Artist and Model Part 17

Pierre continued:

"This fresh proof that I require of you is not to question me on the events of last night, to be calm, not to doubt me, and to have full confidence in the future. The mysterious trial that my selfishness has condemned you to must last some weeks longer. During this time we shall not be separated; we shall still live the life in common that we have lived since our arrival in Paris; you will still be my dear, my tenderly loved daughter. Do you consent to this?"

"I will do all that you wish," said the young girl, lifting her eyes to his. "I will ask no questions; I will wait. But, my father--"

Pierre Olsdorf could not but tremble slightly. He went on quickly:

"I will tell Soublaieff what it is needful for him to know, that he may continue to love and respect you as you deserve. In the future every one will respect and love you as I do; I will not fail in my duty to you.

Meanwhile, I want you to go out, to amuse yourself, and be as happy as possible."

"I shall be happy, for am not I to stay with you?"

And, as if ashamed of these words, drawing herself from the arms of the prince, who was holding her to his heart, Vera ran to her room to give herself up wholly, in solitude, to the great joy that had taken possession of her.

Henceforward, in accordance with Pierre Olsdorf's will, she continued her drives to the Bois, through which she pa.s.sed swiftly, shrinking back in the carriage, an object of curiosity for the idlers of Paris, who sought vainly to discover whence came this beautiful foreigner who was so indifferent about the sensation she created. Sometimes she went to the theater with the prince; and these hours were the best of her rather lonely life, for Pierre's tenderness for her then was more real and apparent than ever.

All this, however, was not enough for Vera, whose heart, though she herself was only vaguely conscious of the truth, desired more. Often her eyes would fill with tears, and her smile had lost something of its old-time frankness. Her affection, too, for the prince had grown uneasy and nervous. When he did not lunch or dine at home she eat scarcely anything; and at night, if he were late in coming in, she could not sleep until she had heard him return and had received his affectionate "Good-night," waved to her with his hand as he pa.s.sed through her room into his own. Since the night of the judicial inquisition, however, Pierre had never gone near Vera's bed. Indeed, he seemed to pa.s.s more rapidly through the room than he did formerly.

These successive and constant emotions, the unconscious and irrational aspirations that she felt, all had an injurious effect upon the young girl's health. If the prince, seeing her every day, did not notice the change in her looks, the moral and physical sufferings of Vera were none the less real. She took no interest now either in her drives or the theaters. She would lie for hours at a time on a sofa, scarcely thinking, and not daring to question her own heart.

In such a state of prostration Pierre Olsdorf found her on his return from the house of the arch-priest Wasilieff.

Noticing for the first time how changed she was, he was so troubled by the fact that he understood at once what his own feelings were. He had not lived two months with this adorable and devoted child for nothing; he loved her.

At first the knowledge of the feeling frightened him, and he hesitated to go to Vera. But the young girl's great eyes were raised to his with such softness in their depths, they expressed such pain, that Pierre, charmed, went to her gently, and kneeling by the couch on which she was half lying, he said, in a troubled voice:

"Soon, Vera, there will be no Princess Olsdorf. Now I can tell you that, with my son, you are what I love most in the world."

The daughter of the serf Soublaieff did not reply by a single word; but she raised herself suddenly, and the blood rushed so violently to her heart that she fell, half dead, in the arms that the prince held out to receive her.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MEYRINS.

Things were pa.s.sing at the home of the Meyrins less worthily and less poetically than in the Rue Auber.

Faithful to the advice of his mistress, Paul had been careful to say nothing of his brother and sister-in-law of the serious events of which he was the hero. Neither Frantz Meyrin, however, nor his wife was ignorant of his amours, but they affected, by one of those middle-cla.s.s hypocrisies that are so common, to suppose that the ties between the artist and the princess were perfectly moral. Their vanity was flattered at receiving the great Russian lady. If they had acknowledged that they knew the truth they would have been obliged to confess they were playing a degraded part, or to break with the n.o.ble foreigner, who was so generous to each of them, and so charming.

For Lise Olsdorf, since her coming to Paris, had used every means to win the Meyrins. She had played on all their weaknesses, good and bad; pride, interest, and maternal love. If the Meyrins received a few friends or gave a musical matinee, she was always there as an intimate friend of the family, helping Barbe, as it were, to do the honors of the house, and one may be sure the Meyrins spoke often enough of "their friend, the princess." Moreover, she let slip no chance of making presents to them all round. Now it would be a piece of jewelry for the violinist, as a mark of her grat.i.tude for the pleasure she had enjoyed in hearing him play such or such a piece; now a dress for Mme. Meyrin, a silver trinket, or a piece of lace for her saint's day, the beginning of the new year, her birthday, or the anniversary of her marriage; while Nadeje received all the finery that could delight the heart of a coquettish young girl.

In exchange for some very paltry pictures by Paul she had adorned his studio with arms, hangings, and costly objects of all sorts. When Frantz gave a concert the princess undertook to dispose of tickets among her Russian friends in the city, and whether they took them or not it is certain the Meyrins pocketed the price of them. So that they all worshiped Lise Olsdorf, and had arrived at the singular state of mind, though without acknowledging it, of being proud that Paul had for his mistress a fine lady whom they had made their friend. They did not say to themselves that each of her presents was, in a manner, the price of their complaisance; and they made a great to-do with the little Tekla, whose real father they well knew, when the princess sent the baby by its nurse to the Rue de Douai.

This was the footing the Meyrins were on with Lise when the prince, coming suddenly to Paris and taking the tone we have seen, forced his wife not to see her lover except in secret, and to restrict her visits to the artist's family.

Mme. Meyrin very soon wondered why she did not see the princess as often as usual; but when her brother-in-law told her that the prince was in Paris she understood Lise's reserve, and was careful not to question Paul, whose explanation might have been of a sort to alarm her modesty as a mother. She was satisfied to tell the young painter each day to give her kind regards, and her husband's and daughter's, to the princess, whose departure for Russia she now began to fear.

Things might have gone on thus for a long time, for Paul, though well posted by the princess in what was occurring, kept silence; when one morning, toward the end of breakfast, which the family took together, Frantz read in the St. Petersburg correspondence of the "Figaro" the news of the coming divorce between the Prince and Princess Olsdorf. The real cause of the separation had been kept so secret that the correspondent of the journal stated, without comment, that a decree would be p.r.o.nounced against the prince, following upon a pet.i.tion to the Holy Synod by his wife, involving very grave charges.

"Well, here is a pretty thing!" the violinist could not help exclaiming.

"Just listen."

And as his young daughter had a moment ago left the room with her grandmother, he read again, aloud this time, the paragraph in question.

Then, speaking to his brother, he added: "Well, the princess is a good one. She is to pet.i.tion for a divorce! What has the husband been up to?

Don't you know anything of the facts?"

"Yes, I know a good deal; all, indeed," Paul replied, embarra.s.sed.

"Then why did you not tell us?" Mme. Meyrin asked, in a prim tone.

"Simply because the princess asked me not to say anything until the thing was done with."

"Does her husband know nothing at all about her?"

"Most likely."

"And he lets his wife get a divorce against him like that? I have heard you say yourself that he was a charming man, and had no vices. There is something behind this. You know something more than you say."

"At any rate, what I do know I may not tell."

"But, after all, what does she want with a divorce? What reason could she give? Is she not as free as a woman need wish to be? Will she be any freer when she hasn't a husband? Frantz, your brother must have told you something of all this."

"Not a word," said the worthy Frantz. "Five minutes ago I knew no more about it than you did. The deuce! The princess no doubt has got a divorce because she is more and more infatuated with this fine fellow here."

"My dear," said Mme. Meyrin, shocked.

"Oh, we need not be so particular between ourselves. I dare say you know well enough what is what in the matter. Very likely she wants to marry Paul."

"Marry Paul!" exclaimed the musician's wife, furious because her husband spoke of the thing in laughing at it.

The painter, ill at ease during the discussion, rose from the table, and was making off.

But there was no escaping Mme. Meyrin in this way.

"Come, don't run away like that," she said, catching her brother-in-law by the arm. "You know very well that all this is of the greatest interest to us. If the princess is getting a divorce that she may marry you, you must have agreed to marry her."

"It is no use asking me questions," said the young man, freeing himself.

"So you are going to marry your mistress, are you?"

Frantz's wife was so vexed at not having been consulted that she lost her usual self-command.

"My mistress?" repeated the painter. "You are deucedly outspoken. Well, what if I do marry the Princess Lise, what harm would there be in it?"

"What harm? Do you hear him, Frantz? What harm! Do you suppose that your mother and your brother would ever let you make such a marriage? A divorced woman!"