The King's Mirror Part 35

"I must tell mother," she said.

"Then we'll tell everybody." I saw her looking at me with earnest anxiety. "My dear," said I, "I'll do what I can to make you happy."

We began to walk back through the wood side by side. Less on my guard than I ought to have been, I allowed myself to fall into a reverie. My thoughts fled back to previous love-makings, and, having travelled through these, fixed themselves on Varvilliers. It was but two days since I sent him a letter almost a.s.serting that the task was impossible to achieve. He would laugh when he heard of its so speedy accomplishment. I began in my own mind to tell him about it, for I had come to like telling him my states of feeling, and no doubt often bored him with them; but he seemed to understand them, and in his constant minimizing of their importance I found a comfort. I had indeed almost followed the advice he would have given me--almost taken her up and kissed her, and there ended the matter. A low laugh escaped from me.

"Why are you laughing?" Elsa asked, turning to me with a puzzled look.

"I've been so very much afraid of you," I answered.

"You afraid of me!" she cried. "Oh, if you only knew how terrified I've been!" She seemed to be seized with an impulse to confidence. "It was terrible coming here to see whether I should do, you know."

"You knew you'd do!"

"Oh, no. Mother always told me I mightn't. She said you were--were rather peculiar."

"I don't know enough about other people to be able to say whether I'm peculiar."

She laughed, but not as though she saw any point in my observation (I daresay there was none), and walked on a few yards, smiling still. Then she said:

"Father will be pleased."

"I hope everybody will be pleased. When you go to Forstadt the whole town will run mad over you."

"What will they do?"

"Oh, what won't they do? Crowds, cheers, flowers, fireworks, all the rest of it. And your picture everywhere!"

She drew in her breath in a long sigh. I looked at her and she blushed.

"You'll like that?" I asked with a laugh.

She did not speak, but nodded her head twice. Her eyes laughed in triumph. She seemed happy now. My pestilent perversity gave me a shock of pain for her.

When we came near the house she asked me to let her go alone and tell her mother. I had no objection to offer. Indeed I was glad to escape a hand-in-hand appearance, rather recalling the footlights. She started off, and I fell into a slower walk. She almost ran with a rare buoyancy of movement. Once she turned her head and waved her hand to me merrily.

I waited a little while at the end of the terrace, and then effected an entry into my room unperceived. The women would lose no time in telling one another; then there would be a bustle. I had now a quiet half-hour.

By a movement that seemed inevitable I sat down at my writing-table and took up a pen. For several minutes I sat twirling the quill between my fingers. Then I began to write:

"MY DEAR VARVILLIERS: The impossible has happened, and was all through full of its own impossibility. I have done it. That now seems a little thing. The marvel remains. 'An absolute absorption in the tragic aspect'--you remember, I daresay, my phrase; that was to have been her mood--seen through my coloured gla.s.ses. My gla.s.ses! Am I not too blind for any gla.s.ses? She has just left me and run to her mother. She went as though she would dance. She is merry and triumphant. I am employed in marvelling. She wants to be a queen; processions and ovations fill her eyes. She is happy.

I would be happy for her sake, but I am oppressed by an antic.i.p.ation. You will guess it. It is unavoidable that some day she will remember myself. We may postpone, but we can not prevent, this catastrophe. What I am in myself, and what I mean to her, are things which she will some day awake to. I have to wait for the time. Yet that she is happy now is something, and I do not think that she will awake thoroughly before the marriage.

There is therefore, as you will perceive, no danger of anything interfering with the auspicious event. My dear friend, let us ring the church bells and sing a _Te Deum_; and the Chancellor shall write a speech concerning the constant and peculiar favour of G.o.d toward my family, and the polite piety with which we have always requited His attentions. For just now all is well. She sleeps.

"Your faithful friend,

"AUGUSTIN."

I had just finished this letter when Baptiste rushed in, exclaiming that the d.u.c.h.ess had come, and that he could by no means prevent her entry.

The truth of what he said was evident; Cousin Elizabeth herself was hard on his heels. She almost ran in, and made at me with wide-opened arms.

Her honest face beamed with delight as she folded me in an enthusiastic embrace. Looking over her shoulder, I observed Baptiste standing in a respectful att.i.tude, but struggling with a smile.

"You can go, Baptiste," said I, and he withdrew, smiling still.

"My dearest Augustin," panted Cousin Elizabeth, "you have made us all very, very happy. It has been the dream of my life."

I forget altogether what my answer was, but her words struck sharp and clear on my mind. That phrase pursued me. It had been the dream of Max von Sempach's life to be Amba.s.sador. There had been a dream in his wife's life. It was the dream of Coralie's life to be a great singer; hence came the impresario with his large locket and the rest. And now, quaintly enough, I was fulfilling somebody else's dream of life--Cousin Elizabeth's! Perhaps I was fulfilling my own; but my dream of life was a queer vision.

"So happy! So happy!" murmured Cousin Elizabeth, seeking for her pocket-handkerchief. At the moment came another flurried entry of Baptiste. He was followed by my mother. Cousin Elizabeth disengaged herself from me. Princess Heinrich came to me with great dignity. I kissed her hand; she kissed my forehead.

"Augustin," she said, "you have made us all very happy."

The same note was struck in my mother's stately acknowledgment and in Cousin Elizabeth's gus.h.i.+ng joy. I chimed in, declaring that the happiness I gave was as nothing to what I received. My mother appeared to consider this speech proper and adequate, Cousin Elizabeth was almost overcome by it. The letter which lay on the table, addressed to Varvilliers, was fortunately not endowed with speech. It would have jarred our harmony.

Later in the day Victoria came to see me. I was sitting in the window, looking down on the river and across to the woods of Waldenweiter. She sat down near me and smiled at me. Victoria carried with her an atmosphere of reality; she neither harboured the sincere delusions of Cousin Elizabeth nor (save in public) sacrificed with my mother on the shrine of propriety. She sat there and smiled at me.

"My dear Victoria," said I, "I know all that as well as you do. Didn't we go through it all before, when you married William Adolphus?"

"I've just left Elsa," my sister announced. "The child's really half off her head; she can't grasp it yet."

"She is excited, I suppose."

"It seems that Cousin Elizabeth never let her count upon it."

"I saw that she was pleased. It surprised me rather."

"Don't be a goose, Augustin," said Victoria very crossly. "Of course she's pleased."

"But I don't think she cares for me in the very least," said I gravely.

For a moment Victoria stared. Then she observed with a perfunctory politeness:

"Oh, you mustn't say that. I'm sure she does." She paused and added: "Of course it's great promotion for her."

Great promotion! I liked Victoria's phrase very much. Of course it was great promotion for Elsa. No wonder she was pleased and danced in her walk; no wonder her eyes sparkled. Nay, it was small wonder that she felt a kindliness for the hand whence came this great promotion.

"Yes, I suppose it is--what did you say? Oh, yes--great promotion," said I to Victoria.

"Immense! She was really a n.o.body before."

A hint of jealousy lurked in Victoria's tones. Perhaps she did not like the prospect of being no longer at the head of Forstadt society.

"There's n.o.body in Europe who would have refused you, I suppose," she pursued. "Yes, she's lucky with a vengeance."

I began to laugh. Victoria frowned a little, as though my laughter annoyed her. However I had my laugh out; the picture of my position, sketched by Victoria, deserved that. Then I lit a cigarette and stood looking out of the window.

"Poor child!" said I. "How long will it last?"

Victoria made no answer. She sat where she was for a few moments; then she got up, flung an arm round my neck, and gave me a brief business-like kiss.

"I never knew anybody quite so good as you at being miserable," she said.