The next day Othmar called upon Rosselin, and without preface said to
him abruptly:
'You had better tell the Duc de Béthune all I have told you about your
pupil. I do not know whether he will believe it or not, but it is
wholly intolerable for us to allow him to suppose, as he may suppose
from appearances, that there are relations between myself and her which
have no existence in fact.'
Rosselin listened and made no reply.
Othmar continued with impatience.
'I do not know what he thinks, but he probably thinks something
entirely and grossly unjust to her. He is a man of honour: he will
respect confidence if it be placed in him.'
'Why not tell him yourself? He is, I believe, very intimate in your
houses.'
'He is no especial friend of mine. He is often at my house, it is true,
but personally I have no intimacy with him whatever.'
Rosselin hesitated; then he summoned his courage and said frankly:
'Pardon me, but it is not the Duc de Béthune or any other man who has
any concern with the position which you have created for yourself and
for my pupil; the only person for whom it can have any vital interest,
or who can exercise any influence over it, is the Countess Othmar, to
whom you will not speak of it.'
Othmar coloured; he was greatly annoyed. He was conscious also that
Rosselin was right in what he said.
'If my wife heard of her from others, I would tell her how she came
there,' he said, with some embarrassment. 'But I can assure you that
though M. de Béthune might believe in the facts as you know them, she
would not do so. She never believes in any single motives. She would
suppose that I tried to gloss over with sentiment a mere vulgar amour.'
'Men's natures,' he added, bitterly, 'are often as simple, and
straight, and frank as a dog's, because, like dogs, we are stupid and
trustful; but the mind of a woman of culture is far too critical in its
survey and too intricate in its own motives ever to accredit us with
the intellectual honesty we possess. It is a quality so stupid that it
seems to women as incredible as it is uninteresting.'
Rosselin grew in his turn impatient.
'You, too, appear to me,' he said bluntly, 'to be too fond of Pascal's
_esprit de finesse, jugement de sentiment_. Intellectual analysis is
very interesting no doubt, but I never knew it serve in the least
to solve the prosaic difficulties of active life. You cannot govern
circumstances with theories.'
In himself he thought:
'You create a position in the frankness of your generosity which you
perceive becomes equivocal in its aspect to others; you earnestly
desire to prevent its appearing so; yet you do not take the one measure
which would secure to it immunity from suspicion.'
'I have an idea,' he continued aloud, 'that the best way to test her
talents and prepare the world for the appreciation of them, would be
for her to recite at some great house, to be seen and heard by some
choice audience. Why not in yours? Why not to your friends?'
'In mine? To my acquaintances?'
'Why not? It is, in my opinion, the easiest and most propitious way
in which a beginner can try her powers. It is less alarming than a
public stage, and the verdict given is more discriminating, and of
greater value afterwards. The majority of neophytes have no such chance
possible. They may go where they can; begin in the provinces; take
anything they can get. But when it can be done, there is no question
but that to make an entry into the world in the best society is an
immeasurable benefit to any aspirant. It is to be famous at once if
successful; whilst, if unsuccessful, the failure is passed over as the
caprice of the host in whose house the neophyte is tried. As you are
disposed to do anything for her, it seems to me that it would cost
you little to ask Madame Nadège to permit the representation of some
_saynete_, or some short piece like the "Luthier de Crémone," at one of
her great winter entertainments. She likes novelty; and I believe she
often has dramatic representations both in Paris and at Amyôt.'
'She has them, certainly,' said Othmar with some constraint.
Rosselin looked from under his eyelids at him.
'Then what objection is there? You have said that Madame your wife,
first of all of us, saw something like genius in Damaris Bérarde. She
would not refuse to allow her prophecy to be proved true under her own
auspices.'
'No; I do not suppose that she would refuse.'
'If you would dislike that she should be asked, that is another
matter,' said Rosselin with some impatience, whilst to himself he
thought, 'You have made a secret of this thing, and you find what a
burdensome and stupid thing a secret is, especially when it is one that
circumstances are certain to take out of our hands, whether we will or
no.'
'I have no dislike to your project,' replied Othmar with hesitation;
'but,' he added more frankly, 'I must tell you that my wife is not in
the least likely to take interest twice in the same person; and I must
also tell you, as I did some months ago, that she knows nothing of the
present existence of your pupil. If you like to tell her, do so; I give
you free permission.'
'I?' echoed Rosselin. 'My dear friend, if such a great lady saw a
superannuated old actor enter her presence she would surely order her
lackeys to turn him out unheard. I never spoke to Madame Nadège in my
life, though rumour has made me feel well acquainted with her.'
'She always treats genius with respect. It is, perhaps, the only thing
she does respect----'
'Are you sure she does not think it escaped from Bicêtre? Most _grandes
dames_ do.'
'No; she has too much intellect herself. She is a _grande dame_, but
she is much more besides. She admires talent wherever she finds it;
only she thinks that she finds very little.'
'There she is right enough; there is any quantity of mere facility,
of mere imitativeness, in our time, but there is very little which
deserves a higher name.'
'And you believe that Damaris Bérarde has more than mere talent?'
'Yes, I believe it. I may be wrong, but I have never been wrong in
such judgments, though it seems pretentious to say so. It is because
I believe that she has this, that I am anxious for the world to first
hear of her in such a way that she may be spared the vulgar and
tedious novitiate which is generally unavoidable before a dramatic
career; and also I should like to command for her such an audience
as may become a title of honour to her, and a protection against
false tongues. It is inevitable that your name has been, or will be,
associated with hers. Modern life is one huge glass-house. If she be
first seen at your house, in your salons, calumny can scarcely attach
to your friendship for her. Pardon me if I speak with too intimate a
candour. If I said less, I should feel myself almost dragged into the
base collusion of a Sir Pandarus.'
Othmar grew pale with anger; he was unaccustomed to familiarity, and
the words seemed to him wanting in delicacy and in respect.
'You are very hopeful!' he said bitterly, 'and wonderfully trustful,
my good friend, if you imagine that in the world we live in she would
be secured from slander by being seen in my drawing-rooms. The only
thing they would say, if they were in the mood to say anything, would
be that I deceived my wife into facilitating my amours. Society is not
so easily persuaded of innocence as you appear to think, whilst it is
thoroughly persuaded of the Countess Othmar's indifference to myself!'
In the impulse of his anger he said what he would not have said in a
cooler moment. He was greatly irritated at all which was implied in
Rosselin's latest words, and the allusion to his wife's indifference to
his actions escaped him almost involuntarily.
'I regret if I offend you,' said Rosselin, whose keen eyes read his
feelings in his face. 'I say what it seems right to me to say. I know
the world has always _mauvaise langue_, I know it as well as you can
do, but there are limits to its impudence. I do not believe that the
lowest knave of it all would ever dare to say that you passed any
insult on your wife. It has been too well aware of your devotion to
her. However, let us abandon my idea. We can find some other way,
perhaps; the preparation I have given my pupil has been short, and
perhaps immature. She can wait awhile without injury. You have said,
I think, that she has means enough of her own to live on as she lives
now?'
'She has means enough. Yes.'
'Without wasting her little substance? I suppose her grandfather did
not leave her much?'
'She has quite sufficient income for her wants; I believe they are very
simple.'
He spoke impatiently and rose. Rosselin, whose tact was always of the
acutest kind, understood the hint and changed the subject.
* * * * *
Left to himself, the anger of Othmar soon grew less, and the courtesy
of his nature made him regret his impatience with a man double his
years and not his equal in station; one, moreover, who had only spoken
honestly thoughts which were blameless.
The suggestion had annoyed him both by what it asked, which seemed to
him difficult, and by what it implied, which seemed to him offensive.
And he repented of his manner of receiving it, and of wounding a person
who had warmly answered to his own appeal, and had aided him in regard
to Damaris with a sympathy the more noteworthy because it had at first
been reluctantly given. Before night he wrote a brief note to Rosselin:
'I regret my impatience, and apologise for it. No doubt you are right
in your views. If I can see my way to comply with them I will do so.
Meanwhile, believe in my friendship and my high esteem.'
He signed the few lines, and sent them by a messenger to Asnières.
When Rosselin received them he was sitting by his solitary lamp
examining the condition of a much injured copy on vellum of 'The
Birds,' which he had picked up at a bookstall on one of the quays the
day before. He put the manuscript down, and read the note with its
clear signature of Othmar at the end.
'A graceful _amende_,' he thought. 'He has a heart of gold, but his
judgment is not so much to be trusted as his feelings are. He spoke
of his wife's indifference. What could he expect? You cannot get out
of a nature what it has not got in it. For five-and-twenty years she
had lived for herself: did he suppose that all in a moment she would
forget herself and live for him? I daresay he did. He was ready to live
for her. That sort of mistake is so often made; and it is always the
highest nature which makes it.'
Rosselin lost interest in his Aristophanes for that night. He had a
foreboding of some evil. Imaginative minds are like the birds: they
know when storms approach.