XLIV STARS AND DUST

Munich was sheathed in ice. The bare trees of the Englischergarten, the little parks set into the city like so many jewels, the long avenue of the Leopoldstrasse, the thousand gardens, glittered with the prismatic radiance of the diamond, while the hard snow was underfoot, and the sky was like a vast blue and white flag of the House of Wittelsbach. The lake was frozen, and gay with skating parties. The Isar alone flowed too swiftly to be caught in the ice grasp. It was intensely cold, clear, brilliant, tonic. Margarethe opened the window of her tower and stood looking out at the arctic splendours winter had given to the park beyond the light green belt of water. Once more she felt something of the exaltation of spirit that in the old days she had been able almost to summon at will, and that had never tarried before such inspiration as this.

But she moved away in a moment with an impatient sigh and returned to the warm comfort of the gallery. It was now four months since she had seen Ordham, and she was still unable to break the mental habit of discussing all things interesting with him, invoking him to share her pleasure. She had but just now called his attention to the contrast of the beryl green of the river with the crystal groves beyond. Yesterday she had caught herself discussing A Rebours with him. Was it not time to banish this senseless habit?

It was, of course, the effect of living alone, and some time since she had made up her mind to go constantly into society upon its return, become a persistent seeker after the lighter distractions of the world. She sighed again as she thought of that ideal life she had led in this villa by the Isar for nearly seven years, and which she found it impossible to renew. But she had opened the gates of her Eden deliberately, and it was fair that she should pay the price.

She had made no attempt to develop her infrequent interchange of notes with Ordham into a correspondence, partly because she knew that a young bridegroom has no reserve fund of sentiment, no active memories of the past, partly because she had persuaded herself of a firm belief in the wisdom of severed relations. But yesterday she had received a call from Princess Nachmeister, who had been flitting about, avoiding her castle after a brief sojourn in the summer, as she was in an economical temper and indisposed to entertain a horde of relatives. In Paris she had met Mrs. Cutting, whose detention in New York had been mercifully brief, and had gone with her to Ordham Castle. Immediately upon her return to Munich she had flown to her admirable Styr with news of their jüngling. The Ordhams were entertaining one great house party after another, and in the most brilliant fashion imaginable. Those Americans! They cared not what they spent. Mabel received with the aplomb of six seasons, and was increasingly beautiful, with frocks—But frocks! New ones came every week from Paris. In spite of a certain expected event, mercifully distant, she was quite well, and with that tall slender figure—enfin! The jüngling? He was the most perfect host imaginable. He even sacrificed himself and rode to hounds with his guests; a lazy careless rider, but often in the lead, nevertheless. Need she ask? So much exercise and outdoor life had improved him; he was beginning to have a more lusty look, while losing nothing of that aloof air, that perfect courtesy. But he glowed. Ah, yes! no doubt with happiness as well as health. His career? She had had but few words with him on the subject, for with royalties, she could not sit beside him at dinner; but once or twice he had managed to place her next to him at luncheon; yes, she had asked him, and he had said that no doubt he should go abroad late in the following year, that fortunately these unavoidable delays would not ruin his prospects. But he had spoken languidly; it was evident that he was well content. And why not? Gott! but that was a life. Forty million marks and as much again when dear Adela was gathered to her American ancestors. Gott! One of the greatest places in England virtually his own, a broken-down elder brother, and a lovely wife!

“I forgot that I had been so ambitious for him,” continued the old dame, contritely. “I said: ‘But this is enough. Why fly in the face of providence by asking all things? And if dear Mabel is so opposed to life on our Continent—what substitute, indeed, could we offer her, since she does not mind the climate of this island?’ And he said, in his old manner: ‘Of course. Why indeed? She is so happy that I am almost in love with England myself. It is all very wonderful.’ Then when I was gone from that enchanted scene, I reproached myself. Shall he bury those great abilities in matrimony, in society, in that country which is always making great men but very properly sending them elsewhere? Is he not made to manipulate the destinies of Europe? I should have remonstrated instead of weakly yielding, almost participating in his happiness, the charming creature! It was such a delight to hear him jest and run on in his old fashion, to see him happy as the young should be happy. We must trust to time. He will wake up. It may be two years, three. But he was born to be a diplomatist and a great one, and that is not for nothing. Mabel may rule now, he may be philosophically happy, but—”

Judiciously interrogated, the keen old observer admitted that Mabel was selfish, spoilt, “American.” She loved Ordham. But yes! Was it not his lot to be loved? Too much, no doubt. He had the gift, the genius of charm, and when a young thing was married to him—enfin! Had she, Olivia Nachmeister, been fifty years younger, she should have married and worshipped him herself. But Mabel had no real sensuousness in her nature, none of those strong emotions that make the woman the willing subject of a resolute man. She loved, yes; but with youth, selfishness, vanity, romantic sentiment, the instinct of the race. That little brain would be cool and calculating in its fondest moments. He might win if ever it came to a great battle of two wills, crush that poor little butterfly, who fancied herself a personage of vast importance; but he never would manage her. But never! That was her part, and whether he recognized that fact, and was resigned, other causes keeping him in England, or whether he was merely enthralled, she could not say. But he had a jaw. Ma foi, but a jaw! And Mabel had been indulged like a—well, an American princess (“Who more disciplined than ours?”), from the moment she screeched in her cradle. “Some day—well, what matter? Do not all have their troubles? They are fortunate, those two, but they are not immortals. Think of our beloved King, and of Rudolph von Hapsburg. But the future Bridgminster has one talent denied these poor princes, what you call ‘landing on his feet.’ Through no management of his, perhaps, but destiny—women?—Yes, shall not we always arrange that he alights in the safe spot, dry, sound, whole, even if he has whirled through the air in the heart of what you call a cyclone? What happens to the women? Ah, many die in this world that a few may live, dear Gr?fin.” It was a mere matter of destiny—of the survival of the strongest—of charm, perhaps? She was a student of effects, not of causes. It was enough to know the surface of this terrible world; but dig up the roots and put them under the microscope? Not she! That was for clever people like Die Styr and their dear jüngling.

To do Excellenz justice, she had not come altogether to torment Styr with this picture of Ordham’s felicity, for she was still convinced that there had been but a pleasant summer friendship between the two, whose only undercurrent was the subtle influence exercised upon Ordham in behalf of his examinations. To no other woman would she have given the benefit of the doubt for a moment, but not only had Styr let the young man go, permitted him to marry, but she looked quite the same as ever. She was an artist, nothing more. They came to that! What the Nachmeister had forgotten, possibly because the fact was so glaring that it blinded her, was that Styr was a great actress. And she was something more, a woman of magnificent pride, of iron strength of will. Not a tear had she shed over the loss of Ordham, not a moment’s sleep had she lost since that night when she had very nearly taken all Munich into her confidence. She could summon sleep, banish thought, the moment her head touched the pillow. She had no mind to furnish gossip for Nachmeister, still less to ruin her own life. If she chose to spend her idler hours in his imagined society, why not? That was compensation of a sort and did no harm.

She had persistently refused to sing Isolde again, for not only was she aware that Munich would demand a repetition of her last performance, an impossible feat even for her, but, strong as she was, she shrank from too vivid a reminder of that awful night. She had weathered a storm of feeling that would have prostrated a weaker or a less seasoned woman; but avaunt its memory, nevertheless!

The worst was over, yes, but not for a moment did she cease to miss him, to regret, to long unreasonably for his return. Her mind argued that an episode of that sort when closed was closed forever, but her heart ached. True, she had had the perfect experience she deliberately planned, she possessed a beautiful memory; but she found this cold comfort, now that she no longer pretended to deny that she loved him, that her imagination had woven itself all over that Ordham so unknown to others, until he was almost visibly hers.

This morning she asked herself squarely what she intended to do, admitting as squarely that from the very first she had had no real intention of remaining quiescent and forgotten. She could meet him within a week if she chose, for a prima donna can always develop a throat and demand a rest. But she was quite positive that the time had not yet come for their second meeting. She knew that he would tire of his Mabel, hate her, beyond doubt, and before long; but she did not care to see him until then. Ordham complacently in love with a pretty doll might sicken her; she was resigned never to find again the young man she had known, but she wanted him in his next evolution, not this! not this!

She had remained becalmed, unanalytical, until yesterday, because nothing had occurred to rouse her from the half melancholy half pleasurable state of mind into which she had drifted. But Princess Nachmeister’s gossip had filled her with rage and bitterness. The sleeping devil she so seldom permitted to assert itself stirred, yawned, awakened. The little fool had lived in her paradise long enough. She comprehended the intentions of Mabel Ordham and her mother, for Excellenz had prattled for quite an hour. They purposed to turn this brilliant gifted but incomparably lazy young man into the mere husband of a rich wife, of a professional beauty, manipulating and drugging him until the springs that carry ambition over discouragement and opposition had sagged, broken, and he would sink down into his good fortune, entertaining the great of the land at his castle, proud of the enormous social importance to which he had attained in his youth; taking the waters at Carlsbad, growing stouter every year; wintering on the Riviera; everywhere following his wife at a respectful distance while her court crowded at her heels; taking out his increasing brood for an occasional romp in the park—

She sprang to her feet with a hoarse cry of rage and a face that would have made Excellenz cross and excoriate herself. But before she reached her desk that other self so assiduously cultivated these last nine years cried out peremptorily. True, she did take a deep and legitimate interest in this young man whose future was threatened, but that was not the impulse which drove her to open a campaign that must shatter his domestic life. No woman, particularly no woman constantly exercising an art, occupies herself for long with the future of any man that has not vitally interested her. Friendship between the sexes is casual, a mere matter of time and habit, never demonstrating itself during long absences unless love skulks at the foundations. Had Ordham interested her no more vitally than he had interested so many others during his memorable sojourn in Munich his future could have taken care of itself. But not only was he her chief work, whom she would not renounce unfinished, but she wanted him to be conscious that his soul, his ego, was hers. The passions of the body, what were they to the passions of the heart? There were remedies for the impulses that man shared in common with the beasts, but none short of death for that imperious demand of the soul for its mate. It was the one thing that made her give some credence to religious belief, this insistent desire of the hidden ego for one other ego out of the billions of egos on Earth alone. Possibly these two had sought one another since the birth of Time; perhaps they had been united and severed, united and severed; paying, no doubt, for sins and crimes for which no other adequate punishment could be devised even by a resourceful God. If she had committed crimes in another existence instead of hideous sins as in this, it was possible that her punishment was that brief tormenting glimpse of her other part, possible also that she should be just, and accept the natural sequence as final.

But his secret, invisible life?

She made a last-effort to be “fine,” always a pitiful effort in people foredoomed by the very strength of their wills and passions, the anarchistic tendencies of their strong brains, to failure. Let him go! When he was older! Time might awaken him, ambition call, with no assistance from her. Let him be happy as long as he could; untroubled. Let that poor child, whose worst offence, after all, was her love for this charming young man—bah! Not for nothing was she the greatest of Isoldes. She went straight to her desk.