AN AUSTRIAN HOST.
"Hm! indeed! Now I can no longer be shabby at my ease." These were the
words with which the Baroness on her return home greeted Stella's
joyous announcement of Madame de Rohritz's visit. "I took such pleasure
in living in a place where nobody knew me."
However problematical in some respects the creative power of the
Baroness may be, she is certainly thoroughly saturated with what the
English call 'the sublime egotism of genius.'
When on the morning after her visit a note redolent of violets arrives
from Madame de Rohritz, inviting in the kindest manner the two ladies
to dinner at half-past seven the next evening but one, the Baroness
makes a wry face, and remarks that really Madame de Rohritz might have
waited until her call had been returned,--that such a degree of
eagerness on the part of a woman of the world betokens a degree of
exaggeration,--but, despite her grumbling, permits herself to accede to
the entreaty in her daughter's eyes, and to accept the invitation.
"Upon condition that you attend to my dress," she says; to which Stella
of course makes no objection.
The evening wardrobe of the Baroness consists of a black velvet gown
which is now precisely seventeen years old, and which underwent
renovation at the time of her eldest daughter's marriage. The number of
Stella's evening dresses is limited to two very charming gowns
which the colonel had made for her in Venice, regardless of expense,
by the best dress-maker there, but which are at present slightly
old-fashioned.
But, neglectful as the Baroness is about her personal appearance, she
has an air of great distinction when she makes up her mind to be
presentable, and covers her short gray hair, usually flying loose about
her ears, with a black lace cap; while Stella is always charming. She
would be lovely in the brown robe of a monk; in her pale-blue
cachemire, with a bunch of yellow roses on her left shoulder, directly
below her ear, she is bewitching. Her heart throbs not a little as she
drives with her mother in a draughty, rattling fiacre across Paris to
the Avenue Villiers.
She is not at all tired of life to-day, but, entirely forgetting how
quickly her air-built castles fall to ruin, she is eagerly engaged
again in similar architecture.
Madame de Rohritz occupies a rather small hotel with a court-yard and
garden. The entire household conveys the impression of distinguished
comfort without ostentation. In the vestibule--a gem of a vestibule,
with two ancient Japanese monsters on either side of the door of
entrance, with Flanders tapestries embroidered in gold on the walls,
and Oriental rugs under-foot--a servant relieves the ladies of their
wraps.
Stella immediately perceives by the way in which her mother arranges
her hair before the mirror that, whether it be the monsters at the
door, or the Arazzi on the wall, something has had a beneficial effect
upon her mood,--that to-night, as is sometimes the case, her ambition
is roused to prove that a learned woman under certain circumstances can
be more amiable and amusing than any woman with nothing in her head
save 'dress and the men.'
In the salon, whither they are conducted by the maitre-d'hotel, a
familiar spirit who is half a head shorter but half a head more
dignified than the footman, they find only the master of the house. Not
introduced, and quite unacquainted, he nevertheless advances with both
hands extended, saying,--
"It rejoices me exceedingly to welcome two of my compatriots!"
"It rejoices us also," the Baroness amiably assures him.
Baron Rohritz scans her with discreetly-veiled curiosity. "Why did my
brother write that I should find the Baroness rather extraordinary at
first? She is a charming, distinguished old lady." Aloud he says, "My
wife made promises loud and earnest to be here in time to present me to
the ladies; but it seems she was mistaken."
"Perhaps we were too punctual," the Baroness replies, smiling.
"Not at all," the Baron declares; "but my poor wife is proverbially
unpunctual. No one has ever been able to convince her that there are
but sixty minutes in an hour, and consequently she always tries to do
in an afternoon that for which an entire week would hardly suffice.
Pray warm yourselves meanwhile, ladies: here, these are the most
comfortable places,--not too near the blaze. I have had an Austrian
fire made for you, and have actually nearly succeeded in warming the
entire salon. We Austrians require a higher degree of heat than these
crazy Frenchmen; they always maintain they are never cold; they are
quite satisfied if they can see a little picturesque blaze in the
chimney, and they sit down close to it and thrust their hands and feet
and heads into it, thereby giving themselves chilblains, neuralgia,
rheumatism, and heaven knows what else; but they are never cold."
Although the fire is large enough, Baron Rohritz throws on another
log, so eager is he to bear his testimony to the affectation and
self-conceit of the Parisians.
"How wonderfully cosey and comfortable you have contrived to make your
home here! As I entered I seemed to be breathing the air of Austria.
Since we came to Paris I have not felt so comfortable as at present,"
says the Baroness. If Baron Rohritz knew that since her arrival in
Paris her time has been spent either on the top of an omnibus or in
rather comfortless furnished lodgings, the worth of this compliment
might be less: in happy ignorance, however, he feels extremely
flattered, and, with a bow, rejoins,--
"I am very glad our nest pleases you. The chief credit for its
arrangement belongs to my wife. You cannot imagine how she runs herself
out of breath to pick up pretty things. But it is like Austria here, is
it not?"
"Entirely," the Baroness assures him.
"My wife is incomprehensible to me," the master of the house remarks,
after the above interchange of civilities, glancing uneasily at the
clock on the chimney-piece. "It is now just half an hour since I helped
her half dead out of a fiacre, with I cannot tell how many packages. I
trust she is not----"
The portiere rustles apart. Extremely slender, bringing with her the
odour of violets, and shrouded in a mass of black crepe de Chine and
black lace, dying with fatigue and sparkling with vivacity, the
Baroness Rohritz enters, fastening the clasp of a bracelet as she does
so.
"Good-evening. I beg a thousand pardons! I am excessively glad to make
your acquaintance, Baroness Meineck. Can you forgive my ill-breeding in
keeping you waiting on this the first evening that you have given me
the pleasure of seeing you here? It is terrible!"
"Ah, don't mention it," the Baroness replies, and, although the younger
lady speaks German in her honour, answering in French: she is very
proud of her French.
"_Mais si, mais si_, I am most unfortunate, but innocent,--quite
innocent. It is positively impossible to be in time in Paris. Well, and
how do you do?" turning to Stella and lightly passing her hand over the
girl's cheek. "You are always twitting me with my enthusiasm, Edmund:
did I exaggerate this time?"
"No, not in the least," her husband affirms: it would have been
difficult, however, for him to make any other reply without infringing
upon the rules of politeness.
"Who made your dress for you? It is charming. And how beautifully you
have put in your roses!--but violet suits light blue better than
yellow. Shall we change?" And, unfastening the roses from Stella's
shoulder, Therese Rohritz takes a bunch of dark Russian violets from
her girdle and arranges them on Stella's gown, all with the same
graceful, laughing, breathless amiability.
To conquer all hearts, to make everybody happy, to give every one
advice, to attend to every one's commissions, to oblige all the
world,--this is the mania of Edgar's sister-in-law. He once declared
that she went whirling through existence, a perfect hurricane of
over-excellent qualities.
"What are we waiting for, Therese?" the master of the house interrupts
the flow of his wife's eloquence, in a rather impatient tone.
"For Zino."
"He excused himself. I put his note on your dressing-table. When he
received your invitation he was unfortunately--_very unfortunately_,
underscored--engaged; but he hopes to be here soon after ten," Rohritz
explains, having rung the bell meanwhile, whereupon the maitre-d'hotel,
throwing open the folding-doors, announces,--
"_Madame la Baronne est Servie_."