prince khris of karstein was at monte carlo playing continuously, losing almost always, living in a miserable lodging over a small shop, and devoting, to that blind goddess with a thousand hands who is called play, his clothes, his sustenance, his last rings and shirt studs. he did this every winter, and every spring he was supplied afresh through his daughter’s means, and went to spa or luchon and did the same. from germany he was banned.
one day at the casino he saw the duchess of otterbourne stretching out her slender hand between a jew broker and a paris cocotte to put some gold upon the red.
“ah! blonde devil! blonde devil!” he thought to himself, and wished he might see her lose her last farthing and crawl under a hedge to drink her last dose of morphia. but this he knew he was not likely to see, nor anyone else, for she was not the kind of person who kills herself, and at play she generally won, for she kept quite cool at it and never let it run away with her judgment.
he hated her intensely; he had never liked her, but when she had shut harrenden house to him, she had excited and merited his most bitter detestation. she had not played fair, and prince khris, though he might cheat, abhorred being cheated; he felt it an insult to his intelligence. he had discovered the massarenes before she had done so; they had been his placer-claim, his treasure isle, his silver mine; she had come after him and profited and plundered. this he might have pardoned if she had kept faith with him and gone shares. but she had acted treacherously. she had mined the ground under his feet. she had taught these ignorant people to know him as he was. she had made them understand that they must drop him, shake him off; that to be seen with him did them social harm, not good. she had annexed them and made them hers; she had created a monopoly in them for herself.[496] she had taken them with her into spheres the entrance into which had long been forfeited by himself. and all this had been done so skilfully, with so much coolness and acumen, that he had been powerless to oppose it. the dinners of harrenden house had become to him things of the past; the clodion falconer which he had found for them saw him no more pass up their staircase; they were ungrateful like all low-bred people, and she triumphed.
“the blonde devil! the blonde devil!” he said with a curse.
but for her they would in all likelihood have remained unknown to immaculate society, and would to the end of time have believed in himself as a semi-royal divinity, knowing nothing of the stains on his purples, nothing of the cankered breast which rotted under the ribbons of his orders.
she had not been so clever as the groom of the chamber at harrenden house had thought her; she had not gone shares fairly with her predecessor in the exploitation of the massarene vein.
she had made an enemy of him. she thought his enmity was of no consequence because he was a person wholly discredited and despised, but in this she was greatly mistaken; because water is muddy it is not therefore incapable of drowning you.
khris kar, who was a person of extreme intelligence, guessed all her motives and all her modes of action, and divined exactly all she said against him.
it is always a dangerous and difficult thing to “drop people,” and neither the master nor the mistress of harrenden house had tact and experience enough to do it in the least offensive manner. indeed, massarene himself enjoyed doing it offensively; it made him feel a greater swell than ever to be able to be rude and slighting to a person of the original rank of prince khris. it afflicted the tenderer heart of his wife, but she did not dare to disobey orders, and despite his rage the old prince could not be otherwise than amused to note the elaborate devices with which she shifted her parasol so as not to see him in the park, and fumbled with her handkerchief or her fan[497] as he approached at a concert or a theatre to avoid offering him her hand.
he read his fair foe’s tactics in the stiff and frightened manner of the massarenes toward him; he saw that they had been warned he was a bird of prey, that they were afraid to say anything to his face, and could only clumsily draw away from him. he was used to this treatment from his equals, but in these low creatures it stung him painfully; he felt like a disabled hawk having its eyes pecked out by a crow. as he watched, as time went on, the upward progress of these people into that higher world for ever closed to himself, he knew that she had done for them what he had lost all power of doing for them or for anyone. he acknowledged her superiority, but her treachery he intended to repay at the earliest opportunity. one does not pull a ferret out of a rabbit-burrow without being bitten.
as it chanced there came into his hands a weekly journal published at nice which contained such items of social intelligence as it was thought would interest the visitors to the riviera, and amongst these was a paragraph which spoke of the boating accident to the duchess of otterbourne and the coolness and courage displayed by that lady; it mentioned that the accident had happened off the terraces of the mouettes. as he read, he thought he saw between the lines; he suspected the accident was one of design; he suspected the rescue of the child by her mother was a brilliant coup de théâtre, done with intention to arouse the interest of a solitary.
he made a few careful discreet inquiries; he found that vanderlin had been to see her at her hotel; he learned that the circumstances of the fair swimmer were embarrassed, which did not surprise him; he heard some gossiper laugh and say that she was intending to marry the great banker; he saw as completely into her mind and soul as if he had been mephistopheles.
he promised himself that she should not succeed.
some remorseful regret occasionally stirred in him when he thought of his daughter’s lonely life, and when he remembered the passionate love which had been ruptured when she and vanderlin had parted. he was a[498] bad old man with a shrivelled heart and a numbed conscience, but he was human.
mouse was at that time especially irritated and depressed. there had come to cannes that week a young beauty, a mere child, but of extreme loveliness and wonderful coloring, very much what boo would be in a few more years. this young girl, an austrian just married to a russian thrice her age, had turned all heads and occupied all tongues at cannes, and mouse, for the first time in her life, had the uncomfortable sensation of being eclipsed, of being rather out of it, as she would have said, in her own phraseology.
it was a dull and unpleasant feeling which filled her with resentment, and made her stare into her mirror with an anxiety and uncertainty wholly new to her.
she was in this kind of mood when prince khris walked up the steps of her hotel.
she had come in from driving, fretful and disposed to think that life was more trouble than it was worth, when they brought her a card, and said the gentleman who owned it was waiting downstairs.
“khris kar! what can he possibly want with me?” she wondered. she was disposed to let him remain downstairs, and she was in no mood for visitors, especially those who could be of no possible use or amusement to her.
then she reflected that she had not behaved very well to him, that he had at one time been very intimate at harrenden house, and also that he had been the father-in-law, at all events for a few years, of the master of les mouettes.
“show him up,” she said irritably to her servant. in another minute the old man entered, frailer, thinner, with the gold dye on his hair more visible, but bland and polished as before, and with the same keen, intent gleam in his pale-blue eyes. she welcomed him sweetly, suppressing a yawn, and seemed as if it were the most natural thing in the world to receive a man against whom society had long closed all its doors.
who could tell what old khris might know? she was well aware that she had ousted him out of harrenden house.
[499]“you are not looking well, prince,” she said with solicitude, offering him her little silver tray of cigarettes.
“old age, old age!” said prince khris airily, as he took a cigarette and lighted it. “how happy are you, duchess, who are in all the wonder-blossoming of your youth!”
“that is a nasty one,” thought mouse, for she knew that when your children are growing up speeches of this kind have a sub-acid flavor which it is intended should be distinctly tasted by you.
he settled himself comfortably in the lounging-chair he occupied, and blew the perfumed smoke into the air.
“i am especially fortunate to find you alone,” he said. “may i at once mention the purport of my visit, for i know how rare it is to be favored by a tête-à-tête with you when one is, alas, old and uninteresting!”
“pray say anything you like,” she replied, the sweetness beginning to go out of her manner and the softness out of her voice, for she felt that whatever his purpose might be it was not amiable.
“allow me, then,” said the old man very suavely, “to ask you if it be true what people say in these places—that you intend to marry my ex-son-in-law, adrian vanderlin?”
she was silent from astonishment and annoyance. she did not want to have the keen eyes of this old gambler watching her cards.
“there is not the smallest authority for such a statement,” she answered with hauteur, “and i think you might phrase your inquiry more courteously.”
he smiled and made a little gesture with the cigarette, indicative of apology or derision, as she chose to take it.
“why should not either or both of them marry again?” she asked, her anxiety on the matter getting the better of her prudence and good taste.
“dear lady,” replied prince khris, “it seems incredible to properly constituted minds, but there are actually persons so disposed by nature that they only love once! it is a lamentable limitation of what was intended to be our most agreeable and varied pastime; but so it is. you know there are some persons who take everything seriously, and drink sparkling moselle with a long face.”
[500]“perhaps they will re-marry each other? it is not against the law, i believe.”
“no; it is not against the law, probably because no lawmakers ever thought such a case possible.”
“how he dislikes them both!” she thought. “perhaps because they didn’t give him enough money, or perhaps because they are maintaining him now.”
it seemed to her experienced mind that you would naturally hate anybody who maintained you.
“i heard of a boat upset beneath the terraces of les mouettes, of an intrepid sauvetage of your lovely little girl on your own fair shoulders,” murmured prince khris. “i hope the master of the château was grateful, but i doubt it; men of business are sceptical rather than impressionable. i hope you took no cold?”
“none whatever,” said mouse crossly and curtly, for she felt herself dévinée, and this sensation is never soothing to the nerves.
“i am charmed to hear it. but is it true that you have an intention to render still richer than he is the singularly ungrateful person who is called the christian rothschild?”
“i don’t know what you mean,” she said sullenly; “and i don’t know what this man, christian or jew, can matter to you. he divorced your daughter.”
it was more than a rude thing, it was an ill-bred thing to say, and she knew that it was so; but her temper got the better of her prudence, as it had done in her interview with beaumont.
prince khris remained unmoved.
“that is matter of history,” he said serenely. “the man, as you call him (who is unquestionably a christian), may have been touched by that heroic spectacle of a modern aphrodite battling with the waves. no doubt it was intended that he should be touched. all that i wish to say, dear duchess, is this, that if the report be true that you intend to marry him—and it may be, for millionaires are the only men worth marrying—i merely venture to say that i—well, in a word, i should prevent it. that is all.”
she stared at him in unaffected amazement, and her anger was as real as her surprise.
[501]“how dare you say such things to me?” she said in great offence. “you would venture to imply that the boat was upset on purpose!”
he laughed a little softly.
“the unaided à propos is rarely of occurrence in this life. but perhaps m. vanderlin was impressed by the accident; men of finance are sometimes children in matters outside their counting-houses. however, all i desired, duchess, is to intimate to you that if you have any intention of marrying the man who, as you remarked, divorced my daughter, i shall not permit the marriage to take place.”
“how can you prevent it?”
“that is my affair. rest assured only that i can and that i shall.”
she was silent, intensely irritated and uncertain how to treat him; she was aware that there was something ludicrous and undignified in her position; she could not allege that vanderlin had any intention to marry her; she had been taken off her guard and placed in a position of absurd embarrassment.
what could this old man mean? he was too keen and experienced a person to menace what he had not the ability to carry out. had he known anything of her relations with massarene?
she knew that he had a long score against her to pay off, that he must hate her and would make her feel its hatred if he could; but he was not a man to indulge in unprofitable rancor.
she said between her teeth: “do you suppose, if i wished to marry any man, i shouldn’t do it?”
“it is impossible to say,” murmured prince khris. “there are some persons so perverted that they do not like new-mown hay or early strawberries. there may be also persons so dead to beauty and to virtue that they do not appreciate the exquisite qualities of the duchess of otterbourne.”
“you old wretch!” she thought, with difficulty controlling herself from ordering him out of the room. “i had not the remotest intention of annexing your ci-devant[502] son-in-law,” she said aloud; “but as you have put the idea in my head, perhaps i shall do it.”
“are you sure it is i who put it there?” said prince khris, smiling. “then allow me to take it out again. i do not intend you to marry adrian vanderlin.”
“what business would it be of yours if i did? he disgraced your daughter before all europe.”
his face remained impassive. “you cannot wonder, then, if only out of vengeance i shall deny him the paradise of your embrace! be my motive what it will, dear lady, take this for certain: i shall not allow you to carry out your present scheme.”
“sir!” anger flashed from her sapphire eyes, her voice was stifled by rage. her “scheme”!—as if she were an intriguing horizontale, a nameless adventuress!
he laid down the cigarette which he had appreciated and finished.
“remember,” he said serenely—“i can say that to vanderlin which will prevent him from marrying you or any other woman.”
“i shall tell him that is your boast.”
“you can tell him if you like. he will not believe you, and he certainly will not question me.”
“but what could his marriage, were there any question of it, matter to you?” her curiosity got the better of her rage.
“that is my affair,” he replied. “to be quite frank with you, it does not matter to me in the least, but i do not intend you to step into my daughter’s place. she is my daughter, though many years have passed since i saw her; and you, madame, shall not sit where she sat, love where she loved, sleep where she slept; you shall not do her that injury. a sentimentalism, you think. no, i am not sentimental, though i come of the land of werther. but a few years ago you did me a bad turn when i was weak enough to trust you, and i do not forget easily. i can prevent you from reaching the canaan of vanderlin’s wealth, and i intend to do so. i know what you would do; you would entice him with exquisite skill, and it is possible that you would make him your dupe; in finance he is clever, but in the affections he is a child. well, take[503] warning; let him alone, for if you attempt to succeed with him, i shall intervene. that is all. i have told you to desist because i am not desirous of approaching the man who, as you observed, dishonored my daughter before all europe. but if you do not listen to good counsels i shall do so, for i repeat i do not intend you ever to reach the canaan of his riches.”
then, without waiting for any reply from her, he rose, bowed with the courtly grace which to the last distinguished him, and left her presence walking with that feebleness which infirmity and years entailed, but with a pleased smile upon his face and as much alacrity as he could command, for he was in his haste to return to the tables of monte carlo.
she remained in a sort of stupor, staring at the smoked-out cigarette which he had left behind him on the ash tray.
she had been so utterly astonished, humiliated, and disgusted that she had not had presence of mind enough to charge him with having brought about his daughter’s ruin by his own intrigues and falsehoods.
unfortunately too she knew so little, so very little, only what the archduke franz had hinted to her, and with that weak weapon of mere conjecture she could not have discomfited so skilled and accomplished a master of fence as was prince khristopher of karstein.
how she wished, oh! how she wished that she had let him have his fair share of the spoils of harrenden house! there are few things more utterly painful than to have done mean, ungenerous, and dishonorable acts, and find them all like a nest of vipers torpid from cold which have been warmed on your hearth and uncurl and hiss at you.
“my greatuncle came to call on you!” said young prince woffram with astonishment and curiosity. “i saw him in the hall; i don’t speak to him, you know—we none of us do. but i felt sorry——”
“so do i whenever i see him,” said mouse in her frankest and sweetest manner. “i have always stood by him, you know. he is so courtly and charming and now so old. it is horribly cruel, i think, to shut one’s doors on[504] a man of that age. he may have been all they say—i suppose he has—but his sins must have been over before we were born, and when anybody is so old as that i, for one, really cannot be unkind.”
what an angel she was! thought the young grandnephew of prince khris; an angel of modern make, with wings of chiffon, which would not perhaps stand a shower of rain or a buffet of wind, but still an angel!
