CHRISTMAS EVE

That evening every one was to help Ursula in the arrangement of her Christmas entertainment; but, as usual, a couple of willing spirits did the work, and the rest lounged about and talked. A big tree had to be decorated, and plenty of useful presents were awaiting assortment and assignment. This Christmas benefaction had been a long source of tranquil enjoyment to the young wife through the expectant autumn weeks; she had made many of the presents herself in the pauses from daintier work. She still endeavored to-night to take an interest in it all.

Helena Van Troyen was among the lookers-on. She frankly confessed that she had come to enjoy herself, and as an immediate step towards the attainment of her object, she drew the gentlemen away from the tree and around her. To her husband she said:

“You may help,” and Willie walked away laughing. But the poor relations were Ursula’s real adjuvants, delighted to be useful while finding some occupation for their hands. The son stood on a ladder half the evening, the mother’s dumpy fingers fashioned innumerable little gold-paper chains. Willie started a conversation with Harriet Mopius, and was getting on very well till he unfortunately asked where she lived.

“Why, in Drum!” said Harriet, whereupon Willie felt annoyed.

“Yes, Gerard is my cousin,” cried Helena; “I am delighted to see him again! He is an old admirer of mine, an accepted lover before you were born, Herr Graf!”

She was all a-sparkle in palest pink and diamonds and her own pearly vivacity. The German beside her bowed solemnly. He was a very big German, five foot eleven by two, padded at the shoulders and pinched everywhere else so as to look twice his original size, like an enormous capital T. Mevrouw van Troyen called him her cavaliere serviente, and had naturally brought him to the Horst, with her maid, her King Charles, and her husband.

“You think me a child, Meine GnÄdigste,” said the German. “Well, so be it. Cupid was ever a child, yet Venus played with him.”

“What nonsense,” laughed Helena; “but you Germans are all so sentimental; to us it is delightful, by way of change. My cousin is not sentimental; he is charmingly opaque. Come here, Gerard, at once; I want you to make friends with Count Frechenfels.”

There was an attempted challenge in her words and manner, as if she called upon her quondam lover to determine how completely the old wound was healed.

But Gerard had no intention of making friends with his belated rival. He disliked the man; he would have disliked him in any case, for, generally speaking, every Dutchman hates every German. The feeling is inborn, and very deeply regrettable, but it has little to do with the more recent annexation scare. Even the most ignorant Hollander must be aware that the near oppressors of his country have ever been, not Germans, but French. Racial discrepancies are at the bottom of the antipathy, accentuated by the irritating manner in which the overgrown young Teuton now often pats his dwarf of an elder brother on the head. The Count had been distributing pats all during dinner.

Gerard found it very hard work to be happy at the Horst. Even his mother had turned against him, worrying him about a subject he conscientiously avoided—his debts. And now Helena began bothering him with a sequel to Finis. He felt Ursula’s eyes upon him, as he had felt them all day; they were full of a dumb appeal, he could not tell for what. The eyes did not answer his question.

Their hunted look grew all the more alarmed if he approached. Did she already want him to leave the house? And if so, why? His thoughts of Ursula were growing more kindly, more like the old feeling of careless approval. That morning had revealed her to him in quite a new, and very beautiful, light.

“Count Frechenfels is most interesting, Gerard,” said Helena. “He was in the Franco-German war, and he has been wounded—everywhere! There was room. My cousin also is a soldier—Herr Graf.”

“Ah!” said the Count, through his eye-glass. “Is it you that the Baron was telling me of, who had served with the army of Africa?”

Gerard looked uncomfortable.

“But no, my dear Count,” said Helena, laughing; “that was my cousin Ursula’s father! Gerard has never killed anything but ladies.”

“Ah!” said the German again, in a different tone, and dropped the eye-glass. “La campagne des dames. Well, it is that in which the worst wounds are received.”

“My cousin does not think so,” murmured Helena, cruel in her coquetry. Gerard’s eyes blazed with a quick flash of resentment. His sister-in-law had drawn near, from a helpless feeling that she must amuse her guests.

“Ah, yours is a splendid army,” continued Helena, provokingly. “I don’t think I should care to be an officer unless I could be a Prussian. Victorious, irresistible, bronzed, scarred, the cross on your breast—that’s a soldier! What’s the use of a sword that you never can draw?”

“Come, come, you are too hard on your cousin,” said Count Frechenfels, with patronizing complacency. “After all, he cannot help himself. We Germans, also, we do not kill men in times of peace.”

“At least not officers!” exclaimed Gerard, breaking loose.

The big Prussian replaced his eye-glass, with silently insolent interrogation.

“You know as well as I, Herr Graf,” continued the young Dutchman, hotly, maddened by the other’s contempt, “how many privates commit suicide in German barracks, driven to despair by ill-treatment and blows. This year’s official statement”—he turned first to Ursula, then to Helena—“gives the number at nearly three thousand. Half the truth, as Von Grietz assured me, not counting those who are killed outright.”

“That is not true,” said the Count, coldly.

“What?”

“Your authorities are wrong. It is what the Liberals and Socialists say, and that kind of people. And, supposing it were true! Meine GnÄdigste, I had not expected to find a Radical among your friends.”

“You are quarrelling,” replied Helena, brusquely. “That is very stupid, and very bad form. Of course you Prussians are brutal, Count; we all know that, but it is what we like in you—at least, we women. In our effete civilization you are deliciously fresh.”

“All I ask is to please,” said the Count, with an unpleasant grin. “I will appear in a wolf’s skin, at your command.”

“Hush, you will make Gerard jealous! But imagine, Ursula, in the West of Europe, an officer daring to flog his recalcitrant men! It only bears out what I was maintaining. These are warriors: what say you?”

“The Frau Baronin’s opinion has weight,” smirked the German, bowing low. “She is the daughter of a hero,” and, perhaps unconsciously; his half-closed eyes stole round to Gerard.

“I suppose if a man is a soldier, he ought to enjoy fighting,” admitted Ursula, coming forward. “It seems a strange occupation for a Christian, but my father doesn’t agree to that. You know, Gerard, he always declares if he had two arms he would be off to Acheen.”

“Ah, Acheen!” cried Helena. “Just so; that’s where you ought to be, Gerard! and every Dutch officer! That’s what I can never understand. The whole lot of you dawdle about here in cafÉs and ball-rooms, and the flag over yonder sustains defeat after defeat.”

“Tell Willie to go,” retorted Gerard.

“So I do. And he asks, ‘What! go and get killed?’ And I say, ‘Exactly.’”

“Meanwhile, it is we who are doing our best to defend your flag,” interposed Count Frechenfels. “Your colonial army consists very largely of Germans.”

“Then why do you not defend it better?” said Gerard.

The Count shrugged his shoulders. “What will you have? It is not our own.”

Gerard turned mutely to Ursula. Her eyes were flashing. “There are brave Dutchmen enough over yonder, Herr Graf!” she exclaimed, “and brave Dutchmen enough here at home, willing and eager to go! All cannot exchange into Indian regiments. Helena, why do you speak so of our soldiers? There is not a nation in Europe has been braver than ours!”

“Ah, bah!” said Helena. “Then why doesn’t Gerard go? You yourself said your father would, and he is a clergyman!”

Ursula looked at Gerard. Again that strange alarm came into her eyes, which still shone with indignation.

“I shall not go for your ordering, Helena,” answered Gerard, in a burst of almost ill-mannered spite. “Honestly, I attach more importance to Ursula’s opinion.”

Helena laughed.

“Quite right,” she said. “So do I. Only, unfortunately, Ursula agrees with me. Ursula, you shouldn’t be afraid to say what you think.”

“I?” asked Ursula, proudly. “Yes, I agree with you in one point. I am my father’s child. I think every Dutch soldier who can”—she looked steadily away from Gerard—“should help to blot out the disgrace in Acheen.”

They were standing in a circle; the German twirled his mustache.

“When I go,” said Gerard, softly, “you will have to be very good to the one loving heart I leave behind.” And he turned on his heel.

“Ursula,” exclaimed Helena, “your evening is decidedly dull. Your relations from Bois-le-Duc are estimable people, but your evening is dull. I think I shall go and help the estimable young man on the ladder. Make him take me for the top device of his tree, Herr Graf. Challenge him if he says I am not enough of an angel!”

But other challenges had to be seen to first. Gerard waylaid his antagonist ten minutes later.

“Count Frechenfels,” he said, “you have twice called me a coward in the course of this evening.”

The Prussian drew himself up.

“And once a liar,” continued Gerard.

“I said nothing of the kind,” began the Count.

“And twice a liar,” amended Gerard. “And I hope you will give me an opportunity of proving that I am neither.”

“I am at your service,” said the Count, stiffly. “You are quite unintelligible to me, but I am fully at your service. I shall ask Mynheer van Troyen to act for me.”

He was passing on with another bow.

“Oh, no nonsense about seconds,” cried Gerard. “That’ll stop the whole business. I’ll arrange with you whatever you want arranged.”

The Prussian noble’s eyebrows rose in undisguised dismay.

“Mynheer,” he cried, “must I teach you the alphabet of honor? A duel without seconds? Am I speaking to an officer and a gentleman? It would be murder. Of course I refuse.”

Gerard barred his way, white to the lips.

“Count Frechenfels,” he said, gently, “allow me to call you a coward.”

The Prussian stopped, suddenly frozen into bronze. The Iron Cross gleamed, alive, on his breast.

“What do you want of me?” he asked, huskily. “I will shoot you with pleasure whenever and wherever you like.”

“Come out to-morrow morning at seven,” replied Gerard. “It won’t be light sooner. I shall expect you outside. What will you have? Pistols? Swords? Rapiers?”

“Swords,” said the German, walking off.

He hurriedly hunted up Willie van Troyen.

“Your younger cousin,” he said, “he is—peculiar, is he not? There is a suspicion of mental derangement?”

Willie roared with laughter.

“Gerard?” he cried. “No, indeed! Why he very nearly married my wife.”

“A—ah!” said the German, suddenly thoughtful.

Gerard went up-stairs immediately, after a specially tender good-night to “the one loving heart” that would care. He threw open his window, and stood looking out into the frosty night. The Christmas bells came pealing through the stillness. True, it was Christmas Eve.

The bells were ringing their message of peace and good-will. Gerard closed the window again. He had never fought a duel before. He had never been present at one. Duels are as rare in the Netherlands as in England. He wondered how many “encounters” the German had had.

He sat down to make a few farewell arrangements, as is best in such cases. He wrote a long letter to his mother and a short one to Otto. That was all. What did it matter? Even supposing—

He was furious with the weight of his dejection. He hoped that he would kill the Prussian.

At her dressing-room window also, late, stood Ursula, listening to the bells. They had long since ceased to ring, yet still she heard them on the starlit air. “Peace and good-will. Peace and good-will.”

Through the open door came the slow rhythm of Otto’s breathing. She quailed as it fell on her ear. Nothing could change.

“Glory to God in the Highest,” she said, tremulously. And she passed into the other room.