The Argonauts Part 6

He interrupted her, with a laugh:

"I should avoid you in that ease; but now, all relations between us are excellent, though they are const.i.tutional or even republican."

"I go for anarchy!" put in Baron Emil, helping Irene to a seat in the carriage.

He spoke somewhat through his nose and teeth, it was difficult to say whether by nature or habit, but that gave to his speech a character of contemptuousness and indolence.

"But of dissonances to-morrow n'est ce pas?" asked he.

"And of vexations!" concluded Irene with a smile, wherewith her hand remained on the baron's palm a few seconds longer than was necessary.

Soon after, Malvina Darvid was sitting at a small table covered with a tea service, in a study which was like the lined and gilded interior of a costly confectionery box. Ma.s.sive silver artistically finished, expensive porcelain, exquisite tid-bits, enticing the eye by their ornamentation, and the taste by the odor from them, tempered, however, by the strong fragrance of hyacinths, syringa, and violets which were blooming at the window and the walls, and on largo and small tables everywhere.

The dress worn at the theatre was replaced now by a wrapper, composed of lace and material soft as down. Her posture in the low and deep armchair, the very manner even in which she arranged the folds of her robe seemed to exhale the luxury of rest; but her mind was at work, and filled her eyes with an expression of disquiet.

"'Catastrophe! Misfortune!' What could that be?" Marks of pain had begun to wind around her mouth; her hands were firmly clasped on her knees. "It may be that lost letter? A man must have a head filled with exaltation, and a character as weak as Kranitski's to write such a letter. It may be--it is even sure to be so, for during a number of days she has felt in the air a catastrophe.

But if?--Well! Is that a misfortune? Oh, rather the opposite?"

The supposition that the dark, grievous truth of her life might be discovered by him who would seek vengeance because of it roused no fear in her; it caused her to hope for a thing disagreeable and yet desired. Let that horrid knot in which her life was involved be untied or torn apart sometime, in any way whatever. Alone she would never have strength to untie or to cut it, she is such an eternally weak, weak, weak creature! And still anything would be better than the present condition.

Two glittering tears rolled slowly down her cheeks; above the drooping eyelids a deep wrinkle cut a dark line across her forehead. The diamond star flas.h.i.+ng rainbow gleams from her hair, and the flowers, which dotted the room thickly with their pale colors, gave a background of wealth to that woman's life tragedy.

With a teacup in her hand Irene stood in the opposite door and looked at her mother uneasily, keenly, with such attention that her eyelids blinked repeatedly. Far from her now were those dry and sneering smiles in conversation with the baron. But she pa.s.sed through the room calmly and sat in front of her mother.

"It seems that the play of to-night did not amuse you much, mamma." She looked into the teacup so steadily that she could not see her mother's tears or expression of face. But that face grew bright on a sudden and was covered with an unrestrained smile.

"Is Cara sleeping?" inquired she.

"Of course; her room is quite silent, and so is Miss Mary's. Why do you not drink tea, mamma?"

Malvina raised the spoon slowly to her lips, and Irene began to speak calmly:

"I heard very unexpected news to-day. It seems that father has told Prince Zeno, who inquired about the matter, that he will not consent to my marriage with Baron Blauendorf."

"Why call that news unexpected?" asked Malvina, looking at her daughter.

Irene shrugged her shoulders slowly.

"I did not suppose that father would devote his precious time to things so trivial. This is unexpected and may bring trouble."

"What trouble?" inquired Malvina, with alarm.

"Father's opinions and mine may be in opposition."

"In that case your opinion will yield."

"I doubt that. I have my plans, my needs, my tastes; of these father can know nothing."

They were silent rather long; during this time Malvina raised her eyes to her daughter repeatedly, with the intent to say something, but she was unable, or at least she hesitated. At last she inquired in irresolute, almost timid, tones:

"Irene, do you love him?"

"Do I love the baron?"

These words coming from the lips of the young girl expressed immense astonishment.

"If Baron Emil should hear that question he would be the first to call it Arcadian or great-grandfatherly." And she laughed. "That is one of those things which do not exist, or which, at least, are changeable, temporary, dependent on the state of the nerves and the imagination. I have a cool imagination and calm nerves. I can do without painted pots."

As these words came slowly and coldly from the lips of her daughter, Malvina straightened herself, and her face was covered with a faint blush. She had preserved the rare, and at her age even wonderful, faculty of blus.h.i.+ng.

"Ira!" cried she, "I hear these opinions not for the first time, and they give me such pain!"

She clasped her hands.

"Love, sympathy, when a choice is made--"

The voice broke in her throat all at once. Her eyelids drooped; her shoulders fell back on the chair; she was silent.

Irene laughed and made a gesture of despair with her hands.

"What can I do with the situation?" began she in a jesting tone.

"It was not I who made this world, and cannot reconstruct it. I might like to do so, perhaps, but I cannot." Then she grew serious, and continued: "Love and sympathy may be very charming.

I admit even that most a.s.suredly they are when they exist; but usually if they exist it is for a short period, they flash up and quench--a few years, a few days, most frequently only days, and they pa.s.s--they are as if they had never been. Why illusions, when after them disenchantment must conic? They merely cause useless exertion in life, disappointment, and suffering."

Irene's words and sententious, hard tones were in marvellous contrast with the maiden-roundness of her arms, which were bare in the broad sleeves of her dressing-gown, with the fresh red of her delicate lips, and the gleam of her blue eyes.

"Besides," added she, "I feel a sympathy for the baron; a certain kind of sympathy." Malvina, after a moment's silence, asked in a low voice:

"What kind of sympathy is it?"

After a little hesitation Irene answered with a harsh, abrupt laugh:

"What kind of sympathy? A kind very common, it seems known universally. Sometimes his way of looking at me, or his pressure of the hand, moves me. But he pleases me most by his sincerity; he makes no pretence. He has never told me, like those three or four other suitors of mine, that he loves me. He has for me, as I have for him, a certain kind of sympathy; he considers me financially an excellent match, and for these two reasons he wishes to share with me his t.i.tle of baron, and his relations.h.i.+p with certain families of counts and princes. And as I, on my part, need independence at the earliest, and my own house, so one thing for another, the exchange of services and interests is accomplished. We do not hide from each other these motives of ours, and this creates between us sincere and comrade-like relations, quite agreeable, and leading to no tirades or elegies in which there is not one bit of truth, or to any exaltation or despair which has no t.i.tle to the future. This is all."

"Ira!" whispered Malvina after a long silence.

"What, mamma?"

"If I could--if I had the right--" Both were silent.

"What, mamma?"

"If I could believe in spite of--"

The gilded and artistic clock ticked among the pinks and lilies: tick-tack, tick-tack.

"What is it, mamma?"

"A cake, Ira!"