O Thou, My Austria! Part 34

"It is strange," Treurenberg begins; his voice has a hard, forced sound, he affects an indifference foreign to his nature, "but since my marriage I have had excellent luck at play. To speak frankly, it has been very convenient. Do not look so startled; wait until you are in my position. In the last few days, however, fortune has failed me. In my circ.u.mstances this is extremely annoying." He laughs, and flicks a grain of dust from his coat-sleeve.

Harry looks at him, surprised. "Ah! I understand. You want money. How much? If I can help you out I shall be glad to do so."

"Six hundred guilders," says Lato, curtly.

Harry can scarcely believe his ears. How can Lato come to him for such a trifle?

"I can certainly sc.r.a.pe together that much for you," he says, carelessly, and going to his writing-table he takes a couple of bank-notes out of a drawer. "Here!" and he offers the notes to his friend.

Lato hesitates for a moment, as if in dread of the money, then takes it, and puts it in his pocket.

"Thanks," he murmurs, hoa.r.s.ely, and again there is a silence, which Lato is the first to break. "Why do you look at me so inquiringly?" he exclaims, almost angrily.

"Forgive me, Lato, we are such old friends."

"What do you want to know?"

"I was only wondering how a man in your brilliant circ.u.mstances could be embarra.s.sed for so trifling a sum as six hundred guilders!"

"A man in my brilliant circ.u.mstances!" Lato repeats, bitterly. "Yes, you think, as does everybody else, that I am still living upon my wife's money. But you are mistaken. I tried it, indeed, for a while, but I was not made to play that part, no! It was different at first; my wife wished that I should have the disposal of her means, and I half cheated myself into the belief that her millions belonged to me. She came to me for every farthing. I used to rally her upon her extravagance; I played at magnanimity, and forgave her, and made her costly presents--yes--good heavens, how disgusting! But that is long since past; we have separate purses at present, thank G.o.d! I am often too shabby nowadays for the grand folk at Dobrotschau, but that does not trouble me." He drums nervously upon the table.

Harry looks more and more amazed. "But then I cannot see why--" he murmurs, but lacks the courage to finish the sentence.

"I know what you wish to say," Lato continues, bitterly. "You wonder why, under these circ.u.mstances, I cannot shake off the old habit. What would you have? Hitherto I have won almost constantly; now my luck has turned, and yet I cannot control myself. Those who have not this cursed love of play in their blood cannot understand it, but play is the only thing in the world in which I can become absorbed,--the only thing that can rid me of all sorts of thoughts which I never ought to entertain.

There! now you know!"

He draws a deep, hoa.r.s.e breath, then laughs a hard, wooden laugh. Harry is very uncomfortable: he has never before seen Lato like this. It distresses him to notice how his friend has changed in looks of late.

His eyes are hollow and unnaturally bright, his lips are dry and cracked as from fever, and he is more restless than is his wont.

"Poor Lato! what fresh trouble have you had lately?" asks Harry, longing to express his sympathy.

Lato flushes crimson, then nervously curls into dog's-ears the leaves of a Greek grammar on the table, and shrugs his shoulders.

"Oh, nothing,--disagreeable domestic complications," he mutters, evasively.

"Nothing new has happened, then?" asks Harry, looking at him keenly.

Lato cannot endure his gaze. "What could have happened?" he breaks forth.

"How do you get along with your wife?"

"Not at all,--worse every day," Treurenberg says, dryly. "And now comes this cursed, meddling Polish jackanapes----"

"If the gentlemen please, the Baroness sends me to say that coffee is served." With these words Blasius makes his appearance at the door.

Lato springs hastily to his feet. The conversation is at an end.

CHAPTER XXII.

HARRY'S MUSINGS.

"What are you doing there, you young donkey,--your lessons not yet learned, and wasting time in this fas.h.i.+on?"

These were Harry's words addressed to his young brother. The boy was standing on an old wooden bench, gazing over the garden wall.

"I am looking after the girl who was here to-day with the people from Dobrotschau."

"Whom do you mean?"

"Why, the beauty; Olga--Olga Dangeri is her name. Come here and see for yourself if it is wasting time to look after her."

With an involuntary smile at the lad's precocity, Harry mounted upon the bench beside his brother, and, through the gathering twilight, gazed after a couple--a man and a girl--slowly sauntering along the road outside the garden. The man walked with bent head and downcast look; the young girl, on the contrary, held her head proudly erect, and there was something regal in her firm gait. The man walked in silence beside his beautiful companion, who, on the other band, never stopped talking, chattering away with easy grace, and turning towards him the while. The silhouette of her n.o.ble profile was clearly defined against the evening sky. The last golden s.h.i.+mmer of the setting sun touched her brown hair with a reddish gleam. She had taken off her hat and hung it on her arm; her white gown fell in long, simple folds about her.

"There! is she not lovely?" Vips exclaimed, with boyish enthusiasm. "I cannot understand Lato: he hardly looks at her."

Harry hung his head.

"They have vanished in the walnut avenue; you can't see them now," said Vips, leaving his post of observation. "I like her; she is not only beautiful, she is clever and amiable," the boy went on. "I talked with her for quite a while, although she is not so entertaining as our Zdena,--she is not half so witty. Let me tell you, there is no one in all the world like our Zdena." As he spoke, Vladimir, the keen-sighted, plucked his brother by the sleeve of his blue military blouse, and eyed him askance. "What is the matter with you, Harry?" For Harry shook the boy off rather rudely.

"Oh, hold your tongue for a while!" Harry exclaimed, angrily; "I have a headache."

Thus repulsed, Vladimir withdrew, not, however, without turning several times to look at his brother, and sighing each time thoughtfully.

Meanwhile, Harry had seated himself on the old bench whence Vips had made his observations. His hands in his pockets, his legs stretched out before him, he sat wrapt in gloom, digging his spurs into the ground.

He had pa.s.sed a hard day,--a day spent in deceit; there was no help for it. How mean he was in his own eyes! and yet--how could he help it?

Paula had carried out her threat, and had driven over with Selina, bringing Olga and Lato, "to pay the ladies a visit." After the first greetings she had paid the ladies little further attention, but had devoted herself to her betrothed, drawing him with her into some window-recess or shady garden nook, where she could whisper loving words or lavish tender caresses, which he could not repulse without positive rudeness. Oh, how long the visit had seemed to him! Although Paula had withdrawn him from the rest of the company as far as possible, he had found opportunity to observe them. Olga, who could not drive backwards in a carriage comfortably, but with whom neither of the other ladies had offered to exchange seats, had arrived rather pale and dizzy. Zdena had immediately applied herself to restoring her, with the ready, tender sympathy that made her so charming. Vips was right: there was no one like Zdena in the world, although Olga was more beautiful, and also glowing with the charm to which no man is insensible,--the charm of a strong, pa.s.sionate nature. Not even Harry, whose whole soul was filled at present with, another, and to him an infinitely more attractive, woman, could quite withstand this charm in Olga's society; it made the girl seem to him almost uncanny.

It had rather displeased Harry at first--he could not himself say why--to see how quickly a kind of intimacy established itself between Olga and Zdena. As the two girls walked arm in arm down the garden path he would fain have s.n.a.t.c.hed Zdena away from her new friend, the pale beautiful Olga, whom nevertheless he so pitied.

Meanwhile, Heda had done the honours of the mansion for Selina, in which duty she was a.s.sisted by the Countess Zriny, who displayed the greatest condescension on the occasion. Then the ladies asked to see the house, and had been conducted from room to room, evidently amazed at the plainness of the furniture, but loud in their praises of everything as "so effective." Paula had begged to see Harry's room, and had rummaged among his whips, had put one of his cigars between her lips, and had even contrived, when she thought no one was looking, to kiss the tip of his ear. The Countess Zriny, however, accidentally looked round at that moment, to Harry's great confusion. Towards six o'clock the party had taken leave, with many expressions of delight and attachment.

Before they drove off, however, there had been a rather unpleasant scene. Lato had requested his wife to exchange seats with Olga, since the girl could not, without extreme discomfort, ride with her back to the horses. Selina had refused to comply with his request, a.s.serting that to ride backwards was quite as unpleasant for her as for Olga.

Then Olga had joined in the conversation, saying she had heard that the path through the forest to Dobrotschau was very picturesque, and declaring that if Lato would accompany her she should much prefer to walk. To this Lato had made various objections, finally yielding, however, and setting out with his head hanging and his shoulders drooping, like a lamb led to the sacrifice.

Harry's thoughts dwelt upon the pale girl with the large, dark eyes.

Was it possible that none of the others could read those eyes? He recalled the tall, slim figure, the long, thin, but n.o.bly-modelled arms, the slender, rather long hands, in which a feverish longing to have and to hold somewhat seemed to thrill; he recalled the gliding melancholy of her gait, he was spellbound by the impression of her youthful personality. Where had he seen a figure expressing the same yearning enthusiasm? Why, in a picture by Botticelli,--a picture representing Spring,--a pale, sultry Spring, in whose hands the flowers faded. Something in the girl's carriage and figure reminded him of that allegorical Spring, except that Olga's face was infinitely more beautiful than the languis.h.i.+ng, ecstatic countenance in the old picture.

Long did Harry sit on the garden bench reflecting, and his reflections became every moment more distressing. He forgot all his own troubles in this fresh anxiety.

He thought of Treurenberg's altered mien. Olga had not yet awakened to a consciousness of herself, and that was a comfort. She was not only absolutely pure,--Harry was sure of that,--but she was entirely unaware of her own state of feeling. How long would this last, however? Pa.s.sion walks, like a somnambulist, in entire security on the edge of profound abysses, so long as "sense is shut" in its eyes. But what if some rude hand, some unforeseen chance, awake it? Then--G.o.d have mercy!

Harry dug his spurs deeper into the gravel. "What will happen if her eyes should ever be opened?" he asked himself, with a shudder. "She is in no wise inclined to wanton frivolity, but she is a pa.s.sionate creature without firm principles, without family ties to restrain her.

And Lato? Lato will do his best to conquer himself. But can he summon up the strength of character, the tact, requisite to avoid a catastrophe and to preserve the old order of things? And if not, what then?"

Harry leaned his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees. To what it would all lead he could not tell, but he dreaded something terrible.