I saw her again for a few moments while I paid my bill. I said that it
was quite within the bounds of possibility that Terry would return to
Vienna after a short interval, and that therefore it might be advisable
to keep his room for him. Would she do this, and let me pay the charge
without his knowing?
She told me that there would be no charge, and when I protested she
said: "You can think of it, if you like, as my farewell gift to him, for
I think I shall never see him again."
I demurred to that, but she only shrugged her shoulders and said: "It is
a feeling I have." I asked her then if she would see Karelsky and give
him some explanation of Terry's sudden departure; and she nodded
all-comprehendingly. Never had she been more the calm, business woman;
and it was _that_--the utter perfection of her pose--that I shall never
forget.
She came with us to the station and saw us to our places on the train.
The temperature had fallen slightly, and there was a cool breeze with
the hint of rain in it. Terry, before the train started, thanked her for
all the kindness she had shown him during those seven years, and said
that he hoped he would meet her again before long. And she answered, in
her coolest and most professional tones: "Oh, of course any time you are
in Vienna you must be sure to come and see me. I am so pleased you have
been satisfied here. Perhaps you will be good enough to recommend me to
your English friends." (And yet how well she knew he hadn't any!) She
was wonderful then, but the pose, because it was too perfect, gave
itself away. The thought came to me at that moment overpoweringly--how
extraordinary it was that Terry, with all his _penchant_ for
self-accusation, hadn't long ago accused himself of making her love him!
For she did love him, as much as any woman who ever lived, and the love
was like a fire in her eyes as the train began to move. She shook hands
with us and said, not "Good-bye," but "Wiedersehen." That, I think, was
just the pose, guarding her faithfully till we were gone. And what then?
There's no knowing, but I remember that when the train was almost out of
the station I looked out of the window and saw her still standing on the
platform where we had left her, and I think, though I can't be sure,
that she saw me and waved a last farewell.
It was I, perhaps, who was the more depressed during that slow, rumbling
night-journey towards the mountains. Terry had his alternate moods of
optimism and despondency, but I was uniformly oppressed with a sort of
_Wehmut_ or _Weltschmerz_ or whatever untranslatable thing the Germans
call it. The cold dawn came as we ran into Salzburg, and by noon the sun
was blazing on the red-roofed chalets above Innsbrück. All the time I
was thinking far more of the past than of the future; the parting with
Mizzi seemed to me far more pitiable than anything that had or could
have happened to Severn. I didn't talk to Terry about it, for he, who
never understood a woman at all, had certainly never understood Mizzi.
Only once, indeed, was she even mentioned, and that was when he said,
quite casually: "Odd, wasn't it, that Mizzi should ask me to recommend
her hotel? She might have known I should do, if ever I got the chance.
But I suppose the hotel's always in her mind--it seems to be what she
lives for, anyhow."
"Do you think so?"
"She told me so herself, only yesterday. She said she didn't care for
anything or anybody in the world except her hotel."
I didn't argue the point. But I guessed then (and I still think my guess
was right) that that had been her way of refusing him. And perhaps,
after all, it was the best way--the best because it could not but leave
him with a tinge of disappointment in her. After such words, it would be
hard for him to feel pity for her loneliness. Sometimes now I wonder
what would have happened if I had said to him outright: "Mizzi loves
you, despite her refusal, and her misery now that you've gone is more
your fault than any of these other things, and also far easier to undo.
Go back and love her and be happy...." He mightn't have believed me, and
he certainly wouldn't have obeyed me; but perhaps, in his moments of
deepest remorse, he would have tacked on Mizzi's unhappiness to the
already heavy enough load of his own responsibilities. And that, of
course, was the chief reason why I didn't tell him.