"Alan is really coming to day!" says Dorothy Usk to her lord, with
pleasure, a few days later, looking up from a telegram.
"How you excite yourself!" says Usk, with rude disdain. "What can you
see to care about? He is a pretentious humbug, if ever there was one!"
"George!" She regards him with horror and amaze. Is he wholly out of his
mind? Her cousin is Lady Usk's ideal of what an English gentleman should
be. _He_ does not keep black women down in Warwickshire.
"A pretentious humbug," repeats Usk. He likes to ticket his relations
and connections with well-chosen descriptions. "All good looks and soft
sawder. Women like that sort of thing----"
"Of course we like good manners, though they are not your weakness,"
interrupts his wife, with acerbity. "Alan has the manners of a man who
respects women: that may seem very tame to you and your friend
Brandolin, but in these days it has at least the charm of novelty."
"Respects women!" Usk is unable to restrain his hilarity. "My dear
Dolly, you're not a chicken: you can't mean that you don't know that
Gervase----"
"I know that he is well-bred. You were so once, but it is a very long
time ago," replies his wife, with cutting sententiousness, and with that
unkind reply she leaves him. As if she did not understand men better
than he, she thinks, contemptuously. He may understand dogs and horses,
and deer and partridges, but about human nature he knows no more than
the old man at the lodge gates.
"Surely she can't be soft on Gervase herself?" her husband reflects,
with a sensation of amusement; "it would be too funny, after running so
straight all these years, and just as her daughters are growing up; but
they often are like that."
He is not sure whether the idea diverts or irritates him, but he knows
that he has always detested Gervase, such a coxcomb and such a humbug as
the fellow is!
"Respect women, good Lord!" ejaculates Usk in his solitude.
"To be sure," adds that honest gentleman in his own mind, "there are
very few of 'em who would thank you to respect 'em nowadays."
"Gervase will be here by dinner," he says in the course of the day to
Princess Sabaroff.
"Indeed," she replies, with indifference. "Who is he?"
"A friend of my wife's; at least, a cousin. I thought you might know
him; he was some time in Russia."
"No,"--and there is a coldness in the negative disproportioned to so
simple a denial,--"I do not think so. I do not remember such a name. Who
is he?"
"A person who is expected to be great in foreign affairs some day or
other," says Brandolin. "He will have one qualification rare in an
English foreign minister,--daily growing rarer, thanks to the
imbecilities of examinations: he knows how to bow and he knows what to
say."
"A friend of yours?"
"Oh, no; an acquaintance. He thinks very ill of me."
"Why?"
"Because I do nothing for my country. He thinks he does a great deal
when he has fomented a quarrel or received a decoration."
"That is not generous. The world owes much to diplomatists: it will know
how much in a few years, when it will be governed by clerks controlled
by telephones."
"That is true: I stand corrected. But Gervase and I have few sympathies:
none, indeed, except politically, and even there we differ,--his is the
Toryism of Peel, mine is the Toryism of the late Lord Derby: there are
leagues between the two."
"I know: the one is opportunism; the other is optimate-ism."
"Perhaps," says Brandolin, with a smile, and thinks, meantime, "She
knows something about him. What is it?"
"Does she know Gervase, despite her denial?" he wonders. He has an
impression that she does. There was a look of recognition in her eyes
when she gave that vague bland gesture in answer to her host. All
trifles in her interest him, as they always do interest a man in a woman
whom he admires and is not sure that he understands; and Gervase he is
aware has been a good deal in Russia.
He himself has known the subject of their discourse ever since they were
boys, and had that sort of intimacy with him which exists between men
who live in the same sets and belong to the same clubs. But to him
Gervase seems a _petit-maitre_, a _poseur_, a man artificial,
conventional, ambitious in small things, and to Gervase he himself seems
much as he does to Lady Usk, a perverse and lawless Bohemian, only saved
from the outer darkness by the fact of his aristocratic birth.
Meanwhile, in her own room, Xenia Sabaroff is pursuing her own
reflections whilst her maid disrobes her.
"It will be better to see him once and for all," she muses. "I cannot go
on forever avoiding him in every city in Europe. Very likely he will not
even remember my face or my name."
She feels a strong temptation to invent some plausible reason and break
off her visit to Surrenden; but she is a courageous woman, and flight is
repugnant to her. More than once of late she has avoided a meeting which
is disagreeable to her, by some abrupt change of her own plans or
reversal of her own engagements. To continue to do this seems weakness.
Indeed, to do it at all seems too great a flattery to the person
avoided. What is painful is best encountered without procrastination. It
is the old question of grasping the nettle.
A haughty flush passes over her face at her own reflections. After all,
to have any emotion at all about it, pleasurable or painful, is
humiliation. She is a proud woman, as well as a courageous one. There
are memories associated with this coming guest which are bitter and
hateful.
Women like Mrs. Wentworth Curzon carry such memories lightly, or rather
do not carry them at all, but bury them by scores, pell-mell, one on the
top of another, like old letters, and forget all about their interment;
but she is different from them.
It has not been difficult for her to avoid meeting Lord Gervase; he is
one of those persons whose movements are known and chronicled; but she
is conscious that the time is come when she can no longer escape doing
so, except by such an abrupt departure that it would seem to herself too
great a weakness, and be to him too great a flattery, for such a step to
enter for an instant into the category of possibilities. It is, she
reflects, or it should be, a matter to her of absolute indifference to
see again a person whom she has not seen for seven years.
Yet she is conscious of a sense of pain and excitation as her woman puts
on her a maize satin tea-gown covered with point d'Alencon at five
o'clock the next day, and she knows that when she goes down to the room
in a few minutes Gervase, who was to arrive by the afternoon train, will
in all probability be present there.
Every one is in-doors that day, for a fine summer rain is falling
without, and has been falling since noon. All the house-party are in the
library, and the children are there also; the windows are open, and the
sweet smell from the damp gardens and wet grass fills the air.
Every one is laughing and talking; Usk is drinking a glass of kuemmel,
and Brandolin is playing with the dog; conversing with Nina Curzon and
the mistress of the house, and standing in front of them, is a tall fair
man irreproachable in _tenue_ and extremely distinguished in appearance.
He is Lord Gervase. His back is towards the door, and he does not see or
hear her enter, but as the Babe rushes towards her, toppling over a
stool and treading mercilessly on the trains of tea-gowns in the wind of
his going, the noise made by the child makes him turn his head, and an
expression of recognition mingled with amazement passes over his usually
impassive features.
"Is that not Princess Sabaroff?" he asks of his hostess, with a certain
breathless astonishment betrayed in his voice.
Lady Usk assents. "One of my dearest friends," she adds. "I think you
don't know her? I will present you in a moment. She is as clever as she
is beautiful. The children adore her. Look at Babe."
The Babe has dragged his princess to a couch and climbed up on it
himself, kneeling half on her lap and half off it, with no respect for
the maize satin, whilst his impatient little feet beat the devil's tatoo
among the point d'Alencon.
"My dear Babe, do not be such a monopolist," says Brandolin, as he
approaches with a cup of tea and a wafer of caviare bread-and-butter.
"Your shoes have seventeenth-century buckles, it is true, yet still they
are scarcely _bibelots_ to be wrapped up in a lady's dress."
The Babe grins saucily, tossing his hair out of his eyes; but, with
unwonted obedience, he disentangles his feet with some care out of the
lace.
Xenia Sabaroff does not take as much notice of him as usual. She is
reserved and preoccupied. Brandolin, like the child, fails in awakening
her interest or attention. She has seated herself almost with her back
to where Gervase is standing, but every now and then she looks half
round, as by an irresistible unconscious impulse of curiosity.
Brandolin notes the gesture, as her actions have an interest for him
which grows daily in its fascination. "There is Dorothy Usk's
Ph[oe]nix," he says to her, in a low tone, when the Babe has scampered
off after bon-bons: he indicates Gervase with a glance. Her eyebrows
contract slightly, as in some displeasure or constraint.
"Lady Usk is very soon satisfied," she replies, coldly. "Her own
amiability makes her see perfection everywhere."
"It is a quality we cannot value too highly in so imperfect a world. It
is better than seeing everything _en noir_, surely?" says Brandolin. "If
we make people what we think them, as optimists say, it is best to be
optimistic."
"I dislike optimism," she says, curtly. "It is absurd and untrue. Our
Dostoievsky is a wiser novelist than your Dickens. One must believe
something," she says.
"It is pretty for a woman to think so," says Brandolin, "but myself I
have never seen why. I may hope, I may wish, I may regret, I may--if I
am very sanguine--even expect; but believe--no!"
"Perhaps I should like to believe in a woman," he adds, more softly,
with that inflection of his voice which has always had at all events the
effect of making women believe in him.
Madame Sabaroff is not so easily touched as many. She pauses a moment,
then says, with a certain weariness, "Anybody who can believe can love:
that is nothing new."
"What would be new? To love and disbelieve in what we love? It would be
very painful."
"It would be a test," says his companion.
Then she drops the subject decidedly, by approaching the other ladies.
Brandolin has a faint sense of discomfiture and sadness: he is
accustomed to very facile conquests; and yet he is not a coxcomb, like
Lawrence Hamilton; he did not precisely anticipate one here, but habit
is second nature, and it has been his habit to succeed with women with
rapidity and ease. That sense of mystery which there is also for him in
the Princess Xenia oppresses whilst it allures him. He is English enough
to think that he dislikes mystery, yet as an element of romance it has
always an irresistible fascination for romantic temperaments.
Gervase meanwhile has sunk into a chair by the side of Nina Curzon, and
is saying, in a whisper, "Who is that lady? The one with her back to us,
to whom Lord Brandolin is so _empresse_? I thought that I knew all the
Usks' people."
"Look in your Russian memories, and you will probably find that you know
her too," replies Mrs. Curzon.
"Oh, she is Russian?" says Gervase, then adds, negligently, "I think,
now you tell me that, I have seen her before. Is she not the Princess
Sabaroff?"
"Why did you pretend not to know her?" thinks Nina Curzon as she
answers, "Yes, that is her name. You must have met her in Petersburg."
"Petersburg is very dim in my memories," he replies, evasively. "Its
baccarat is what made the deepest impression on my remembrance and my
fortunes. Now I think of it, however, I recollect her quite well: her
husband was Anatole Sabaroff, and Lustoff shot him in a duel about her?
Am I right?"
"So charming for her!" says Nina Curzon. "Englishwomen never have
anything happen for them picturesque like that: our men always die of
indigestion, or going after a fox."
"It is very curious."
"What is? Dyspepsia? Hunting?"
"How one comes across people."
"'After long years,'" quotes Mrs. Curzon, with mock romance in her
tones. "Generally, I think," she adds, with a little yawn, "we can never
get rid of our people, the world is so small, and there is really only
one set in it that is decent, so we can't ever get out of it. It must
have been very nice in Romeo and Juliet's days, when a little drive to
Mantua took you into realms wholly inaccessible to your Verona
acquaintances. Nowadays, if you run away from anybody in London you are
sure to run against them in Yeddo or Yucatan."
"Constancy made easy, like the three R's," says Gervase. "Unfortunately,
despite our improved facilities, we are not constant."
"He means to imply that he threw over the Sabaroff," thinks Mrs. Curzon;
"but he is such a boaster of his _bonnes fortunes_ that one can never
know whether he is lying."
"Pray let me make you known to Madame Sabaroff," says Lady Usk to him, a
little later. "She is such a very dear friend of mine, and I see you
have been looking at her ever since she entered the room."
"She is a very handsome person: any one would look at her," replies her
cousin. Were he not so perfectly well-bred and impassive, it might
almost be said that the suggested presentation fills him with some vague
nervousness.
Nina Curzon watches him inquisitively as he is led up and presented to
Madame Sabaroff.
"I think I have had the honor before now, in Petersburg," murmurs
Gervase. She looks at him very coldly.
"I think not," she replies. The words are of the simplest, but _c'est le
ton qui fait la musique_, and, for the solitary time in his existence,
Lord Gervase is embarrassed.
Brandolin, playing with the colley dog near at hand, listens and
observes.
Lady Usk is not so observant. "It is a long time since he was in
Russia," she says to her friend, "I dare say you have forgotten. His
father was alive, and his name was Baird then, you know."
Xenia Sabaroff makes a little polite gesture expressive of entire
indifference to the change in these titles. With an action which would
be rude in any woman less high-bred, she turns away her head and speaks
to Brandolin, ignoring the acquaintance and the presence of Gervase.
Across the good-natured and busy brain of her hostess there flashes an
electric and odious thought: is it possible that Usk may be right, and
that there may be something wrong, after all, in this her latest and
most adored friend? She feels that she will die of suffocated curiosity
if she do not speedily get her cousin alone and learn all he has ever
known or heard of the Princess Sabaroff.
"A snub direct!" whispers Lawrence Hamilton to Mr. Wootton.
"Or a cut direct: which?" says that far-sighted gentleman.
"Anyhow, it's delightful to see him let in for it," reflects Usk, who
has also observed the incident from where he stands by the liqueurs.
Gervase, who has never been known to be at a loss in any position,
however difficult, colors and looks at once annoyed and confused. He
stands before Xenia Sabaroff for a few moments hesitating and
irresolute, conscious that every one is looking at him; then he takes
refuge with Lady Dawlish, whom he detests, because she is the nearest
person to him.
"Madame Sabaroff is eclipsing the black women," says that lady.
"What black women?" asks Gervase, very inattentive and bored. She tells
him the story of the Hindoo harem, and he hears no word of it.
"Brandolin is always so odd," he says, indifferently, watching the hand
of Xenia Sabaroff as it rests on the shoulder of the Babe, who is
leaning against her knees gazing at her adoringly.
Gervase is angered; irritated, interested, and mortified all at once. He
has never been in an absurd position before, and he is aware that he was
in one a moment ago, and that the whole house-party of Surrenden Court
saw him in it. "What a fool Dolly was not to tell me she was here!" he
thinks, forgetting that his cousin and hostess has not the remotest
suspicion that he and the Princess Xenia have ever met each other
before.
"Seven years!" he thinks. "Good heavens! what an eternity! And she is
handsomer than she was then; very handsome; wonderfully handsome."
He looks at her all the while from under his half-closed eyelids, whilst
he talks he knows not what kind of rubbish to Lady Dawlish.
Xenia Sabaroff does not once look his way. The moment which she had
dreaded has passed, and it has made no impression whatever upon her: her
indifference reconciles her to herself. Is it possible, she wonders,
that she ever loved, or ever thought that she loved, this man?
"Why will you always treat me as a stranger, Madame Sabaroff?" murmurs
Gervase to her that night when for a moment he is alone near her, while
the cotillion overture commences.
"You are a stranger--to me," replies Xenia Sabaroff; and as she speaks
she looks full at him.
He colors with discomfiture. "Because in the due course of nature I have
succeeded to my father's title, you seem to consider that I have changed
my whole identity," he says, with great irritation.
She is silent; she looks down on the white ostrich-feathers of her fan.
He is vaguely encouraged by that silence. "Strangers! That is surely a
very cold and cruel word between those who once were friends?"
The direct appeal to her makes her look up once more, with great
_hauteur_ in the coldness of her face.
"Sir, I think when people have forgotten that each other exist, it is as
though they had never met. They are perhaps something more distant still
than strangers, for to strangers friendship in the future is possible;
but those who have been separated by oblivion on the one hand and by
contempt on the other are parted as surely and eternally as though death
had divided them."
Gervase gathers some solace from the very strength of the words. She
would not, he thinks, feel so strongly unless she felt more than he
allows: he gazes at her with feigned humility and unfeigned admiration
and regret.
"If Madame Sabaroff," he murmurs, "can doubt her own powers of
compelling remembrance, she is the one person on earth only who can do
so."
She is stung to anger.
"I am really at loss to decide whether you are intentionally insolent or
unintentionally insincere. You are possibly both."
"I am neither. I am only a man who passionately and uselessly rebels
against his fate."
"Who regrets his own actions, you mean to say. That is nothing
uncommon."
"Well, who regrets the past, if you will put it so, and who would atone
for it would you allow him."
"Atone! Do you suppose that you owe me reparation? It is I who owe you
thanks for a momentary oblivion which did me immeasurable service."
"That is a very harsh doctrine. The Princess Xenia whom I knew was
neither so stern nor so sceptical."
"The Princess Xenia whom you knew was a child, a foolish child; she is
dead, quite as much dead as though she were under so many solid square
feet of Baltic ice. Put her from your thoughts: you will never awake
her."
Then she rises and leaves him and goes out of the ball-room.
Throughout that evening he does not venture to approach her again, and
he endeavors to throw himself with some show of warmth into a flirtation
with Nina Curzon.
"Why did you pretend not to know her?" says Mrs. Curzon to him.
He smiles, the fatuous smile with which a man ingeniously expresses what
he would be thought a brute to put into words.
"She does not deign to know me--now," he says, modestly, and to the
experienced comprehension of Nina Curzon the words, although so modest,
tell her as much as the loudest boast could do.