O Thou, My Austria! Part 24

"Do you know the words too?" Olga exclaims, turning towards him.

"If you but knew how often I have heard that song sung!" he replies, with the absent air of a man whose thoughts are straying in a far past.

"At concerts?"

"No, in private."

"By a lady?" she asks, half persistently, half hesitatingly.

"Yes, grand inquisitor, by a lady; by a lady for whom I had a little _tendresse_--h'm!--a very sincere _tendresse_. She sang it to me every day. The very evening before her betrothal she sang it to me; and how deliciously sweet it was! Would you like to know who it was?"

"Yes."

"The Countess Wodin."

"The Countess Wodin!" Olga exclaims, amazed.

Lato laughs. "You cannot understand how any one could take any interest in such a flirt?"

"Oh, no," she says, thoughtfully, "it is not that. She is very pretty even yet, and gay and amusing, but--he is horrible, and I cannot understand her marrying him, when----"

"When she might have had me?" he concludes her sentence, laughing.

"Frankly, yes." As she speaks she looks full in his face with undisguised kindliness.

He smiles, flattered, and still more amused. "What would you have?

Wodin was rich, and I--I was a poor devil."

"Oh, how odious!" she murmurs, frowning, her dark eyes glowing with indignation. "I cannot understand how any one can marry for money----"

She stops short. As she spoke her eyes met his, and his were instantly averted. An embarra.s.sing pause ensues.

Olga feels that she is upon dangerous ground. They both change colour,--he turns pale, she blushes,--but her embarra.s.sment is far greater than his. When he looks at her again he sees that there are tears in her eyes, and he pities her.

"Do not vex yourself, Olga," he says, with a low, bitter laugh. And taking one of her slender hands in his, he strokes it gently, and then carries it to his lips.

"Ah, still _aux pet.i.ts soins_?--how touching!" a harsh nasal voice observes behind the pair. They look round and perceive a young man, who, in spite of his instant apology for intruding, shows not the slightest disposition to depart. He is dressed in a light summer suit after the latest watering-place fas.h.i.+on. He is neither tall nor short, neither stout nor slender, neither handsome nor ugly, but thoroughly unsympathetic in appearance. His very pale complexion is spotted with a few pock-marks; his light green eyes are set obliquely in his head, like those of a j.a.panese; the long, twisted points of his moustache reach upward to his temples, and his hair is brushed so smoothly upon his head that it looks like a highly-polished barber's block. But all these details are simply by the way; what especially disfigures him is his smile, which shows his big white teeth, and seems to pull the end of his long, thin nose down over his moustache.

"Fainacky!" exclaims Treurenberg, unpleasantly surprised.

"Yes, the same! I am charmed to see you again, Treurenberg," exclaims the Pole. "Have the kindness to present me to your wife," he adds, bowing to Olga.

"I think my wife is dressing," Treurenberg says, coldly. "This is a young relative,--a cousin of my wife's.--Olga, allow me to introduce to you Count Fainacky."

In the mean time Paula is occupied with her betrothed's education. In tones that grow drowsier and drowsier, while his articulation becomes more and more indistinct, Harry stumbles through Shakespeare's immortal verse.

Paula's part is given with infinite sentiment. The thing is growing too tiresome, Harry thinks.

"I really have had enough of this stuff for once!" he exclaims, laying aside his volume.

"Ah, Harry, how can you speak so of the most exquisite poetry of love that ever has been written?"

He twirls his moustache ill-humouredly, and murmurs, "You are very much changed within the last few days."

"But not for the worse?" she asks, piqued.

"At last she is going to take offence," he says to himself, exultantly, and he is beginning to finger his betrothal-ring, when the door opens and a servant announces, "Herr Count Fainacky."

"How well you look, my dear Baroness Paula! Ah, the correct air, beaming with bliss,--_on connat cela!_ Taking advantage of your Frau mother's kind invitation, I present myself, as you see, without notification," the Pole chatters on. "How are you, Harry? In the seventh heaven, of course,--of course." And he drops into an arm-chair and fans himself with a pink-bordered pocket-handkerchief upon which are depicted various jockeys upon race-horses, and which exhales a strong odour of musk.

"I am extremely glad to see you," Paula a.s.sures the visitor. "I hope you have come to stay some days with us. Have you seen mamma yet?"

"No." And Fainacky fans himself yet more affectedly. "I wandered around the castle at first without finding any one to announce me. Then I had an adventure,--ha, ha! _C'est par trop bte!_"

"What was it?"

"In my wanderings I reached an open door into a room looking upon the garden. There I found Treurenberg and a young lady,--only fancy,--I thought it was his wife. I took that--what is her name?--Olga--your _protge_--for your sister,--for the Countess Selina, and begged Treurenberg to present me to his wife,--ha, ha! _Vraiment c'est par trop bte!_"

At this moment a tall, portly figure, with reddish hair, dazzling complexion, and rather sharp features, sails into the room.

"Here is my sister," says Paula, and a formal introduction follows.

"Before seeing the Countess Selina I thought my mistake only comical. I now think it unpardonable!" Fainacky exclaims, with his hand on his heart. "Harry, did the resemblance never strike you?" He gazes in a rapture of admiration at the Countess.

"What resemblance?" asks Harry.

"Why, the resemblance to the Princess of Wales."

CHAPTER XIV.

OLGA.

"And pray who is Frulein Olga?"

It is Fainacky who puts this question to the Countess Treurenberg, just after luncheon, during which meal he has contrived to ingratiate himself thoroughly with Lato's wife.

He and the Countess are seated beneath a red-and-gray-striped tent on the western side of the castle; beside them stands a table from which the coffee has not yet been removed. The rest of the company have vanished.

The Baroness Harfink is writing a letter to her brother, one of the leaders of the Austrian democracy, who was once minister for three months; Paula and Harry are enjoying a _tte--tte_ in the park, and Treurenberg is taking advantage of the strong sunlight to photograph alternately and from every point of view a half-ruinous fountain and two hollyhocks.

"Pray who is this Frulein Olga?" Fainacky asks, removing the ashes from the end of his cigarette with the long finger-nail of his little finger.

"Ah, it is quite a sad story," is the Countess Selina's reply.