Fewer tourists and more hunters had been coming to the Lodge of late;
the crack of the rifle sounded all day. There was great talk of a hunt
which the duke would hold in September, and the colonel and Rex were
invited. But though September was now only a few days off, the colonel
was growing too restless to wait.
After Yvonne’s visit, he and Ruth were much together. It seemed to
happen so. They took long walks into the woods, but Ruth seemed to
share now her father’s aversion to climbing, and Gethryn stalked the
deer with only the Jaegers for company.
Ruth and her father used to come home with their arms full of wild
flowers—the fair, lovely wild blossoms of Bavaria which sprang up
everywhere in their path. The colonel was great company on these
expeditions, singing airs from obsolete operas of his youth, and
telling stories of La Grange, Brignoli and Amodio, of the Strakosches
and Maretzeks, with much liveliness. Sometimes there would be a
silence, however, and then if Ruth looked up she often met his eyes.
Then he would smile and say:
“Well, Daisy!” and she would smile and say:
“Well, dear!”
But this could not last. About a week after Yvonne’s visit, the
colonel, after one of these walks, instead of joining Rex for a smoke,
left him sitting with Ruth under the beech tree and mounted the stairs
to Mrs Dene’s room.
It was an hour later when he rose and kissed his wife, who had been
sitting at her window all the time of their quiet talk, with eyes fixed
on the young people below.
“I never dreamed of it!” said he.
“I did, I wished it,” was her answer. “I thought he was—but they are
all alike!” she ended sadly and bitterly. “To think of a boy as
wellborn as Rex—” But the colonel, who possibly knew more about
wellborn boys than his wife did, interrupted her:
“Hang the boys! It’s Ruth I’m grieved for!”
“My daughter needs no one’s solicitude, not even ours!” said the old
lady haughtily.
“Right! Thank God!” said the veteran, in a tone of relief. “Good night,
my dear!”
Two days later they left for Paris.
Rex accompanied them as far as Schicksalsee, promising to follow them
in a few days.
The handsome, soldierly-looking Herr Förster stood by their carriage
and gave them a “Glück-liche Reise!” and a warm “Auf Wiedersehen!” as
they drove away. Returning up the steps slowly and seriously, he caught
the eye of Sepp and Federl, who had been looking after the carriage as
it turned out of sight beyond the bridge:
“Schade!” said the Herr Förster, and went into the house.
“Schade!” said Federl.
“Jammer-schade!” growled Sepp.
On the platform at Schicksalsee, Rex and Ruth were walking while they
waited for the train. “Ruth,” said Rex, “I hope you never will need a
friend’s life to save yours from harm; but if you do, take mine.”
“Yes, Rex.” She raised her eyes and looked into the distance. Far on
the horizon loomed the Red Peak.
The clumsy mail drew up beside the platform. It was the year when all
the world was running after a very commonplace Operetta with one lovely
stolen song: a Volks-song. One heard it everywhere, on both continents;
and now as the postillion, in his shiny hat with the cockade, his light
blue jacket and white small clothes, and his curly brass horn, came
rattling down the street, he was playing the same melody:
Es ist im Leben häßlich eingerichtet—
The train drew into the station. When it panted forth again, Gethryn
stood waving his hand, and watched it out of sight.
Turning at last to leave the platform, he found that the crowd had
melted away; only a residue of crimson-capped officials remained. He
inquired of one where he could find an expressman and was referred to a
mild man absorbing a bad cigar. With him Gethryn arranged for having
his traps brought from Trauerbach and consigned to the brothers Schnurr
at the “Gasthof zur Post,” Schicksalsee, that inn being close to the
station.
This settled, he lighted a cigarette and strolled across to his hotel,
sitting down on a stone bench before the door, and looking off at the
lake.
It was mid-afternoon. The little place was asleep. Nothing was stirring
about the inn excepting a bandy Dachshund, which came wheezing up and
thrust a cold nose into the young man’s hand. High in the air a hawk
was wheeling; his faint, querulous cry struck Gethryn with an unwonted
sense of loneliness. He noticed how yellow some of the trees were on
the slopes across the lake. Autumn had come before summer was ended. He
leaned over and patted the hound. A door opened, a voice cried, “Ei
Dachl! du! Dachl!” and the dog made off at the top of his hobbyhorse
gait.
The silence was unbroken except for the harsh cries of the hawk,
sailing low now in great circles over the lake. The sun flashed on his
broad, burnished wings as he stooped; Gethryn fancied he could see his
evil little eyes; finally the bird rose and dwindled away, lost against
the mountainside.
He was roused from his reverie by angry voices.
“Cochon! Kerl! Menteur!” cried someone.
The other voice remonstrated with a snarl.
“Bah!” cried the first, “you lie!”
“Alsatians,” thought Rex; “what horrible French!”
The snarling began again, but gradually lapsed into whining. Rex looked
about him.
The quarreling seemed to come from a small room which opened out of the
hotel restaurant. Windows gave from it over the front, but the blinds
were down.
“No! No! I tell you! Not one sou! Starve? I hope you will!” cried the
first voice, and a stamp set some bottles and glasses jingling.
“Alsatians and Jews!” thought Rex. One voice was unpleasantly familiar
to him, and he wondered if Mr Blumenthal spoke French as he did
English. Deciding with a careless smile that of course he did, Rex
ceased to think of him, not feeling any curiosity to go and see with
whom his late fellow-lodger might be quarreling. He sat and watched
instead, as he lounged in the sunshine, some smart carriages whirling
past, their horses stepping high, the lackeys muffled from the mountain
air in winter furs, crests on the panels.
An adjutant in green, with a great flutter of white cock’s feathers
from his chapeau, sitting up on the box of an equipage, accompanied by
flunkies in the royal blue and white of Bavaria, was a more agreeable
object to contemplate than Mr Blumenthal, and Gethryn felt as much
personal connection with the Prince Regent hurrying home to Munich,
from his little hunting visit to the emperor of Austria, as with the
wrangling Jews behind the close-drawn blinds of the coffee-room at his
back.
The sun was slowly declining. Rex rose and idled into the smoking-room.
It was deserted but for the clerk at his desk, a railed enclosure, one
side of which opened into the smoking-room, the other side into the
hall. Across the hall was a door with “Café—Restaurant,” in gilt
letters above it. Rex did not enter the café; he sat and dreamed in the
empty smoking-room over his cigarette.
But it was lively in the café, in spite of the waning season. A good
many of the tables were occupied. At one of them sat the three
unchaperoned Miss Dashleighs, in company with three solemn,
high-shouldered young officers, enjoying something in tall, slender
tumblers which looked hot and smelled spicy. At another table Mr
Everett Tweeler and Mrs Tweeler were alternately scolding and stuffing
Master Irving Tweeler, who expressed in impassioned tones a desire for
tarts.
“Ur—r—ving!” remonstrated Mr Tweeler.
“Dahling!” argued Mrs Tweeler. “If oo eats too many ’ittle cakies then
oo tant go home to Salem on the puffy, puffy choo-choo boat.”
Old Sir Griffin Damby overheard and snorted.
When Master Tweeler secured his tarts, Sir Griffin blessed the meal
with a hearty “damn!”
He did not care for Master Tweeler’s nightly stomach aches, but their
rooms adjoined. When “Ur—r—ving” reached unmolested for his fourth, Sir
Griffin rose violently, and muttering, “Change me room, begad!” waddled
down to the door, glaring aggressively at the occupants of the various
tables. Near the exit a half suppressed squeal caused him to swing
round. He had stepped squarely on the toe of a meager individual, who
now sat nursing his foot in bitter dejection.
“Pardon—” began Sir Griffin, then stopped and glared at the
sallow-faced person.
Sir Griffin stared hard at the man he had stepped on, and at his female
companion.
“Damn it!” he cried. “Keep your feet out of the way, do you hear?”
puffed his cheeks, squared his shoulders and snorted himself out of the
café.
The yellow-faced man was livid with rage.
“Don’t be a fool, Mannie,” whispered the woman; “don’t make a row—do
you know who that is?”
“He’s an English hog,” spluttered the man with an oath; “he’s a cursed
hog of an Englishman!”
“Yes, and he knows us. He was at Monaco a few summers ago. Don’t forget
who turned us out of the Casino.”
Emanuel Pick turned a shade more sallow and sank back in his seat.
Neither spoke again for some moments. Presently the woman began to stir
the bits of lemon and ice in her empty tumbler. Pick watched her
sulkily.
“You always take the most expensive drinks. Why can’t you order coffee,
as others do?” he snarled.
She glanced at him. “Jew,” she sneered.
“All right; only wait! I’ve come to the end of my rope. I’ve got just
money enough left to get back to Paris—”
“You lie, Mannie!”
He paid no attention to this compliment, but lighted a cigar and
dropped the match on the floor, grinding it under his heel.
“You have ten thousand francs today! You lie if you say you have not.”
Mr Pick softly dropped his eyelids.
“That is for me, in case of need. I will need it too, very soon!”
His companion glared at him and bit her lip.
“If you and I are to remain dear friends,” continued Mr Pick, “we must
manage to raise money, somehow. You know that as well as I do.”
Still she said nothing, but kept her eyes on his face. He glanced up
and looked away uneasily.
“I have seen my uncle again. He knows all about your sister and the
American. He says it is only because of him that she refuses the
handsome offer.”
The woman’s face grew tigerish, and she nodded rapidly, muttering, “Ah!
yes! Mais oui! the American. I do not forget him!”
“My dear uncle thinks it is our fault that your sister refuses to
forget him, which is more to the purpose,” sneered Pick. “He says you
did not press that offer he made Yvonne with any skill, else she would
never have refused it again—that makes four times,” he added. “Four
times she has refused an establishment and—”
“Pst! what are you raising your voice for?” hissed the woman. “And how
is it my fault?” she went on.
“I don’t say it is. I know better—who could wish more than we that your
sister should become the mistress of my dear rich uncle? But when I
tried to tell him just now that we had done our best, he raved at me.
He has guessed somehow that they mean to marry. I did not tell him that
we too had guessed it. But he said I knew it and was concealing it from
him. I asked him for a little money to go on with. Curse him, he would
not lend me a sou! Said he never would again—curse him!”
There was a silence while Pick smoked on. The woman did not smoke too
because she had no cigarette, and Pick did not offer her any. Presently
he spoke again.
“Yes, you certainly are an expensive luxury, under the circumstances.
And since you have so mismanaged your fool of a sister’s affair, I
don’t see how the circumstances can improve.”
She watched him. “And the ten thousand francs? You will throw me off
and enjoy them at your ease?”
He cringed at her tone. “Not enjoy—without you—”
“No,” she said coolly, “for I shall kill you.”
Mr Pick smiled uncomfortably. “That would please the American,” he
said, trying to jest, but his hand trembled as he touched the stem of
his cigar-holder to shake off the ashes.
A sudden thought leaped into her face. “Why not please—me—instead?” she
whispered.
Their eyes met. Her face was hard and bold—his, cowardly and ghastly.
She clenched her hands and leaned forward; her voice was scarcely
audible. Mr Pick dropped his oily black head and listened.
“He turned me out of his box at the Opera; he struck you—do you hear?
he kicked you!”
The Jew’s face grew chalky.
“Today he stands between you and your uncle, you and wealth, you and
me! Do you understand? Cowards are stupid. You claim Spanish blood. But
Spanish blood does not forget insults. Is yours only the blood of a
Spanish Jew? Bah! Must I talk? You saw him? He is here. Alive. And he
kicked you. And he stands between you and riches, you and me, you
and—life!”
They sat silent, she holding him fascinated with her little black eyes.
His jaw fallen, the expression of his loose mouth was horrible.
Suddenly she thrust her face close to his. Her eyes burned and the
blood surged through the distended veins under the cracking rouge. Her
lips formed the word, “Tonight!”
Without a word he crept from his seat and followed her out of the room
by a side door.
Gethryn, lounging in the smoking-room meanwhile, was listening with
delight to the bellowing of Sir Griffin Damby, who stood at the clerk’s
desk in the hall.
“Don’t contradict me!” he roared—the weak-eyed clerk had not dreamed of
doing so—“Don’t you contradict me! I tell you it’s the same man!”
“But Excellence,” entreated the clerk, “we do not know—”
“What! Don’t know! Don’t I tell you?”
“We will telegraph to Paris—”
“Telegraph to hell! Where’s my man? Here! Dawson! Do you remember that
infernal Jew at Monaco? He’s here. He’s in there!” jerking an angry
thumb at the café door. “Keep him in sight till the police come for
him. If he says anything, kick him into the lake.”
Dawson bowed.
The clerk tried to say that he would telegraph instantly, but Sir
Griffin barked in his face and snorted his way down the hall, followed
by the valet.
Rex, laughing, threw down his cigarette and sauntered over to the
clerk.
“Whom does the Englishman want kicked out?”
The clerk made a polite gesture, asking Rex to wait until he had
finished telegraphing. At that moment the postillion’s horn heralded
the coming of the mail coach, and that meant the speedy arrival of the
last western train. Rex forgot Sir Griffin and strolled over to the
post office to watch the distribution of the letters and to get his
own.
A great deal of flopping and pounding seemed to be required as a
preliminary to postal distribution. First the mail bags seemed to be
dragged all over the floor, then came a long series of thumps while the
letters were stamped, finally the slide was raised and a face the color
of underdone pie crust, with little angry eyes, appeared. The owner had
a new and ingenious insult for each person who presented himself. The
Tweelers were utterly routed and went away not knowing whether there
were any letters for them or not. Several valets and ladies’ maids
exchanged lively but ineffectual compliments with the face in the post
office window. Then came Sir Griffin. Rex looked on with interest. What
the ill-natured brute behind the grating said, Rex couldn’t hear, but
Sir Griffin burst out with a roar, “Damnation!” that made everybody
jump. Then he stuck his head as far as he could get it in at the little
window and shouted—in fluent German, awfully pronounced—“Here! You!
It’s enough that you’re so stupid you don’t know what you’re about.
Don’t you try to be impudent too! Hand me those letters!” The official
bully handed them over without a word.
Rex took advantage of the lull and stepped to the window. “Any letters
for Mr Gethryn?”
“How you spell him?” Rex spelled him.
“Yet once again!” demanded the intelligent person. Rex wrote it in
English and in German script.
“From Trauerbach—yes?”
“Yes.”
The man went away, looked through two ledgers, sent for another, made
out several sets of blanks, and finally came back to the window, but
said nothing.
“Well?” said Rex, pleasantly.
“Well,” said the man.
“Anything for me?”
“Nothing for you.”
“Kindly look again,” said Rex. “I know there are letters for me.”
In about ten minutes the man appeared again.
“Well?” said Gethryn.
“Well,” said the man.
“Nothing for me?”
“Something.” And with ostentatious delay he produced three letters and
a newspaper, which Rex took, restraining an impulse to knock him down.
After all, the temptation was not very great, presenting itself more as
an act of justice than as a personal satisfaction. The truth was, all
day long a great gentleness tinged with melancholy had rested on
Gethryn’s spirit. Nothing seemed to matter very much. And whatever
engaged his attention for a moment, it was only for a moment, and then
his thoughts returned where they had been all day.
Yvonne, Yvonne! She had not been out of his thoughts since he rose that
morning. In a few steps he reached his room and read his letters by the
waning daylight.
The first began:
“My Darling—in three more days I shall stand before a Paris audience. I
am not one bit nervous. I am perfectly happy. Yesterday at rehearsal
the orchestra applauded and Madame Bordier kissed me. Some very droll
things happened. Achilles was intoxicated and chased Ajax the Less with
a stick. Ajax fled into my dressing room, and although I was not there
I told Achilles afterward that I would never forgive him. Then he
wept.”
The letter ran on for a page more of lively gossip and then, with a
sudden change, ended:
“But why do I write these foolish things to you? Ah! you know it is
because I am too happy! too happy! and I cannot say what is in my
heart. I dare not. It is too soon. I dare not!
“If it is that I am happy, who but you knows the reason? And now listen
to my little secret. I pray for you, yes, every morning and every
evening. And for myself too—now.
“God forgives. It is in my faith. Oh! my husband, we will be good!
“Thy Yvonne”
Gethryn’s eyes blurred on the page and he sat a long time, very still,
not offering to open his remaining letters. Presently he raised his
head and looked into the street. It was dusk, and the lamps along the
lake side were lighted. He had to light his candles to read by.
The next was from Braith—a short note.
“Everything is ready, Rex, your old studio cleaned and dusted until you
would not know it.
“I have kept the key always by me, and no one but myself has ever
entered it since you left.
“I will meet you at the station—and when you are really here I shall
begin to live again.
“Au revoir,
Braith”
It seemed as if Gethryn would never get on with his correspondence. He
sat and held this letter as he had done the other. A deep melancholy
possessed him. He did not care to move. At last, impatiently, he tore
the third envelope. It contained a long letter from Clifford.
“My blessed boy,” it said.
“We learn from Papa Braith that you will be here before long, but the
old chump won’t tell when. He intends to meet you all alone at the
station, and wishes to dispense with a gang and a brass band. We think
that’s deuced selfish. You are our prodigal as well as his, and we are
considering several plans for getting even with Pa.
“One is to tell you all the news before he has a chance. And I will
begin at once.
“Thaxton has gone home, and opened a studio in New York. The Colossus
has grown two more inches and hates to hear me mention the freak
museums in the Bowery. Carleton is a hubby, and wifey is English and
captivating. Rowden told me one day he was going to get married too.
When I asked her name he said he didn’t know. Someone with red hair.
“When I remarked that he was a little in that way himself, he said yes,
he knew it, and he intended to found a race of that kind, to be known
as the Red Rowdens. Elliott’s brindle died, and we sold ours. We now
keep two Russian bloodhounds. When you come to my room, knock first,
for “Baby” doesn’t like to be startled.
“Braith has kept your family together, in your old studio. The parrot
and the raven are two old fiends and will live forever. Mrs Gummidge
periodically sheds litters of kittens, to Braith’s indignation. He
gives them to the concierge who sells them at a high price, I don’t
know for what purpose; I have two of the Gummidge children. The bull
pups are pups no longer, but they are beauties and no mistake. All the
same, wait until you see “Baby.”
“I met Yvonne in the Louvre last week. I’m glad you are all over that
affair, for she’s going to be married, she told me. She looked prettier
than ever, and as happy as she was pretty. She was with old Bordier of
the Fauvette, and his wife, and—think of this! she’s coming out in
Belle Hélène! Well! I’m glad she’s all right, for she was too nice to
go the usual way.
“Poor little Bulfinch shot himself in the Bois last June. He had
delirium tremens. Poor little chap!
“There’s a Miss Dene here, who knows you. Braith has met her. She’s a
beauty, he says, and she’s also a stunning girl, possessing manners,
and morals, and dignity, and character, and religion and all that you
and I have not, my son. Braith says she isn’t too good for you when you
are at your best; but we know better, Reggy; any good girl is too good
for the likes of us.
“Hasten to my arms, Reginald! You will find them at No. 640 Rue Notre
Dame des Champs, chez,
“Foxhall Clifford, Esq.”
Leaving Clifford’s letter and the newspapers on the table, Rex took his
hat, put out the light, and went down to the street. As he stood in the
door, looking off at the dark lake, he folded Yvonne’s letter and
placed it in his breast. He held Braith’s a moment more and then laid
it beside hers.
The air was brisk; he buttoned his coat about him. Here and there a
moonbeam touched the lapping edge of the water, or flashed out in the
open stretch beyond the point of pines. High over the pines hung a
cliff, blackening the water all around with fathomless shadow.
A waiter came lounging by, his hands tucked beneath his coattails.
“What point is that? The one which overhangs the pines there?” asked
Rex.
“Gracious sir!” said the waiter, “that is the Schicksalfels.”
“Why ‘Schicksal-fels’?”
“Has the gracious gentleman never heard the legend of the ‘Rock of
Fate’?”
“No, and on second thoughts, I don’t care to hear it now. Another time.
Good night!”
“Ah! the gentleman is too good! Thousand thanks! Gute Nacht, gnädiger
Herr!”
Gethryn remained looking at the crags.
“They cannot be half a mile from here,” he thought. “I suppose the path
is good enough; if not, I can turn back. The lake will look well from
there by moonlight.” And he found himself moving up a little footpath
which branched below the hotel.
It was pleasant, brisk walking. The air had a touch of early frost in
it. Gethryn swung along at a good pace, pulling his cap down and
fastening the last button of his coat. The trees threw long shadows
across the path, hiding it from view, except where the moonlight fell
white on the moist gravel. The moon herself was past the full and not
very bright; a film of mist was drawing over the sky. Gethryn, looking
up, thought of that gentle moon which once sailed ghostlike at high
noon through the blue zenith among silver clouds while a boy lay beside
the stream with rod and creel; and then he remembered the dear old
yellow moon that used to flood the nursery with pools of light and pile
strange moving shades about his bed. And then he saw, still looking up,
the great white globe that hung above the frozen river, striking blue
sparks from the ringing skates.
He felt lonely and a trifle homesick. For the first time in his life—he
was still so young—he thought of his childhood and his boyhood as
something gone beyond recall.
He had nearly reached his destination; just before him the path entered
a patch of pine woods and emerged from it, shortly, upon the
flat-topped rock which he was seeking. Under the first arching branches
he stopped and looked back at the marred moon in the mist-covered sky.
“I am sick of this wandering,” he thought. “Wane quickly! Your
successor shall shine on my home: Yvonne’s and mine.”
And, thinking of Yvonne, he passed into the shadows which the pines
cast upon the Schicksalfels.