The trouble was that Mr. Beck possessed no “cut-away.” Accordingly, he
had one made, and standing facing the three glasses at the front, with
his back against three more, he suddenly perceived that he was very
ugly. The tailor looked at him with glee, “American? Ah! ah! Dollar! A
lot of dollar--he, he, he!” and recommended the most expensive stuff
available, while Mr. Beck reflected with discomfort that not the least
of his reasons in coming over to Austria was the resolve drastically to
reduce expenditure. “Have the honour--kiss the hand--my
compliment--greet God--commend myself,” the tailor bowed him out. In the
afternoon Mr. Beck dropped cards on Baroness Hauch, on the door of whose
apartment he read: “Baron Karl Franz Egon Gaestner zu Hauch
Wolf-Kadelburg von Hofmannsthal,” and on Thursday, as arranged, he
called on Frau von Kranich. Irmgard came. In her brown hat which covered
her exquisitely moulded forehead she did not look quite so lovely, and
he noticed that she had the small burning eyes of her father. At the
Hauchs’ Irmgard appeared a little shy. She wore a blue dress with white
lapels and American brown shoes, and all the young men fell in love with
her at first sight and danced with her uninterruptedly. Mr. Beck found
himself seated far away from the table, with a cup of tea in his hand.
There was no sugar in the tea, but the cup was too full and too hot: he
knew he could never get up without spilling it--and he suffered in
silence. Moreover, he remembered being told that the Baronin Hauch
possessed the finest china set in Salzburg and he was tormented by the
thought that at any moment he might drop the cup and smash the precious
thing to smithereens! And what then----? The hostess spoke agitatingly,
with her mouth full of crumbs, and every now and then a crumb would be
shot out of her mouth to fly like a bullet into the middle of the cakes
and pies. “What a beautiful girl,” she remarked, watching Irmgard dance
with her son Franz Egon Rudolf Ferdinand.
“She’s just like a Cindrella,” answered Frau von Kranich, “waiting for
Prince Charming to claim her.”
“But I hear,” breathed a nondescript lady, “that her father is not liked
because of his intolerable conceit. I am told that when someone asked
him recently about German authors, Herr Direktor Schulz had the
indiscretion to reply that he was by far the greatest writer living! And
he looks as though he thought it--walking round in that old-fashioned
bowler and the astrakhan coat, looking like an English lord.”
Frau von Kranich wrinkled her nose. “He is a little bit of a _parvenu_,”
she said.
“I haven’t noticed that,” rejoined the Baroness, while a crumb shot from
her mouth right into the sugar-basin.
“Still--a little.”
They were beginning to play bridge--the princes seated in one room; the
counts in another; the barons in a third, Mr. Beck among the barons, who
spoke to him of the high purchasing power of the U.S. dollar and urged
him to subscribe to various aristocratic charities. Frau von Kranich had
long since gone away. When the gathering at last dispersed, he went
with Irmgard to the tram, but she suggested walking home together to the
castle. “I like walking after a dance.”
Mr. Beck considered. “I like walking--with you.” He thought this very
daring. And he reflected, with inward satisfaction, that he was actually
making love in German--for the first time in his uneventful life. It
wasn’t ... “half bad!”
She paused. “I like--walking,” she said.
This was cautious. And Mr. Beck put out feelers. “I don’t want to impose
myself on you, and please tell me when you’ve had enough of me.”
“I’ll tell you.”
“I mentioned it because it seems to me that Frau von Kranich is rather
inflicting my heavy company upon your slender shoulders. Needless to
say, for my own part I like it. At the same time, I feel I may be boring
you with my imperfect German, and I’d do anything in the world rather
than be a nuisance to you.”
“She means well,” said Irmgard; and they walked along in silence
through the frosty streets.
“Have you always lived in Salzburg, then?”
“Always--since my birth.”
“Do you like it?”
“I hate it.”
“But the people here are good people.”
“I hate them.”
“You ought to go abroad where the people might be more to your liking,”
suggested Mr. Beck. “You’d like America.”
“I hate Americans.”
“Why?”
She thought hard. “Because they wear such ugly knickerbockers--the
tourists here.”
“The child!” he thought. “The touching innocence!”
They were now going by a long country lane that stretched across a
lonely field of snow. Far away an engine whistled. The snow hung heavy
on the trees. Mr. Beck conceived the plan of approach by way of her
father. “I do love the way your father speaks--these little movements of
the hands, this fumbling pause, this seeking after the right word. He
is by far the most considerable intellectual in the city.”
“Yes, Papa is very clever.”
They came out into an open space at the mouth of the river which
extended wide into the distance, chained in ice. “This is our castle.”
At the top of a hill surrounded by a fence stood the castle--looking
rather less than a mere house. Irmgard quickly vanished up the steps.
Mr. Beck stood still a while. The ice-chained river was bathed in
moonlight.
There was an added warmth that winter evening about the sky and moon as
he walked home to his _pension_.