CHAPTER XXII. FREDERICK MEETS HIS FATHER.

A few days later, a cab drew up at the door of a hotel on the Puerto del Sol at Madrid, and from it alighted Frederick von Waldberg, in his latest role as Count Linska de Castillon.

Finding, however, the Spanish capital intolerably hot and dismally empty, he soon turned his steps northward again, and took up his residence in the pretty seaport town of St. Sebastien, which is the most fashionable bathing-place on the Peninsula. It was crowded at the time with all the cream of Spanish society; and Frederick, with his ordinary skill and savoir faire, soon became acquainted with all the best people there, including a clique of gay young clubmen, who turned the night into day, and gambled, danced, flirted, and drank, with untiring energy.

Frederick's passion for cards soon revived in all its intensity in this vortex of dissipation, and he seldom left the “Salon de Jeu” of the Casino before the small hours of the morning. At first he won a great deal, but soon his luck began to fail him, and at the end of three weeks he discovered, to his disgust, that he had left on the green baize of the card-table a sum of over 150,000 francs.

“This has got to stop,” muttered he, angrily, “or I shall soon be running down hill at a rapid pace. The question is, how can I stop now without arousing comment?”

At the beginning of his stay in St. Sebastien, he had been introduced by a young Madrilene, who was staying at the same hotel, to a charming family, composed of the father, an old Spanish grandee; the mother, who had been a [Pg 181] beauty, and their lovely daughter, Dolores. Don Garces y Marcilla was evidently a wealthy man, and occupied a luxuriously appointed villa on the sea-shore. Frederick soon began to be a constant visitor at this house, and his attentions to the fair Dolores were so marked that they became the talk of the beau-monde of St. Sebastien. Dolores was a remarkably dashing and handsome girl, with fiery black eyes and raven tresses. Her complexion was dark, and her lips were of the vivid crimson of a pomegranate flower. She was evidently very much in love with Frederick, and he had but little doubt that he would be accepted if he chose to ask her to be his wife.

For him this marriage presented many advantages. To begin with, it would open wide to him the doors of the Spanish aristocracy. The Garces y Marcilla prided themselves on being able to trace their descent from the kings of Aragon, and were high up on the social ladder. Then, there was also the question of money. Frederick had found out that Dolores would not only receive on her wedding-day a dowry of 200,000 francs—not a big sum in itself, although in Spain it is considered quite large—but that, Don Garces y Marcilla being a rich man, she would further inherit a fortune at his death. Since he had lost all hopes of obtaining the hand of Lady Margaret, a marriage with the daughter of Don Garces seemed to him to be the most advantageous to his interests.

Still undecided, however, as to the course he should adopt, he one morning directed his steps toward the Garces villa, with the object of inviting the whole family to a dinner which he proposed giving, some days later, for the purpose of returning in some measure the courtesy and hospitality with which they had received him.

As it was near midday, all the servants were down below at luncheon, and his approach was unnoticed. Walking along the veranda, he soon came to the long French windows [Pg 182] of the drawing-room, and, peeping in between the half-closed blinds, he saw Dolores, who, stretched on an oriental divan, was smoking a cigarette. There was but little light in the corner of the room where she reclined, but he could plainly distinguish the outline of her voluptuous form in its soft loose white wrapper, and the gleam of the rings on her small hands. Her great black eyes seemed positively to glow in the semi-darkness as she looked up at the rings of blue smoke that floated through the air.

Frederick's heart began to beat faster. He vaguely felt that his hour of fate had come.

They were as completely alone as if they had been in a desert. No one of the household would have dared to approach that room without a summons from her. A nightingale was singing in the Cape jasmine which wreathed the veranda. Gently he pushed open the casement of the window, and stepped into the room. She raised herself on her elbow, and, flinging her half-finished cigarette into a silver tray on the table, stretched out her hand to him, saying, in her low, melodious voice:

“This is a surprise. I am glad to see you.”

“Is it really so?” murmured he, bending over the small, cool hand, which he retained in his own, prolonging the fleeting moments with irresistible pleasure. Every gesture, glance, and breath of this girl allured him; a swift and wicked temptation flashed through his brain. He knew that she loved him, and that she was at his mercy. A shudder passed over him, and before he knew what he was about he had wound his arms around her and pressed his lips to hers. It was but a second, and then he thrust her away from him. She gave him a look of such intense surprise and pain, that, dropping on one knee before her, he murmured, in a voice which still shook with suppressed passion:

“Dona Dolores, will you be my wife?”

[Pg 183]

Three weeks later, on the first of November, 1879, at the Church of Santa Maria, the marriage of Dona Dolores Garces y Marcella with Count Linska de Castillon was celebrated with great pomp.
FREDERICK MARRIED DOLORES.

That same evening the young couple left for Madrid, where a handsome suite of apartments had been prepared for them in a house on the Calle del Barquillo.

[Pg 184]

The first weeks of the honey-moon were delightful. Through his wife's relatives Frederick became acquainted with all the leaders of society at Madrid. The life of the young couple was a whirl of perpetual excitement and pleasure; they were invited everywhere and attended court receptions, embassy balls, and official entertainments. Frederick was very proud of Dolores, and she became every day more and more infatuated with her handsome and gifted husband. Frederick, who had a love for everything beautiful, and who was a born artist, had arranged their apartment of the Calle del Barquillo with such exquisite taste and elegance that it was the talk of the whole town. The luxury displayed in every detail, from the magnificent Gobelin tapestries which lined the walls down to the dinner services of priceless Sevres and Japanese porcelain, the marvelous toilets which he insisted that his wife should wear, and the splendid dinners and entertainments they gave all cost a great deal of money, and at the end of the winter season Frederick could once more foresee the moment when not only his own fortune but also his wife's dowry would have vanished. He had been made a member of several clubs, and with a view of reimbursing himself for what his daily life cost, he began to risk large sums at the card table.

Six months after his marriage he met with a rather serious accident. His horses took fright while he was being driven home one morning from witnessing the execution by the “garrote” of the regicide Francisco Otero, and he was flung with such violence to the pavement that his ankle was broken. His victoria having been shattered to pieces, he was driven to his house by a young stranger who had witnessed the catastrophe and had offered his assistance. An intimacy soon sprang up between the two, and the affection which Frederick displayed toward the stranger, whose name was Louis Berard, was one of the only really disinterested ones in his life.

[Pg 185]

As soon as Frederick had recovered sufficiently to travel, he left Madrid with his wife for a few weeks' sojourn at Biarritz, on the Bay of Biscay. The weather was not yet hot enough to be disagreeable, and the sea-breeze proved very beneficial to him. The pretty bathing resort, far from being deserted at this season of the year, still contained a considerable number of English, American, and Russian families who had been wintering there, and the Casino was nearly as animated and frequented as in the months of September and October, which constitute the fashionable season of Biarritz.

One morning Frederick, who could now walk without any difficulty, proposed to his wife that they should go for a stroll to the Vieux-Port, and they set off in high spirits, taking a path along the shore, which latter is lined here with lofty cliffs, in which large and mysterious-looking caves have been excavated by the waves. It was a lovely day, although the sun was not shining. Both sea and sky were of that delicate pearly tint which reminds one of the inside of a shell; the violets were thick in the hedges, and the yellow blossoms of the butterwort were flung like so many gold pieces over the brown furrows of the fields. Far below them the sea was full of life; market boats and fishing boats, skiffs and canoes of all kinds, with striped sails, were crossing each other on its surface. There were lovely white wreaths of mist to the southward, airy and suggestive as the vail of a bride, and the silver-shining wings of a score of white sea-gulls dipped now and again in the hollows of the lazy wavelets. The air was full of the intense perfume of the trees, which were starred all over with their white and pink blossoms. In the distance the beautiful coast of Spain stretched away into endless realms of sparkling, though subdued, light, and the lofty range of the Pyrenees rose blue and snow-crowned behind the fairy shore of this enchanted paradise.

[Pg 186]

Frederick and Dolores walked briskly along arm in arm. The path was narrow and there was just room for two people to pass between the precipice and the tall hawthorn hedges intermingled with bowlders of fallen rocks, from between which here and again there rose great stone pines, relics of those wild pine woods which, before the modern culture had appeared on the scene with ax and spade, had doubtless covered the whole of the table land.

Suddenly at a sharp curve of the path they came face to face with a lady and gentleman who were approaching from the opposite direction. The lady was young and rather good-looking; the gentleman was old, and his hair and mustache were snow-white, but his erect bearing and still firm step belied his age. He was a tall, aristocratic-looking man, with piercing blue eyes, and gave one the impression of being an officer in plain clothes. In the button-hole of his light gray frock-coat was the rosette of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Frederick pulled Dolores on one side to make room for the strangers, but as he did so he became pale to the very lips. Involuntarily he bared his head and made a rapid movement toward the old gentleman. But he was met by so haughty a gaze that he lowered his eyes and, forgetting the astonished Dolores, he walked quickly on. He had recognized his father, General Count von Waldberg, from whom he had parted under such painful circumstance eleven years before.