by Howard Pyle
For a while he struggled against his fate. He knew how impossible hope was for him. She was a woman with untenable secrets buried in her life. Her existence was separated from his by an impassable gulf. And yet in his love dreams it seemed to him that by some chance of fate the impossible might become the possible.
And then came the end.
He had called upon her in the afternoon. She sat upon a sofa and he upon a soft, deep chair facing her. He gazed at her, and his love was so vivid that it seemed to struggle like a live thing within him. His heart thrilled and his every nerve tingled. Suddenly she looked steadily at him.
“Mr. Huntford,” she said, quite coolly, “surely you are not going to make love to me.”
He sat stunned. Had she dealt him a blow he could not have been more overwhelmed. It seemed to him for a moment that he had not power to move. He heard, as remotely, the blood surging in his ears. At last he found speech. “Why should I not?” he said, in a hoarse and panting voice.
She raised her brows ever so little. “Why should you not?” she repeated. “Well, there are many reasons why you should not — but I cannot tell them to you. But this I will say: if you knew who I am, and what I am, and why I live in your ugly city of New York as I do, you would no more think of making love to me than you would to a woman in another world. Cela suffit.”
“I do not care who you are or what you are!” cried Huntford, in a voice smothered with passion. “I do know that you and your uncle are hiding here in New York from the police of your own country, but I do not care for that! I do know that you are — that you are—” He paused.
“That we are what?” said she, in a very quiet voice.
“That you are Nihilists, and that you have probably escaped from Russia. But I do not care for that either!”
She looked at him very steadily for a few seconds. “Well,” she said, “and now that you have discovered my secret, what do you propose?”
“Nothing but to tell you that I love you and that I would give my life to save you from a misfortune that I am sure will sometime befall you.”
“I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Huntford,” said she, “but I do not need a protector as yet. I am sorry that you should have spoken as you have, for I like you more than you can guess. But I have no heart to give you. So now I will not say to you ‘Good afternoon,’ but ‘Adieu,’ for you must never come back here again.”
For two days Huntford’s life was a joyless thing. He ate his food, but it was as without salt. He lived his life, but it also was without its salt. Then, upon the third day, there befell an incident that directed his thoughts away from his own hurt.
He had gone out for a long walk in the damp chill of the November night. The direction of his walk, twisted by his strong desire, led him to Thirty-fifth Street, and he stood under the lamppost opposite to Fraulein Victoria’s house, looking at the shaded windows and wondering what they were doing behind those curtains.
As he stood so, leaning’ against the lamp-post, he was aware that a short, stout gentleman was walking briskly down the street. He passed Huntford, and then, after going a few steps beyond, he turned and came back again. As he re-entered the circle of the lamplight, Huntford saw that it was the little German with the black, waxed mustache turned up at the ends from whom Herr Vollmer had escaped by means of the cab.
“Ach!” said the German. “’tis mein American friendt, after all. Vas you vaiting for Herr Vollmer or for de laty?”
Huntford looked him up and down. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, and then he turned on his heel and walked away. Poor girl, were the beagles so close upon her heels as that? What could he do to help her? Nothing! He must suffer events to take their course.
The next morning as he ate his breakfast at the Budapest Bakery, with his newspaper propped up against the carafe before him, the head-lines of an important paragraph caught his eyes. “Assassination of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Gruenstadt. Nihilists throw a bomb beneath the Grand Duke’s carriage as he returns from the opera, and he is instantly killed.” The paragraph fitted so perfectly into his thoughts that it struck him almost as with a physical shock. Could Fraulein Victoria be concerned with this? He drank his coffee off at a draught, and then, without finishing his egg and roll, he hurried around to the studio building. He ran up the steps two at a time to the third story and knocked sharply upon Herr Vollmer’s door.
The old gentleman came in his dressing-gown and opened it. A distinct look of displeasure passed across his blond countenance as he saw Huntford, and he made as though to close the door.
“Don’t shut the door, please, Herr Vollmer,” Huntford said. “Have you seen the morning paper yet?”
“No.” said Herr Vollmer. “Why do you ask me?”
“There is news in it that I thought perhaps might interest you.”
“News! What news?” said Herr Vollmer, and as he spoke he opened the door wide.
“I’ve brought the paper with me,” said Huntford. “There is a heading in it that says that the Grand Duke of Hesse-Gruenstadt was assassinated by Nihilists as he left the opera-house last night.”
Never before had Huntford beheld a human countenance so smitten as by some stupendous emotion. The face of the old man went as white as ashes. His eyes looked at Huntford as though seeing, yet not seeing’ him.
“Herr Vollmer!” cried Huntford. “are you ill?”
The old man put the question by. “It cannot be true!” he cried, in a shrill, piping voice. “It cannot be true!”
“Here is the cable account in this morning’s paper,” said Huntford. “You may read it for yourself.”
The old man fairly snatched the paper out of Huntford’s hands. He gave no word of thanks or acknowledgment, but banged the door in his visitor’s face. Huntford stood for a while on the landing. He heard the inmate of the room moving tumultuously about; he heard him talking excitedly to himself in German; then by and by he himself went down-stairs to his own studio.
About fifteen minutes later he heard Herr Vollmer’s door flung violently open, and then his footsteps running furiously down the stairs. Huntford came to his own studio door and called after him, but the old man paid no heed to the voice, but ran on down the stairs and out into the street without using any of the precaution he had observed of late to see that no one was following him. Then Huntford closed his door and sat down to think about it all.
About an hour later he heard footsteps running as violently up the stairs. He thought at first that it might be Herr Vollmer returning, but a moment afterwards he heard some one beating upon the heraldic, artist’s door. He went to his own door and looked up the stairs. It was the little German with the black, waxed mustache whom he had seen twice before. “If you’re looking for Herr Vollmer,” Huntford said, taking his pipe out of his mouth, “he’s been gone a longtime.”
The little man cried out violently in German, and thereupon, turning, he raced down the stairs with such precipitation that Huntford expected to see him fall headlong. He passed Huntford without speech or acknowledgment of any kind and, rushing down the lower flight of steps, disappeared out into the street.
That evening Huntford went around to the little house on Thirty-fifth Street and rang at the door. It was opened by the well-known man in the plain dress coat. He did not smile at Huntford this time, but informed him very civilly that the young lady had gone away with her uncle. No; he could not say where they had gone. No; she had left New York for good, and did not expect ever to return again. Huntford could see through the open door that the house was being dismantled, and he could hear the distant noise of hammering.
For a few weeks — for a month or more perhaps — his tragedy hung like a cloud above his head. Then by little and little the sun began to shine forth again, and by and by his habits had resumed their normal course. His old interest in his growing success became reawakened; the world was bright once more, and he took joy in the congratulations of his friends upon his first splendid succ
ess.
Old Eleazar Walton, president of one of the great banks of the day, was a connection of Huntford’s. Mrs. Walton was first cousin to Huntford’s mother, and Huntford always called her “Cousin Henrietta.” She was very kind to Huntford when he first came to New York; she received him familiarly, called him “dear Jack,” and often asked him to Sunday dinner.
Mrs. Walton had been socially ambitious, and her ambitions had been fully realized. Her husband, through good investments in the later seventies, when the condition of panic of the earlier years of the decade were passing away and values were increasing, had been very fortunate, and he was now recognized as one of the multimillionaires of New York. The Waltons lived in a gloomy brownstone house on Fifth Avenue, and they were now within the very heart of social life. Mrs. Walton thought highly of her position.
Huntford liked her and was amused at her simple-minded snobbery.
“My dear Jack,” she would say, “I wish you were something else than an artist. Everybody’s talking about your picture — the painting of the old Puritan and his daughter, you know — and I would so like to introduce you into real society, but—” and she left the rest of her speech unfinished. Huntford laughed.
“Never mind, Cousin Henrietta,” he said. “I’m not ambitious for the unattainable.” And so he was asked to their family Sunday dinners and now and then to a week-day dinner.
This was all very well, and Huntford, who had made a success of his own and who knew a number of very nice people, could afford to treat lightly the fact that he was not one belonging to the inner life of the exclusive set. But in the spring Evelina Walton returned from Europe — beautiful, polished, perfectly mannered, perfectly dressed, and very much a woman of the world. Then Huntford felt indeed the loss of not being admitted into that inner circle where she belonged, for with her advent came the real love of his life — not a violent and consuming passion like that which he had felt for poor Fraulein Victoria, but the deep, the profound, the sincere yet quiet love of a man for the woman who is the choice not only of his heart but of his intelligence.
Then it was that Huntford did indeed regret that he stood upon the outside of that charmed circle. For he knew that Evelina Walton was destined for marriage with great wealth, and he recognized what it was to be nothing but an artist — even though he were a successful artist.
Meantime, as his love waxed warmer and warmer, Cousin Henrietta’s cordiality grew proportionately colder and colder. At last she did not even ask him to those Sunday dinners, and he saw less and less of the girl he loved.
One evening Huntford met Evelina Walton at the Van Altons’ dance. She sat through a quadrille with him and she told him that she was going abroad with her father and mother in about four weeks.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I believe,” she answered, “we are going first of all to Hesse-Gruenstadt. You know it? A little grand duchy in North Germany.”
Know it! What memories did the name of Hesse-Gruenstadt call up before Hunt-ford’s mind! It was the Grand Duke of Hesse-Gruenstadt who had been assassinated when coming home from the opera, and Huntford immediately thought of the beautiful but unfortunate Fraulein Victoria — his fair Nihilist — who had been somehow connected with that tragedy. He was silent for a few seconds. He was looking at the beautiful girl beside him and wondering at his infatuation for that pale-faced adventuress who was maintained by the Nihilists and who smoked cigarettes after a French-cooked dinner. Only six months had passed, but it seemed as though it had been years since that episode had happened.
“What are you going to do in Hesse-Grueustadt?” he said.
“Oh, the Kinsboroughs are going,” she said. “They were there last summer, and are wild about the place. Mr. Kinsborough is, you know, papa’s particular friend.”
Huntford’s heart fell like a lump of lead. He had heard the talk about Evelina Walton and Tom Kinsborough. He was silent for a while, and her color deepened at his silence. She knew that he was thinking of Tom Kinsborough and of her.
“I think I shall go to Hesse-Gruenstadt too,” he said at last.
“You!” she exclaimed. “Why should you go to Hesse-Gruenstadt?”
“Well.” he said, “for the same reason that your father is going. Two cousins of mine are going and are taking their daughter with them, so I shall go too. Is there any law in the closed circles of New York that prohibits a poor devil of an artist going to Hesse-Gruenstadt?”
“Oh, Jack,” she said, “why do you talk so?”
“Oh, Evelina,” he said, “can you not guess?”
So Huntford went to Europe upon the same steamer with the Waltons, and Cousin Henrietta was hardly civil to him.
Cousin Henrietta was still more offended when she found that Huntford was going on to Hesse-Gruenstadt with them, and she was very cross with her husband when he expressed his hearty pleasure at the prospect of having the young artist in their party.
When they came to Hesse-Gruenstadt they found that the Kinsboroughs were not there, for Mr. Kinsborough was still in Baden-Baden taking the waters. Cousin Henrietta was for leaving immediately but her friend the United States consul persuaded her to remain until the following week. The Princess Sophia was to be married in the early fall to the Prince Maurice of Saxe-Dittingen. On Thursday the old custom of a Hesse-Gruenstadt betrothal was to be celebrated. Prince Maurice would come upon Tuesday, and it was part of the local custom of betrothal that the future bride and her father should go to meet the accepted lover. It would be a pretty sight, the consul said, to see the entrance of Prince Maurice into the town. And so the Waltons stayed.
Mr. Walton secured a balcony in an advantageous situation, and in the fullness of his heart he asked Huntford to join them. Huntford accepted joyously, and again Cousin Henrietta was extremely cross.
It was a perfect day. If Prince Maurice had chosen it himself, it could not have been more auspicious. The sun shone with a wonderful brightness and the sky was perfectly blue and full of great white floating clouds. As the American party sat in their balcony, they could look directly down the quaint vista of the stone-paved street, the red houses with their steep roofs, their gables, and their quaint leaded windows shining in the springtide day. Below, the street was alive upon either side with people, many in the quaint costume of Hesse-Gruenstadt. A vast babble of voices filled the soft, warm air, mellow with the fullness of springtime. There was a military lane cleared in the middle of the street below, and the people crowded good-naturedly up and down the sidewalks.
At about ten o’clock the procession suddenly appeared at the far-away distant end of the street, glittering in the sun as it turned into the main thoroughfare at the junction of Heinrich Strasse and Wilhelm Strasse on its way from the railroad station.
The procession came nearer and nearer. By and by it reached the stand where they sat. The cuirassiers rode crashing beneath them, and then, and in the midst of a tumult of shouts and huzzas, the victoria came full within their view.
The Princess Sophia, smiling, happy, and beautiful, sat beside her father, bowing to the people from side to side. Prince Maurice sat on the front seat, facing the Grand Duke and his daughter.
Huntford as he looked down could see directly into her face, and he sat staring as though struck to stone. The Princess Sophia was none other than the Fraulein Victoria to whom he had made love in New York six months before.
He heard as though remotely the uproar of cheering in the street below. Ten thousand thoughts were whirling in a tempest through his brain: Who! What! How! He knew not what to think.
Suddenly she looked up and directly at him. She stared; for a moment her happy face turned blank. Then a brilliant and glorious smile of recognition irradiated her entire countenance. She made as though to rise in her seat, then she clutched the arm first of one and then of the other of the gentlemen in the carriage with her. They both turned and looked up at the balcony. The Princess Sophia pointed toward Huntford with her finger. The
two gentlemen smiled to him and lifted their hats, and Huntford stood up and bowed.
Had the heavens fallen and shivered into fragments about her, Cousin Henrietta could not have been more astonished. She could neither move nor speak, but could only sit staring open - mouthed. Then the carriage passed beneath them, followed by the thunder of cheers, and only the crowd was left staring up at the balcony where sat the American gentleman to whom the Princess Sophia had spoken.
Cousin Henrietta found her voice. “John Huntford!” She nearly shrieked in her astonishment. “Do you know her?”
“Yes,” said Huntford. “I met her last winter in New York. I know her very well. I used to go to dinner at her house, and I called frequently.”
“You — knew — her — in — New York!” gasped Cousin Henrietta, “and you never told us a word about it!”
“She was living then incognito,” said Huntford. “I should not have said anything about it even now if she hadn’t spoken to me.”
The whole party looked at Huntford as though he were some one else — as though he had been suddenly uplifted and exalted into another plane. None of them said anything for a long while. Then Cousin Henrietta spoke.
“You must come,” she said, “and take lunch with us to-day and tell us all about it.”
“I shall be delighted,” said Huntford.
But he did not take lunch with the Waltons that day, for about eleven o’clock a young officer presented himself at the hotel with a note for Huntford. It was an invitation — or a summoning, rather — to lunch informally at the Schloss. Cousin Henrietta was almost ready to how to the young artist as he made his excuses to her for withdrawing his acceptance to lunch.
Huntford went to the Schloss with some trepidation. But there was not the least occasion for anxiety. It was a strictly family lunch, and Huntford wondered if it had been made so informal upon his account. There were present the Grand Duke, a very kind and polite old gentleman; his sister, the Princess Frederica, a withered middle-aged German lady, who spoke very imperfect English; Prince Maurice, a fine, soldierly young fellow, of about Huntford’s age; and the Princess Sophia herself. After luncheon, Prince Maurice and Huntford walked up and down the terrace of the Schloss and smoked their cigars. The Prince was evidently altogether prepossessed in Huntford’s favor. He talked quite frankly, almost fraternally, about the Princess Sophia, telling Huntford how she happened to he in New York.