martha felt herself in a dream of delight as she descended from the cab, and, following the princess into the courtyard of a large apartment-house in the rue presbourg, mounted the stairs at her side.
their ring was answered by a foreign-looking man-servant, to whom the princess spoke in a tongue which martha recognized as russian, but of which she understood not a word. she saw, however, that it related to herself; for the servant, who wore a curious and elaborate livery, looked at her and bowed.
“i have been telling him,” explained the princess, “that whenever you come you are to be brought at once to my private sitting-room, whether i am at home to other people or not. if it should chance that i cannot see you,—an unlikely thing, for i generally do what i want, and i shall always want to see you,—my maid can bring you word there. you see,i am not going to take any risk of having you turned away from my door.”
the antechamber into which they had been admitted was charmingly furnished, not at all in the french style; and there was something in the whole environment of the princess which commended itself strongly to martha’s artistic taste. everything that she saw, as she passed along, deepened this impression. she followed her companion in excited silence through the antechamber, and into the large and sunny salon, where two persons were sitting.
one was a little old lady with very white hair, elaborately arranged under a queer-looking lace cap fastened with jeweled pins; the other was a dark and severely dressed woman, who, martha at once saw, was a sort of companion or maid. as the princess approached, this woman rose and courtesied. the old lady looked up, with some surprise in her placid face, and immediately laid down her embroidery, and took up a silver ear-trumpet, holding out her other hand to the princess.
the latter bent, and kissed the proffered fingers lightly, and then, raising her voice a little, uttered several sentences in russian into the trumpet, at the same time indicating martha in a way that made her understand that this was an introduction. the girl also bent, and kissed the hand now extended to her, and then the princess led her away.
“my poor aunt is so deaf,” she said, “that it is almost impossible to talk to her, and i could not go into any long explanation about you. she never interferes with me, however, and no questions will be asked. come now to my own room.”
martha, following her companion, found herself in a small boudoir opening into a bedroom. the door of the latter was open, and the two apartments gave an impression which she told herself she could best describe by the word lovable. the musical instruments stood open. the lounges and chairs seemed to have taken the shapes of their occupants. flowers that looked as if they had been willingly plucked were all about in vases. well-worn volumes and drawing-books were scattered about, and some of the princess’s atelier studies were placed against the walls on the floor. martha, who could hardly believe in her good fortune in having received even the smallest notice from the princess, was yet more bewildered and delighted when the latter crossed the little boudoir, and led her into the bedroom.
here the french maid whom martha had seen at the atelier sat sewing. she stood up, evidently surprised. as she courtesied, and came forward to take her lady’s wraps, the latter hastily threw her cloak to her, and then, striking her hands together with a quick little clap, said:
“va-t’en, félicie!”
the maid smiled. she and her mistress evidently understood each other well. deftly gathering up her work, she left the room, and martha found herself alone with her divinity, in the privacy of her own bedroom. she felt quite foolishly happy. perhaps the princess saw it, for she said, with her bewildering smile:
“you like it, do you not? you needn’t explain. i see you do, just as i saw that you liked me, without your saying a word. i am so glad.”
“like you!” said martha, protestingly. “oh!”
then the princess came and stood in front of the young girl, and put her arms around her neck, clasping her long hands at the back, and looking down at her.
“it will be quite safe, i see,” she said, still smiling, “for me to make my confession to you, and own that i was drawn to you in quite an extraordinary way. i really did not mean to go so fast, however; and if i had stopped to think, i should probably not have proposed to you to take this drive with me. but for once i am glad that i did not stop to think. my impetuosity is generally my bane in everything. this time i feel that it has brought me a blessing. i can prove to you that it is not my habit to go out to strangers in this way by the fact that i am so friendless. i have no intimate friend in paris, though i know scores of people here. if i like you, and want to see more of you, and you have the same feeling toward me, why should we not indulge ourselves? very well! so we will!” and she bent, and kissed martha on the cheek.
the girl’s heart quivered with joy; but she could find no words in which to express it, so she was quite silent. she felt herself very stupid as she let the princess take off her wraps and hat, and lead her to a seat.
“now,” said the lovely lady, “as i am one of those people who must be comfortable before they can be happy, i am going to put on a loose gown. no excuses necessary, i know.”
she disappeared for a moment, and came back in an exquisite garment of pale-blue silk with borderings of dark fur. she had seemed to martha very splendid and beautiful before, but now she was so winning, so sweet, so adorable, that the young girl felt her whole heart glow with delight as, with a long-drawn sigh of ease, the princess threw herself on the lounge at her side.
“now,” she said, as her hand closed on martha’s, “talk to me.”
poor martha! what could she say? her gratefulness for this unexpected confidence and friendliness moved her almost to tears, but she was silent.
“talk to me, martha,” said the princess, coaxingly. “i may call you that, may i not?”
she called it “mart’a,” with her pretty foreign utterance; and martha thought her homely name had suddenly become adorable. but she could not even tell this to the princess. how dull and stupid she was! her consent must have shown itself in her eyes, however, for the princess went on:
“i can’t call you martha unless you call me by my name, too. will you? i have a fancy to hear you say it now. will you call me by my little russian name—sonia?”
it was evident that the girl’s silence did not offend her. she must have understood its basis, for she said, with an encouraging smile:
“say it. say ‘sonia.’”
“oh, you are too good to me!” exclaimed martha. “you spoke of knowing that i liked you. i don’t like you—i love you! i don’t love you—i adore you! o sonia!” and the girl actually slipped from the low chair to her knees beside the lounge.
the princess jumped to her feet, and with strong hands lifted martha to hers; then holding both the girl’s hands, and stretching her arms apart to their full length, as their two faces were drawn together thus, she kissed martha with affectionate warmth.
“what a dear thing you are!” she said. “how good it is to see some one who can really feel! how tired one gets of the fin-de-siècle spirit in both women and men! bless you, my martha! you have come to be a great joy in my life. i feel that we are going to be friends for always—do you?”
“oh, if you will let me! if you will only not be disappointed in me! i am afraid to speak, afraid to breathe almost, for fear that you will find out that i am only a poor, commonplace little creature, in whom your goodness has made you see something which does not exist. oh, i pray i may not disappoint you! and yet how can i dare to hope?”
“listen, martha,” said the princess in a matter-of-fact tone, as she drew the other down to a seat beside her on the lounge; “let us take each other quite simply, and not promise anything. we will just agree to be perfectly natural with each other—just to be ourselves. if you continue to like me, and i you, it is all right. if not, we shall have broken no pledges and done each other no wrong. now, with that basis to go upon, we can both feel natural and satisfied. only don’t cover up your real self to me, for you may be concealing just what i love, and pretending what i hate. it is because you are different from others that i have been so drawn to you. now don’t try to be like other people, and ruin everything.”
“oh, i feel i can be myself with you. i feel i can tell you everything that is in my heart, and talk of things that i have never been able to speak of to others. how beautiful it is! how strange that such a relationship between two women can come about here in paris in this age of the world!”
“it could not if we were parisians; but both of us being foreign to this atmosphere, it can. i love your being an american. i felt sure you were even before i asked etienne.”
“and did he tell you? i have always understood that he never answered questions about his students.”
“so have i; but i asked him all the same, and he told me who you were. i had quite fancied you before, and after that i fancied you still more, as i love the ideal of the american, a creature newer from nature’s hands, and nearer to her heart, than we of the old world; and, fortunately or otherwise, i have known too few of your people either to confirm or contradict this idea. so now i think i shall go on liking you. and how is it with you? do you think you will not be disappointed in me?”
her beautiful lips widened in a smile of broad amusement that made her eyes twinkle. martha looked at her with a speechless adoration which she could not have been so dense as to misunderstand.
“how delightful!” said the princess. “it has been so long since i have permitted myself the luxury of a friend that my appetite for one is all the keener.”
she had thrown herself back on the lounge, and as martha sat down by her, the princess again took her hand, saying as she did so:
“now i will tell you two things about myself at the outset of our acquaintance: one is that i love to ask questions; the other is that i hate to be questioned. will you remember these facts, and will you be as frank with me if i do what you don’t like? i am very nearly certain that we shall get on together admirably, for the reason that i know you have no vulgar curiosity about me or my affairs. you have sense enough to be convinced by one look at my aunt, if there were nothing else, that i am respectable. now i am pretty confident that you have an impulse to talk{37} out freely to me, and to answer any questions that i may choose to put—all the more so because your general habit is one of strict reserve.”
the princess kept her eye on her companion’s face while she was talking, and she could tell by its expression that she had interpreted her correctly. she said so, with a little laugh of contentment, and then added:
“tell me about yourself first of all.”
martha’s countenance fell.
“ah, i have made a mistake, i see,” said the princess. “we have not come to that yet; but we will come to it—you and i. some of these days you will find yourself telling me all those close-locked secrets of your heart; and yet even they, i fancy, will relate more to others than to yourself. so be it! i can wait. tell me now about your people—your family here in paris.”
“well,” began martha, “there are mama and we four girls—alice, marian, florence, and i. alice is very handsome, and poor mama has had to shift over to her and to the younger girls, who also bid fair to be charming, all the hopes which she once centered in me. i have been struggled with for years, and finally let alone. mama agrees to my working at my painting because she has made up her mind that unless i amount to something in that i shall never amount to anything at all; but i don’t think she has much hope of me. she is not far from beautiful herself, and is accustomed to being admired, and it took her a long time to accept my indifference to it. however, it’s quite accepted now; and i even think that, with three other girls to be taken into society, she finds a certain relief in leaving me out of it. the other girls are studying music and languages. alice has a fine voice.”
“and your father is dead, is he not? did you not say you had a brother?”
martha’s face grew quite white with the concentration of mind which this thought produced.
“yes; i have a brother,” she said.
“forgive me,” said the princess, with swift sympathy. “there is evidently some reason why it pains you to speak of your brother. forget that i asked you.”
the blood rushed to martha’s face as it occurred to her that her companion might misunderstand her reluctance to speak on this subject.
“it’s not that i am not proud of him that it is hard for me to speak,” she said; “it’s expressly because i am. i made up my mind long ago not to talk about harold. i found i must not, because i could not speak of him with any freedom without saying things that people would think no merely mortal man deserved. i have worshiped him all my life, and, as i’m rather ashamed to own, i’ve had a great many other idols which turned out{40} to be made of clay. this one, however, has never proved for an instant unworthy of my adoration.”
the princess smiled.
“one would like to get a look at him,” she said. “an absolutely faultless being must be interesting to look at.”
“don’t laugh at me!” cried martha. “if it were any one but you i could not bear it; but i know you would say or do nothing that could hurt me really. i don’t wish you to understand that i think harold faultless. he is not. but to one who understands him as i do, his very faults are part of his greatness. they all have their seat in something noble, and to see how he fights to conquer them is a thing that thrills me. he is now off in america hard at work. he has done some quite extraordinary things in electricity, and is absorbed in his career. when i am a little older, and mama gives me up as a hopeless job for society, i am to go and live with harold, and keep house for him. that is my dream and his.”
“sooner or later, dear child, you will have to wake from that dream. i do not find it as unlikely as you seem to that you will marry;} and even if you should not, your brother probably will.”
the princess was smiling, but her smile faded at the look of tragic pain in her companion’s face. she could see that the young girl had been touched in her heart’s tenderest place.
“no,” she said, with that frown of sadness unrelaxed, “he will never marry.”
“forgive me again, dear martha,” said the princess. “your brother has had some disappointment, about which your heart is as sensitive as his own. i see that, and you need tell me no more. it is good that he has you to comprehend and sympathize with him. it is good that you have each other. if you gave your heart and life to a husband as wholly as you have given them to your brother, he would probably break the heart and wreck the life, and even the right to dream would be taken from you. living with this brother, whom you love and worship so, whether he deserves it or not, you may have many a sweet and joy-giving dream which no reality would equal. i wish i could make you see how fortunate you are.”
“i care very little for my own happiness,” said martha, too absorbed to realize that she was saying anything that called for comment. “all that i care for is to give harold a little comfort and calm. he can never be happy again.”
“he tells you so, dear child, and no doubt he believes it. i tell you it will pass. men do not grieve perpetually for women. i know them better than you do.”
“you do not know this man. if you imagine that he is like any other man in the world, you are wrong. he could not get over this sorrow and be the man that he is. it is simply a thing impossible to him. not that he shows it! it has been two years since it happened, and no doubt every one except myself thinks he has recovered. i dare say he wants to have it so, and he’s generally cheerful and bright. even to me he never says a word, but i think he knows that i understand. at all events, he knows that, though it is the desire of my life to go and live with him, i would never do him the wrong to suppose that i could make him happy.”
“he has, then, it would seem, the same ardent temperament as yours. dear me! how odd it would be to see a man like that in this generation! was this woman very cruel to him that you resent it so?”
“resent it!” said martha, dropping her companion’s hand, to clasp her own hands together. “even to you i can’t talk about that. i should either cry like a fool or rage like a fury. i know very little about what happened, except that she has utterly ruined harold’s life, and cut him off from everything that makes life sweet.”
“you allow yourself to suffer too much for him, perhaps,” the princess said. “i am not going to antagonize you at the outset by saying all that i might say to you on this subject, but believe me, my little ingénue, i could give you points about men. i will not do it now, however, and i will even show my willingness to spare you by changing the subject. tell me about alice. is she really so handsome? does she go into society? where could one see her?”
“yes; she goes out a good deal—in the american colony, principally. i don’t think there is any doubt that she’s handsome.”
“then i’m all the more unfortunate in having no acquaintance in the american colony. does she look like you?”
“no; the fact is—” martha blushed, and was in evident confusion, as she went on—“the fact is, i’m considered like harold. not really, you know, because no one can deny that he’s magnificent; but there’s said to be a sort of family likeness.”
“well, i can believe that, my dear, without absolute insult to your brother. is alice much admired?”
“yes, a good deal; but she’s engaged now, and so she is not noticed as much as she was.”
“oh, she’s engaged, is she? and when is she to be married?”
“the day is not fixed, but it will be before long. the trousseau is being bought now. her fiancé is an italian officer of very good family, though not much fortune. still, alice is happy, and mama is satisfied, and harold has given his consent. he is coming over to the wedding. oh, if you could see him—and he could see you!”
“his seeing me is wholly unnecessary; but the other part might be accomplished. it would be a good idea to give me a card to the wedding if it takes place in a church. then i could see all your people without their seeing me, and probably disapproving of our intimacy and breaking it up—or else putting it on a footing that would have no comfort in it.”
“how could they disapprove?” said martha, deeply hurt. “how could they be anything but honored that i should be noticed at all by a great princess like you?”
“oh, there’s no greatness about this princess, child,” said the other, laughing. “don’t expect to see me going around with a throne to sit on, in either a literal or a figurative sense. to you i am only sonia—a fact which you seem to have forgotten, by the way! i wish you’d call me sonia, and stop thinking about the princess. with your american ideas it, no doubt, seems much more important than it is. are you going to tell your people about me really or not?”
“no,” said martha; “i wouldn’t for the world. it may be selfish, but i want you all to myself.”
this was perfectly true; but at the same time, ignore it as she might, there was a lurking feeling in martha’s heart that the princess was right in imagining that if her mother knew of the friendship that had sprung up between the two students at etienne’s, she {46}might insist upon investigating the princess—an indignity which martha felt that she could not endure.
the princess herself seemed pleased at martha’s evident wish to monopolize her; and the two parted at last with the confidence and affection of old friends.
