If Prince Bismarck or his big dog had come to town, there could not
have been more excitement in the Bornholm family. The three young
ladies sat upon a bed, with their hair done up in curl papers, and
looked intense. They had hatched a plot of revenge which was worthy of
three blonde heads done up in curl-paper. It had been ascertained that
Mr. Grover had invited Miss Jones to the artists' carnival, and that
Miss Jones had accepted the invitation. He had, moreover, asked the
Frau Professorin to chaperone Miss Jones for the occasion, and the
Frau Professorin, who was as fond of excitement as a girl, did not
have the strength of mind to show him that she resented the slight he
had put upon her daughters. She tried to make the daughters believe,
of course, that she had; and they would undoubtedly have taken her
word for it, if they hadn't been listening at the key-hole. When taken
to task, the Frau Professorin was in such an indulgent mood that she
would readily have consented to anything; and when Roeschen proposed
that she, too, should go to the masquerade and in exactly the same
costume as Miss Jones, her mother only interposed a vague demurrer
which was easily overridden. The interesting complications which might
arise, if Grover should mistake one Daughter of the Rhine for the
other, stimulated her romantic fancy and made her eager as a girl to
have the plot carried into effect. What was to be accomplished by it,
she did not trouble herself to define; it only gave her a kind of
confused satisfaction to think that she was mystifying somebody who
had for a long time been mystifying her. Roeschen was exactly of Miss
Jones's height and their figures closely resembled each other. So when
they were masked a microscope would be required to tell them apart.
Roeschen, who was full of blissful anticipations, went about during the
day embracing people promiscuously from sheer excess of happiness. She
could almost have embraced Grover, foe though he was, for having
afforded her such a glorious opportunity for playing a trick on
him. Her adventurous spirit had long yearned for some monumental
enterprise, and this had somehow a mysterious atmosphere about it
which made it doubly attractive to the admirer of Lucrezia Borgia.
As for Miss Jones, she was unsuspicious as a new-born babe, which
circumstance heightened the joy of the conspirators, thrilling them
with sensations of deep and delightful villainy.
The week before Lent came at last and the reign of Prince Carnival was
proclaimed through the streets by medieval heralds in gorgeous attire.
The procession was watched from windows and balconies, and at last
came the evening with its alluring festivities, including the _bal
masque_. The Frau Professorin, as she flitted from Miss Jones's
boudoir to that of her daughter, taking notes of the former's costume
for the benefit of the latter, felt like an arch conspirator upon
whose coolness and address the fate of empires hung. Miss Jones had
had her costumes designed by an expert costumer, and the difficulty
was to make Roeschen's home-made finery as trim and dazzling as the
products of professional skill. This feat was, however, happily
accomplished, thanks to Minchen's artistic taste and Gretchen's nimble
fingers. The Frau Professorin then slipped with a sigh of relief into
her black domino and took her seat at Miss Jones's side in the
carriage. Grover, in the guise of King Gunther in the Nibelungen Lay,
sat opposite, arrayed in a splendid helmet and scarlet cloak,
endeavoring to make his legs as unobtrusive as possible. The drive to
the Schuetzenhaus was not long, and Miss Jones, muffled up to her very
eyes, hopped out of the carriage as lightly as Cinderella from her
metamorphosed cucumber. The Frau Professorin, likewise muffled,
allowed Grover to assist her up the stairs, and was conducted by him
to the door of the dressing-room, where there stood a female Cerberus
whose business it was to keep away male intruders. When King Gunther,
after doing sentinel duty for half an hour, again caught sight of the
swan-maiden, the daughter of Father Rhine, she was so surpassingly
lovely that he forgot to inquire for her chaperone. The chaperone,
therefore, without difficulty, effected a clandestine retreat, found
her way to a carriage and drove home as fast as the spavined droschke
horse would convey her. Twenty minutes later she slipped into the
dressing-room at the Schuetzenhaus, accompanied by a second daughter of
Father Rhine, whom that worthy parent himself could scarcely have told
from her lately-arrived sister.
The three floors of the enormous house represented the upper, the
middle, and the lower world.
The first floor was submarine and subterranean; cool,
dimly-illuminated grottoes, some in basaltic, columnar rock, some in
emerald-glowing stalactite, invited all the fantastic creatures of the
sea, both fabled and real, who were promenading about on the floor of
the deep, to a sweet, life-long siesta in their softly-gleaming
recesses. On the second floor luxuriant equatorial palm-groves grew in
startling proximity to the snow-laden pines of the North, and a
heterogeneous assembly of all nations and ages poured through the
resplendent avenues, chatting and playing pranks on each other with
Teutonic good humor.
"Let us go to Olympus," said King Gunther, who was drifting with his
snow-maiden through the motley throng. "I may never have another
chance of getting there," he added jocosely.
"I am afraid I should not feel at home there," answered the daughter
of the Rhine; "you know I belong properly to the lower regions."
"Then let us go to the lower regions," retorted the king, gayly. "You
needn't go in search of the Elysian Fields; you carry them with you
wherever you go."
"Beware, your Majesty," murmured the water-nymph, threateningly. "You
are defying Fate. Creatures of my kind are dangerous to trifle with."
"It is you who are trifling, not I," he burst forth; "with me the joke
has long ago become serious."
He felt her arm trembling where it touched his; under the black fringe
of her mask he saw her lips quiver, and her eyes shone with a strange,
moist radiance. The crowd of gay maskers surged about them and the
music whirled away over their heads unheeded, and broke in showers of
rippling sound.
"Listen to me," he whispered boldly, stooping to her level--but in the
same moment a heavy hand was laid upon his neck and a burly,
gray-bearded Jupiter stood before him with a great train of Olympian
attendants.
"I love the daughters of this green earth," said the king of the gods;
"or I should say the green daughters of this black earth," he
corrected himself, touching with a caressing hand the green sea-weeds
of the swan maiden's drapery.
"Excuse me, Father Jupiter," Grover began, knowing well, in spite of
his chagrin, that pranks of this kind were perfectly legitimate; "you
mix up the mythologies. This is not a classic nymph, but a Northern
swan-maiden."
"By my Olympian beard," cried Jupiter, "that shows your barbaric
taste, if you do not pronounce her classic."
"I must insist," Grover replied, "that to your pagan majesty a
creature of Northern fable has no existence."
"Then by my Ambrosian locks we will give her existence," quoth the
father of gods and men. "Mercury, my son," he cried, pointing with his
sceptre to a graceful youth with winged heels and cap, "change me
quickly this maiden into something classic, but don't change her too
much or you will spoil a divine masterpiece."
Mercury, with winged speed, came forward, waved his wand over the
swan-maiden's head, when behold! she vanished.
"Why, your magic is too potent, you rascal," ejaculated Jupiter. "I
didn't tell you to make her invisible."
He flourished his pasteboard sceptre in mock wrath above his head,
dealt Mercury a resounding blow on the head, then marched on, followed
by his immortal family and a jovial throng of leaf-crowned Bacchantes.
Grover remained standing in the middle of the floor, hoping that, as
the crowd dispersed, Miss Jones would naturally again seek him. But
Miss Jones had apparently no such intention. She persistently remained
invisible. At last, thinking that she had meant her allusion to the
lower regions as a hint, he made his way to the head of the stairs and
descended, not without difficulty, to the first floor. The dancing had
commenced above and the multitude of scaly monsters who had haunted
the deep, were lured by the airs of Strauss up into the abodes of the
daylight. The submarine world was almost deserted (except by a huge
lobster and a shark, who were drinking lemonade) when Grover entered
upon his quest for the vanished water-nymph. He investigated two or
three grottoes, with no result except to tear his cloak on an exposed
nail and knock a hole in his helmet. He was just about to resort to a
classical imprecation, when the necessity for it was suddenly
dissipated. There stood the daughter of Rhine, wonderful to behold, in
sweet converse with her chaperone, the black domino. The young man
lost no time in making the ladies aware of his presence.
"I hope you are enjoying yourself, Frau Professorin," he said, as he
offered his arm, as a matter of course, to the swan-maiden.
"Oh, yes, I thank you. It takes very little to amuse an old woman like
me," she answered, pleasantly. "The music is good and the masks are
very entertaining."
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he queried politely, hoping from
the bottom of his heart that she would say no.
"Don't you bother about me," was her amiable reply; "I will take care
of myself. I only came to see you young people enjoy yourselves."
He had evidently been unjust to the Frau Professorin, he reflected.
She was a very charming old lady. He conceived a sudden affection for
her. In a very blissful mood he strolled away under the great
festoons of depending sea-weeds, giving now and then a little casual
pat to the hand which lightly rested on his arm. By some chance they
found themselves in a deserted stalactite cave, where the gas-jets
gleamed softly from within emerald cones of glass and spread a strange
magic glamour under the pendent arches.
"Let us sit down," said Grover; and the swan-maiden, whose agitation
probably forbade her to speak, silently accepted the invitation. "What
a transformation love works in a woman," he reflected ecstatically;
"who would recognize in this sweet, docile creature the rebellious and
headstrong girl of three months ago? I have long wished to tell you,"
he continued aloud, seizing her hand and drawing her close up to him,
"that my life would be barren as a desert without you. You have taught
me by your sweet reserve, and your self-respecting coolness, first to
esteem you highly, then to admire and at last to love you. Do not
think even now that I take your consent for granted. I only hope that
love, as strong and deep as mine, cannot fail to find some response.
It is imperious, all-conquering; it fears no more resistance."
There was obviously no occasion for such impassioned rhetoric. The
swan-maiden had not the faintest idea of offering resistance. She
slipped with a soft and charming suppleness into his embrace and
received his ecstatic kisses without a murmur of protest. It was not
until he made a movement to tear off her mask (whose depending fringe
was a great inconvenience) that she suddenly recovered her senses:
with a startled cry she stayed his hand, cast a shy glance about her,
jumped up and ran as fast as her feet could carry her. If she had been
a real fairy, she could not have made a more rapid and unexpected
exit. Grover was utterly dumbfounded. He thought of the old legends
about knights who had been loved by mermaids whose kiss was death and
their embrace eternal damnation. An uncanny feeling crept over him.
But a cheerful second thought soon came to comfort him. He had heard
from the best authorities that women were enigmatical and incalculable
creatures who were most apt to do what was least expected of them.
They had a perfect encyclopedia of eccentricities, if the novelists
were to be trusted, and it was not to be expected that his brief
acquaintance with the sex should have sufficed to master it. This was
a profitable train of thought and one well worth pursuing. Therefore,
instead of pursuing his nymph, he leaned back against the wall and
pondered.
The nymph, in the meanwhile, after a hurried search below, ran to the
dressing-room, where she flung herself weeping into the arms of the
black domino.
"What in Heaven's name is the matter, child?" inquired the latter.
"Was he rude to you?"
"Not at all," sobbed the nymph; "no-o-ot a-a-at all. Quite the
co-o-on-tra-ry."
"What then are you crying for?" asked the domino sympathetically.
"He kissed me, mother; he kissed me," answered the nymph, weeping.
"You ought not to have allowed him to do that," said the Frau
Professorin, with mild reproach.
"How could I help it, mother? He talked so beautifully to me. He
proposed to me. And I forgot that I was Miss Jones. I was only
myself--and--"
A second flood of tears made the rest unintelligible.
"Are you sure he proposed to you, child?" queried the mother, after a
pause.
"Quite sure, mother."
"But then he must have known you. For why should he propose to Miss
Jones, to whom he is already engaged?"
"That is what makes me so unhappy, mother, for now I shall never know
whether I am engaged to him or not."
"Leave that to me, child. I'll find out."