INTRIGUE

“Ursula van Helmont is better,” announced Willie, dawdling into his wife’s boudoir; “they say she will live.”

Helena glanced up from her book, not without a slight shade of impatience.

“Who told you?” she asked. “Will you have some tea? It’s quite cold.”

“Much obliged. Oh, everybody told me—they were talking it over at the Club.”

“And supposing she had died,” continued Helena, carelessly, “of this diphtheria or brain fever, or whatever she had, then I suppose DominÉ Rovers would have reigned at the Horst?”

“I suppose so,” replied Willie, eating a great hunch of plum-cake; “but you mustn’t ask me, because I don’t understand. However, it’s so idiotic that I dare say it’s law.”

Helena smiled.

“Really, Willie,” she said, “you are growing quite intelligent.”

“Oh, it’s not me,” confessed honest Willie. “Everybody was saying it.”

A tinge of disappointment stole over Helena’s mobile face.

“And doesn’t it seem utterly ridiculous and unjust that if Ursula Rovers marries again all the Helmont property will go to that Smith or Jones, or whatever his name may be? It’s shamefully hard on Gerard.”

“Of course Ursula will marry again,” said Helena. “People who have been married like that always do.”

“Like what?”

“Willie, you are insufferable. Surely, ‘le secret d’ennuyer, c’est de tout demander.’ Like that. Neither happily nor unhappily. They have had a glimpse of possibilities. It is like gambling without a decisive turn of luck either way; one goes on. I should marry again.”

“If I give you a chance,” grinned Willie, who understood that.

“Which you are not gallant enough to do. Unless you seriously object, Willie, I should like to go on with my book.”

He walked across and took it out of her hand.

“La Terre!” he said. “Really, Nellie, your tastes are catholic.”

“Have you read it?” she asked, with a faint blush.

“Yes. Somebody told me it was Zola’s dirtiest, so I looked at it once in a way.”

“Ah, there, you see, lies the difference. You read it for the dirt. Yes, undeniably, Zola is dirty, but he is not immoral. However, I think he is dull. He photographs caricatures, and that is in itself absurd. One photographs realities; caricatures should be drawn. No, I am not speaking to you, Willie; I am speaking to somebody as an audience: one has to sometimes. I’ll throw away this book, if you like.” She looked up at her husband almost entreatingly.

Willie hesitated, standing in the middle of the room.

“Oh no,” he said. “After all, it’s your business, not mine.”

“All right. Don’t eat too much cake.”

Helena returned to her volume, but not to her reading. Between her eyes and the printed page there settled, immovable, a vision of a handsome, animated, angry face, and once more she saw a blue-paper novel flying into a corner of the room. “No man that really loves a woman would like to think of her as reading such a book as that.”

She turned away, on her couch, and stared hard at the pink-embroidered rosebuds on the wall.

“What! Crying?” exclaimed Willie, in great distress, coming round from the window. “Why, Nellie, what’s the matter? Is your toothache bad again?”

“Yes, very bad,” she sobbed, breaking down. “Do go, Willie, and send me Mademoiselle Papotier with the little bottle of laudanum.”

Mademoiselle Papotier had remained at the Van Trossarts’, but she frequently came to spend a few days with Helena. She now duly appeared, summoned by loud cries from her host.

“Papotier,” said Helena, thoughtfully, “if ever I have a daughter, I shall not educate her as you educated me.”

“That is a reproach, my dear,” replied the French governess, serenely, knitting on steadily with mittened hands.

“No, it is a compliment. You developed the heart. You did right. But I should kill it.”

“My child, I could not have killed your heart; it was too large.” The little old doll laid down her work, to gaze affectionately at her former pupil.

“Why has God sold us to men that we must live with them?” cried Helena, passionately. “He should have given us to angels or to brutes. We could have been happy with either of those.”

“Fi, donc, ma chÉrie,” said Mademoiselle. “The good God knows his business better than you.”

“Ah, my dear Papotier, you are an orthodox Christian. You enjoy all the consolations of religion and neglect all its duties. It is a very advantageous arrangement to be an orthodox Christian.”

“It is,” replied the Frenchwoman, with a quick gleam of malice. “For we Christians, although we do wrong like other people, at least occasionally have the grace to leave off.” She dropped her eyelids, and her needles clicked.

“Yes, when you are tired of it,” retorted Helena, who perfectly understood the allusion to her penchant for her cousin. “And then your priest gives you absolution. I would not buy off the flames of hell at the rate of a florin per fagot.” She paused, meditatively. “And feel them burning just the same,” she added. Then she laughed. “Papot,” she said, “you do not know that I have got a new admirer? No, I do not mean Willie, though he certainly is more considerate than he used to be. My admirer is old, and fat, and yellow; his name is Mopius, and he is uncle to the Queen of the Horst. I met him there the Christmas before last. Him and his—charming young wife.”

“Yes?” assented Mademoiselle, listlessly. “My dear, you have many admirers. Fortunately they are platonic”—she sighed a little sigh—“as were mine.”

“This one is obstreperous,” persisted Helena, glancing at the clock. “He presented me with a big bouquet last night at the Casino ball, making a fool of me before everybody. And he asked permission to call without his wife. Such things should be done without asking. I am expecting him even now.”

“My dear, what will you do with him?”

“I don’t know. Be revenged on him, some time, for last night’s Jocrissiade.”

Mevrouw van Troyen shut down her teapot with a vigorous snap.

“There he is,” she said, as the bell rang.

“My dear, your tea is not drinkable.”

“What does that matter? Is it not for an admirer?”

Mynheer Mopius entered, looking as smart as a blue-speckled yellow waistcoat could make him. His thin hair was observably neat; he bowed off the retreating Papotier with a grace which bespoke his familiarity with the saloons of the aristocracy.

“I am come, Mevrouw,” he said to the mistress of the mansion, “to express my condolence. I assure you I felt for you last night.”

“Really? You surprise me,” said Helena, meaningly. “Certainly, I deserved your pity. And every one else’s. But these mixed entertainments are always a bore.”

“I was alluding,” replied Mynheer Mopius, solemnly, “to the tragic death of our cousin Otto.”

“Oh, were you? But that’s several weeks ago. I don’t think I can claim much sympathy on account of the death of my cousins. Please don’t, Mynheer Mopius. Besides, he was your nephew—wasn’t he?—so you can condole with yourself.”

“He was.” Mynheer Mopius thoughtfully stroked his hat. “We are a—kind of connection, Mevrouw.”

“Ursula and you? So I understood,” retorted Helena, hastily. “I hope Mevrouw Mopius is well? It was very kind of her to send me those flowers last night.”

“How delicate! How high-bred!” reflected Mopius. “Oh, Mevrouw,” he stammered, “it was nothing. The merest trifle—”

“But she must never do it, or anything like it, again.”

Mynheer Mopius was doubly charmed. Whenever he made a fool of himself, he was tempted thereto by the belief that ladies found him irresistible. Some few men develop that fancy. Surely, in Mynheer Mopius’s case, his first wife was more to blame than he himself.

“The unfading roses are yours,” he said, simpering and bowing.

“Have another cup of tea,” interrupted Helena, sharply.

The old Indian, as we know, was a great connoisseur; he had gulped down two bowls of hot water already, imagining that it would not be proper to refuse. He meekly accepted a third, but its tepid unsavoriness aroused his native assumption.

“If I may make so free,” he said, “I should like to ask where you get—ahem!—this, Mevrouw”—he tapped his cup—“and what you pay for it?”

“Two and ninepence, I believe,” replied the lady, sweetly. “If you wish, I’ll ring and ask the cook. I’m glad you like it. There’s plenty more.”

“Only two and ninepence!” exclaimed Mopius, horror-stricken. “That’s the worst of it; you Europeans fancy you can get things without paying for them. I was in the East myself for twenty years; I know what good tea is—nobody better. I was famous for my tea at Batavia, Mevrouw, as Mevrouw Steelenaar told me, the Viceroy’s wife. ‘Mynheer Mopius,’ she said to me, ‘where do you get this delicious mixture?’ But I wouldn’t tell her. However, I’ll send you some. ’Pon my soul I shall. You shall know what tea is. I’ll send you a pound to-morrow. I’ll send you ten pounds.”

Helena bent forward from her listless couch; a lily of the valley dropped away among the laces of her gown, and Mynheer Mopius caught at it with eager, fat fingers.

“Mynheer, you will send me nothing,” said Helena, gravely. “Did I not make my meaning plain enough just now?” Then, not wishing to go too far, “I cannot receive presents, thank you.” And, unconsciously, the twinkle in her angry eyes wandered away to a big portrait of her florid Willie.

“Ah!” said Mopius, and put the lily in his button-hole. He did it fondly, lingeringly. He understood that young husbands are jealous, however unreasonably, of experienced, intelligent men of the world. His manner exasperated her. “I am sorry,” he said, flicking the flower. “I should have been only too glad, had there been anything I could have done for Mevrouw van Troyen.”

Mevrouw van Troyen burst out laughing. “Really?” she cried, “even leaving me when I must go and dress for dinner? Mynheer van Trossart dines with us to-night; he is going to take me to the theatre.” She rose.

Mopius rose also, but hung back. “Ah, the Baron van Trossart,” he said. “Just so! I am very anxious to make his acquaintance. Some day, perhaps, I hope—” He hesitated, looking wistfully at Helena.

Suddenly his manner, his tone, his expression explained the whole thing to her. It was not her young beauty that had attracted this poor creature. She remembered having heard some one speak of the town-councillor’s ambition. There was a vacancy in Parliament—

“You can stay and meet him now, if you like,” she said, ungraciously, but grasping at vengeance swift and sure. “Oh yes, he is well enough, thanks; only rather worried about this approaching election for Horstwyk. They can’t find, I am told, a desirable candidate.”

She paused by the door. One look at Mopius’s face was sufficient. “I don’t take much interest in politics,” she continued; “but, of course, my godfather does. He has so much influence. And he tells me that at Horstwyk they want a moderate man, one that would go down with many of the Clericals—a Conservative, in fact. Such people are so difficult to find nowadays. Everybody is extreme.”

“But—but—excuse me,” stammered Mopius. “One moment, I beg. I had always understood that the Baron van Trossart was a Liberal—”

“A Liberal? Oh, dear, no. He would be a Conservative if there were any Conservatives left. As it is, he would never espouse the cause of an extremist. He sympathizes with the Clericals in many things. And now I must really go up-stairs. I will send my husband in to amuse you. Don’t talk politics to him, Mynheer Mopius. He knows no more about them than I.”[J]

Mynheer Mopius, left alone, wiped his blotchy, perspiring forehead. It was a master-stroke to have insinuated himself thus into the graces of this great lady whom he had been lucky enough to meet at the Horst. He felt very friendly towards Ursula.

“Ah, JacÓbus,” he said to himself in the glass, “you will be ‘high and mighty’[K] yet.” And he smiled at the vanity of women.

Willie came lounging in obediently, and carried off the worshipful town-councillor to the smoking-room.

“A fine house, Mynheer van Troyen,” said the conciliatory Mopius. “Exceedingly tasteful.”

“Oh, it’s well enough,” assented loose-tongued Willie. “But the money’s my wife’s, you know. And, by Jove! don’t she keep it under lock and key!”

Having reached the tether of his conversation, the young officer fell a-yawning, and soon suggested a little quiet ÉcartÉ.

“There’s half an hour more, at least,” he said.

Did Mynheer Mopius know the game? Yes, Mynheer Mopius had played it twenty years ago in India. Ah, indeed; they play for high stakes there! Willie suggested fifty florins. He played better than Mynheer Mopius. Twenty years is a long time. When Baron van Trossart joined the two gentlemen, Mynheer Mopius had lost five hundred florins, but he found himself on quite familiar terms with Willie, and in the same room with Baron van Trossart. He bowed pompously, patronizing the man who had just plucked him. “His wife would have accompanied him,” he said, “but that interesting circumstances—” and he smiled knowingly to the great noble before him, on whose haughty features the look of chronic moroseness sat so well.

A little preliminary awkwardness was deepened by his praising, all astray, the amiability of the Baron’s “charming daughter,” but presently the tide flowed swiftly into its preconcerted channel, Helena herself having entered, resplendent with a couple of diamond stars, to direct its course.

“No, Mynheer van Trossart,” said Mopius, nervously hurried, “I should never feel in sympathy with extremists. What we need nowadays, as I take it, is moderation, pacification—the old Conservative spirit, in fact.”

“Ah, yes, ah!” said the Baron. He was rather interested in Mopius, having heard of him as one of those men who are willing and able to spend money in a good cause, if thereby they can further their own. “Just the person, perhaps, for a candidate,” he said to himself.

“Only,” continued Mopius, ingenuously, “such people are so difficult to find. Everybody is extreme, and that frightens off the undecided voters. Now, I cannot help sympathizing with the Clericals in many points. We have wronged them. Undoubtedly, we have wronged them. Each man, Mynheer van Trossart, ought to be permitted to serve God in his own way.”

“Oh, undoubtedly,” said the Baron, a little uneasily, nevertheless.

“Personally, for instance, I take a great interest in the movement on behalf of confessional schools. I am speaking, of course, of private initiative.” He hesitated; Helena nodded encouragement across the Baron’s meditative study of his cigar. “I would go even a little further. I consider that some well-proportioned concessions—The development of Atheism, Mynheer van Trossart, is not one that I contemplate with satisfaction.”

The Government functionary turned in dismay. “Why, Mynheer,” he exclaimed, “I had been quite given to understand you were a Liberal?”

Helena’s voice broke the ensuing silence. “We really must go in to dinner, papa. We shall be late for the theatre. Good-bye, Mr. Mopius; my compliments to Mevrouw!” She took the Baron’s arm and drew him away. “I like a fat fool,” she said on the stairs; “your lean fool is only half a fool. He can’t look the part.”