Artist and Model Part 13

"If he should doubt it?"

"It is impossible he should. At any rate, we shall see. Meanwhile say nothing of what is happening to your mother, your sister, or anybody. It will be time enough to tell them when we know ourselves what the result is. As soon as the prince has left me, I will send for you. Come at once. And now, good-bye until to-morrow. It will be our last farewell, this; I hope it will be our last."

Then having sealed the amorous words with a last kiss, she left him at the door of her room.

Within it, she went to bed, far more to think of the man she loved than of the meeting with her husband with which she was threatened.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE REVENGE OF AN HONORABLE MAN.

Next morning at eleven o'clock, with military punctuality, Pierre Olsdorf was at his wife's home.

She awaited him in the little room where on the previous night she had tried to put some courage into Paul Meyrin.

Lise Olsdorf was calm in appearance, so that her husband could not read in her face the terror which the unlooked-for arrival of her legal judge had caused her. Her paleness could scarcely be seen under the rice powder; her large eyes were only faintly ringed with blue through sleeplessness.

At the entrance of the prince, Lise rose from the couch she was seated on, and bowed without speaking.

The n.o.bleman whose name she had stained looked at her fixedly for some moments, then, signing to her to be seated again, he sunk into a chair opposite to her and said in firm, grave tones:

"Madame, although to do so does not seem quite indispensable, for I find you far calmer than you ought to be, I wish to confirm what I wrote to you last night. I do not come to reproach you, though you have spoiled my life; I do not come to make a scene, though the Russian law, like the French, gives me every right over you--even to kill you if I found you in the act of adultery--which it would not have been difficult for me to do, as you must know. That act of justice, according to the law, would be merely a pardonable crime. But have no fear. If for a moment, when the news of your misconduct came upon me yonder like a thunder-bolt, I thought of punis.h.i.+ng you, it was because the memory of the past aroused my anger. Now, my heart and mind have grown calm again, I come to insist upon the only means of putting an end to the scandal of the life you are living."

At these words, and not before, the princess raised her eyes. Up to then she had hidden her face in her hands, so as not to show the humiliation that her husband's tone made her feel.

Pierre Olsdorf went on:

"I am so sure of your submission that I will not attempt to point out the dangers you would run if you opposed my will in the least degree.

After having Monsieur Paul Meyrin for your lover in Russia, you came to him here in Paris because you were _enceinte_ by him."

At these words, so plain and precise, Lise Olsdorf could not master a movement of real affright. She perhaps would have attempted a denial, but the prince stopped her with a severe look and said:

"Don't try to deceive me. It would be an infamy added to a fault already so great. I speak as I do because I have not the shadow of a doubt; if I had it would be a frightful torture. I have compared one thing with another, I have grouped together facts which at the time seemed to me to have no importance, last summer at Pampeln, in my chateau so hospitably open. Besides, the little esteem that I yet feel for you would not let me suppose for a moment that, while bearing in your womb a legitimate child, you would leave the father of this child, in a state when the vilest creature has some shame, to give yourself to a lover."

Deeply affected, the adulterous wife again lowered her head.

The prince continued:

"The daughter you were delivered of recently, and for whom you have claimed my legitimate son, Alexander, as a brother, bears my name legally. I can not deprive her of it except at the cost of a scandalous inquiry, the result of which, moreover, would be an obstacle to the end I have in view, as it would be a judicial confirmation of your adultery. I shall not set that inquiry on foot, and the child will keep the name it has unconsciously stolen. I make the sacrifice for the honor of my house. But you shall not continue to call yourself the Princess Olsdorf. You will pet.i.tion the Holy Synod for a divorce from me."

The princess was so amazed that she could scarcely murmur:

"From you?"

"Yes, from me," repeated the Russian n.o.bleman. "Ah, that surprises you; you don't understand me, because you are not sufficiently versed in our laws of divorce. If I pet.i.tioned for a divorce from you it would be granted at the first inquiry; but then you would be dishonored, and some of the shame would fall upon my son. When he is older he would blush for you. I would not have that. Besides, no doubt you are ignorant of the fact that the person against whom the decree of divorce is gained may not marry again. You would therefore be condemned to live as Monsieur Paul Meyrin's concubine, should this man remain faithful to you, and your last born child would have no name, as one of the consequences of the decree against you would be a disavowal of my paternity. If I am the accused before the Holy Synod, however, I shall be condemned to celibacy, while you will continue in the eyes of the world as an honest woman under the name of Madame Meyrin."

At these two words "Madame Meyrin," the daughter of the Countess Barineff was seized with a vague fear. Amid her astonishment she made a rapid comparison of her past and the future that her husband forced upon her. Paul Meyrin was no longer the lover whose mastery over her was sensual, the man whom she as a woman loved carnally; he was already the husband and lord, such as one sees always, save at the hour when pa.s.sion makes one blind.

Without a.n.a.lyzing the feeling which had awakened in her so suddenly, Lise was afraid. Not to betray herself she had need of all her pride and strength of will; but the prince had no doubt guessed what was pa.s.sing in her mind, for he continued, in a cutting and ironical voice:

"There is nothing to hinder your marriage with Monsieur Paul Meyrin, as he belongs to a country whose laws authorize divorce. You will be good enough, then, to inform him of my will, and when the princ.i.p.al point is agreed on, I will point out the course you are to follow to put me in the wrong and introduce your pet.i.tion to the Holy Synod. As for your personal fortune, the day after the decree of divorce is p.r.o.nounced my lawyer will send you all the t.i.tle-deeds; you will become absolute mistress of it. I will abstain from giving you any advice with regard to the steps you should take to secure your future. When I married you I gave you my town house in St. Petersburg. It will remain your property, but as I forbid you to ever set foot in Russia you will do well to sell it. I believe I have said all that is needful at present. I only have to await your answer to my ultimatum. But remember this oath that I make before leaving you: if for any reason whatever Monsieur Paul Meyrin does not marry you, I will kill him. Adieu, madame. May G.o.d pardon you."

Speaking these words, the prince rose, bowed to his wife, and went out without looking at her again.

The princess rose mechanically, and then fell back into her seat.

She had expected anything on the part of the outraged husband, but not this strange solution that he had insisted on with the calmness of an operator searching a wound with his scalpel.

Nearly out of her mind, she rang and ordered her footman to go and ask M. Paul Meyrin to come to her at once.

Awaiting her lover, Lise Olsdorf took a rapid glance at the past, recalling with terror the road she had covered so rapidly within the last year. She saw again her youth, her court of adorers at St.

Petersburg, her princely marriage, and the entertainments of which she had been the queen at Pampeln. She thought of her mother, whose ambitious edifices were going to come down cras.h.i.+ng about her, and who would not be sparing of reproaches; and suddenly, too, thinking of her son whom she would never see again, she was about, perhaps, to exclaim, "No, never!" when Paul Meyrin came into the room hurriedly, without being announced.

The painter was pale, uneasy, and much agitated. His manly beauty only showed the more brilliantly. The princess was struck by it, and, suddenly reconquered by the sensual charm which mastered her, she sprung toward him.

Paul received her in his arms, bore her in them as if she had been a child, laid her on the couch, and, kneeling beside her, questioned her with his eyes.

"It is over," she said, after enjoying for a moment the intoxication of the contact with him, which took from her all energy. "Everything is over between the prince and me. He himself wishes it. I shall be your wife."

"My wife!" exclaimed Paul, with a movement of surprise.

"Yes, your wife. The prince and I are to be divorced, and I shall marry you. On this condition alone we shall not be separated. My husband has acted, too, like an honorable man. He gives me back my fortune, and leaves me the house at St. Petersburg, his wedding present. How happy we shall be! To live with you, never to leave you again! To love you freely, openly, in the face of the whole world--and always, always!"

The unhappy and bewitched woman would not look back on the past. In the artist's arms she forgot all--the memories that she had summoned a few minutes earlier, the high social rank she was about to quit, her mother, even her son.

Paul was calmer. This future, which he had by no means foreseen, the responsibility he was about to take upon himself, the new part he was called upon to play, all frightened him a little. Not that he did not love the woman who had given herself to him; but to marry, to become the head of a household, from a lover to change to a husband, the father of a family, it was a serious matter, deserving to be reflected on.

"Why don't you speak to me?" said the princess, vaguely uneasy and looking into the painter's eyes. "Are not you happy?"

"Can you think otherwise?" said Paul; "but you must understand my surprise. You will confess I had little reason to expect what has happened. I feared your husband might use violence to you, and I was so sure of a challenge from him that I have spoken to a couple of friends."

"As your seconds! In a duel!" cried Lise Olsdorf, throwing her arms around the young man's neck. "Oh, if I had dreamed the prince had such an idea he should not have left this room alive."

"Dear, foolish child!" said Paul Meyrin, returning the pa.s.sionate embrace. "But, while awaiting the divorce, what will you do? How shall we live? Will not the prince make you leave Paris?"

"No, I believe not."

"Did he speak to you of Tekla?"

"He knows the child is not his, and I did not try to deceive him."

"Perhaps he will want to take it from us."

The Princess Olsdorf sat up suddenly. She grew very pale.