A LOVE-AFFAIR.
It rains the entire ensuing night, and far into the forenoon of the
next day. The hollows worn in the stone pavement of the terrace are
filled with water, and form little brown ponds. The buff-coloured
castle has become orange-coloured, and looks quite worn with weeping.
The lawns reek with moisture, and the Malmaison roses are pale and
draggled. Drowned butterflies float on the surface of the pools, and
fantastic wreaths of mist curl about the foot of the mountains on the
farther side of the Save. No sun is to be seen amid the gray-brown rack
of clouds.
At last the rain falls more slowly; the chirp of a bird makes itself
heard now and then; a white watery spot in the gray skies shows where
the sun is hiding; slowly it draws aside the veil from its beaming
face, and between the torn and flying masses of cloud the heavens laugh
out once more, blue and brilliant.
Tempted forth by the delightful change in the weather, Katrine, Stasy,
and Stella venture out to take their daily bath in the Neuring. In its
normal condition the Neuring is a clear, sparkling stream, flowing
freely over its pebbly bed in constant angry attack upon diverse
fragments of rock which look in magnificent disdain upon its impotent
assaults. A bath in the current between the largest of these fragments
of rock, where for the convenience of the bathers a stout pole has been
fixed, is a great favourite among the delights of Erlach Court.
One shore of the stream slopes, flower-strewn and verdant, nearly to
the water's edge, and here stands a roughly-constructed bath-house,
from which wooden steps lead down into the water.
Stella is sitting, in a very faded bathing-suit of black serge trimmed
with white braid, on the lowest of these steps, gazing sadly into the
stream.
"I certainly did behave with unpardonable stupidity yesterday," she
says, twisting her golden hair into a thick knot and fastening it up at
the back of her head with a rather dilapidated tortoise-shell comb.
"When do you mean?" asks Stasy. "At lunch, or in the evening, or early
this morning?"
"Yesterday evening, in the drawing-room," Stella replies, somewhat
impatiently.
"That talk with Rohritz was a little reprehensible," Katrine says, with
a laugh.
"In your place, after having been guilty of such a breach of decorum, I
could not make up my mind to look him in the face," Stasy declares.
She slips into the water before the others, and is now trying, holding
by the pole between the rocks, to tread the waves. The water hisses and
foams, as if resenting her trampling it down.
"Was it really so bad, Aunt Katrine?" Stella asks, changing colour.
Katrine leans towards her, gives her a kindly pat on the shoulder,
lifts her chin caressingly, and says,--
"Well, your remarks were certainly not extraordinarily pertinent, but I
hardly think that Rohritz took them ill. 'Tis hard to take things ill
of such a pretty, stupid, golden butterfly as you."
With which Katrine cautiously sets her slender foot among the yellow
irises and white water-lilies on the edge of the water.
"It was terrible, then,--it must have been terrible if even you thought
it so!" says Stella, as the tears rush to her eyes, and drop into the
stream at her feet.
"Don't be a child," Katrine consoles her: "the matter was of no great
consequence."
"Certainly not," Stasy adds, rather out of breath from her exertions.
"What he thinks can make no kind of difference to you, and he assuredly
will not report elsewhere your very strange remarks. Probably they
interest him so little that he will soon forget all about them."
"Come and take your bath; you are wonderfully averse to the water
to-day," Katrine calls out to the girl, who still sits sadly upon the
wooden step, lost in reflection. "Indeed you need not take your
stupidity so much to heart: it would have been nothing at all, if there
had not been rather an odd story connected with Rohritz's sudden voyage
across the ocean."
"Ah!" exclaims Stella, paddling through the water to her aunt, who,
clinging to the pole, is now enjoying the current. "Really, something
romantic?" she asks, curiously.
"There was nothing romantic in the affair save his way of taking it,"
Katrine says, with a dry smile, "and therefore the remembrance of this
piece of his past may be particularly distasteful to him."
"Ah, but it was a married woman, was it not? Do tell me!" Stella
entreats, burning with curiosity.
"No, Solomon," Katrine replies: "it was a young, unmarried woman, not
so very young either, about twenty-six or twenty-seven, well born, a
Baroness von Foehren, a Livonian with Russian blood in her veins, poor,
ambitious, prudent, and just clever enough to entertain a man without
frightening him. I saw her once, and but once, at the theatre; she was
very beautiful, and I took an extraordinary dislike to her. I am always
ready to applaud Judic in _opera-bouffe_, and on _grand prix_ day in
the Bois it interests me exceedingly to observe the _dames aux
camellias_ through my opera-glass; but nothing in this world so
disgusts me as demi-monde graces in a woman who ought to be a lady."
"I think you are a little severe in your judgment of Sonja. She was not
irreproachable in her conduct," Stasy, who has for years maintained a
kind of friendship with the person under discussion, here interposes,
"not irreproachable, but----"
In all that touches her extremely strict ideas of propriety and
fitness, Katrine understands no jesting.
"Her conduct was not only 'not irreproachable,' it was revolting!" she
exclaims. "If she interests you, Stella, I can show you her photograph;
at one time you could buy it everywhere. She was made to turn a young
fellow's head. With regard to women men really have such wretched
taste."
"Oho, Katrine! That sounds as if you said it _par depit_," Stasy says,
archly.
"I do not in the least care how it sounds," Katrine rejoins.
"Ah, tell me about Baroness Foehren," Stella entreats.
"There is not much to tell. He had a love-affair with her----"
"A love-affair!" The words fall instantly from Stella's lips, as one
drops a burning coal from the hand.
"Yes," Katrine goes on. "It happened in Baden-Baden, where the Foehren
was staying with a relative of hers. Rohritz paid her attention, and
something or other gave occasion for a scandalous report. In despair at
having compromised the lady of his affections, Rohritz instantly
proposed to her, and informed his father of his determination to marry
her. The old Baron, a man of unstained honour, and imbued with a strong
feeling of responsibility in maintaining the dignity of the Rohritz
family, was rather shocked by this hasty resolve, and, viewing the
affair from a far less romantic and far more sensible point of view
than that taken by his son, made inquiries into the reputation of the
lady in question, and--I cannot exactly explain it to you, Stella, but
the result of his investigations was that he informed Edgar that he
need be troubled by no conscientious scruples on behalf of this
adventuress, and that he positively refused his consent to the
marriage."
"And then?" asks Stella.
"I do not know precisely what happened," says Katrine. "Jack told me
all about it lately with characteristic indignation, but I did not pay
much attention. The affair dragged on for a while. Edgar, who was then
most romantically inclined, would not resign the Foehren, corresponded
with her,--how I should have liked to read those letters!--finally
fought a duel with one of her slanderers, and was severely wounded.
When he recovered at last after several dreary months of
convalescence, he learned that the Foehren was married to a wealthy
Russian."
"How detestable!" exclaims Stella.
"Good heavens! she had a practical mind," Stasy interposes. "I, to be
sure, would on occasion have married a tinker for love, but the young
women of the present day are not ashamed to declare that their choice
in marriage is influenced by a box at the theatre, brilliant equipages,
and toilets from Worth. Old Rohritz would have disinherited Edgar, or
at all events allowed him a very inadequate income, while Prince
Oblonsky----"
"Prince Oblonsky!" Stella hastily exclaims. "Did you say Oblonsky?"
"Yes; that was her husband's name, Boris Oblonsky. Now she is a widow,
and still perfectly beautiful."
"Perfectly beautiful. I saw her in Venice at the Princess Giovanelli's
ball," says Stella, "'with brilliant and far-gazing eyes.' So that was
she!" And with a slight anxiety she wonders to herself, "A love-affair!
What is the real meaning of a love-affair?"