On the following day Platon Napraxine drove home from Monte Carlo at
sunset with a piece of news to carry there which amused and unusually
animated him.
He went up the stone stairs of the terrace of La Jacquemerille with the
quick step of one who is eager to deliver himself of his tidings, and
approached, with a rapidity unfrequent with him, the spot where his
wife sat with her guests under the rose and white awning beside the
marble balustrade and the variegated aloes.
The Princess Nadine was also full of unwonted animation; her cheek
had its sea-shell flush, her eyes a vague and pleased expectancy; she
was laughing a little and listening a good deal; besides her usual
companions, she had there a group of Austrian and Russian diplomatists
and some Parisian boulevardiers. They were just taking their leave as
she was taking her tea, but it was not very greatly of them that she
was thinking: she was thinking as she heard the roll of her husband's
carriage wheels beneath the carouba trees;----'Ten to one Othmar will
return with him.'
She lost her gay expression as she saw that he was alone.
All the day she had expected the man whom she had banished to return.
She was accustomed to spaniels who crawled humbly up after a beating to
solicit another beating rather than remain unnoticed. She had dismissed
a certain apprehension which had told her that she had gone too far
with the reflection that a man who loved her once did so for ever, and
that, as he had returned from Asia, so he would return this morning,
however great his offence or his humiliation might have been.
'He is more romantic than most,' she had thought, 'but after all, he
must be made of the same stuff.'
Napraxine approached her hurriedly, and scarcely giving himself time to
formally greet the gentlemen there, cried to her aloud:
'_Ecoutez donc, Madame!_ You will never guess what has happened.'
'It is of no use for us to try then,' said his wife. 'You are evidently
_gonflé_ with some tremendous intelligence. Pray unburden yourself.
Perhaps the societies for the protection of animals have had Strasburg
_pâtés_ made illegal?'
'I have seen the Duchesse, I have seen Baron Fritz, I have seen
Melville,' answered her husband impetuously and triumphantly, 'and
they all say the same thing, so that there cannot be a doubt that it
is true. Othmar marries that little cousin of Cri-Cri: the one of whom
they meant to make a nun. What luck for her! But they say she is very
beautiful, and only sixteen.'
The people assembled round her table raised a chorus of exclamation
and of comment. Napraxine stood amidst them, delighted; his little
social bomb had burst with the brilliancy and the noise that he had
anticipated.
Nadine Napraxine turned her head with an involuntary movement of
surprise.
'Othmar!' she repeated; her large black eyes opened fully with a
perplexed expression.
'It must be the girl who was in the boat,' said Lady Brancepeth. 'She
was very handsome.'
Geraldine looked at Madame Napraxine with curiosity, eagerness, and
gratification.
'Who told you, Platon?' she asked, with a certain impatience in her
voice.
'Three of them told me; Melville first, then Cri-Cri herself, in the
Salle de Jeu. She did not seem to know whether to be affronted or
pleased. She said the whole thing was a great surprise, but that she
could not refuse Othmar; she declared that her projects were all upset,
that her young cousin had been always destined to the religious life;
that she regretted to have her turned from her vocation; in short, she
talked a great deal of nonsense, but the upshot of it all was that
Baron Fritz had made formal proposals, and that she had accepted them.
In the gardens, coming away, I met the Baron himself; he was in a state
of ecstasy; all he cares for is the perpetuation of the name of Othmar;
but he declares that Mademoiselle de Valogne is everything he could
desire, that she was excessively timid, and scarcely spoke a word when
they allowed him to see her for five minutes, but that it was a very
graceful timidity, and full of feeling.'
'Baron Fritz in the operatic _rôle_ of Padrone d'Amore is infinitely
droll,' said Nadine, with a little cold laugh.
'Of course Othmar was obliged to marry some time,' continued Napraxine,
who did not easily abandon a subject when one pleased him. 'And he
is--how old is he?--I saw the Baron as I left; he is delighted. He says
the poor child fainted when they told her she was to be saved from a
religious life.'
'My dear Platon,' said his wife impatiently, 'we can read Daudet or
Henri Greville when we want this sort of thing. Pray, spare us. I hope
Baron Fritz explained to her that all she is wanted for is to continue
a race of Croatian money-lenders which he considers the pivot of the
world. If she fail in doing that he will counsel a divorce, _à la_
Bonaparte.'
'He might marry an archduchess,' said one of the diplomatists. 'Surely,
it is throwing himself away.'
'It must be for love,' said Geraldine, with an ironical smile.
'The de Valogne was a great race, but impoverished long ago,' said a
Russian minister. 'I think, if he had married at all, he should have
made an alliance which would have brought him that unassailably great
rank which is usually the ambition of all financiers. For a man of
his position to make a mere romantic _mariage d'amour_ is absurd--out
of place;--and who knows if it be even that?' he pursued, with an
involuntary glance at the Princess Napraxine.
'Why on earth should we doubt it?' said her husband. 'It cannot be
anything else, and they say the girl is quite beautiful. Surely, if
anyone can afford to marry to please himself, that one is Othmar.'
'At any rate, it is his own affair,' said Nadine, in a voice which was
clear and sweet, but cold as steel. 'I cannot see why we should occupy
ourselves about it, or why you should have announced it as if it were
the dissolution of the world.'
'Mademoiselle de Valogne is very beautiful,' said Geraldine, 'I have
seen her once at Millo. Why should they pretend to hesitate?'
'They hesitated because she is _vouée à Marie_,' replied Napraxine,
'and also the de Vannes and the de Creusac scarcely recognise the
princes of finance as their equals. Still the marriage is magnificent;
they felt they had no right to regret it since it fell to them from
heaven.'
'Do you still believe, Platon, that heaven has anything to do with
marriage?' said his wife, with her little significant smile; a slight
colour had come upon her cheeks, tinging them as blush-roses are tinged
with the faintest flush; her eyes retained their astonished and annoyed
expression, of which her husband saw nothing.
'Heaven made mine at least,' he said, with his unfailing good-humour,
and a bow in which there was some grace.
'Louis Quatorze could not have answered better,' said Nadine. 'I cannot
say I see the hand of heaven myself in it, but if you do, so much the
better. "Les illusions sont des zéros, mais c'est avec les zéros qu'on
fait les beaux chiffres."'
'I do not know whether Mademoiselle de Valogne has illusions, but
her settlements will certainly have _de beaux chiffres_,' continued
Napraxine, who was still full of the tidings he had brought. 'Did
Othmar say nothing to you the other morning of what he intended to do?'
'Nothing; why should he? I am no relation of his or of Mademoiselle de
Valogne.'
'He might have done so; he was a long time alone with you. Perhaps he
did not know it himself.'
'Perhaps not.'
'It seems a _coup de tête_. Madame de Vannes told me that he had only
seen her cousin four times.'
'That is three times more than is necessary.'
'They say the girl is very much in love with him, and burst into tears
when they told her of his proposals.'
'Oh, my dear Platon! That the girl marries Othmar one understands; she
would be an imbecile, a lunatic, to refuse; but that she weeps because
she will enjoy one of the hugest fortunes in Europe--do not make such
demands on our credulity!'
'They say their acquaintance has been an idyl; quite _hors d'usage_;
they both met in his gardens by chance, and he----'
'Chance? I thought it was heaven? You may be quite sure neither had
anything to do with it. Aurore is a very clever woman; she knew very
well what she did when she brought her cousin down to Millo this
winter; if the girl had been honestly _vouée à Marie_, would they have
had her in the drawing-room after their dinner-parties? Ralph says he
has seen her there.'
'Well, if it were a conspiracy, it has succeeded.'
'Of course it has succeeded. When women condescend to conspire, men
always fall. Our Russian history will show you that.'
Being, however, an obstinate man, who always adhered to his own
opinion, even in trifles which in no way concerned him, Napraxine
reiterated that Baron Fritz had expressed himself satisfied that the
girl was in love with his nephew.
'And why not?' he said stoutly, with more courage than he usually
showed. 'Most women would soon care for Othmar if he wished them to do
so.'
'Oh, _grand dada_!' murmured Nadine, in supreme disdain, whilst her
eyes glanced over him for a moment with an expression which, had he
been wise enough to read it, would have made him less eager to extol
the absent.
'After all,' she said aloud, 'what is his marriage to us, that we
should talk about it? I suppose it is the sole act of his life which
would have no effect on the Bourses. We get into very base habits of
discussing our neighbours' affairs. Let us say, once for all, that he
has done a very charitable action, and that we hope it will have a
happy result: _e basta!_ We will call at Millo to-morrow. I am curious
to see the future Countess Othmar.'
'They say she is very shy.'
'Oh, we all know Ste. Mousseline,' said Nadine Napraxine, with scorn.
'Besides, convent-reared girls are all of the same type. I only hope
Cri-Cri will not assume any hypocritical airs of regret before me; the
only regret she can really have is that Blanchette was not old enough
to have won this matrimonial Derby.'
'You always speak so slightingly of Othmar,' said Napraxine, with some
reproach.
'I really thought I paid him a high compliment,' said his wife.
'Why has he done it?' said one of the Russian diplomatists to another,
when they had taken leave of the Princess and her party.
'I imagine that Madame Napraxine piqued him,' said another. 'You know
he has been madly in love with her for two years.'
'She does not seem to like his marriage.'
'They never like it,' returned the Russian minister. 'They may not look
at you themselves, but they never like you to look at any one else.'
'If he marry her because he is in love elsewhere, and if she have the
Princess Nadine for an enemy at the onset, this poor child's path will
not be of roses.'
'She will be almost the richest woman in Europe; that must suffice.'
'That will depend on her character.'
'It will depend a little on whether she will be in love with her
husband. If she be not, all may go smoothly.'
'Do you know what I thought as I looked at Madame Napraxine just
now?' said the younger man. 'I thought of that Persian or Indian tale
where the woman, leaning over the magic cup, dropped a pearl from her
necklace into it, and spoilt the whole charm for all eternity. I dare
say it will be only a pearl which she will drop into Othmar's future
life, but it will spoil the whole charm of it for ever and ever.'
'You never liked her,' said the elder man. 'She is a woman capable of
an infinitude of things, good and bad. She has the misfortune to have a
very excellent and very stupid husband. There is nothing so injurious
for a clever woman. A bad man who had ill-treated her would not have
done her half as much harm. She would have had courage and energy to
meet an unhappy fate superbly. But a perfectly amiable fool whom she
disdains from all the height of her own admirable wit, coupled with the
habits of our idiotic world, which is like a mountain of wool steeped
in opium, into which the strongest sinks indolent and enfeebled, have
all tended to confirm her in her egotism and her disdain, and to send
to sleep all her more noble impulses. Whatever men may be, women can
only be "saved by faith," and what faith has Nadine Napraxine except
her perfect faith in her own irresistible and incomparable power over
her innumerable lovers?'
'Well,' said the younger man, 'if she chose to drop that pearl in, as I
said, I would not give much for the chances of Othmar's wife against
her. I have seen the girl. She is very lovely, serious, simple; no
match at all against such a woman as Princess Napraxine.'
'She will have the advantage of youth, and also--which, perhaps, will
count for something with such a man as Othmar, though it would not with
most men--she will be his wife.'
'Perhaps. He has been always eccentric,' rejoined the other.
Watching her with all the keen anxiety of jealousy Geraldine had been
unable to discover that the intelligence of Othmar's marriage caused
her any more surprise or interest than any other of the hundred and one
items of news which make up the daily pabulum of society. But then he
knew very well that she was of such a character that though she might
have suffered intolerably she would have shown no sign of it any more
than she would have shown any fear had a dozen naked sabres been at her
breast.
Left alone beside his sister for a moment, he said to her, with
doubting impatience: 'Does she care, do you think?'
'What affair is it of yours if she does?' returned Lady Brancepeth.
'Does she ever care for anything? And why should she care here? Othmar
has been known to be violently in love with her--as you are--but no one
has ever had the slightest reason to suppose that she had any feeling
in return for him. He does a foolish thing in marrying one woman while
he loves another. Some men have faith in that cure. Myself I should
have none. But whatever his reasons for this sudden choice of Mdlle.
de Valogne, I imagine that his marriage is a matter of as perfect
indifference to Nadine as your own would be.'
Geraldine grew red, and his mortification kept him silent. But the
insight of a man in love told him that his keen-eyed sister was for
once in error.
Nadine Napraxine herself had gone to her own rooms to change her gown
for dinner, but she dismissed her maids for twenty minutes and threw
herself on a couch in her bedroom. She was herself uncertain what she
felt, and angered that she should feel anything. She was conscious of
a sense of offence, irritation, amazement, almost chagrin, which hurt
her pride and alarmed her dignity. If a month before she had been told
that Othmar was dead, she would have felt no more than a momentary
regret. But the strength of his passion in the morning interviews with
her had touched some fibre, some nerve in her, which had been dumb and
numb before. Again and again she had recalled the accents of his voice,
the sombre fire and pathetic entreaty of his eyes; they had not moved
her at the time to anything more than the vague artistic pleasure which
she would have taken in any emotion admirably rendered in art or on the
stage, but in remembrance they had haunted her and thrilled through
her with something more nearly resembling response than had ever been
aroused in her.
The expectation of his return had been as strong as certainty; the
sense that she had gone too far with him had heightened the interest
with which she had awaited her next meeting with him. One of the
greatest triumphs of her fascination had been the power she had
exercised over him. She was the only living person who could say to
this man, who could have purchased souls and bodies as he could have
purchased strings of unpierced pearls if he had chosen: 'You desire
something of which you will never be master.'
That she had had influence enough on such a career as his to drive him
out from the world where all his interests, pursuits, and friendships
lay, had pleased her with more keenness in her pleasure than similar
victories often gave her. She had seen his return to Europe with
amusement, even with derision; she had seen at a glance that he had
fled in vain from her; she had been diverted, but she had remained
indifferent.
In those morning hours when he had addressed her with an almost brutal
candour, he had taken a hold upon her admiration which he had never
gained before. His accents had lingered on her ear; his regard had
burned itself into her remembrance; she had begun to look forward to
his next approach, after her rejection, with something more than the
merely intellectual curiosity with which before she had studied the
results of her influence upon him. The news of his intended marriage
came to her with a sense of surprise and of affront which was more
nearly regret than any sentiment she had ever experienced. It seemed
to her supremely ridiculous that a man who adored _her_ should seek
or hope to find any oblivion elsewhere; she even understood that it
was no such hope which had actuated him, but rather his wounded pride
which had rebelled against herself and been unwilling to allow the
world to consider him her slave. Of the more delicate and more tender
motives which had led him towards Yseulte de Valogne she could know
nothing; but of those more selfish and embittered ones she comprehended
accurately all the sources and all the extent.
'He does it to escape me,' she thought as she sat in solitude, while
the last faint crimson of the winter's sunset tinged the light clouds
before her windows; a smile came slowly on her beautiful mouth,--a
smile, proud, unkind, a little bitter. There was resentment in her,
and there was also pain, two emotions hitherto strangers to her
heart; but beyond these, and deeper than these, there was a caustic
contempt for the man's cowardice in seeking asylum in an unreal love,
in endeavouring to cheat himself and another into belief in a feigned
passion.
'I thought him more brave!' she said bitterly to herself. 'He is like
a beaten warrior who makes a rampart of a virgin's body!'
And yet, in that moment she was nearer love for him than she had ever
been before.