``Mademoiselle has studied seriously since I had the honor—’’
``Oui, Monsieur.’’
Her faint voice and timid look were more than Ruth could bear. She leaned forward so as to shield the girl as much as possible, and entered into the lively talk at the other end of the table.
Rex spoke again: ``Mademoiselle is quite strong, I trust — the stage — Sugar? Allow me! — As I was saying, the stage is a calling which requires a good constitution.’’ No answer.
``But pardon. If you are not strong, how can you expect to succeed in your career?’’ persisted Rex. His eyes rested on one frail wrist in its black sleeve. The sight filled him with anger.
``I would make my debut if I knew it would kill me.’’ She spoke at last, low but clearly.
``But why? Mon Dieu!’’
``Madame has set her heart on it. She thinks I shall do her credit. She has been good to me, so good!’’ The sad voice fainted and sank away.
``One is good to one’s pupils when they are going to bring one fame,’’ said Rex bitterly.
``Madame took me when she did not know I had a voice — when she thought I was dying — when I was homeless — two years ago.’’
``What do you mean?’’ said Rex sternly, sinking his voice below the pitch of the general conversation. ``What did you tell me in your letter? Homeless!’’
``I never wrote you any letter.’’ Yvonne raised her blue eyes, startled, despairing, and looked into his for the first time.
``You did not write that you had found a — a home which you preferred to — to — any you had ever had? And that it would be useless to — to offer you any other?’’
``I never wrote. I was very ill and could not. Afterward I went to — you. You were gone.’’ Her low voice was heartbreaking to hear.
``When?’’ Rex could hardly utter a word.
``In June, as soon as I left the hospital.’’
``The hospital? And your mother?’’
``She was dead. I did not see her. Then I was very ill, a long time. As soon as I could, I went to Paris.’’
``To me?’’
``Yes.’’
``And the letter?’’
``Ah!’’ cried Yvonne with a shudder. ``It must have been my sister who did that!’’
The room was turning round. A hundred lights were swaying about in a crowd of heads. Rex laid his hand heavily on the table to steady himself. With a strong effort at self-control he had reduced the number of lights to two and got the people back in their places when, with a little burst of French exclamations and laughter, everyone turned to Yvonne, and Ruth, bending over her, took both her hands.
The next moment Monsieur Bordier was leading her to the piano.
A soft chord, other chords, deep and sweet, and then the dear voice:
Oui c’est un rêve,
Un rêve doux d’amour,
La nuit lui prête son mystére
The chain is forged again. The mists of passion rise thickly, heavily, and blot out all else forever.
Hélène’s song ceased. He heard them praise her, and heard ``Good nights’’ and ``Au revoirs’’ exchanged. He rose and stood near the door. Ruth passed him like a shadow. They all remained at the foot of the stairs for a moment, repeating their ``Adieus’’ and ``Remerciements.’’ He was utterly reckless, but cool enough still to watch for his chance in this confusion of civilities. It came; for one instant he could whisper to her, ``I must see you tonight.’’ Then the voices were gone and he stood alone on the porch, the wet wind blowing in his face, his face turned up to a heavy sky covered with black, driving clouds. He could hear the river and the moaning of the trees.
It seemed as if he had stood there for hours, never moving. Then there was a step in the dark hall, on the threshold, and Yvonne lay trembling in his arms.
*
The sky was beginning to show a tint of early dawn when they stepped once more upon the silent porch. The wind had gone down. Clouds were piled up in the west, but the east was clear. Perfect stillness was over everything. Not a living creature was in sight, excepting that far up, across the stream, Sepp and Zimbach were climbing toward the Schinder.
``I must go in now. I must you — child!’’ said Yvonne in her old voice, smoothing her hair with both hands. Rex held her back.
``My wife?’’ he said.
``Yes!’’ She raised her face and kissed him on the lips, then clung to him weeping.
``Hush! hush! It is I who should do that,’’ he murmured, pressing her cheek against his breast.
Once more she turned to leave him, but he detained her.
``Yvonne, come with me and be married today!’’
``You know it is impossible. Today! what a boy you are! As if we could!’’
``Well then, in a few days — in a week, as soon as possible.’’
``Oh! my dearest! do not make it so hard for me! How could I desert Madame so? After all she has done for me? When I know all her hopes are set on me; that if I fail her she has no one ready to take my place! Because she was so sure of me, she did not try to bring on any other pupil for next autumn. And last season was a bad one for her and Monsieur. Their debutante failed; they lost money. Behold this child!’’ she exclaimed, with a rapid return to her old gay manner, ``to whom I have explained all this at least a hundred times already, and he asks me why we cannot be married today!’’
Then with another quick change, she laid her cheek tenderly against his and murmured:
``I might have died but for her. You would not have me desert her so cruelly, Rex?’’
``My love! No!’’ A new respect mingled with his passion. Yes, she was faithful!
``And now I will go in! Rex, Rex, you are quite as bad as ever! Look at my hair!’’ She leaned lightly on his shoulder, her old laughing self.
He smiled back sadly.
``Again! After all! You silly, silly boy! And it is such a little while to wait!’’
``Belle Hélène is very popular in Paris. The piece may run a long time.’’
``Rex, I must. Don’t make it so hard for me!’’ Tears filled her eyes.
He kissed her for answer, without speaking.
``Think! think of all she did for me; saved me; fed me, clothed me, taught me when she believed I had only voice and talent enough to support myself by teaching. It was half a year before she and Monsieur began to think I could ever make them any return for their care of me. And all that time she was like a mother to me. And now she has told everyone her hopes of me. If I fail she will be ridiculed. You know Paris. She and Monsieur have enemies who will say there never was any pupil, nor any debut expected. Perhaps she will lose her prestige. The fashion may turn to some other teacher. You know what malice can do with ridicule in Paris. Let me sing for her this once, make her one great success, win her one triumph, and then never, never sing again for any soul but you — my husband!’’
Her voice sank at the last words, from its eager pleading, to an exquisite modest sweetness.
``But — if you fail?’’
``I shall not fail. I have never doubted that I should have a success. Perhaps it is because for myself I do not care, that I have no fear. When I had lost you — I only thought of that. And now that I have found you again — !’’
She clung to him in passionate silence.
``And I may not see your debut?’’
``If you come I shall surely fail! I must forget you. I must think only of my part. What do I care for the house full of strange faces? I will make them all rise up and shout my name. But if you were there — Ah! I should have no longer any courage! Promise me to come only on the second night.’’
``But if you do fail, I may come and take you immediately before Monsieur the Maire?’’
``If you please!’’ she whispered demurely.
And they both laughed, the old happy-children laugh of the Atelier.
``I suppose you are bad enough to hope that I will fail,’’ added she presently,
with a little moue.
``Yvonne,’’ said Rex earnestly, ``I hope that you will succeed. I know you will, and I can wait for you a few weeks more.’’
``We have waited for our happiness two years. We will make the happiness of others now first, n’est ce pas?’’ she whispered.
The sky began to glow and the house was astir. Rex knew how it would soon be talking, but he cared for nothing that the world could do or say.
``Ah! we will be happy! Think of it! A little house near the Parc Monceau, my studio there, Clifford, Elliott, Rowden — Bra — all of them coming again! And it will be my wife who will receive them!’’
She placed a little soft palm across his lips.
``Taisez-vous, mon ami! It is too soon! See the morning! I must go. There! yes — one more! — my love, Adieu!’’
Sixteen
Fewer tourists and more hunters had been coming to the Lodge of late; the crack of the rifle sounded all day. There was great talk of a hunt which the duke would hold in September, and the colonel and Rex were invited. But though September was now only a few days off, the colonel was growing too restless to wait.
After Yvonne’s visit, he and Ruth were much together. It seemed to happen so. They took long walks into the woods, but Ruth seemed to share now her father’s aversion to climbing, and Gethryn stalked the deer with only the Jaegers for company.
Ruth and her father used to come home with their arms full of wild flowers — the fair, lovely wild blossoms of Bavaria which sprang up everywhere in their path. The colonel was great company on these expeditions, singing airs from obsolete operas of his youth, and telling stories of La Grange, Brignoli and Amodio, of the Strakosches and Maretzeks, with much liveliness. Sometimes there would be a silence, however, and then if Ruth looked up she often met his eyes. Then he would smile and say:
``Well, Daisy!’’ and she would smile and say:
``Well, dear!’’
But this could not last. About a week after Yvonne’s visit, the colonel, after one of these walks, instead of joining Rex for a smoke, left him sitting with Ruth under the beech tree and mounted the stairs to Mrs Dene’s room.
It was an hour later when he rose and kissed his wife, who had been sitting at her window all the time of their quiet talk, with eyes fixed on the young people below.
``I never dreamed of it!’’ said he.
``I did, I wished it,’’ was her answer. ``I thought he was — but they are all alike!’’ she ended sadly and bitterly. ``To think of a boy as wellborn as Rex—’’ But the colonel, who possibly knew more about wellborn boys than his wife did, interrupted her:
``Hang the boys! It’s Ruth I’m grieved for!’’
``My daughter needs no one’s solicitude, not even ours!’’ said the old lady haughtily.
``Right! Thank God!’’ said the veteran, in a tone of relief. ``Good night, my dear!’’
Two days later they left for Paris.
Rex accompanied them as far as Schicksalsee, promising to follow them in a few days.
The handsome, soldierly-looking Herr Förster stood by their carriage and gave them a ``Glück-liche Reise!’’ and a warm ``Auf Wiedersehen!’’ as they drove away. Returning up the steps slowly and seriously, he caught the eye of Sepp and Federl, who had been looking after the carriage as it turned out of sight beyond the bridge:
``Schade!’’ said the Herr Förster, and went into the house.
``Schade!’’ said Federl.
``Jammer-schade!’’ growled Sepp.
On the platform at Schicksalsee, Rex and Ruth were walking while they waited for the train. ``Ruth,’’ said Rex, ``I hope you never will need a friend’s life to save yours from harm; but if you do, take mine.’’
``Yes, Rex.’’ She raised her eyes and looked into the distance. Far on the horizon loomed the Red Peak.
The clumsy mail drew up beside the platform. It was the year when all the world was running after a very commonplace Operetta with one lovely stolen song: a Volks-song. One heard it everywhere, on both continents; and now as the postillion, in his shiny hat with the cockade, his light blue jacket and white small clothes, and his curly brass horn, came rattling down the street, he was playing the same melody:
Es ist im Leben häßlich eingerichtet —
The train drew into the station. When it panted forth again, Gethryn stood waving his hand, and watched it out of sight.
Turning at last to leave the platform, he found that the crowd had melted away; only a residue of crimson-capped officials remained. He inquired of one where he could find an expressman and was referred to a mild man absorbing a bad cigar. With him Gethryn arranged for having his traps brought from Trauerbach and consigned to the brothers Schnurr at the ``Gasthof zur Post,’’ Schicksalsee, that inn being close to the station.
This settled, he lighted a cigarette and strolled across to his hotel, sitting down on a stone bench before the door, and looking off at the lake.
It was mid-afternoon. The little place was asleep. Nothing was stirring about the inn excepting a bandy Dachshund, which came wheezing up and thrust a cold nose into the young man’s hand. High in the air a hawk was wheeling; his faint, querulous cry struck Gethryn with an unwonted sense of loneliness. He noticed how yellow some of the trees were on the slopes across the lake. Autumn had come before summer was ended. He leaned over and patted the hound. A door opened, a voice cried, ``Ei Dachl! du! Dachl!’’ and the dog made off at the top of his hobbyhorse gait.
The silence was unbroken except for the harsh cries of the hawk, sailing low now in great circles over the lake. The sun flashed on his broad, burnished wings as he stooped; Gethryn fancied he could see his evil little eyes; finally the bird rose and dwindled away, lost against the mountainside.
He was roused from his reverie by angry voices.
``Cochon! Kerl! Menteur!’’ cried someone.
The other voice remonstrated with a snarl.
``Bah!’’ cried the first, ``you lie!’’
``Alsatians,’’ thought Rex; ``what horrible French!’’
The snarling began again, but gradually lapsed into whining. Rex looked about him.
The quarreling seemed to come from a small room which opened out of the hotel restaurant. Windows gave from it over the front, but the blinds were down.
``No! No! I tell you! Not one sou! Starve? I hope you will!’’ cried the first voice, and a stamp set some bottles and glasses jingling.
``Alsatians and Jews!’’ thought Rex. One voice was unpleasantly familiar to him, and he wondered if Mr Blumenthal spoke French as he did English. Deciding with a careless smile that of course he did, Rex ceased to think of him, not feeling any curiosity to go and see with whom his late fellow-lodger might be quarreling. He sat and watched instead, as he lounged in the sunshine, some smart carriages whirling past, their horses stepping high, the lackeys muffled from the mountain air in winter furs, crests on the panels.
An adjutant in green, with a great flutter of white cock’s feathers from his chapeau, sitting up on the box of an equipage, accompanied by flunkies in the royal blue and white of Bavaria, was a more agreeable object to contemplate than Mr Blumenthal, and Gethryn felt as much personal connection with the Prince Regent hurrying home to Munich, from his little hunting visit to the emperor of Austria, as with the wrangling Jews behind the close-drawn blinds of the coffee-room at his back.
The sun was slowly declining. Rex rose and idled into the smoking-room. It was deserted but for the clerk at his desk, a railed enclosure, one side of which opened into the smoking-room, the other side into the hall. Across the hall was a door with ``Café — Restaurant,’’ in gilt letters above it. Rex did not enter the café; he sat and dreamed in the empty smoking-room over his cigarette.
But it was lively in the café, in spite of the waning season. A good many of the tables were occupied. At one of them sat the three unchaperoned Miss Dashleighs, in company with three solemn, high-shouldered young officers, enjoying something in tal
l, slender tumblers which looked hot and smelled spicy. At another table Mr Everett Tweeler and Mrs Tweeler were alternately scolding and stuffing Master Irving Tweeler, who expressed in impassioned tones a desire for tarts.
``Ur — r — ving!’’ remonstrated Mr Tweeler.
``Dahling!’’ argued Mrs Tweeler. ``If oo eats too many ‘ittle cakies then oo tant go home to Salem on the puffy, puffy choo-choo boat.’’
Old Sir Griffin Damby overheard and snorted.
When Master Tweeler secured his tarts, Sir Griffin blessed the meal with a hearty ``damn!’’
He did not care for Master Tweeler’s nightly stomach aches, but their rooms adjoined. When ``Ur — r — ving’’ reached unmolested for his fourth, Sir Griffin rose violently, and muttering, ``Change me room, begad!’’ waddled down to the door, glaring aggressively at the occupants of the various tables. Near the exit a half suppressed squeal caused him to swing round. He had stepped squarely on the toe of a meager individual, who now sat nursing his foot in bitter dejection.
``Pardon—’’ began Sir Griffin, then stopped and glared at the sallow-faced person.
Sir Griffin stared hard at the man he had stepped on, and at his female companion.
``Damn it!’’ he cried. ``Keep your feet out of the way, do you hear?’’ puffed his cheeks, squared his shoulders and snorted himself out of the café.
The yellow-faced man was livid with rage.
``Don’t be a fool, Mannie,’’ whispered the woman; ``don’t make a row — do you know who that is?’’
``He’s an English hog,’’ spluttered the man with an oath; ``he’s a cursed hog of an Englishman!’’
``Yes, and he knows us. He was at Monaco a few summers ago. Don’t forget who turned us out of the Casino.’’
Emanuel Pick turned a shade more sallow and sank back in his seat.
Neither spoke again for some moments. Presently the woman began to stir the bits of lemon and ice in her empty tumbler. Pick watched her sulkily.
``You always take the most expensive drinks. Why can’t you order coffee, as others do?’’ he snarled.
She glanced at him. ``Jew,’’ she sneered.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 16