Consequently I had had my own hair cropped, and had purchased a cumbersome full-bottomed peruke of the latest mode. With that on my head, and habited in a fine new brocaded coat of green velvet and lemon-coloured silk breeches and stockings, I went timidly to confront my destiny. How many times did I walk up and down before her house, or ever I could summon courage to knock! How many phrases and dignified reproaches did I con over and rehearse, yet never one that seemed other than offensive and ridiculous! What in truth emboldened me in the end to enter was a cloud of dust which a passing carriage caused to settle on my coat. If I hesitated much longer, I reflected, all my bravery would be wasted, and dusting myself carefully with my handkerchief, I mounted the steps. Otto Krax opened the door, and preceded me up the staircase.
But while we were still ascending the steps, Mademoiselle Durette came from the parlour which gave on to the landing.
“Very well, Otto,” she said, “I will announce Mr Buckler.”
She waited until the man had descended the stairs, and then turned to me with a meaning smile.
“She is alone. Take her by surprise!”
With that she softly turned the handle of the door, and opened it just so far as would enable me to slip through. I heard the voice of Ilga singing sweetly in a low key, and my heart trembled and jumped within me, so that I hesitated on the threshold.
“I have no patience with you,” said Mademoiselle Durette, in an exasperated whisper. “Cowards don’t win when they go a-wooing. Haven’t you learnt that? Ridicule her, if you like, as she does you—abuse her, do anything but gape like a stock-fish, with a white face as though all your blood had run down into the heels of your shoes!”
She pushed me as she spoke into the room, and noiselessly closed the door. The Countess was seated at a spinet in the far corner of the room, and sang in her native tongue. The song, I gathered, was a plaint, and had a strange and outlandish melancholy, the voice now lifting into a wild, keening note, now sinking abruptly to a dreary monotone. It oppressed me with a peculiar sadness, making the singer seem very lonely and far-away; and I leaned silently against the wall, not daring to interrupt her. At last the notes began to quaver, the voice broke once or twice; she gave a little sob, and her head fell forward on her hands.
An inrush of pity swept all my diffidence away. I stepped hastily forward with outstretched hands. At the sound she sprang to her feet and faced me, the colour flaming in her cheeks.
“Madame,” cried I, “if my intrusion lacks ceremony, believe me—”
But I got no further in my protestations. For with a sneer upon her lips and a biting accent of irony,—“So,” she broke in, looking me over, “the crow has turned into a cockatoo.” And she rang a bell which stood upon the spinet. I stopped in confusion, and not knowing what to say or do, remained foolishly shifting from one foot to the other, the while Ilga watched me with a malicious pleasure.
In a minute Otto Krax came to the door.
“How comes it,” she asked sternly, “that Mr Buckler enters unannounced? Have I no servants?”
The fellow explained that Mademoiselle Durette had taken the duty to herself.
“Send Mademoiselle Durette to me,” said the Countess. I was ready to sink through the floor with humiliation, and busied my wits in a search for a plausible excuse. I had not found one when the Frenchwoman appeared.
Countess Lukstein repeated her question.
Mademoiselle Durette was no readier than myself and glanced with a frightened air from me to her mistress, and back again from her mistress to me. Remembering what she had said on the landing about my irresolution, I felt my shame doubled.
“Madame,” I stammered out, “the fault is in no wise your companion’s. The blame of it should fall on me.”
“Oh!” said she, “really?” And turning to Mademoiselle Durette, she began to clap her hands. “I believe,” she exclaimed in a mock excitement, “that Mr Buckler is going to make me a present of a superb cockatoo. Clemence, you must buy a cage and a chain for its leg!”
Clemence stared in amazement, as well she might, and I, stung to a passion,—“Nay,” I cried, and for once my voice rang firmly. “By the Lord, you count too readily upon Mr Buckler’s gift. Mr Buckler has come to offer you no present, but to take his leave for good and all.”
I made her a dignified bow and stepped towards the door.
“What do you mean?” she asked sharply.
“That I ride homewards this afternoon.”
She shot a glance at Mademoiselle Durette, who slipped obediently out of the room.
“And why?” she asked, with an innocent assumption of surprise, coming towards me. “Why?”
“What, madame?” I replied, looking her straight in the face. “Surely your ingenuity can find a reason.”
“My ingenuity?” She spoke in the same accent of wonderment. “My ingenuity? Mr Buckler, you take a tone—” She came some paces nearer to me and asked very gently: “Am I to blame?”
The humility of the question, and a certain trembling of the lips that uttered it, well nigh disarmed me; but I felt that did I answer her, did I venture the mildest reproach, I should give her my present advantage.
“No, no,” I replied, with a show of indifference; “my own people need me.”
She took another step and spoke with lowered eyes. “Are there no people who need you here?”
I forgot my part.
“You mean—” I exclaimed impulsively, when a movement which she made brought me to a stop. For she drew back a step, and picking up her fan from a little table, began to pluck nervously at the feathers. Her action recalled to my mind her behaviour at the Duke’s Theatre and Elmscott’s commentary thereon.
“None that I know of,” I resumed, “for even those whom I counted my friends find me undeserving of even common civility.”
“Civility! Civility!” she cried out in scorn. “’Tis the very proof and attribute of indifference—the crust one tosses carelessly to the first-comer because it costs nothing.”
“But I go fasting even for that crust.”
“Not always,” she replied softly, shooting a glance at me. “Not always, Mr Buckler; and have you not found at times some butter on the bread?”
She smiled as she spoke, but I hardened my heart against her and vouchsafed no answer. For a little while she stood with her eyes upon the ground, and then. “Oh, very well, very well!” she said petulantly, and turning away from me, flung the fan on to the table. The table was of polished mahogany, and the fan slid across its surface and dropped to the floor. I stepped forward, and knelt down to pick it up.
“What, Mr Buckler!” she said bitterly, turning again to me, “you condescend to kneel. Surely it is not you: it must be some one else.”
I thought that I had never heard sarcasm so unjust, for in truth kneeling to her had been my chief occupation this many a day, and I replied hotly bethinking me of Marston and the episode which I had witnessed in the Park.
“Indeed, madame, and you may well think it strange, for have I not seen you drop your fan in order to deceive the man who picks it up?” With that I got to my feet and laid the fan on the table
She flushed very red, and exclaimed hurriedly,—“All that can be explained.”
“No doubt! no doubt!” I replied. “I have never doubted the subtlety of madame’s invention.”
She drew herself up with great pride, and bowed to me. I walked to the door. As I opened it, I turned to take one last look at the face which I had so worshipped. It was very white; even the lips were bloodless, and oddly enough I noticed that she wore a loose white gown as on the occasion of our first meeting.
“Adieu,” I said, and stepped behind the door.
From the other side of it her voice came to me quietly,—“Does this prove the sword to be lath or steel?” I shut the door, and went slowly down the stairs, slowly and yet more slowly. For her last question drummed at my heart.
“Lath or steel?” Was I playing a man’s part, or was I the mere bond-slave of a petty pride? ‘That can be explained,’ she had said. What if it could? Then the sword would be proved lath indeed! Just to salve my vanity I should have wasted my life—and only my life?
I saw her lips trembling as the thought shot through me. What if those walks with my rival beneath my window had been devised in some strange way for a test—a woman’s test and touchstone to essay the metal of the sword, a test perhaps intelligible to a woman, though an enigma to me? If only I knew a woman whom I could consult!
My feet lagged more and more, but I reached the bottom of the stairs in the end. The hall was empty. I looked up towards the landing with a wild hope that she would, come out and lean over the balustrade, as on the evening when Elmscott first brought me to the house. But there was no stir or movement from garret to cellar. I might have stood in the hall of the Sleeping Palace. From a high window the sunlight slanted athwart the cool gloom in a golden pillar, and a fly buzzed against the pane. I crossed the hall, and let myself out into the noonday. The door clanged behind me with a hollow rattle; it sounded to my hearing like the closing of the gates of a tomb, and I felt it was myself that lay dead behind it.
As I passed beneath the window, something hard dropped upon the crown of my hat, and bounced thence to the ground at my feet. I picked it up. It was a crust of bread. For a space I stood looking at it before I understood. Then I rushed back to the entrance. The door stood open, but the hall was empty and silent as when I left it. I sprang up the stairs, and in my haste missed my footing about half-way up, and rolled down some half a dozen steps. The crash of my fall echoed up the well of the staircase, and from behind the parlour door I heard some one laugh. I got on to my legs, and burst into the room.
Ilga was seated before a frame of embroidery very demure and busy. She paid no heed to me, keeping her head bent over her work until I had approached close to the frame. Then she looked up with her eyes sparkling.
“How dare you?” she asked, in a mock accent of injury.
“I don’t know,” I replied meekly.
She bent once more over her embroidery.
“Humours are the prerogative of my sex,” she said.
“I set you apart from it.”
“Is that why you cannot trust me even a little?”
The gentle reproach made me hot with shame. I had no words to answer it. Then she laughed again, bending closer over her frame, in a low joyous note that gradually rose and trilled out sweet as music from a thrush.
“And so,” she said, “you came all trim and spruce in your fine new clothes to show me what my discourtesy had lost me! What a child you are! And yet,” she rose suddenly, her whole face changing, “and yet, are you a child? Would God I knew!” She ended with a passionate cry, clasping her hands together upon her breast; but before I could make head or tail of her meaning she was half-way through another mood. “Ah!” she cried, “you have brought my courtesy back with you.” I had not noticed until then that I still held the crust in my hand. “You shall swallow it as a penance.”
“Madame!” I laughed.
“Hush! you shall eat it. Yes, yes!” with a pretty imperious stamp of the foot. “Now! Before you speak a word!”
I obeyed her, but with some difficulty, for the crust was very dry.
“You see,” she said, “courtesy is not always so tasteful a morsel. It sticks in the throat at times;” and crossing to a sideboard, she filled a goblet from a decanter of canary and brought it to me.
“You will pledge me first,” I entreated.
Her face grew serious, and she balanced the cup doubtfully in her hand.
“Of a truth,” she said, “of a truth I will.” She raised it slowly to her lips; but at that moment the door opened. “Oh!” cried Mademoiselle Durette, with a start of surprise. “I fancied that Mr Buckler had gone,” and she was for whipping out of the room again, but Ilga called to her. The astonishment of the Frenchwoman made one point clear to me concerning which I felt some curiosity. I mean that ’twas not she who had set the hall door open for my return.
“Clemence!” said the Countess, setting down the wine untasted, as I noticed with regret, “will you bid Otto come to me? I ransacked Mr Buckler’s rooms, and it is only fair that I should show him my poor treasures in return.”
She handed a key to Otto, and bade him unlock a Japan cabinet which stood in a corner. He drew out a tray heaped with curiosities, medals and trinkets, and bringing it over, laid it on a table in the window.
“I have bought them all since I came to London. You shall tell me whether I have been robbed.”
“You come to the worst appraiser in the world,” said I. “for these ornaments tell me nothing of their value, though much of your industry.”
“I have a great love for these trifles,” said she, though her action seemed to belie her words, for she tossed and rattled them hither and thither upon the tray with rapid jerks of her fingers which would have made a virtuoso shiver. “They hint so much of bygone times, and tell so provokingly little.”
“Their example, at all events, affords a lesson in discretion,” I laughed.
“Which our poor sex is too trustful to learn, and yours too distrustful to forget.”
There was a certain accent of appeal in her voice, very tender and sweet, as though she knew my story and was ready to forgive it. Had we been alone I believe that I should have blurted the whole truth out; only Otto Krax stood before me on the opposite side of the table, Mademoiselle Durette was seated in the room behind.
Ilga had ceased to sort the articles, and now began to point out particular trinkets, describing their purposes and antiquity and the shops where she had discovered them. But I paid small heed to her words; that question—did she know?—pressed too urgently upon my thoughts. A glance at the stolid indifference of Otto Krax served to reassure me. Through him alone could suspicion have come, and I felt certain that he had as yet not recognised me.
Besides, I reflected, had she known, it was hardly in nature that she should have spoken so gently. I di missed the suspicion from my mind, and turned me again to the inspection of the tray.
Just below my eyes lay a miniature of a girl, painted very delicately upon a thin oval slip of ivory. The face was dark in complexion, with black hair, the nose a trifle tip-tilted, and the lips full and red, but altogether a face very alluring and handsome. I was most struck, how ever, with the freshness of the colours; amongst those old curios the portrait shone like a gem. I took it up, and as I did so, Otto Krax leaned forward.
“Otto!” said Ilga sharply, “you stand between Mr Buckler and the light.”
The servant moved obediently from the window.
“This,” said I, “hath less appearance of antiquity than the rest of your purchases.”
“It was given to me,” she replied. “The face is beautiful?”
Now it had been my custom of late to consider a face beautiful or not in proportion to its resemblance to that of Countess Lukstein. So I looked carefully at the miniature, and thence to Ilga. She was gazing closely at me with parted lips, and an odd intentness in her expression. I noticed this the more particularly, for that her eyes, which were violet in their natural hue, had a trick of growing dark when she was excited or absorbed.
“Why!” I exclaimed in surprise. “One might think you fancy me acquainted with the lady.”
“Well,” she replied, laying a hand upon her heart, “what if I did—fancy that?” She stressed the word “fancy” with something of a sneer.
“Nay,” said I, “the face is strange to me.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Look again! Look again, Mr Buckler!”
Disturbed by this recurrence of her irony, I fixed my eyes, as she bade me, upon the picture, and strangely enough, upon a closer scrutiny I began gradually to recognise it: but in so vague and dim a fashion, that whether the familiarity lay in the contour of the lineaments or merely in the expression, I could by no effort of memory determine.
“Well?” she asked, with a smile which had nothing amiable or pleasant in it. “What say you now?”
“Madame,” I returned, completely at a loss, “in truth I know not what to say. It may be that I have seen the original. Indeed I must think that is the case—”
“Ah!” she cried, interrupting me as one who convicts an opponent after much debate, and then, in a hurried correction: “so at least I was informed.”
“Then tell me who informed you!” I said earnestly, for I commenced to consider this miniature as the cause of her recent resentment and scorn. “For I have only seen this face—somewhere—for a moment. Of one thing I am sure. I have never had speech with it.”
“Never?” she asked, in the same ironical tone. “Look yet a third time, Mr Buckler! For your memory improves with each inspection.”
She suddenly broke off, and “Otto!” she cried sternly—it was almost a shout.
The fellow was standing just behind my shoulder, and I swung round and eyed him. He came a step forward, questioning his mistress with a look.
“Replace the tray in the cabinet!”
I kept the miniature in my hand, glancing ever from it to the Countess and back again in pure wonder and conjecture.
“Madame,” I said firmly, “I have never had speech with the lady of this picture.”
She looked into my eyes as though she would read my soul.
“It is God’s truth!”
She signed a dismissal to Otto. Clemence Durette rose and followed the servant, and I thought that I had never fallen in with any one who showed such tact and discretion in the matter of leaving a room.
The Countess remained stock-still, facing me.
“And yet I have been told,” she said, nodding her head with each word, “that she was very dear to you.”
“Then,” I replied hotly, “you were told a lie, a miserable calumny. I understand! ’Tis that that has poisoned your kind thoughts of me.”
She turned away with a slight shrug of the shoulders.
“Oh, believe that!” I exclaimed, falling upon a knee and holding her by the hem of her dress. “You must believe it! I have told you what my life has been. Look at the picture yourself!” and I forced it into her hands. “What do you read there? Vanity and the love of conquest. Gaze into the eyes! What do they bespeak? Boldness that comes from the habit of conquest. Is it likely that such a woman would busy her head about an awkward, retiring student?”
“I am not so sure,” she replied thoughtfully, though she seemed to relent a little at my vehemence; “women are capricious. You yourself have been complaining this morning of their caprice. And it might be that—I can imagine it—and for that very reason.”
“Oh, compare us!” I cried. “Compare the painted figure there with me! You must see it is impossible.”
She laid a hand upon each of my shoulders as I knelt, and bent over me, staring into my eyes.
“I have been told,” said she, “that the lady was so dear to you that for her sake you fought and killed your rival in love.”
“You have been told that?” I answered, in sheer incredulity; and then a flame of rage against my traducer kindling in my heart, I sprang to my feet.
“Who told you?”
“I may not disclose his name.”
“But you shall,” said I, stepping in front of her. “You shall tell me! He has lied to you foully, and you owe him therefore no consideration or respect. He has lied concerning me. I have a clear right to know his name, that I may convince you of the lie, and reckon with him for his slander. Confront us both, and yourself be present as the judge!”
Of a sudden she held out her hand to me.
“Your sincerity convinces me. I need no other proof, and I crave your pardon for my suspicion.”
I looked into her face, amazed at the sudden change. But there was no mistaking her conviction or the joy which it occasioned her. I saw a light in her eyes, dancing and sparkling, which I had never envisaged before, and which filled me with exquisite happiness.
“Still,” I said, as I took her hand, “I would fain prove my words to you.”
“Can you not trust me at all?”
She had a wonderful knack of putting me in the wrong when I was on the side of the right, and before I could find a suitable reply she slipped out of my grasp, and crossing the room, took in her hand the cup of wine.
“Now,” said she, “I will pledge you, Mr Buckler;” which she did very prettily, and handed the cup to me. As I raised it to my lips, however, an idea occurred to me.
“It is you who refuse to pledge me,” she said.
“Nay, nay,” said I, and I drained the cup. “But I have just guessed who my traducer is.”
She looked perplexed for a moment.
“You have guessed who—” she began, in an accent of wonder.
“Who gave you the picture,” I explained.
She stared at me in pure astonishment.
“You can hardly have guessed accurately, then,” she remarked.
“Surely,” said I, “it needs no magician to discover the giver. I know but one man in London who can hope to gain aught by slandering me to you.”
Ilga gave a start of alarm. It seemed almost as though I were telling her news, as though she did not know herself who gave her the picture; and for the rest of my visit she appeared absent and anxious. This was particularly mortifying to me, since I thought the occasion too apt to be lost, and I was minded to open my heart to her. Indeed, I began the preface of a love-speech in spite of her preoccupation, but sticking for lack of encouragement after half a dozen words or so, I perceived that she was not even listening to what I said. Consequently I took my leave with some irritation, marvelling at the flighty waywardness of a woman’s thoughts, and rather inclined to believe that the properest age for a man to marry was his ninetieth year, for then he might perchance have sufficient experience to understand some portion of his wife’s behaviour and whimsies.
My mortification was not of a lasting kind, for Ilga came out on to the landing while I was still descending the stairs.
“You do not know who gave me the picture,” she said, entreating me; and she came down two of the steps.
“It would be exceeding strange if I did not,” said I stopping.
“You would seek him out and—” she began.
“I had that in my mind,” said I, mounting two of the steps.
“Then you do not know him. Say you do not! There could be but one result, and I fear it.”
A knock on the outer door rang through the hall; this time we took two steps up and down simultaneously.
“Swords!” she continued, “for you would fight?”
I nodded.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “swords are no true ordeal. Skill—it is skill, not justice, which directs the thrust.”
I fancied that I comprehended the cause of her fear, and I laughed cheerfully.
“I have few good qualities,” said I, “but amongst those few you may reckon some proficiency with the sword.” I ascended two steps.
“So,” she replied, with an indefinable change of tone, “you are skilled in the exercise?” But she stood where she was.
Otto Krax came from the inner part of the house and crossed to the door.
“It is my one qualification for a courtier.”
Since Ilga had omitted to take the two steps down, I deemed it right to take four steps up.
She resumed her tone of entreaty.
“But chance may outwit skill; does—often.”
We heard the chain rattle on the door as Krax unfastened it. Ilga bent forward hurriedly.
“You do not know the man!” and in a whisper she added: “For my sake—you do not!”
There were only four steps between us. I took them all in one spring.
“For your sake, is it?” and I caught her hand.
“Hush!” she said, disengaging herself. Marston’s voice sounded in the entrance. “You do not know! Oh, you do not!” she beseeched in shaking tones. Then she drew back quickly, and leaned against the balustrade. I looked downwards. Otto was ushering in Marston, and the pair stood at the foot of the staircase. I glanced back at the Countess. There were tears in her eyes.
“Madame!” said I, “I have forgotten his name.”
With a bow, I walked down the steps as Marston mounted them.
“’Tis a fine day,” says I, coming to a halt when we were level.
“Is it?” says he, continuing the ascent.
“It seems to me wonderfully bright and clear,” said the Countess from the head of the stairs.