“THE BEST OF ALL WORDS.”
A secret! Radegund was after all but a daughter of Eve; and Bruno was
utterly undone. If this honest surgeon had a secret, why did he say so?
“A secret?” echoed Radegund; “you are a brave one to keep a secret!
Why, you have told it already.”
“Surely no,” said Bruno, in a startled voice. “What did I say? Tell me,
Radegund—in pity tell me what I said?”
“I understood you,” she answered, in calm even tones, “that Conrad
Dasipodius was blind.”
“No—by Heaven! I did not say that. I swear I did not,” said the
distracted surgeon.
“Now, Bruno Wolkenberg,” and Radegund’s tones were still calm and
measured, “it is so useless quibbling with me.”
“But,”—said Bruno.
“There is no _but_. You have merely confirmed my suspicions. It is
not news to me; I have watched Conrad Dasipodius at his work again and
again.”
“And a marvellously interesting subject he appears to be to you,” said
Bruno stiffly.
“I have already told you so,” answered the artist.
“Farewell—good-night, Radegund,” said Bruno, making a wretched
imitation of Radegund’s tones and manner. “I have an appointment. I
must go. Success to your picture.”
Wolkenberg was distressed and annoyed; in the first place, this woman
had stolen from him a secret which he would rather have cut his own
skilful right hand off, than have let slip; and then, moreover, he felt
very jealous and angry. “It was all true, doubtless, that Dasipodius
had centred his affections elsewhere; but what, forsooth, was that
pretty little lily of a Sabina beside this glowing rose of a Radegund?
What Ulysses could withstand such a syren, let Penelope be ever so
fair?” And then Bruno, turning to take, what he fondly persuaded
himself was to be a farewell glance, again encountered the glamour of
those eyes, and the dangerous witchery of that voice.
“Bruno,” she murmured. “Leaving me like this?”
“You have stolen my honour, Radegund,” said Bruno, striving to hold his
own.
“Ah,” said she lightly, “still harping on that nonsense about your
friend Dasipodius? Why, you foolish Bruno, did not I tell you I had
already guessed the mighty secret long ago?”
“That is all very well,” grumbled Bruno, in slightly mollified tones,
“but you were not sure. Now it is utterly in your hands; and if it were
known, it might be Conrad’s ruin. Swear to me, Radegund, that you will
keep this secret.”
“There, there—why should I not,” she said. “What should I do with it?
Am I a gossip?”
Wolkenberg consoled himself with the reflection that she was not. In
all Strassburg there was not a woman whom the artist could call friend.
Those of the gentler half of the community who were not jealous of her,
feared her; while one and all pronounced her “peculiar”; and Radegund,
always frankly declaring that masculine society was pleasanter to her
than all the female acquaintance in Strassburg, did not in the least
put herself out of the way to remove any impressions of her it pleased
her compeers to form.
“Am I a scandal-loving old wife, or a chattering schoolmaiden?” she
went on. “Do you really think so poorly of me as that? And I have
so often told myself that I might call you friend—perhaps my only
friend—Bruno,” and Radegund gently laid her hand on the surgeon’s
sleeve.
“My life—Radegund, would it were something dearer than friend.”
“Nay,” answered Radegund, “it is the best of all words; there is no
other so true, so honest, believe me, Bruno. Your friendship is very
dear to me,” and Radegund’s eyes glistened truthfully and frankly up
into Bruno’s, but the surgeon sighed.
“You put me off like this,” he said.
“Ah, true,” answered the wily Radegund. “Yes, we have strayed from our
subject. Well, Master Wolkenberg, I will keep your secret if——”
“No,” said Bruno stoutly, “there must be no conditions.”
“Yes—yes—listen now, Bruno; tell me this one thing, only this:—how has
it come about, this blindness of your friend’s? What is the cause of
it?”
“Oh,” said the surgeon, with a relieved air, “that is easily
answered—overwork and anxiety. Such things will kill a man sometimes.”
“But anxiety about what? About the Horologe?”
“Yes, yes; and if I’m not mistaken, there’s something of the woman in
it as well. Folks like to blame this cause, and that cause, when things
go wrong with a fellow, but there’s generally a woman at the bottom of
it, Radegund, let the top be what it may.”
“But Conrad Dasipodius has such a superior mind,” argued Radegund.
“Precisely why it’s all the worse with him. Extremes meet, and the more
superior-minded a man is, the more heaven, or purgatory, or—somewhere,
seems to let a woman make a fool of him.”
“Then you think it is this affair with my cousin Sabina that worries
him?”
“Yes I do. If a man loves a girl, and things go against his marrying
her, isn’t that a worry? And there’s nothing in the world like worry
for setting nerves wrong.”
“But still, it is so curious—do explain to me, dear Bruno——”
“No,” said Bruno resolutely; “if I were to explain all night, I should
not be able to make it clear to you, Radegund, nor for the matter of
that, to myself. We surgeons can only say this is the effect of that,
which is the cause of this and the other, and so we go on travelling in
our circle. It is true, that years make this circle a little larger,
and a little larger, but God only sees outside it. Maybe hundreds of
years hence, when we are all dead and gone, He may let those who come
after us, see outside it too.”
“But in this case—Conrad’s I mean—everything may all be the other way.
It is just possible he may not think the game worth the candle,” said
Radegund.
“Nay,” said Bruno; “if a man find his happiness in his game, the candle
may cost what it will.”
“But then he may not find happiness in it,” she insisted.
“Who can tell?” said Bruno, beginning to grow provokingly vague again.
“Sabina von Steinbach is pretty and winsome, as so many of our German
maidens are, but——”
“But what?” asked Radegund, with ill-repressed excitement.
“Well, she is not my style,” he said, gazing rapturously on the
dark-haired beauty before him. “If I had lived in the old hero-days,
Radegund, I believe I should have admired Brunhilde far more than
Kriemhilde. One always fancies Kriemhilde fair, you know.”
“And you would have been wise, Bruno,” said Radegund, laughing harshly,
“for all the world knows Kriemhilde grew into a vixen, despite her
golden hair and heaven-blue eyes.”
“Was there not a cause, Radegund?” asked Bruno, in a grave voice.
“Oh, there! do leave those old-world queens and heroes alone,” she said
testily; “I was speaking of——”
“Yes, I know,” said Bruno; “and I—nay, Radegund, do not tempt me to
forswear myself. We have discussed the subject far too long already.
Bury it now, let it be as though we had never spoken of it.” But
Radegund did not answer. “Let me kiss those lips, Radegund, once—this
once, and it shall be a token between us that you and I have plotted
together to smooth by our silence this path of Conrad’s, which is so
rough and hard. By heaven! but he is brave: there is not a nobler heart
living! We will stand by him and help him—shall it be so, Radegund?”
“Ay,” said Radegund, with her gaze transfixed on the canvas, and then
Bruno tore himself away, but his heart was brimming over with a new
hopefulness; Radegund had never before been to him, as she had been
to-night, so gentle, so womanly and tender, almost caressing. Did
she then love him after all? and was the day at last coming when——
“Oh, Radegund!” murmured the surgeon again and again to himself, as
he threaded his way through the dark, narrow streets, ankle-deep in
the wet slush of a temporary thaw, “Oh, Radegund, my queen! my queen!
Radegund!”
And that night it seemed to Bruno Wolkenberg as though the slippery old
pavement were of shining gold. But Radegund von Steinbach sat in the
lonely studio, before the Saint Laurence, until twilight became pitchy
darkness; and still, when the curfew rang out, she had not stirred, but
with her face buried in her folded arms, sat brooding—brooding.