VIII PURPLE LILIES AND BITTER FRUIT

That night Styr sang Isolde. On the morning following, Ordham sent her a box of purple lilies. He expected no acknowledgment, for he knew that she ignored all offerings; but in the course of the afternoon he received a note which banished evil memories, including his struggles with Fr?ulein Lutz.

“Dear Mr. Ordham: I feel Isolde herself with these purple lilies in my hands. She was a great woman and no other colour is worthy of her. I have half promised to sing at Princess Nachmeister’s concert to-morrow night, and now I have a fancy to cover myself with these lilies and sing the Liebestod. One needs inspiration of an uncommon sort when, unsupported by orchestra and footlights, one feels as if one might founder any moment in a sea of impertinent eyes. Your eyes, at least, are kind and encouraging. I will sing to you—for once—in memory of a picturesque hour designed by a king, and one of that unhappy monarch’s rare triumphs.

“Thank you so much!

“Margarethe Tann.”

This note so flattered and delighted him that he went voluntarily to call on Frau von Wass, and further beatified by finding her surrounded, made himself so charming to her guests that although, in spite of a murmured invitation, he would not linger, Hélène was tempted to believe that he kindled alone in the light of her smiles.

But he had no intention of bestowing a thought upon her except when circumstances forced him into her society. She had craved no more than her due, and for a fortnight longer she should have the benefit of all the courtesy he could summon, but not a shadow of superfluous attention. Little dreaming of what was pickling for him, he had already consigned her to the past, and the only wish she inspired was the expiration of the fortnight. He was too indifferent constitutionally to speculate upon her sudden change of front, and too inexperienced, despite his cleverness, to be the match of any adventuress who wore the habit of his own world. With those profound and haunted abysses of wicked women he had had as little contact as with that practical side of life which tapers the wits and sharpens the vision. Ten years hence and the Hélène Wasses would be read and disposed of in short order; to-day he was but the good-natured, honourable, gullible young English aristocrat, who has been taken in time out of mind, and will continue to be until England is Americanized.

On the following evening he took his chair in the concert room of the Nachmeister Palast with an inner ferment so successfully concealed that his face was quite expressionless. For once he did not smile into every pair of eyes turned upon him. He thought of little but the note of Margarethe Styr, which he had read several times. Whatever her motive, he knew that a great compliment had been paid him; and although a too kindly fate disposed him to take most compliments as a matter of course, and humility disturbed him at rare intervals, to-night he was inclined to be not only exultant but grateful.

The immense room, with its old crimson brocades, its heavy dingy rococo gilding, its cosmopolitan assemblage, was an imposing sight, and Ordham was still young enough to love society. Parties at Excellenz Nachmeister’s were seldom dowdy (unless too many royalties were present), and when, as to-night, the entire diplomatic corps was bidden, as well as many army officers and high officials, the men, in their beautiful uniforms, their orders and sashes, made an even more dazzling impression than the women. Uniforms at least were always new, and gowns did duty in aristocratic Munich for many seasons, regardless of changes in style. Waists too were large, and square, and soft; but the materials that covered them, whether old or new, were very rich, and jewels conceal many defects. A few besides Hélène Wass could be relied upon to display the fashions of Paris, and the women of the diplomatic corps were always resplendent.

When Princess Nachmeister received in this room she wore a powdered wig and a brocade as stiff as a hoopskirt, consequently was less of an eyesore than usual. Ordham had murmured his compliments, then after a hasty glance about—he arrived late—taken an empty chair between two people he did not know. Frau von Wass, a siren to-night in pale green tulle, water-lilies, and many pearls, left her seat, took a chair conspicuously apart, drew her eyelids into bows, and sent him a quiverful of arrows. All in vain.

A number of distinguished amateurs played and warbled brilliantly; for in the most musical city of northern Europe no one dared offend the hypercritical ear with a second-rate performance. Possart recited from Manfred. There was a small orchestra, and a tenor from Paris. At the end of two hours, when even the most artistic were thinking wistfully of supper and motion, there was a sharp rustle throughout the Festsaal, a deep intaking of breath: little Baron Walleypeg of the crooked smile had announced that Countess Tann had arrived at the last moment and would sing. (But he made the announcement in redundant phrases and tones of emotion, for he was a German, and he cherished a hopeless passion for Die Styr.)

She appeared suddenly on the platform at the head of the room and received a demonstration. Not only was she the artist best beloved in Munich, but surprise shattered the languor appropriate to so fashionable an occasion.

Ordham saw his lilies. They were in her hair, on her breast, on the front of her skirt. But what diverted his attention from this expected compliment was the surprise afforded by her evening gown. He had seen her only in the heavy white draperies affected by the heroines of Wagnerian romance, and in the still more classic costume she had worn at Neuschwanstein; he had supposed her to be a massive woman built for such r?les, and the more untuned to private life. To-night she wore a closely fitting modish gown of maize-coloured tulle, in which the purple lilies seemed to grow. Her neck and arms were uncovered, every line of her figure was salient. She was almost slender, clean-limbed, with a low small bust, and hips barely accentuated. Her shoulders sloped gracefully, her waist was so round that it looked small if it was not. Ordham was familiar, of course, with her long round throat, the famous arms and hands, and he marvelled that he had not taken for granted that the rest of her figure was built in harmony. Then he wondered what part that incomparable form, which might have risen from the mould of Messalina, had played in her unhappy past; and fancied he understood why she veiled it from the public eye with so complete an indifference. Again he felt sorry for her, and more determined than ever to know her.

She wore her heavy dark hair in a low knot. Her skin, ivory-white, had the luminous effect he had often noted on the stage and missed at Neuschwanstein; her eyes were sullen and heavy, she held her head very high. To the surprise of her audience she sang them several folk-songs. When she paused, there was a spontaneous outburst of approval, then a vocal demand for more. The applause subsided, and as she smiled and bowed, they took for granted that their desire for these old songs of their hearts was about to be gratified.

She burst softly into the Liebestod. Her face remained as immobile as ivory, but she threw the soul of Isolde into her voice. It floated upward in the first rapture of delirium, and few but saw the wild face of the dying queen rise above the body of Tristan, the castle towers, the dead Kurwenal, the weeping figures of King Mark and Br?ngane, the army of retainers in the background. Ordham, at least, shared Isolde’s vision of the valiant soul that had replaced the clay, as she sang, in tones heart-breaking in their sweet frenzy:

“Seht ihr’s Freunde?

?S?h’t ihr’s nicht?”

As her voice, rising on a higher and higher note, clear and sustained in the triumph of the seer, the heaven-given vision of the woman to whom her lost has been restored, it seemed the golden pathway upon which her own soul mounted to disappear among the stars. When she opened the flood-gates many gasped and wept; and Ordham, petrified, wondered if all the passion of the world were being swept out into eternity by that soul of Isolde, whom nothing but the passion of death could satisfy.

The voice, remote, dying, drawn to a mere crystal thread, sank away on the last lines:

“ertrinken,

?versinken,

?unbewusst—

?h?chste Lust!”

A great woman and her passion were dead and the world was poorer.

The applause was long and Styr was forced to return and bow many times; but when Baron Walleypeg announced that she would not sing again, the audience rose, and Ordham went in search of her. She had not glanced in his direction, but he chose to believe that she had kept her word and sung to him. He found her near the door of the supper room, surrounded by so dense a crowd of men and women that he could not approach within two feet of her. But she smiled at him, and a few moments later, when there was a break in the ranks, extended her hand. When he would have lifted it to his lips in the German fashion, which he privately thought beneath his dignity unless the hand were young and shapely, she shook his warmly, as if to remind him that she was an American. It was pleasant to feel a hearty clasp again, and he smiled with quick response, but asked her formally if it did not tire her to sing so often. She replied that nothing tired her; and then her ear was claimed by a personage in a light blue uniform embellished with many orders, whom she addressed as “K?nigliche Hoheit.” It was impossible to interrupt her conversation with a prince of the blood, but Ordham stood his ground and glanced about idly. Nothing could be more formal than Princess Nachmeister’s dinners, and nothing less so than her suppers, when her guests, presumably, had had enough of the straight and narrow chairs of Louis XIV. Only the unfortunate royalties were marshalled to an alcove and seated about a table on a dais; the other guests stood, sat on little sofas, grouped about small tables, as they listed; the women waited upon, not only by the lackeys, but by the young officers and diplomatic attachés. Now and again the imposing and portly, who no doubt commanded the incessant service of their hausfraus at home, were moved to demonstrate their youthful agility.

Ordham’s eye met the fixed gaze of Hélène Wass, sitting conspicuously apart. He nodded carelessly to the wife of the distinguished Geheimrath, heedless of the significance of the act, then coloured with annoyance as he turned to meet a glance of keen inquiry in the eyes of Margarethe Styr. Those eyes deliberately travelled from his to the siren in green tulle and water-lilies, and encountered a look of haughty defiance. Another dignitary offering his arm, she moved away, but gave Ordham a little nod and smile which seemed to say, “Later—nicht wahr?”

As he turned he could not avoid seeing that Frau von Wass was still strangely alone, and felt that he could do no less than offer his services. She was quite at the end of the room, and she had time to observe that he came on a leaden foot. Once more hatred flamed and almost routed the octopus of her love. She had leapt to the not unwarranted conclusion that there was an understanding between Ordham and the great singer whom no man pretended to know informally. The hand-shake and smile, the challenging glance at herself, caused the depths of the desperate woman to swarm with fighting devils, rushing on their armours and polishing their blades. She swore under her breath that she would ruin him if she could not have him, and her momentary hatred gave her a poise which, in her ferment, she might otherwise have been unable to command. She smiled brightly when he finally stood before her.

“Bring me an ice and a cup of coffee,” she said, in the pretty woman’s careless tone of command, which he had thought so charming a few weeks ago. He left her with alacrity; then, as he never could find anything, it was quite fifteen minutes before he returned, followed by two servants bearing a small table and a delicate but abundant supper.

“Always the grand seigneur!” she said lightly. “Even one or two Hoheits are waiting on the ladies, and as for several of my husband’s portly old confrères—Well! the less one expects of you the better.”

She took a chair that gave her the advantage of sitting with her back to the room, and Ordham wondered if she meant to treat him to a scene, then reassured himself with the memory of her formal renunciation. And her present manner was light and agreeable, that of the gay young woman of the world.

“See how bored those poor dears are!” She indicated the segregated royalties. “Whatever else has been my unhappy fate, I can at least be thankful that I was not born a Hoheit. Do you know that all the queer people of my acquaintance I have met at one or other of the royal palaces? No wonder royalties grasp at the few liberties permitted them, and snatch at any straw that relieves their ennui.”

“You met me at court,” said Ordham, for want of something better.

“Oh, not at court. You forget I cannot go to court. We met at a rout at the Red Palace. Have you forgotten?”

“Of course not. Only these distinctions are beyond me. When do you break all our hearts by leaving Munich?”

“Fritz puts me off! But I shall get him away almost as soon as I planned. It is time!” The last sentence was delivered as from the mouth of a toy cannon, and he jumped.

“What is it?”

“Do you not see that I am ostracized? Did you not notice that I was driven to seat myself apart—like a pariah?”

“Well, you are here”—he answered vaguely. “It is not so easy—”

“You forget that Fritz is one of the Nachmeister’s oldest and closest friends—a prehistoric lover, no doubt. No matter how much she may hate me, she will never insult him. But when he dies—”

“Oh, well, you do not like Munich and would live elsewhere in any case.” Ordham’s supper was turning to gall. Why would this woman always talk about herself?

“But the present? And if I should not be able to persuade Fritz to go, after all? Like all old men he is full of whims. It will be a martyrdom—I may as well tell you the cause. I learned it to-day. All your friends and admirers of my own dear sex have suddenly discovered that you see more of me than of any one else and have formed the one conclusion that can tickle the Munich palate. They have made up their minds that as yet you are not seriously in love with me, however, and have determined to get me out of the way before I have worked your ruin.”

“Ruin?”

“Yes—It seems that I have a reputation! You would neglect your studies, miss your examinations, wreck your chances of a wealthy marriage—heaven knows what not! So they have made up their minds to put a stop to it.”

“Made up their minds—” An odd light was kindling in Ordham’s eyes, which no longer looked juvenile, or even absent.

“It is a cabal. I only learned of it by the merest chance—rather, to be exact, through the consideration of one faithful friend. They have agreed to cut me, drop me, mortify me so that I shall no longer have the courage to go anywhere. Meanwhile they will shower you with invitations that you may not have an instant’s time to seek me. When you no longer meet me, even see me, of course you will forget my existence, after the fashion of volatile youth. Even the men that once liked me are in the plot, for they have guessed for a long time that I was interested in no one but you; and men are pettier than women.”

She told this preposterous story with so much concentrated passion, such bitterness and venom of accent, that almost any man would have believed her. And Ordham was young and full of the vanity of youth. His eyes were blazing, his jaw line looked even longer than usual. She was quite aware that he mistook his natural (and British) resentment at coercion of any sort for righteous wrath, also, that by this time he knew something of the petty cabals and intrigues of European court society; whose smiling distaste for truth in any form, he had once remarked to her, made even his diplomatic soul feel blunt and Anglo-Saxon.

“They have persuaded themselves that they think only of your welfare, that extraordinary future they all predict for you. But they know what their real motive is! It is their opportunity to cast me out, a pleasure too long deferred. And out, I suppose, I must go.”

“Well, I will go with you.” This came through his teeth. “How dare they?”

Her eyes dilated, but she dropped her lashes. She was not so carried away by her victory as to lose sight of its contributing cause. To ask him now if he loved her, to pin him down, might be fatal.

“Dare? They have taken you up to such an extent that they look upon themselves as the natural arbiters of your destiny. They are devoted to you. They have made you the fashion. Not tamely will they sit by and watch their work undone. If you want the whole truth,” she ran on with her amazing fertility, “they even wish to make you one of them. They have decided upon the Brobdingnagian daughter of the rich Herr von Schmidt, whose beer is justly famous. She is to be presented privately to the Queen-mother, and then she will be formally on the market. She looks as if she had beer in her very veins, and her ankles are as thick as my waist. But what does that signify? She is the only child of an ennobled Schmidt and will inherit millions. They will succeed! They will succeed! They are so clever—and you—you are so indolent—you would accept any one determined to marry you. It is your destiny to be managed, and when these friends fling garlands about your neck and gold dust into your eyes, you will murmur: ‘What a bore, but why not? My family expect something of the sort. What matter a yellow skin and thick ankles?’ While I—I—” She pounded the table in her mounting passion, no longer entirely simulated. “I shall be an outcast. Once out, they will never let me in again. Fritz, stupid as he is, will notice, inquire; he will treat me as badly as the rest. I shall have the whole world against me. I have always had the whole world against me. Those words will be found flaming in my heart when I am dead. Even if I left Munich, these people would hound me. It is my destiny. I can never escape it—never! never! You cannot understand; you, who were born at the top, who would compel deference for that alone if you committed the seven deadly sins, if you wore rags in Australia—while I—I, the daughter of a small merchant,—even if I had married a duke, the world would never let me forget that I was born bourgeois. And a mere ritter, like Fritz—”

“Oh, please, please compose yourself! Let us go into another room.” Ordham was cold with terror. A scene threatened him, with all Munich as audience. She had stirred his anger, his dramatic sense, his pity; but for the moment he had no thought of her. She controlled herself so quickly and completely, however, that he was moved to admiration. “Forgive me,” she said quietly, wishing that she had worn black velvet instead of this frivolous Lorelei costume, but contriving to look dignified in spite of her flushed cheeks and suffused eyes. “How could I forget myself? But I was carried away by the thought of that abominable cabal—remember that I only heard of it this afternoon. I wonder if they will succeed?”

“Of course not.”

She stared at him, fascinated, as she had done on the day of their reconciliation. Again his brain seemed to cast its shadow of maturity over his face. This singular effect, combined with his youthful bloom and indolent strength, entranced the blasée woman choking with the dregs of life. With a last effort she controlled herself again. He had had as much as he could stand for one evening; better she go home and mature her plans. She rose and drew herself up, looking far more the great lady than many of the homely shapeless women whose pedigrees ran back into the Holy Roman Empire. “I shall go now,” she said. “Will you tell a lackey to call my carriage?”

He went with her into the courtyard, and as he bade her good-night, she said softly: “You will come to-morrow?”

“Of course.”

“I shall expect you.”

He returned hastily to the house in the hope of a word with Margarethe Styr. But she had gone; and he took his own leave immediately, almost scowling at his many good friends, and wondering if any young man had ever been thrown into such perturbation before.