XIV THE SAVING GRACE

It was not until the gate was locked behind him that Ordham remembered that in his preoccupation he had forgotten to tell his kutscher to return for him. If any more harrowing climax could have been devised by a vicious fate to crown the unhappiest day of his life than a midnight walk from Schwabing to Barerstrasse—some three miles—his imagination was unable to suggest it. He detested walking at any time, and to-night his throat really was irritated, his head ached a little. Schwabing showed not a point of light; it might have been the Alpine village it so picturesquely resembled. There was a long highway between fields to traverse before reaching the Ludwigstrasse, and even there he might not pick up a cab. The stately shell of Munich and most of her contents were practically dead at ten o’clock.

A sharp wind was blowing from the Alps across the high plateau. Ordham pulled up the collar of his light overcoat and walked more briskly than was his habit. Illness might be convenient as an excuse, but as a fact was little to his taste; although he realized that it was not the worst evil that could befall him at present.

For perhaps the first time in his life something deeper than his temper was agitated. He could always stamp about in a fine rage when annoyed, but he had had little occasion to rail at a perverse fate. Now he found himself face to face with a distinct crisis in his life—the probability of disaster just beyond. He had heard Frau von Wass talk wildly before, but other women talked wildly and nothing came of it. They seemed rather to enjoy their little dramas than otherwise. He regarded them all as interesting books—or plays—which he was graciously permitted to read at first hand. But his own attitude had always been nearly impersonal. When he had closed the book clept “Frau von Wass,” he had, in the insolence and inexperience of his youth, taken for granted that it would accumulate dust in limbo with all of its kind. He had been as much astonished as annoyed at the turn affairs had taken, but not apprehensive until to-day. That Hélène Wass was in desperate earnest he could no longer flatter himself by doubting. He reviewed his own share in the incident; and while he was amazed that such a price should be levied for what had been little more than politeness on his part, still was he far too intelligent not to remind himself that men had paid as high for less, and too just not to admit that it had been in his power to nip the woman’s passion in the bud.

Although he was puzzled as well as frightened at this encounter with the grim visage of life, whose gloomy unsympathetic eyes presaged defeat, he was sullenly angry with himself. If he had loved the woman or even been possessed, no matter how briefly, by one of those overwhelming passions of which he was always reading and hearing, he felt that he would have accepted the consequences without flinching. But as it was, he felt like a foolish mariner who had gone to sea without a compass and found himself justly on the rocks. Unless the unexpected happened, it looked as if he would be swept out of Munich with the rest of the Frau Geheimrath’s wreckage and landed high and dry in Italy.

Suddenly another ugly phase of this crisis in his life leapt to his mind, and he passed through the arch of the Siegesthor with such a stride that the British Minister, returning from a late card party, did not recognize him and went on without offering the hospitality of his coupé.

Normally there was a faint hope that Bridgminster would once more pay his debts, those distressing tradesmen’s bills of which he was reminded daily. His tailor’s was but one, and the aggregate must be close upon a thousand pounds. But if he openly committed the sin with which his austere brother had the least sympathy, he would be driven into the bankruptcy court. That would be a disgrace which would blast his self-respect to the roots, even did England, never lenient to this offence, forget it in time. There is a secret tendency in most human hearts to forgive a lover his worst transgressions, but no sympathy whatever for the financial muddler. And such a thing was unheard of in his family, whatever its lapses in other directions. It was bred in his very marrow to shrink with fastidious disgust from any form of monetary publicity. To owe money to tradespeople did not worry him in the least so long as they were sensible and patient, but there was ineffable disgrace in being blazoned to the world as a man hopelessly in debt.

It was at this agonizing point in his reflections that his attention was attracted by the peculiar antics of a dog emerging from the Schellingstrasse. It had dropped something and was howling, grovelling in evident appeal at the feet of a woman who soundly berated it. The woman stamped her huge foot and pointed to the object the dog had dropped. Howling and yelping an almost human protest, the dog picked up the object and ran past Ordham into the Ludwigstrasse, then discarded his burden once more, sat down on his haunches, and lifted up his voice in a series of cries that sounded like an appeal to the winking stars.

Ordham, his curiosity excited, went forward, and bending down, examined the object of the dog’s aversion. It was a block of ice. The poor beast was howling with a toothache. Ordham looked at the woman as much in amazement as in anger. She could have carried the ice in her skirt; it was inconceivable to him that any one could maltreat a dog. But as he opened his mouth to relieve his indignation, he realized that any attempt to penetrate the thick Bavarian skull with his inadequate German would be a mere waste of time. He picked up the piece of ice and dropped it into the pocket of his overcoat.

“If you will lead the way,” he said, “I will carry it for you.”

The astonished housewife stared in amazement, ejaculated “Ach Gott!” then, with a laugh of deep good-natured contempt, led off with a swing that exhibited the tops of her man’s boots, the red blanket petticoat above them, and the full flounces of her pantalets. She was almost as broad as long, her waist line being in no place distinguishable from the solid expanses above and below. Her skirts were short; she wore a shawl crossed over her upper amplitudes and pinned behind. A small Tyrolean hat sat jauntily above a walnut of plastered hair. She was a street sweeper, inured to every sort of hardship, and not likely to sympathize with a dog’s aching teeth. But no doubt she fed him as well as she could afford.

The strange procession made its way up the stately Ludwigstrasse, deserted but for the sentries before a palace. Once or twice Ordham, contemplating his guide, who swung like a vast pendulum, laughed silently. The grateful dog flew up and down, or frisked about his heels in an ecstasy of relief. At the Odeonsplatz were two belated cabs. Ordham handed into one the woman, the dog, and the ice, paid the driver, and sank into the other with a sigh of gratitude, not only for the more familiar mode of locomotion, but for the temporary diversion afforded by a dog with a toothache! For a few moments he had forgotten his bills and Frau von Wass. When he reached the Legation his throat was very sore, and fortune so far favoured him that on the following day he really was laid up with bronchitis. His servant took a verbal message to the Frau Geheimrath, which, after sharp questioning, she was forced to accept.