Persuade him--he is but a man--
When you have swung the lash above,
Annoyed and hurt him all you can,
That it was done for love.
In the brougham taking them home at the stately speed of their
Orloffs, neither Basil nor Laurence spoke. The distance was short,
and in a few minutes the “_Porte s’il vous plâit_” of their
imposing coachman resounded before the escutcheoned portals. The
equipage turned into a closed court, stopped beneath the glass
marquise, and the footman jumped to the carriage door at the precise
moment that a _Suisse_ of heroic proportions and dazzling baldric
gave notice of their coming, by three short strokes of his halberd on
the tessellated floor of the entrance.
Basil assisted his wife up the marble steps and, gently retaining her
hand in his own, crossed the hall and ascended the great staircase
with her. A double hedge of white lilac and narcissus lined the
porphyry balustrade on either side, and somehow or other Laurence
felt suddenly as if their heady perfume made her dizzy. She foresaw
some sort of explanation between Basil and herself; she knew that her
tone and manner had been unjustifiable, and false pride rose in her
at the thought of being even ever so gently called to account.
Nevertheless, she let him accompany her to her own apartments without
a word, and it was only when the door of the _salon d’entrée_ had
shut behind them that she at last opened her mouth.
“It was abominably warm at the Hôtel Plenhöel,” she said,
disengaging her hand and walking ahead of him into the adjoining
boudoir, where she sat herself down in closest possible proximity to
the brightly burning pine-cone fire.
Basil did not comment upon this curious inconsequence, but, bending,
he deftly unfastened the clasp of her long blue-fox cloak, and let it
fall in a heap on the back of her arm-chair. In spite of herself
Laurence was ill at ease. She gave a little laugh, and began to
unbutton her left glove.
“They are so old-fashioned, the Plenhöels,” she said, without
looking up. “One really thinks one is attending a reception at
Versailles under Louis-Seize. _Did_ you see the way that Duchesse de
Montemare wears her hair? I really believe it must be rolled upon a
cushion, like our great-grandmothers’, and I’d swear it was
powdered!”
Basil, leaning against the tall chimneypiece, was looking straight
into the dancing pink flames.
“She is the greatest lady in France,” he replied, “and as to the
old-fashionedness of the Hôtel de Plenhöel, a noisily modern
reception would clash with those antique ceilings and dignified
_souvenirs d’autrefois_.”
“Oh, I am not finding fault!” she interposed, somewhat hurriedly.
Then, looking up into her husband’s face, she saw there something
that, oddly enough, made her suddenly determined to put him in the
wrong. She was not going to let him reprove her, even tacitly--not
she, indeed!
“Of course,” she said, arrogantly, “everything at the Plenhöels’
is bound to be perfection--at least in your eyes. Fortunately for me
I am not as gullible as you!”
Basil turned a pair of sincerely astonished eyes upon her. For the
second time in an hour he felt as a harmless traveler feels when,
without warning, he faces a gun-barrel pointing at him from behind a
bush. What could be the matter with his sweet little wife? he asked
himself. Perhaps she was ill! He had been annoyed and a trifle
irritated, but at this thought he experienced a complete revulsion of
feeling, and quickly came across to her.
“What is the matter, Laury?” he asked, tenderly. “Are you tired, my
darling? You do not seem quite yourself to-night.”
With a petulant gesture she turned away from him, tightening her
hands upon the fan she still held. There was a tiny rending sound,
and the delicate tortoise-shell sticks fell apart in her lap.
“Why, Laurence!” Basil exclaimed, and, stooping, he lifted her in his
arms, sat down in her place, and, holding her like a baby, drew her
pretty head to his shoulder. “My dear child!” he said, affectionately.
“You _are_ ill, and it is all my fault. I should not have allowed you
to keep such late hours. Since we have been in Paris you have been
constantly on the go. No wonder you feel done up.”
The broken fan had slipped noiselessly into the folds of Laurence’s
train, and she struggled half up, as if to recover it; but he held
her fast, and with a shiver of inexpressible rage she suddenly burst
into tears.
Basil was nonplussed, but for a moment he continued to stroke her
hair in silence. He was not an expert in the queer humors of women,
like his cousin Plenhöel, but from his great strength he looked upon
them one and all as children, capricious, easily moved to shallow
depths of emotion, a little irrational, and always in need of
tenderness, of protection, and of caresses. Therefore he bore himself
wholly in accordance with this belief during this first difficult
moment of their already prolonged honeymoon. She was unstrung,
pettish, a little unreasonable, yes! but adorable as always. All she
wanted was to be soothed, petted. He did not even mind the sharp
points of her tiara, that at every nervous sob came unpleasantly
into contact with his chin and cheek. Let her cry herself out, poor
dear; that was the best thing for her to do; and, of course, after
the storm sunshine would follow! Every married man knows that! He did
not question the sorrowfulness of those sobs; they were convincing
enough to him.
“I have gone too far; I have offended him!” the silly woman--interpreting
his silence wrongly--was thinking meanwhile, her face hidden on his
breast. “What shall I do--how explain?” For in spite of herself she
was more than a little afraid of him now. Gradually, scientifically,
so to speak, she began to temper the pathetic signs of her distress;
and at length she ceased altogether to cry, snuggling closer and
closer to him, however, as a tired child does with its nurse after
some great and exhausting emotion.
“Better now, sweetheart?” Basil gently inquired. “Look up a bit, and
let us dry those naughty eyes. I don’t want my beautiful wife to be
disfigured by tears.”
He suited the action to the words, raised her head as if it had been
made of egg-shell china with one big, brown hand, and, possessing
himself of the absurd morsel of lace she called her handkerchief,
tenderly wiped very genuine tears of anger from her long eyelashes.
Then he sat her up straight on his knee like a doll, and asked,
smiling imperturbably:
“Tell me now, oh, Un-Serene Highness, what causes all this big
sorrow.”
The manner in which she lowered her eyes and pouted partook of
nothing less than genius. Her white breast was still rising and
falling charmingly in its frame of velvet and ermine, making the big
octagonal diamonds hanging from her necklace throb with prismatic
light, and altogether she was irresistible in her half-contrite,
half-resentful mood.
“You treat me like ... like a baby,” she murmured, pettishly. “And
yet I am your wife, and I have my rights, haven’t I?”
“Most decidedly!” he agreed, repressing a smile with difficulty. What
was coming now!
“Well, then,” she went on, twisting the little chain of decorations
in his buttonhole between her slim fingers, “why should I not feel
hurt when you show me, so _very_ rudely, that I am not first in your
thoughts?”
Basil, greatly amused, laughed outright. “So, so!” he said, gaily.
“You have discovered all by your own wee self that you are not first
in my thoughts! What a clever little woman it is, to be sure!
Especially under present circumstances. You should be mightily proud
of such a painstaking and praiseworthy achievement.”
“You can laugh!” she cried, leaping from his knee and confronting
him, her cheeks flaming with real indignation. “You can laugh as much
as you please, but I’m not laughing ... not laughing at all, I
assure you ... nor would you if you knew how you have offended and
affronted me.”
“Is this serious?” Basil asked, getting to his feet after one
painfully astonished glance at her. “A joke must not be carried too
far, you know, my dear.”
Laurence blushed crimson. She was as yet a novice at such a game, and
her lord and master looked extraordinarily imposing, towering there
in that _bijou_ room, walled and ceiled with white plush, like an
_écrin_ made to hold a pearl. For the first time she saw new
possibilities in him, and a cold shudder ran down her back. Was she
to resort again to tears, she quickly reflected, or was it wiser to
fight the matter out, and obtain the mastery, now and at once?
“Are you serious?” he repeated, sternly enough now; and she winced.
“Quite serious,” she murmured, trying to steady the trembling of her
lips. “It is sickening to see you lost in admiration before your
cousin and everything your cousin does.”
“Régis? In admiration before Régis?” he queried.
“You know very well I don’t mean Régis--I mean Marguerite--your
precious ‘Gamin.’ The ‘_Chevalier Gamin_,’ as her foolish father
and you call her.”
Basil stepped nearer to her, put the tips of his fingers on her
shoulders, and turned her face to the full glow of the wax lights
burning in tall candelabras near by.
“What do you mean, Laurence?” he said, quietly. “Is it that you are
jealous of Marguerite de Plenhöel?”
“Yes,” she admitted, attempting to shake him off, but without avail,
for although he did not exert the least pressure, she knew that she
could not rid herself of those well-controlled fingers which
nevertheless weighed so little that she scarcely felt their touch.
“You don’t know me yet! I am jealous by temperament; jealous, of
course, especially of you; of every word you speak to another, of
every look, of every gesture! I can’t help it; I am built that way,
I suppose.” She raised her large, resentful eyes to him so suddenly
that he let go his delicate hold and remained gazing at her in
helpless wonderment. Did she mean what she said? It was difficult to
doubt that she was in earnest, but so ridiculous was the charge she
made that his face grew grim.
“If this is the truth,” he said, slowly, “I am extremely sorry for
it. Jealousy not only denotes an entire lack of confidence and trust
in oneself and another, but an inordinate amount of vanity.”
“I dare say,” she interrupted, sulkily, backing away from him. “But
you cannot change me. I am as I am.”
“Look here, Laurence,” he said, gravely. “Assured of my love as you
are, you cannot be really jealous. Surely I have given you no reason,
be it ever so slight, for feelings that are so unworthy of you?”
Her brows met in one straight line above a pair of eyes in which
there appeared for a second a sparkle of hatred.
“Well, then, if you love and adore me as you say you do, you might
show me more consideration. To begin with, I will not tolerate your
attentions to stupid _ingénues_, nor hear you praise ‘greatest
ladies’--as you call them--to my face. I know you have made a
sacrifice in marrying me, since I brought you nothing but myself; but
as you have done so, I suppose you’ll have to abide by your
bargain, such as it is.”
Leaning against a table, both hands grasping its edge behind her, she
was absolutely glaring at him, courting a quarrel with all her might,
and a dreary sensation of pain and bewilderment overcame him.
“So!” he said at length, in a voice that shook a little. “You are
offended because to-night I spoke to a little girl of my family--a
child I have known since she was born--and ventured to praise a woman
worthy of all reverence and old enough to be your great-grandmother!
Well, this being the case, my dear Laurence, I can only ask you what
you wish me to do in the future to please you. Remember that I love
you with all my heart and soul, and that I am an honest man
determined to make you happy at all costs. Now speak, please.”
She, however, did not do so. As a matter of fact, she had by now
worked herself into such a fury that she no longer quite knew what
she was doing. She vaguely felt that she was acting like a fool. Yet
she could not master an intense desire to hurt him, if she could only
do so.
“Please, Laurence,” he reiterated, looking miserably across at her,
“do not mar our happiness by so uncalled-for a scene! If you but knew
how you hurt me--what you are to me--you would not act like this!”
But she kept silent still, and, enervated beyond measure, he reached
her in one stride, snatched her up in his arms, and crushed her
passionately to him. There was a moisture in his eyes that he did not
care to let her see.
“Laury, my little Laury!” he murmured, shakily. “What is the matter
with you to-night? Be honest with me at least, and tell me the real
truth, instead of keeping me guessing like this!”
She swayed limply in his arms, unresistingly, as utterly irresponsive
as a cushion of down, her head drooping, her whole body relaxed; and
he bent quickly, thinking that she had fainted. But, no, her eyes
were wide open, her face set in extravagant obstinacy; and the
feeling of utter helplessness which strong men well know who have
been confronted by the _Ewig-Weibliche_ when at its worst wrung his
soul. What could one do against this passive force of a being so
delicate and frail that one could crush it between two fingers
almost, and yet did not dare even to scold for what might, after all,
be the mere childishness of a spoiled beauty?
This plea of sudden jealousy on Laurence’s part was so absurd, so
lacking in all foundation, that he really did not know what to think.
Was it a clumsy excuse, perhaps, to conceal a fit of ... of temper?
Surely his Laurence, his beloved Laurence, so angelic until now,
could not possibly have a temper to conceal! Concealment and her
frank little self should not even be mentioned in the same breath.
These reflections only lasted a few seconds, but during that short
time Laurence, satisfied by the evident success of her armed
reconnaissance, had cast about for some means of escape from the
_impasse_ in which she had so stupidly placed herself, thanks to that
upsetting encounter with Neville Moray, and had come to a decision.
In another moment she straightened up, dabbed her now perfectly dry
eyes pathetically with her handkerchief, and, gliding from Basil’s
grasp, began to look contrite.
“I’m sorry to have been so bad!” she murmured, piteously. “I
don’t know what possessed me ... for, really, I don’t have those
naughty fits often!”
Instantly Basil cast behind him all that had taken place. She _was_ a
child, he told himself. Nothing but an impulsive, as yet immature
creature, charming and wayward, whom he loved with a great love. What
mattered a little cloud in a sky hitherto so pure? Surely he had been
in the wrong to take the affair so seriously. He would have done much
better to laugh it away, and thus did he begin to laugh and pet her,
a change of front which she submitted to with seraphic patience,
especially as he promised her--to commemorate their first little
dispute--a wonderful bracelet of uncut sapphires she had admired that
very morning in the rue de la Paix. What will you? Children must have
toys and bonbons to console them when they cry.
A little later, when he had rung for her women, Basil went to his
study. It was dark, save for the fire-glow, and he did not trouble to
turn on the lights, but stood a long time at a window overlooking the
garden behind the house. It had been freezing very hard for
Paris--this particular winter being of unusual severity. Every tree,
every branch, gleamed in crystal purity. The lawn, which earlier had
been powdered with snow, glittered like a carpet of diamonds, and the
hundred ramifications of a leafless aristolochia on the end wall made
a twinkling lace-like tracery, interspersed here and there with broad
frost-roses and ice-flowers against the dark stone. Above this fairy
spot the sky was sown with stars, only a little paled by the cold
radiance of the full moon.
A growing longing for his own land gradually stole over Basil as he
stood there motionless. He drew a deep breath of regret as he called
to mind the enchanting nights on the Neva; the music of sleds, the
silky slide of sleigh runners, the fitful waves of the Northern
Aurora rising and falling like a softly moving curtain behind the
towers and domes of snow-hushed St. Petersburg.
Until then he had not paused to think about the change that had come
over his life. It had all been done so swiftly. Dazzled by passion,
he had never paused to reflect that he was binding himself to a being
of another race, another creed, another world, so to speak, and that
such a step might bring about unforeseen and very grave difficulties.
She had been so docile, so very anxious to please him during their
brief engagement. Without a murmur she had abandoned the old faith of
her people, for Greek Catholicism. She had accepted--in theory, at
least--with touching self-forgetfulness, the heavy duties devolving
upon the consort of a great territorial lord responsible for the
welfare of the hundreds and hundreds of retainers and dependents upon
his large estates, in villages and small towns lost in the immensity
of the steppes, the depths of the boundless forests; and she had
seemed to fully understand the heavy cares resulting from immense
wealth, when that wealth is not looked upon as a mere personal
benefit, but as a terrible responsibility for which account must some
day be rendered to One watchful of His creatures and their deeds.
Deep below the Russian earth labored miners whose task it was to
bring to the surface gold and platinum, gems and malachite and lapis
lazuli to fill the Palitzin coffers. Vast reaches of field and
furrow, of forest and vineyard, were worked by erstwhile serfs of
that princely house, in order to fulfil the same purpose. Thousands
of horses and cattle were tended upon the plains by troops of
herdsmen wearing the emblazoned _brassard_ of Basil-Vassilièvitch
Palitzin--the present master of half a province or so--and, strange
to say, none were malcontents; for their lord treated them well, and
had made himself well-beloved during the years of his stewardship.
And now what of the Princess who was to rule at his side? The
question was late in coming to his mind. Well-born, well-bred,
well-educated, she assuredly was. Why should she not be the absolute
partner of his thoughts, his ideals, his plans--and they were many?
But would she be that? He passed his hand slowly across his forehead,
and relapsed into contemplation of the miniature Muscovy gleaming
beneath the moon at his feet and islanded amid the great capital of
France.
Paris with its round of gaieties, its music and laughter, and
republican irresponsibility! Paris, the paradise of strangers from
all parts of the globe; Paris, that from a thorough Anglomaniac had
changed with startling rapidity into an Americo-lunatic; Paris, who
threw wide her portals to every moneyed invader that chose to come
her way, and gave him in return the tinsel-glitter and costly
viciousness prepared for his or her reception, guarding jealously out
of sight whatever remained truly French and truly decent within her
walls, so that none could truthfully speak well of that famous modern
Babylon. Basil smiled a little bitterly as his thoughts ran on thus.
London, Berlin, New York--he knew them well--were wiser far than
Paris. They did not flaunt their evil in the face of visitors, not
they! They hid it scrupulously under the thick mantles of variegated
religions, suited to every taste and class. Human failings,
frailties, and worse than frailties, were shut in hidden places
there, guarded by solemn-faced warders who denied their very
existence and profited by their remarkable vivacity. And
Petersburg--once again Basil’s mind flew back to his own dear
capital city, where failings and virtues run neck to neck, and elbow
to elbow, in supreme carelessness of consequences, but at any rate
without either effrontery or hypocrisy--just like Vienna, only more
so!
Laurence loved Paris. It was she who had hinted, in her pretty
girlish way, at a speedy installation there, where she knew so many
people--friends of her uncle and aunt, acquaintances made during her
stay at Seton Park, Wiltshire, and Seton House, Belgravia; her summer
cruises on the _Phyllis_; her short sojourns with Uncle Bob and Aunt
Elizabeth at seaside or mountain resorts. Before these she ardently
desired to appear in her new _Glanz und Pracht_, these who had seen
her in the character of a dependent--and what a bounty that had been!
But what did Basil know about these little secret plans? What indeed!
He had found it quite natural for a young girl, full of life and of
the joy of life, to want to spend her first married winter in the
city of worldly pleasure _par excellence_. At that moment, however,
he began to question the wisdom of his having so readily assented to
her wishes. He felt that it might have been better for him to have
done otherwise, to have begun by making her thoroughly acquainted
with her adopted land, her adopted nationality, her new hereditary
dignities and duties. Yes, the welfare of his own people was dear
indeed to him, and a flying trip to his chief estate, where she had
been greeted and fêted like a young queen, served but little to
initiate her to what his life among them, as their suzerain, had
really been.
With a puzzled frown he leaned his head against the cold glass. “We
belong,” he mused, “to utterly discrepant generations. I am so
irredeemably slow and old-fashioned; she is so intensely modern!” He
gave his shoulders a shake of dissatisfaction at these shortcomings
of his. Then he began to pace moodily back and forth before the huge
fireplace. “Oh yes,” he reflected, sadly, “I suppose I will always be
saying and doing things she will instinctively dislike and resent,
and if she really is of a jealous disposition--” He stopped, pulled
fiercely at his mustache, and resumed his pacings and his futile
cogitations until his brain grew tired.
Truly this night’s unfortunate events had suddenly disclosed to him
an altogether undreamed-of horizon line, and it was difficult to see
what lay concealed beyond it. Assuredly Laurence, had she but known
it, would have done better to put her hand in the fire, than to shake
even by the lightest possible touch the splendid monument of love and
trust Basil had built up for her with so great a joy and so great a
faith.
Weary, both morally and physically, he at last went back and gazed
out into the garden again. Strangely enough, the image of the
“Gamin,” in her diaphanous white dress, with her sparkling blond hair
aureoling her little head, suddenly appeared before him with
startling reality. Her blue eyes seemed to gaze deep into his, and
somehow she was no longer the playmate of other days, the merry child
who had run and danced with the wind along the terrace at Plenhöel,
who had struggled with the window-fastenings, and climbed to the box
of the drag bringing Laurence that fateful morning, but a being
wholly different; a sorrowing woman developed to her uttermost
possibilities in a few hours, a woman possessed of the wisdom of all
the ages, a friend in all the potency of the word--a counselor--more,
even more than that--some one to look up to and gain endurance and
patience from. Involuntarily he drew closer to frosted pane, and,
looking out upon the softly gleaming moonshine by which he had
symbolized her that evening, it seemed to him that her spirit was
dowering the night with all its enshrined loveliness and shrouded
mystery. Well! There would never again be the same ease and
comradeship between them as before Laurence had committed the folly
of naming her as a rival; but did this foolish act break the
sweetness of the past, or perchance lend a new enchantment to the
power of a personality Basil had not been clearly conscious of until
this moment? He drew away from the window, determined to cut short
such a train of thought now and for all time. He must be thoroughly
out of sorts himself, he argued, and Laurence had been silly to speak
as she had done--not quite as distinguished in manner as he had
fancied her to be! The women of his class, of course, were perfectly
capable of fierce jealousies, yet _they_ were bred and born to keep
such feelings to themselves. It was part of their _métier_ as great
ladies. Still, his wife was now one of them; she would be taught by
example the unspoken etiquette of their decorous world. Besides, he
was not the sort to give her cause for jealousy; also he would, as
far as he was able, avoid meeting Marguerite. Yes! Yes! Everything
would turn out all right--and in the morning--the morning-- He
glanced at his watch by the last leaping flames of the crumbled
logs--surely it must have stopped--or else hurried on without rhyme
or reason, for it pointed at six o’clock. Guiltily he stole back to
the window and stared at the garden below. All was so very still
there--the sapphire-and-silver winter night as yet undisturbed--but
as he bent closer he saw that ever so cold and faint a pallor was
stealthily clouding its depth, its serenity, and with a quick,
impatient sigh he sought his own room.