On the Cross Part 51

"Duke--your humor is beginning to conquer. No doubt you are right in many things, but you do not know the state of my mind. My life is destroyed, the axe is laid at the root, happiness, honor--all are lost."

"For Heaven's sake, what has happened to thus overwhelm you?" asked the duke, still in the most cheerful mood.

She could not tell him the truth and pleaded some incident at court as an excuse. Then in a few words she told him of the queen's displeasure, the malice of her enemies, her imperilled position.

"And do you take this so tragically?" The prince laughed aloud: "Pardon me, _chere amie_--but one can't help laughing! A woman like you to despair because a few stiff old court sycophants look askance at you, and the queen does not understand you which, with the dispositions you both have, was precisely what might have been expected. It is too comical! It is entirely my own fault--I ought to have considered it--but I expected you to show more feminine craft and diplomacy. That you disdained to employ the petty arts which render one a _Persona grata_ at court is only an honor to you, and if a few fops presumed to adopt an insolent manner to you, they shall receive a lesson which will teach them that _your_ honor is _mine_! Nay, it ought to amuse you, to feign death awhile and see how the mice will all come out and dance around you to scatter again when the lioness awakes. Do you talk of destroyed happiness and roots to which the axe is laid? Oh, women--women! You can despair over a plaything! For this position at court could never be aught save a toy to you!"

"But to retire thus in shame and disgrace--would _you_ endure it--if it should happen to you? Ought not a woman to be as sensitive concerning her honor as a man?"

"I don't think your honor will suffer, because the restraint of court life does not suit you! Or is it because you do not understand the queen? Why, surely persons are not always sympathetic and avoid one another without any regret; does the fact become so fateful because one of you wears a crown? In that case I beg you to remember that a crown is hovering over your head also--a crown that is ready to descend whenever that head will receive it, and that you will then be in a position to address Her Majesty as 'chere cousine!' You, a Princess von Prankenberg, a Countess Wildenau, fly like a rebuked child at an ungracious glance from the queen and her court into a corner of a church?" He shook his head. "There must be something else. What is it?

I shall never learn, but you cannot deceive me!"

The countess was greatly disconcerted. She tried to find another plausible pretext for her mood and, like all natures to whom deception is not natural, said precisely what betrayed her: "I am anxious about the Wildenaus--they are only watching for the moment when they can compromise me unpunished, and if the queen withdraws her favor, they need show me no farther consideration."

The duke frowned. "Ah! ah!"--he said slowly, under his breath: "What do you fear from the Wildenaus, how can they compromise you?"

The countess, startled, kept silence. She saw that she had betrayed herself.

"Madeleine"--he spoke calmly and firmly--"everything must now be clearly understood between us. What connection was there between Wildenau and that mysterious boy? I must know, for I see that that is the quarter whence the danger which you fear is threatening you, and I must know how to avert it--you have just heard that _your_ honor is _mine_.' There was a shade of sternness in his tone, the sternness of an resolve to take this weak, wavering woman under his protection.

"The child"--she faltered, trembling from head to foot--"ah, no--there is nothing more to be feared from him--he is dead!"

"Dead?" asked the duke gently. "Since when?"

"Since yesterday!" And the proud countess, sobbing uncontrollably, sank upon his breast.

A long silence followed.

The duke pa.s.sed his arm around her and let her weep her fill. "My poor Madeleine--I understand everything." An indescribable emotion filled the hearts of both. Not another word was exchanged.

The carriage rolled up to the entrance of the Wildenau palace. Her little cold hands clasped his beseechingly.

"Do not desert me!" she whispered hurriedly.

"Less than ever!" he replied gravely and firmly.

"Her Highness is ill!" he said to the servants who came hurrying out and helped the tottering woman up the steps. She entered the boudoir, where the duke himself removed her cloak. It was a singular sight--the haughty figure in full evening dress, adorned with jewels, in the light of the dawning day--like some beautiful spirit of the night, left behind by her companions who had fled from the first sunbeams, and now stood terrified, vainly striving to conceal herself in darkness. "Poor wandering sprite, where is the home your tearful eyes are seeking?"

said the prince, overwhelmed by pity as he saw the grief-worn face.

"Yes, Madeleine, you are too beautiful for the broad glare of day. Such visions suit the veil of evening--the magical l.u.s.tre of drawing-rooms!

By day one feels as if the night had been robbed of an elf, who having lost her wings by the morning light was compelled to stay among common mortals." Carried away by an outburst of feeling, he approached her with open arms. A strange conflict of emotion was seething in her breast. She had longed for him, as for the culture she had despised--she felt that she could not live without him, that without him she could not exorcise the spirits she had conjured up to destroy her, her ear listened with rapture to the expression of love in cultured language, but when he strove to approach her--it seemed as if that unapproachable something which had cried "Noli me tangere!" had established its throne in her own heart since she had knelt among the beggars early that morning, and now, in spite of herself, cried in its solemn dignity from her lips the "Noli me tangere" to another.

And, without words, the duke understood it, respected her mute denial, and reverently drew back a step.

"Do you not wish to change your dress, you are utterly exhausted. If it will be a comfort to you to have me stay, I will wait till you have regained your strength. Then I will beg permission to breakfast with you!" he said with his wonted calmness.

"Yes, I thank you!" she answered--with a two-fold meaning, and left the room with a bearing more dignified than the duke had ever seen, as though she had an invisible companion of whom she was proud.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ATTEMPTS TO RESCUE.

The countess remained absent a long time, while the duke sat at the window of the boudoir gazing out into the frosty winter morning, but without seeing what was pa.s.sing outside. Before him lay a shattered happiness, a marred destiny. The happiness was his, the destiny hers.

"There is surely nothing weaker than a woman--even the strongest!" he thought, shaking his head mournfully. Ought we not to punish this personator of Christ, who used his mask to break into the citadel of our circle and steal what did not belong to him? Pshaw, how could the poor fellow help it if an eccentric woman out of ennui--ah, no, we should not think of it! But--what is to be done now? Shall I sacrifice this superb creature to an insipid prejudice, because she sacrificed herself and everything else to a childish delusion? Where is the man pure enough to condemn you because when you give, you give wholly, royally, and in your proud self-forgetfulness fling what others would outweigh with kingly crowns into the lap of a beggar who can offer you nothing in exchange, not even appreciation of your value--which he is too uncultured to perceive.

"Alas! such a woman--to be thrown away on such a man! And should I not save her? Should I weakly desert her--I, the only person who can forgive because I am the only one who _understands_ her?--No! It would be against all the logic of destiny and reason, were I to suffer such a life to be wrecked by this religious humbug. What is the use of my cool brain, if I lose my composure _now_? _Allons donc_! I will bid defiance to fate and to every prejudice, clasp her in my arms, and destroy the divine farce!"

Such was the train of the duke's thoughts. But his pale face and joyless expression betrayed what he would not acknowledge to himself: that his happiness was shattered. He gathered up the fragments and tried to join them together--but with the secret grief with which we bear home some loved one who could not be witheld from a dangerous path, knowing that, though the broken limbs may be healed, he can never regain his former strength.

"So grave, Duke?" asked a voice which sent the blood to his heart. The countess had entered--her step unheard on the soft carpet.

He started up: "Madeleine--my poor Madeleine! I was thinking of you and your fate!"

"I have saddened you!" she said, clasping her hands penitently.

"Oh, no!" he drew the little hands down to his lips, and with a sorrowful smile kissed them.

"My cheerfulness can bear some strain--but the malapert must be permitted to be silent sometimes when there are serious matters to be considered."

"You are too n.o.ble to let me feel that you are suffering. Yet I see it--you would not be the man you are if you did not suffer to-day."

The duke bit his lips, it seemed as if he were struggling to repress a tear: "Pshaw--we won't be sentimental! You have wept enough to-day! The world must not see tear-stains on your face. Give me a cup of coffee--I do not belong to the chosen few whom a mortal emotion raises far above all the needs of their mortal husk."

The countess rang for breakfast.

The servant brought the dishes ordered into the boudoir, as the dining-room was not yet thoroughly heated. In the chimney-corner beside the blazing fire the coffee was already steaming in a silver urn over an alcohol lamp, filling the cosy room with its aroma and musical humming.

"How pleasant this is!" said the duke, throwing himself into an armchair beside the grave mistress of the house.

"I will pour it myself," she said to the servant who instantly withdrew. The countess was now simply dressed in black, without an ornament of any kind, and with her hair confined in a plain knot.

"What a contrast!" the duke remarked, smiling--"you alone are capable of such metamorphoses. Half an hour ago in a court costume, glittering with diamonds, an aching heart, and hands half frozen from being clasped in prayer in the chilled church, now a demure little housewife, peacefully watching the coffee steam in a cosy little room, waiting intently for the moment when the water will boil, as if there were no task in the whole world more important than that of making a good decoction."

A faint smile glided over the countess' face--she had nearly allowed the important moment to pa.s.s. Now she poured out the coffee, extinguished the spirit lamp, and handed her companion a cup of the steaming beverage.

"A thousand thanks! Ah, that's enough to brighten the most downcast mood! What comfort! Now let us enjoy an hour of innocent, genuine plebeian happiness. Ah--how fortunate the people are who live so every day. I should be the very man to enjoy such bliss!" His glance wandered swiftly to the countess' empty cup. "Aha! I thought so! A great sorrow must of course be observed by mortifying the body, in order to be sure to succ.u.mb to it. Well, then the guest must do the honors of the hostess! There, now _ma chere Madeleine_ will drink this, and dip this buscuit into it! One can accomplish that, even without an appet.i.te. Who would wish to make heart and stomach identical!"

The countess, spite of her protestations, was forced to obey. She saw that the duke had asked for breakfast only to compel her to eat.

"There. You see that it can be done. I enjoy with a touch of emotion this coffee which your dear hands have prepared. If you would do the same with the cup I poured out what a sentimental breakfast it would be!" A ray of the old cheerfulness sparkled in the duke's eyes.

"Ah, I knew that with you alone I should find peace and cheer!" said the countess, brightening.

"So much the better." The duke lighted a cigarette and leaned comfortably back in his chair.

The countess ordered the coffee equipage to be removed and then sat down opposite to him with her hands clasped in her lap.