Inasmuch as all Noumaria knew that its little Grand Duke, once closeted
with the lady whom he delighted to honor, did not love intrusions,
and inasmuch as a discreet Court had learned, long ago, to regard
the summer-house as consecrate to his Highness and the Baroness von
Altenburg,--for these reasons the Grand Duke was inclined to resent
disturbance of his privacy when he first peered out into the gardens.
His countenance was less severe when he turned again toward the Baroness,
and it smacked more of bewilderment.
"It is only my wife," he said.
"And the Comte de Châteauroux," said the Baroness.
There is no denying that their voices were somewhat lowered. The chill and
frail beauty of the Grand Duchess was plainly visible from where they sat;
to every sense a woman of snow, his Highness mentally decided, for her gown
this evening was white and the black hair powdered; all white she was, a
cloud-tatter in the moonlight: yet with the Comte de Châteauroux as a foil,
his uniform of the Cuirassiers a big stir of glitter and color, she made an
undeniably handsome picture; and it was, quite possibly, the Grand Duke's
æsthetic taste which held him for the moment motionless.
"After all--" he began, and rose.
"I am afraid that her Highness--" the Baroness likewise commenced.
"She would be sure to," said the Grand Duke, and thereupon he sat down.
"I do not, however," said the Baroness, "approve of eavesdropping."
"Oh, if you put it that way--" agreed the Grand Duke, and he was rising
once more, when the voice of de Châteauroux stopped him.
"No, not at any cost!" de Châteauroux; was saying; "I cannot and I will not
give you up, Victoria!"
"--though I have heard," said his Highness, "that the moonlight is bad for
the eyes." Saying this, he seated himself composedly in the darkest corner
of the summer-house.
"This is madness!" the Grand Duchess said--"sheer madness."
"Madness, if you will," de Châteauroux persisted, "yet it is a madness too
powerful and sweet to be withstood. Listen, Victoria,"--and he waved his
hand toward the palace, whence music, softened by the distance, came from
the lighted windows,--"do you not remember? They used to play that air at
Staarberg."
The Grand Duchess had averted her gaze from him. She did not speak.
He continued: "Those were contented days, were they not, when we were boy
and girl together? I have danced to that old-world tune so many times--with
you! And to-night, madame, it recalls a host of unforgettable things, for
it brings back to memory the scent of that girl's hair, the soft cheek that
sometimes brushed mine, the white shoulders which I so often had hungered
to kiss, before I dared--"
"Hein?" muttered the Grand Duke.
"We are no longer boy and girl," the Grand Duchess said. "All that lies
behind us. It was a dream--a foolish dream which we must forget."
"Can you in truth forget?" de Châteauroux demanded,--"can you forget it
all, Victoria?--forget that night a Gnestadt, when you confessed you loved
me? forget that day at Staarberg, when we were lost in the palace gardens?"
"Mon Dieu, what a queer method!" murmured the Grand Duke. "The man makes
love by the almanac."
"Nay, dearest woman in the world," de Châteauroux went on, "you loved me
once, and that you cannot have quite forgotten. We were happy then--very
incredibly happy,--and now--"
"Life," said the Grand Duchess, "cannot always be happy."
"Ah, no, my dear! nor is it to be elated by truisms. But what a life is
this of mine,--a life of dreary days, filled with sick, vivid dreams of
our youth that is hardly past as yet! And so many dreams, dear woman of my
heart! in which the least remembered trifle brings back, as if in a flash,
some corner of the old castle and you as I saw you there,--laughing, or
insolent, or, it may be, tender. Ah, but you were not often tender! Just
for a moment I see you, and my blood leaps up in homage to my dear lady.
Then instantly that second of actual vision is over, I am going prosaically
about the day's business, but I hunger more than ever--"
"This," said the Grand Duke, "is insanity."
"Yet I love better the dreams of the night," de Châteauroux went on; "for
they are not made all of memories, sweetheart. Rather, they are romances
which my love weaves out of multitudinous memories,--fantastic stories of
just you and me that always end, if I be left to dream them out in comfort,
very happily. For there is in these dreams a woman who loves me, whose
heart and body and soul are mine, and mine alone. Ohé, it is a wonderful
vision while it lasts, though it be only in dreams that I am master of
my heart's desire, and though the waking be bitter...! Need it be just a
dream, Victoria?"
"Not but that he does it rather well, you know," whispered the Grand Duke
to the Baroness von Altenburg, "although the style is florid. Yet that last
speech was quite in my earlier and more rococo manner."
The Grand Duchess did not stir as de Châteauroux bent over her jewelled
hand.
"Come! come now!" he said. "Let us not lose our only chance of happiness.
'Come forth, O Galatea, and forget as thou comest, even as I already have
forgot, the homeward way! Nay, choose with me to go a-shepherding--!'"
"Oh, but to think of dragging in Theocritus!" observed his Highness. "Can
this be what they call seduction nowadays!"
"I cannot," the Grand Duchess whispered, and her voice trembled. "You know
that I cannot, dear."
"You will go!" said de Châteauroux.
"My husband--"
"A man who leaves you for each new caprice, who flaunts his mistresses in
the face of Europe."
"My children--"
"Eh, mon Dieu! are they or aught else to stand in my way, now that I know
you love me!"
"--it would be criminal--"
"Ah, yes, but then you love me!"
"--you act a dishonorable part, de Châteauroux,--"
"That does not matter. You love me!"
"I will never see you again," said the Grand Duchess, firmly. "Go! I loathe
you, I loathe you, monsieur, even more than I loathe myself for having
stooped to listen to you."
"You love me!" said de Châteauroux, and took her in his arms.
Then the Grand Duchess rested her head upon the shoulder of de Châteauroux,
and breathed, "God help me!--yes!"
"Really," said the Grand Duke, "I would never have thought it of Victoria.
It seems incredible for any woman of taste to be thus lured astray by
citations of the almanac and secondary Greek poets."
"You will come, then?" the Count said.