
arrive. When Themistocles arrived for dinner, he found he was the only
person insufficiently nourished upon the day’s excitement. Theodore
ministered to his wants, while all the women were in the girls’ chamber
robing Andromache.
Very pretty she looked when dressed in cream muslin striped with
silk,--an exquisitely soft and dainty texture made at the Ergasterion
of Athens--trimmed with bows of crimson ribbon and charming Greek
lace. Her costume was inexpensive, and looked home-made, but its
very guilelessness was an effective setting to her extreme youth and
simplicity. A Greek girl, whatever her deficiencies, is never awkward
or vulgar, and the only suggestion Miltiades could offer in the way of
improvement, when he examined her critically, was the brushing off of
some of the powder which marred the fine olive of her face. Miltiades
himself was resplendent in his full-dress uniform, his _grande tenue_.
More than ever did he resemble the mythical slaughterer of those five
thousand wretched Turks; and such smiling and satisfied glory as his
was calculated to depress and fill with alarm the breast of the Sultan
himself.
Andromache was muffled in a woollen shawl, and taking the arm of her
gallant escort, they went out into the cold blue air. They walked
gingerly down the slanting and unpaved street, dreading to splash their
evening shoes in the running streams over which they were obliged to
jump every time a fresh street broke theirs horizontally. When they
reached the even pavement of University Street, behind Hansen’s lovely
marble Academy, outlined sharply against the pure dark sky above the
perfumed patch of foliage and flowers between it and the University,
their footsteps rang out with a loud echo, Andromache’s high heels
tapping the stones aggressively. Already a line of carriages was drawn
up outside the Jarovisky’s palace. It was the largest ball given at
Athens for years. Every one who was not in mourning was there, and most
people who were.
Dr. and Madame Jarovisky received their guests at the head of the chill
and magnificent hall. When Miltiades appeared, Dr. Jarovisky shook
his hand most cordially and asked after his wife and children, shook
hands with Andromache, and remarked that he never saw her looking so
well, and was delighted to renew his acquaintance with her. Miltiades
telegraphed her a glance of warning against any expression of surprise,
and explained to her afterwards that Dr. Jarovisky never remembered any
of his guests. Madame Jarovisky feebly expressed the pleasure it gave
her to see Miss Andromache Karapolos, and hoped she would enjoy herself.
The rooms were crowded, but in spite of heavy perfumes and laughter and
light, they were freezingly cold, built as they were of marble, with
porphyry pillars and mosaic floors. Andromache shivered a little, and
looked anxiously around while her brother twirled his moustache, and
beamed a fatuous smile upon the groups he swiftly scanned.
“See, Miltiades, there is Hadji Adam flirting with Madame von
Hohenfels. How handsome he is! and how distinguished she.”
“Madame von Hohenfels is what the French call _grande dame_. I was
introduced to her nephew yesterday. He is a very pretty fellow. I
daresay he is somewhere about.”
They entered another room, and here Andromache’s quick glance singled
out a noticeable group of laughing and chattering young persons.
Mademoiselle Eméraude Veritassi, beautifully arrayed in costly glory
from Worth, was its centre, and round her hovered or buzzed like bees,
Miss Mary and Master John Perpignani, Agiropoulos, the Greek poet, the
young ladies of the American Legation, Ehrenstein and Vincent Mowbray
Thomas. At that moment Rudolph happened to look round and met the
March-violet eyes, bewitching in the eloquent delight of recognition.
She blushed prettily, and an answering blush asserted sympathy on his
boyish face. He broke away from the gay crowd, and saluted Captain
Karapolos with insinuating cordiality.
If there is a thing the Greek has, at all hours, and in all places,
at the disposal of his fellow-man, it is his hand. He shakes hands at
every possible pretext, or he embraces. How he would express himself if
that method of greeting were suddenly suppressed by act of Parliament,
it is not for me to say, but I imagine he would pay a fine rather than
forego the habit. Miltiades, after a jaunty military salute, of which
he was equally profuse, held out a white-gloved hand, and then stood
with the other gracefully reposing on his hip to discourse to Rudolph
in unintelligible French.
“Vous êtes bien, Monsieur,” he began cheerfully.
“Mais oui,” responded Rudolph, smiling at Andromache to whom he
bowed deferentially. “Est-ce que vous voudriez bien me presenter à
Mademoiselle votre sœur?”
“Monsieur Rudolph Ehrenstein; Andromache--ma sœur,” said Karapolos,
with a flourish, and then discovered that he had come to an end of his
French. He smiled largely, and his teeth and handsome eyes, so like his
sister’s, did duty for speech.
And while he was ogling Miss Mary Perpignani, to whose satisfactory
dowry he aspired, audacious Rudolph had asked and obtained Andromache’s
first quadrille, and furthermore secured her for the cotillon, which,
of course, Miltiades would conduct according to custom.
“Vous me ferez l’honneur, Monsieur, de me confier Mademoiselle votre
sœur?” Rudolph asked.
“Certainement,” assented Karapolos, delighted at the unexpected
remembrance of a new word. “Je--je, comment--tell him, Andromache, I
want to dance myself,” he burst out in Greek.
Andromache translated his wish, and as she spoke, with an expression of
shy and charming deprecation, dark and light blue eyes held each other
in fascinated gaze. Rudolph’s heart, as fresh and innocent as hers,
began to comport itself in a very irregular fashion, and his frame
thrilled under a sense of exquisite emotion. Her French was a little
halting, and he was obliged to choose the easiest words for her, but
how pleasant it was to hear her speak? The dancers were taking their
places for the first quadrille, and Rudolph offered Andromache his arm.
He reddened with pleasure when he looked down and saw her little hand
in a white silk glove on his coat sleeve. From that moment he thought
silk much prettier than Suède or kid. There was something birdlike and
irresponsible in the awakening passion of these two young creatures.
Neither dreamed of struggling against it or of consequences, but simply
fluttered towards each other with lovely glances of sympathy and candid
admiration.
The Baroness von Hohenfels, talking to the Right Honourable Samuel
Warren, M. P., raised her gold _face à main_ to scrutinise the dancers
casually, and saw her nephew with his dowdy and much too pretty
partner. She frowned a little, noting how completely absorbed he was
and on what an intimate footing the young pair already appeared to be,
and looked round in search of Mademoiselle Veritassi, whom she saw
dancing with the amiable Agiropoulos. She beckoned imperiously to her
husband, who obediently left the side of the English Minister’s wife,
and courteously begged to be enlightened as to the cause of her signal.
“Who is that girl Rudolph is dancing with?”
“You surely don’t expect to find me posted up in the names and
parentage of all the young ladies of Athens?” laughed the easy baron,
looking round.
“Have you eyes in your head? Can’t you see that they are flirting?”
protested the baroness.
“He certainly is greatly taken up with her. I fear, my dear, instead
of being the muff I believed him, your nephew is an inveterate flirt.
But I’ll inquire about her.”
The baron went back to Mrs. Mowbray Thomas, and the popular poet
passing, the baroness touched his arm with her fan, and smiled him an
arch invitation.
“M. Michaelopoulos,” she asked, taking his arm, “you know everybody in
Athens, don’t you?”
The poet modestly deprecated any such pretension.
“Well, at least you can tell me who that exceedingly attractive young
lady is my nephew is dancing with.”
The poet glanced down the room and singled out the couple.
It was impossible for the dullest observer to mistake the language of
eyes that constantly dwelt on each other, and the foolish alacrity with
which their hands met and clasped in the decorous dance.
“To my eternal desolation, Madame la Baronne, I must admit my
ignorance. The young lady is, as you observe, charming--a little
provincial, perhaps, clearly not of our world, but charming, very
charming. I entreat you, Madame, to note the _naïveté_ and candour of
her--how shall we name it? _entrainement?_ the first pressure of the
dangerous influence upon tranquil maidenly pulses.”
“Confine yourself to prose, my friend, for the moment, and if you obey
me, discover for me her parentage, position, etc.”
“Madame has to command, and I fly to obey her. I conjecture Monsieur
Ehrenstein’s latest flame to be a little impossible Athenian, living
the Gods know where and how.”
“Latest?” cried the baroness, with a look of displeased inquiry.
“Ah! it is to see that Madame’s great mind soars in the empyrean of
diplomatic considerations or upon ground more ethereal still. Her
delicate ears do not catch an echo of the vulgar gossip upon which
grosser ears are fed.”
“I have requested you, M. Michaelopoulos, to discourse to me in prose.
What is the vulgar gossip you refer to?”
The poet looked chill, and said, with brutal directness:
“My faith! Madame, your interesting nephew is thought to be the lover
of that dainty morsel of womanhood, the Natzelhuber.”
Madame von Hohenfels frowned, and then laughed.
“You forget, Rudolph is noble.”
“I have not remarked that nobility is specially fastidious in such
matters. Women! Well, that is frankly a department in which there is no
accounting for tastes, and good blood shows as pretty an eccentricity
as any other.”
The English statesman was approaching, and the poet walked away with an
expression of countenance clearly indicating an intention to remember
the baroness’s snub. The dance was over, and in the pause which ensued,
Madame Jarovisky, mindful of Rudolph’s information that Andromache was
a very promising pupil of Mademoiselle Natzelhuber, politely requested
her to favour the company with a specimen of her powers.
“Your mistress has not yet arrived,” she added by way of encouragement,
“and you can take advantage of her absence.”
Rudolph warmly seconded Madame Jarovisky, and thus flatteringly
besought, Andromache suffered herself to be led by the young Austrian
to the grand piano. At first she was terribly nervous, and the notes
faltered and shook unsteadily beneath her fingers, but discovering
that small attention was really paid to her, and drinking in courage
and nerve from Rudolph’s pleasant glances of admiration, she gradually
acquired a firmer touch, and played fairly well, with brilliancy and
just expression, a dance of Rubinstein’s. She was more than half-way
through her performance, when a whisper ran through the rooms:--“The
Natzelhuber!”
The Cabinet Minister immediately adjusted his eyeglass, and held
his sharp, heaven-aspiring nose in a beatific pose that denoted an
expectation of diversion. Madame von Hohenfels smiled blandly, well
pleased that somebody else should have the onerous charge and torture
of entertaining the great woman. Photini was marshalled fussily up
the room by anxious little Dr. Jarovisky, himself a blaze of medals
and decorations, while his wife advanced with an air of pathetic
deprecation and prayer, as if by such feeble weapons the thunder of
this female Jove might best be averted. Phontini did not meet her
hand, but just glanced at her in calm disdain, and nodded a serene,
impersonal and inclusive gaze around, walked to a distant mantelpiece
and placidly took her stand there.
“Who is that playing?” she asked of Dr. Jarovisky.
“Really, Mademoiselle, I--I--but wait, I will ask my wife,” the doctor
hastened to say, and in his hurry to satisfy the inexorable artist,
stumbled over a half dozen chairs and guests before he reached his
perturbed wife.
“Calliope, she wants to know who is playing?”
“A pupil of hers--Andromache Karapolos,” said Calliope.
Dr. Jarovisky stumbled back in the same awkward and nervous fashion,
and said, excitedly:
“You will be charmed, I am sure, Mademoiselle, to learn that the young
lady who is delighting us all is a pupil of yours.”
“A pupil of mine, sir?” interrogated Photini, imperiously.
“Mais, oui, ja, ja, Ναἱ,” cried Dr. Jarovisky, in his fright exploding
into a multiplicity of tongues. “A Desposine Andromache Karapolos,” and
he smiled pleadingly.
“Oh, indeed,” said Photini, with that desperate calm of hers that
invariably preluded a thunderstorm.
She rose, and followed by her shaken host, walked slowly down the
room with the face of a sphinx. When she came near the piano, Rudolph
looked up, saw her, bowed and smiled in anxious conciliation. She
neither returned his bow nor his smile, but came behind Andromache, and
deliberately dealt that inoffensive maiden a sound box on the ear.
“May I ask who gave you leave to murder Rubinstein for the benefit of a
lot of idiots worse than yourself?” she cried.
Pressing her palm to the outraged cheek, now crimson from the blow,
Andromache turned round with a face held between indignation and
shocked fear. Her tongue refused to give voice to the piteous words
that rushed to it, and tears of wounded pride and shame drowned the
March violets.
“C’est trop fort, Mademoiselle,” Rudolph exclaimed, with a flame of
masterful passion in his eyes.
“Vraiment?” retorted Photini, coolly. “Occupez-vous de vos affaires,
Monsieur, et laissez les miennes,” and the utter vileness of her accent
seriously imperilled the dignity of her speech and deportment. “As for
you,” she continued in Greek, turning to Andromache, “you will be so
good as to leave Rubinstein, Ehrenstein and every other ’stein alone,
and content yourself with scales and exercises for the next year.”
In spite of her cruel and inadmissible behaviour, it was impossible not
to feel some sympathy with the just anger of a severe and conscientious
artist, though one naturally wished it had sought a less explosive
outlet; and it was equally impossible not to recognise that such
severity, in more measured and human form, is very salutary for the
inefficient and abnormally rash young amateur. But of course all direct
sympathy was for the moment concentrated on poor Andromache. Rudolph
followed her, looking like a quarrelsome knight, as he stood guard over
insulted girlhood, until her brother rushed forward to carry her home;
and swore to himself, with petulant emphasis, that never again would he
address a word of civility to the woman he mentally apostrophised as a
monster and a fiend.
“Ne pleurez pas, Mademoiselle,” he cried, feverishly. “C’est qui doit
avoir honte. Pour vous, vous devez la mepriser. Dieu sait si vous en
avez le droit.”
“Laissez-moi, Monsieur. Je ne puis rien dire,” said Andromache in a
choking voice, and seeing Miltiades coming towards her with a furious
stride and the kind of look he must have worn when he sent those five
thousand Turks to Paradise, she rushed to him and gathered her fingers
round his arm convulsively. But a warrior and hero like Miltiades could
not expect to appreciate the dignity of a pacific departure. With his
sister upon his arm he walked to the spot where Photini was seated,
listening to the bantering expostulations of Agiropoulos leaning over
the back of her chair. She looked impassively at the angry face of the
captain, then at the shamed and drooping head of Andromache, but said
nothing.
“Mademoiselle Photini Natzelhuber,” said Miltiades, with a curt bow,
“I have the honour to announce to you that my sister will in future
discontinue her music lessons.”
“And what difference do you think that will make to me?” retorted
Photini. “It will be her loss.”
“If you were a man I should know how to deal with you. But as you are
only a woman, I can but despise you.”
“If it gives you any satisfaction, I am happy to have afforded you the
occasion.”
With this little passage of arms, in which Miltiades may be said to
have come off second best, the Captain and his sister retreated,
proudly stopping to receive the apologies of Madame and Dr. Jarovisky,
and left the field to the enemy.
“A very curious scene indeed,” remarked the Right Honourable Samuel
Warren, M. P., to Mrs. Mowbray Thomas. “It is most refreshing to obtain
these picturesque glimpses of foreign manners.”
“They’ll have to drop asking that woman into society,” said the English
Ambassador. “She is downright dangerous. I never heard of such a thing
in my life--striking a pretty, inoffensive girl in a drawing-room.”
“We are perhaps a little insular and restricted, and our drawing-room
life is insufficiently supplied with excitement and surprise,” rejoined
the Cabinet Minister.
It was some time before the guests fell into the ordinary social
groove. Whether they danced, or chatted, or walked about, they managed
to keep a careful and apprehensive eye upon the artist who had so
unexpectedly upset the universal equilibrium. But Photini tranquilly
ate the ice Agiropoulos brought her, indifferent to the general gaze
fixed thus upon her, called for a glass of cognac, and then, with a
look of bland defiance at Rudolph, who stood leaning sulkily against
the wall, announced her intention of playing once only, and then taking
her departure. Rudolph neither heeded the purport of her movement nor
the direct challenge of her amber glance. His thoughts were away with
Andromache, telling him that she was prettier and sweeter than any one
in these crowded rooms, wondering if she were crying, and resolving to
meet her brother somewhere the next day and to obtain permission to
call on her. Photini he simply loathed.
But ah! good heavens, what a horrible test of his hatred! There was
that tantalising witch actually playing at him the fatal irresistible
“Mélodiés Hongroises.” He closed his eyes, not to be tempted to look at
her with softened emotion; steeled his heart against her that it should
not melt upon such sound; but he did not shut his ears. And when their
eyes met perforce, there was no longer anger in his, and there was
triumph in hers.