ARISTOCRATIC VISITORS
I hear disquieting news about my lover's character--The aristocracy
a dirty lot--Love-making made easy by titled friends--Anecdotes of
Richelieu and the Duke of Orleans--The German nobleman who married
Miss Wheeler and had to resign his birthright--The disreputable
business the Pappenheims and other nobles used to be in--I am afraid
to question my lover as to charges.
LOSCHWITZ, _May 15, 1901_.
The Vitzthums have been visiting for a week. Henry lodges in the
village, but spends nearly all his time in the castle and grounds. We
play tennis, polo, ball; we drive, ride, go bicycling, we dine and sup
together.
I ought to be the happiest woman in the world, but a shadow dims the
ideal picture my mind's eye drew of the lover.
I have it recorded somewhere--I wish I hadn't, so I might doubt my
memory--that Henry told me he never borrowed from his sister. Countess
Vitzthum's confidences to me show that he did repeatedly, that, in fact,
he is forever trying to borrow.
"He is a spendthrift; he cannot be trusted," said his sister, who loves
him dearly. "He will wreck his career if he continues at the pace he is
going. Some day we may hear of him as a waiter or cab-driver in New
York."
These disclosures frightened me. I might forgive him the lie, but what
is he doing with the money?
Spending it on lewd women like Bernhardt, I suppose.
I said: "Oh," and Madame von Vitzthum seemed to catch its significance.
It occurred to her at once that she had said too much and she tried to
minimize her brother's delinquencies. But I know.
Maybe some of my money went to pay hotel expenses for----
* * * * *
_At Midnight._
My cousin Richelieu caused his mistresses to be painted in all sorts of
monastic garments and licentious devices, saying: "I have my saints and
martyrs; they are all that; but, as for virgins, there are none outside
of Paradise." Substitute _paillards_ for the holy ones and you have the
situation in a nutshell.
The Vitzthums are panderers. They always manage to leave me alone with
Henry. When we are a-wheel, they ride a mile ahead; while playing tennis
one or the other aims the ball, every little while, to enter the open
window of a summer-house, where my lover and I can exchange a few rapid
kisses. When we are driving, without coachman or groom, of course, they
always "feel like walking a bit," while Henry and I remain in the
carriage.
The same at the house, on the veranda. They are always _de trop_.
Vitzthum even sacrifices himself to the extent of paying court to the
Tisch and engaging her entire attention, if it must be. He reminds me of
a certain colonel of the French army during the Regency.
"_Monseigneur_," said this gentleman to my cousin d'Orleans, "permit me
to employ my regiment as a guard for my wife, and I swear to you that
nobody shall go near her but Your Highness."
Of course, it's very lovely of them, but rather emphasizes the poor
opinion I have of the nobility.
Your nobleman and noblewoman adopt all tones, all airs, all masks, all
allures, frank and false, flattering and brutal, choleric or mild,
virtuous or bawdy--anything as long as it makes for their profit. Some
months ago I met at the Dresden court the Dowager Countess Julie
Feodorowna of Pappenheim, who told everybody she could persuade to
listen that her eldest son, Max Albrecht, had to resign the succession,
because he married beneath him, an American heiress, Miss Wheeler of
Philadelphia.
"Then you despise money?" I queried with a malicious thought just
entering my head.
"Not exactly, Your Imperial Highness," she said, "but our house
laws----"
"Those funny house laws," I smiled, "you don't say they forbid a
Pappenheim to accept half a dozen millions from his wife, when, in days
gone by, the Counts of Pappenheim's chief income was the tax on harlotry
in Franconia and Swabia."
The Countess nearly dropped. "Don't be alarmed," I said. "See the
pompous looking man in the corner yonder? It's Count Henneberg. His
forbears held the fiefship of the Wuerzburg city brothel for many hundred
years. That's where the family fortune came from."
* * * * *
LOSCHWITZ, _May 17, 1901_.
I am an ingrate. I bit the hand that fed me. Noble iniquity that yields
such delicious crumbs of love as Henry and I stole in moments of ecstasy
in park and parlor, in pavilion and veranda, on our drives and rides, be
blessed a hundred times. Ah, the harvest of little tendernesses, the
sweet words I caught on the wing--recompense for the weeks of abstinence
I suffered!
Occasionally only, very occasionally, I feel like questioning Henry as
to the lie he was guilty of. I quizzed his sister time and again about
his relations with women. She always gives me a knowing laugh; I wonder
whether she means to be impertinent, or is simply a silly goose.
I won't ask him. If he is innocent, as I sincerely hope, he will be
offended. If he is not, he will be ashamed of himself and will avoid me
in future. It's "innocent," you lose, and "guilty," you don't win.
And I love him. I want him, whether he lies to me or not.