The First Violin Part 49

"Fond! I never saw a man idolize his child so much. It was only need--the hardest need that made them part."

"How--need? You do not mean poverty?" said she, somewhat awe-struck.

"Oh, no! Moral necessity. I do not know the reason. I have never asked.

But I know it was like a death-blow."

"Ah!" said she, and with a sudden movement removed her mask, as if she felt it stifling her, and looked me in the face with her beautiful clear eyes.

"Who could oblige him to part with his own child?" she asked.

"That I do not know, _mein Fraulein_. What I do know is that some shadow darkens my friend's life and imbitters it--that he not only can not do what he wishes, but is forced to do what he hates--and that parting was one of the things."

She looked at me with eagerness for some moments; then said, quickly:

"I can not help being interested in all this, but I fancy I ought not to listen to it, for--for--I don't think he would like it. He--he--I believe he dislikes me, and perhaps you had better say no more."

"Dislikes you!" I echoed. "Oh, no!"

"Oh, yes! he does," she repeated, with a faint smile, which struggled for a moment with a look of pain, and then was extinguished. "I certainly was once very rude to him, but I should not have thought he was an ungenerous man--should you?"

"He is not ungenerous; the very reverse; he is too generous."

"It does not matter, I suppose," said she, repressing some emotion. "It can make no difference, but it pains me to be so misunderstood and so behaved to by one who was at first so kind to me--for he was very kind."

"_Mein Fraulein_," said I, eager, though puzzled, "I can not explain it; it is as great a mystery to me as to you. I know nothing of his past--nothing of what he has been or done; nothing of who he is--only of one thing I am sure--that he is not what he seems to be. He may be called Eugen Courvoisier, or he may call himself Eugen Courvoisier; he was once known by some name in a very different world to that he lives in now. I know nothing about that, but I know this--that I believe in him. I have lived more than three years with him; he is true and honorable; fantastically, chivalrously honorable" (her eyes were downcast and her cheeks burning). "He never did anything false or dishonest--"

A slight, low, sneering laugh at my right hand caused me to look up.

That figure in a white domino with a black mask, and a crimson rosette on the breast, stood leaning up against the foot of the organ, but other figures were near; the laugh might have come from one of them; it might have nothing to do with us or our remarks. I went on in a vehement and eager tone:

"He is what we Germans call a _ganzer kerl_--thorough in all--out and out good. Nothing will ever make me believe otherwise. Perhaps the mystery will never be cleared up. It doesn't matter to me. It will make no difference in my opinion of the only man I love."

A pause. Miss Wedderburn was looking at me; her eyes were full of tears; her face strangely moved. Yes--she loved him. It stood confessed in the very strength of the effort she made to be calm and composed. As she opened her lips to speak, that domino that I mentioned glided from her place and stooping down between us, whispered or murmured:

"You are a fool for your pains. Believe no one--least of all those who look most worthy of belief. He is not honest; he is not honorable. It is from shame and disgrace that he hides himself. Ask him if he remembers the 20th of April five years ago; you will hear what he has to say about it, and how brave and honorable he looks."

Swift as fire the words were said, and rapidly as the same she had raised herself and disappeared. We were left gazing at each other. Miss Wedderburn's face was blanched--she stared at me with large dilated eyes, and at last in a low voice of anguish and apprehension said:

"Oh, what does it mean?"

Her voice recalled me to myself.

"It may mean what it likes," said I, calmly. "As I said, it makes no difference to me. I do not and will not believe that he ever did anything dishonorable."

"Do you not?" said she, tremulously. "But--but--Anna Sartorius does know something of him."

"Who is Anna Sartorius?"

"Why, that domino who spoke to us just now. But I forgot. You will not know her. She wanted long ago to tell me about him, and I would not let her, so she said I might learn for myself, and should never leave off until I knew the lesson by heart. I think she has kept her word," she added, with a heartsick sigh.

"You surely would not believe her if she said the same thing fifty times over," said I, not very reasonably, certainly.

"I do not know," she replied, hesitatingly. "It is very difficult to know."

"Well, I would not. If the whole world accused him I would believe nothing except from his own lips."

"I wish I knew all about Anna Sartorius," said she, slowly, and she looked as if seeking back in her memory to remember some dream. I stood beside her; the motley crowd ebbed and flowed beneath us, but the whisper we had heard had changed everything; and yet, no--to me not changed, but only darkened things.

In the meantime it had been growing later. Our conversation, with its frequent pauses, had taken a longer time than we had supposed. The crowd was thinning. Some of the women were going.

"I wonder where my sister is!" observed Miss Wedderburn, rather wearily.

Her face was pale, and her delicate head drooped as if it were overweighed and pulled down by the superabundance of her beautiful chestnut hair, which came rippling and waving over her shoulders. A white satin petticoat, stiff with gold embroidery; a long trailing blue mantle of heavy brocade, fastened on the shoulders with golden clasps; a golden circlet in the gold of her hair; such was the dress, and right royally she became it. She looked a vision of loveliness. I wondered if she would ever act Elsa in reality; she would be a.s.suredly the loveliest representative of that fair and weak-minded heroine who ever trod the boards. Supposing it ever came to pa.s.s that she acted Elsa to some one else's Lohengrin, would she think of this night? Would she remember the great orchestra--and me, and the lights, and the people--our words--a whisper? A pause.

"But where can Adelaide be?" she said, at last. "I have not seen them since they left us."

"They are there," said I, surveying from my vantage-ground the thinning ranks. "They are coming up here too. And there is the other gentleman, Graf von Telramund, following them."

They drew up to the foot of the orchestra, and then Mr. Arkwright came up to seek us.

"Miss Wedderburn, Lady Le Marchant is tired and thinks it is time to be going."

"So am I tired," she replied. I stepped back, but before she went away she turned to me, holding out her hand:

"Good-night, Herr Helfen. I, too, will not believe without proof."

We shook hands, and she went away.

The lamp still burning, the room cold, the stove extinct. Eugen seated motionless near it.

"Eugen, art thou asleep?"

"I asleep, my dear boy! Well, how was it?"

"Eugen, I wish you had been there."

"Why?" He roused himself with an effort and looked at me. His brow was clouded, his eyes too.

"Because you would have enjoyed it. I did. I saw Miss Wedderburn, and spoke to her. She looked lovely."

"In that case it would have been odd indeed if you had not enjoyed yourself."

"You are inexplicable."

"It is bed-time," he remarked, rising and speaking, as I thought, coldly.

We both retired. As for the whisper, frankly and honestly, I did not give it another thought.