On the following day Platon Napraxine drove home from Monte Carlo at sunset with a piece of news to carry there which amused and unusually animated him.

He went up the stone stairs of the terrace of La Jacquemerille with the quick step of one who is eager to deliver himself of his tidings, and approached, with a rapidity unfrequent with him, the spot where his wife sat with her guests under the rose and white awning beside the marble balustrade and the variegated aloes.

The Princess Nadine was also full of unwonted animation; her cheek had its sea-shell flush, her eyes a vague and pleased expectancy; she was laughing a little and listening a good deal; besides her usual companions, she had there a group of Austrian and Russian diplomatists and some Parisian boulevardiers. They were just taking their leave as she was taking her tea, but it was not very greatly of them that she was thinking: she was thinking as she heard the roll of her husband’s carriage wheels beneath the carouba trees;——‘Ten to one Othmar will return with him.’

She lost her gay expression as she saw that he was alone.

All the day she had expected the man whom she had banished to return. She was accustomed to spaniels who crawled humbly up after a beating to solicit another beating rather than remain unnoticed. She had dismissed a certain apprehension which had told her that she had gone too far with the reflection that a man who loved her once did so for ever, and that, as he had returned from Asia, so he would return this morning, however great his offence or his humiliation might have been.

‘He is more romantic than most,’ she had thought, ‘but after all, he must be made of the same stuff.’

Napraxine approached her hurriedly, and scarcely giving himself time to formally greet the gentlemen there, cried to her aloud:

‘Ecoutez donc, Madame! You will never guess what has happened.’

‘It is of no use for us to try then,’ said his wife. ‘You are evidently gonflÉ with some tremendous intelligence. Pray unburden yourself. Perhaps the societies for the protection of animals have had Strasburg pÂtÉs made illegal?’

‘I have seen the Duchesse, I have seen Baron Fritz, I have seen Melville,’ answered her husband impetuously and triumphantly, ‘and they all say the same thing, so that there cannot be a doubt that it is true. Othmar marries that little cousin of Cri-Cri: the one of whom they meant to make a nun. What luck for her! But they say she is very beautiful, and only sixteen.’

The people assembled round her table raised a chorus of exclamation and of comment. Napraxine stood amidst them, delighted; his little social bomb had burst with the brilliancy and the noise that he had anticipated.

Nadine Napraxine turned her head with an involuntary movement of surprise.

‘Othmar!’ she repeated; her large black eyes opened fully with a perplexed expression.

‘It must be the girl who was in the boat,’ said Lady Brancepeth. ‘She was very handsome.’

Geraldine looked at Madame Napraxine with curiosity, eagerness, and gratification.

‘Who told you, Platon?’ she asked, with a certain impatience in her voice.

‘Three of them told me; Melville first, then Cri-Cri herself, in the Salle de Jeu. She did not seem to know whether to be affronted or pleased. She said the whole thing was a great surprise, but that she could not refuse Othmar; she declared that her projects were all upset, that her young cousin had been always destined to the religious life; that she regretted to have her turned from her vocation; in short, she talked a great deal of nonsense, but the upshot of it all was that Baron Fritz had made formal proposals, and that she had accepted them. In the gardens, coming away, I met the Baron himself; he was in a state of ecstasy; all he cares for is the perpetuation of the name of Othmar; but he declares that Mademoiselle de Valogne is everything he could desire, that she was excessively timid, and scarcely spoke a word when they allowed him to see her for five minutes, but that it was a very graceful timidity, and full of feeling.’

‘Baron Fritz in the operatic rÔle of Padrone d’Amore is infinitely droll,’ said Nadine, with a little cold laugh.

‘Of course Othmar was obliged to marry some time,’ continued Napraxine, who did not easily abandon a subject when one pleased him. ‘And he is—how old is he?—I saw the Baron as I left; he is delighted. He says the poor child fainted when they told her she was to be saved from a religious life.’

‘My dear Platon,’ said his wife impatiently, ‘ we can read Daudet or Henri Greville when we want this sort of thing. Pray, spare us. I hope Baron Fritz explained to her that all she is wanted for is to continue a race of Croatian money-lenders which he considers the pivot of the world. If she fail in doing that he will counsel a divorce, À la Bonaparte.’

‘He might marry an archduchess,’ said one of the diplomatists. ‘Surely, it is throwing himself away.’

‘It must be for love,’ said Geraldine, with an ironical smile.

‘The de Valogne was a great race, but impoverished long ago,’ said a Russian minister. ‘ I think, if he had married at all, he should have made an alliance which would have brought him that unassailably great rank which is usually the ambition of all financiers. For a man of his position to make a mere romantic mariage d’amour is absurd—out of place;—and who knows if it be even that?’ he pursued, with an involuntary glance at the Princess Napraxine.

‘Why on earth should we doubt it?’ said her husband. ‘It cannot be anything else, and they say the girl is quite beautiful. Surely, if anyone can afford to marry to please himself, that one is Othmar.’

‘At any rate, it is his own affair,’ said Nadine, in a voice which was clear and sweet, but cold as steel. ‘I cannot see why we should occupy ourselves about it, or why you should have announced it as if it were the dissolution of the world.’

‘Mademoiselle de Valogne is very beautiful,’ said Geraldine, ‘I have seen her once at Millo. Why should they pretend to hesitate?’

‘They hesitated because she is vouÉe À Marie,’ replied Napraxine, ‘and also the de Vannes and the de Creusac scarcely recognise the princes of finance as their equals. Still the marriage is magnificent; they felt they had no right to regret it since it fell to them from heaven.’

‘Do you still believe, Platon, that heaven has anything to do with marriage?’ said his wife, with her little significant smile; a slight colour had come upon her cheeks, tinging them as blush-roses are tinged with the faintest flush; her eyes retained their astonished and annoyed expression, of which her husband saw nothing.

‘Heaven made mine at least,’ he said, with his unfailing good-humour, and a bow in which there was some grace.

‘Louis Quatorze could not have answered better,’ said Nadine. ‘I cannot say I see the hand of heaven myself in it, but if you do, so much the better. "Les illusions sont des zÉros, mais c’est avec les zÉros qu’on fait les beaux chiffres."’

‘I do not know whether Mademoiselle de Valogne has illusions, but her settlements will certainly have de beaux chiffres,’ continued Napraxine, who was still full of the tidings he had brought. ‘Did Othmar say nothing to you the other morning of what he intended to do?’

‘Nothing; why should he? I am no relation of his or of Mademoiselle de Valogne.’

‘He might have done so; he was a long time alone with you. Perhaps he did not know it himself.’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘It seems a coup de tÊte. Madame de Vannes told me that he had only seen her cousin four times.’

‘That is three times more than is necessary.’

‘They say the girl is very much in love with him, and burst into tears when they told her of his proposals.’

‘Oh, my dear Platon! That the girl marries Othmar one understands; she would be an imbecile, a lunatic, to refuse; but that she weeps because she will enjoy one of the hugest fortunes in Europe—do not make such demands on our credulity!’

‘They say their acquaintance has been an idyl; quite hors d’usage; they both met in his gardens by chance, and he——’

‘Chance? I thought it was heaven? You may be quite sure neither had anything to do with it. Aurore is a very clever woman; she knew very well what she did when she brought her cousin down to Millo this winter; if the girl had been honestly vouÉe À Marie, would they have had her in the drawing-room after their dinner-parties? Ralph says he has seen her there.’

‘Well, if it were a conspiracy, it has succeeded.’

‘Of course it has succeeded. When women condescend to conspire, men always fall. Our Russian history will show you that.’

Being, however, an obstinate man, who always adhered to his own opinion, even in trifles which in no way concerned him, Napraxine reiterated that Baron Fritz had expressed himself satisfied that the girl was in love with his nephew.

‘And why not?’ he said stoutly, with more courage than he usually showed. ‘Most women would soon care for Othmar if he wished them to do so.’

‘Oh, grand dada!’ murmured Nadine, in supreme disdain, whilst her eyes glanced over him for a moment with an expression which, had he been wise enough to read it, would have made him less eager to extol the absent.

‘After all,’ she said aloud, ‘what is his marriage to us, that we should talk about it? I suppose it is the sole act of his life which would have no effect on the Bourses. We get into very base habits of discussing our neighbours’ affairs. Let us say, once for all, that he has done a very charitable action, and that we hope it will have a happy result: e basta! We will call at Millo to-morrow. I am curious to see the future Countess Othmar.’

‘They say she is very shy.’

‘Oh, we all know Ste. Mousseline,’ said Nadine Napraxine, with scorn. ‘Besides, convent-reared girls are all of the same type. I only hope Cri-Cri will not assume any hypocritical airs of regret before me; the only regret she can really have is that Blanchette was not old enough to have won this matrimonial Derby.’

‘You always speak so slightingly of Othmar,’ said Napraxine, with some reproach.

‘I really thought I paid him a high compliment,’ said his wife.

‘Why has he done it?’ said one of the Russian diplomatists to another, when they had taken leave of the Princess and her party.

‘I imagine that Madame Napraxine piqued him,’ said another. ‘You know he has been madly in love with her for two years.’

‘She does not seem to like his marriage.’

‘They never like it,’ returned the Russian minister. ‘They may not look at you themselves, but they never like you to look at any one else.’

‘If he marry her because he is in love elsewhere, and if she have the Princess Nadine for an enemy at the onset, this poor child’s path will not be of roses.’

‘She will be almost the richest woman in Europe; that must suffice.’

‘That will depend on her character.’

‘It will depend a little on whether she will be in love with her husband. If she be not, all may go smoothly.’

‘Do you know what I thought as I looked at Madame Napraxine just now?’ said the younger man. ‘I thought of that Persian or Indian tale where the woman, leaning over the magic cup, dropped a pearl from her necklace into it, and spoilt the whole charm for all eternity. I dare say it will be only a pearl which she will drop into Othmar’s future life, but it will spoil the whole charm of it for ever and ever.’

‘You never liked her,’ said the elder man. ‘She is a woman capable of an infinitude of things, good and bad. She has the misfortune to have a very excellent and very stupid husband. There is nothing so injurious for a clever woman. A bad man who had ill-treated her would not have done her half as much harm. She would have had courage and energy to meet an unhappy fate superbly. But a perfectly amiable fool whom she disdains from all the height of her own admirable wit, coupled with the habits of our idiotic world, which is like a mountain of wool steeped in opium, into which the strongest sinks indolent and enfeebled, have all tended to confirm her in her egotism and her disdain, and to send to sleep all her more noble impulses. Whatever men may be, women can only be “saved by faith,” and what faith has Nadine Napraxine except her perfect faith in her own irresistible and incomparable power over her innumerable lovers?’

‘Well,’ said the younger man, ‘if she chose to drop that pearl in, as I said, I would not give much for the chances of Othmar’s wife against her. I have seen the girl. She is very lovely, serious, simple; no match at all against such a woman as Princess Napraxine.’

‘She will have the advantage of youth, and also—which, perhaps, will count for something with such a man as Othmar, though it would not with most men—she will be his wife.’

‘Perhaps. He has been always eccentric,’ rejoined the other.

Watching her with all the keen anxiety of jealousy Geraldine had been unable to discover that the intelligence of Othmar’s marriage caused her any more surprise or interest than any other of the hundred and one items of news which make up the daily pabulum of society. But then he knew very well that she was of such a character that though she might have suffered intolerably she would have shown no sign of it any more than she would have shown any fear had a dozen naked sabres been at her breast.

Left alone beside his sister for a moment, he said to her, with doubting impatience: ‘Does she care, do you think?’

‘What affair is it of yours if she does?’ returned Lady Brancepeth. ‘Does she ever care for anything? And why should she care here? Othmar has been known to be violently in love with her—as you are—but no one has ever had the slightest reason to suppose that she had any feeling in return for him. He does a foolish thing in marrying one woman while he loves another. Some men have faith in that cure. Myself I should have none. But whatever his reasons for this sudden choice of Mdlle. de Valogne, I imagine that his marriage is a matter of as perfect indifference to Nadine as your own would be.’

Geraldine grew red, and his mortification kept him silent. But the insight of a man in love told him that his keen-eyed sister was for once in error.

Nadine Napraxine herself had gone to her own rooms to change her gown for dinner, but she dismissed her maids for twenty minutes and threw herself on a couch in her bedroom. She was herself uncertain what she felt, and angered that she should feel anything. She was conscious of a sense of offence, irritation, amazement, almost chagrin, which hurt her pride and alarmed her dignity. If a month before she had been told that Othmar was dead, she would have felt no more than a momentary regret. But the strength of his passion in the morning interviews with her had touched some fibre, some nerve in her, which had been dumb and numb before. Again and again she had recalled the accents of his voice, the sombre fire and pathetic entreaty of his eyes; they had not moved her at the time to anything more than the vague artistic pleasure which she would have taken in any emotion admirably rendered in art or on the stage, but in remembrance they had haunted her and thrilled through her with something more nearly resembling response than had ever been aroused in her.

The expectation of his return had been as strong as certainty; the sense that she had gone too far with him had heightened the interest with which she had awaited her next meeting with him. One of the greatest triumphs of her fascination had been the power she had exercised over him. She was the only living person who could say to this man, who could have purchased souls and bodies as he could have purchased strings of unpierced pearls if he had chosen: ‘You desire something of which you will never be master.’

That she had had influence enough on such a career as his to drive him out from the world where all his interests, pursuits, and friendships lay, had pleased her with more keenness in her pleasure than similar victories often gave her. She had seen his return to Europe with amusement, even with derision; she had seen at a glance that he had fled in vain from her; she had been diverted, but she had remained indifferent.

In those morning hours when he had addressed her with an almost brutal candour, he had taken a hold upon her admiration which he had never gained before. His accents had lingered on her ear; his regard had burned itself into her remembrance; she had begun to look forward to his next approach, after her rejection, with something more than the merely intellectual curiosity with which before she had studied the results of her influence upon him. The news of his intended marriage came to her with a sense of surprise and of affront which was more nearly regret than any sentiment she had ever experienced. It seemed to her supremely ridiculous that a man who adored her should seek or hope to find any oblivion elsewhere; she even understood that it was no such hope which had actuated him, but rather his wounded pride which had rebelled against herself and been unwilling to allow the world to consider him her slave. Of the more delicate and more tender motives which had led him towards Yseulte de Valogne she could know nothing; but of those more selfish and embittered ones she comprehended accurately all the sources and all the extent.

‘He does it to escape me,’ she thought as she sat in solitude, while the last faint crimson of the winter’s sunset tinged the light clouds before her windows; a smile came slowly on her beautiful mouth,—a smile, proud, unkind, a little bitter. There was resentment in her, and there was also pain, two emotions hitherto strangers to her heart; but beyond these, and deeper than these, there was a caustic contempt for the man’s cowardice in seeking asylum in an unreal love, in endeavouring to cheat himself and another into belief in a feigned passion.

‘I thought him more brave!’ she said bitterly to herself. ‘He is like a beaten warrior who makes a rampart of a virgin’s body!’

And yet, in that moment she was nearer love for him than she had ever been before.