The King's Mirror Part 44

"In offering to present us to madame at an hour possibly somewhat late,"

he said, "our dear M. Struboff shows his wonted amiability. We should be failing in grat.i.tude if we did not thank him most sincerely."

"I didn't ask you to come," growled Struboff.

Wetter looked at him with an air of grieved surprise, but said nothing at all. He turned to me with a ridiculous look of protest, as though asking for my support. I laughed; the mad nonsense was so welcome to me.

We stopped before a tall house in the Rue Washington; Wetter bundled us out with immense haste. There were lights in the second-floor windows.

"Madame expects us!" he cried with a rapturous clasping of his hands.

"Come, come, dear Struboff!--Baron, Baron, pray take Struboff's arm; the steps to heaven are so steep."

Struboff seemed resigned to his fate; he allowed himself to be pushed upstairs without expostulation. He opened the door for us, and ushered us into the pa.s.sage. As he preceded us, I had time for one whisper to Wetter.

"You're still mad about her, are you?" I said, pinching his arm.

"Still? Good Heavens, no! Again!" he answered.

The door that faced us was thrown open, and Coralie stood before me in a loose gown of a dark-red colour. Before she could speak, Wetter darted forward, pulling me after him.

"I have the distinguished honour to present my friend, M. de Neberhausen," he said. "You may remember meeting him at Forstadt."

Coralie looked for a moment at each of us in turn. She smiled and nodded her head.

"Perfectly," she said; "but it is a surprise to see him here, a very pleasant surprise." She gave me her hand, which I kissed with a fine flourish of gallantry.

"This gentleman knows the King very well," said Struboff, nodding at her with a solemn significance. "There's money in that!" he seemed to say.

"Does he?" she asked indifferently; and added to me, "Pray come in. I was not expecting visitors; you must make excuses for me."

She did not seem changed in the least degree. There was the same indolence, the same languid, slow enunciation. It struck me in a moment that she ignored her husband's presence. He had gone to a sideboard and was fingering a decanter. Wetter flung himself on a sofa.

"It is really you?" she asked in a whisper, with a lift of her eyelids.

"Oh, without the least doubt!" I answered. "And it is you also?"

Struboff came forward, tumbler in hand.

"Pray, is your King fond of music?" he asked.

"He will adore it from the lips of Madame Struboff," I answered, bowing.

"He adored it from the lips of Mlle. Mansoni," observed Wetter, with a malicious smile. Struboff glared at him; Coralie smiled slightly. An inkling of Wetter's chosen part came into my mind. He had elected to make Struboff uncomfortable; he did not choose that the fat man should enjoy his victory in peace. My emotions chimed in with his resolve, but reason suggested that the ethical merits were more on Struboff's side.

He was Coralie's career; the a.n.a.logy of my own relation toward Elsa urged that he who is a career is ent.i.tled to civility. Was not I Elsa's Struboff? I broke into a sudden laugh; it pa.s.sed as a tribute to Wetter's acid correction.

"You are studying here in Paris, madame?" I asked.

"Yes," said Coralie. "Why else should we be here now?"

"Why else should I be here now?" asked Wetter. "For the matter of that, Baron, why else should you be here now? Why else should anybody be here now? It is even an excuse for Struboff's presence."

"I need no excuse for being in my own home," said Struboff, and he gulped down his liquor.

Wetter sprang up and seized him by the arm.

"You are becoming fatter and fatter and fatter. Presently you will be round, quite round; they'll make a drum of you, and I'll beat you in the orchestra while madame sings divinely on the boards. Come and see if we can possibly avoid this thing," and he led him off to the sofa. There they began to talk, Wetter suddenly dropping his burlesque and allowing a quiet, earnest manner to succeed his last outburst. I caught some mention of thousands of francs; surely there must be a bond of interest, or Wetter would have been turned out before now.

Coralie moved toward the other end of the room, which was long, although narrow. I followed her. As she sat down she remarked:

"He has lent Struboff twenty thousand francs; but for that I must have sung before I was ready."

The situation seemed a little clearer.

"But he is curious," she pursued, fixing a patiently speculative eye on Wetter. "You would say that he was fond of me?"

"It is a possible reason for his presence."

"He doesn't show it," said she, with a shrug.

I understood that little point in Wetter's code; besides, his humour seemed just now too bitter for love-making. If Coralie felt any resentment, it did not go very deep. She turned her eyes from Wetter to my face.

"You're going to be married very soon?" she said.

"In a month," said I. "I'm having my last fling. You perceived our high spirits?"

"I've seen her picture. She's pretty. And I've seen the Countess von Sempach."

"You know about her?"

"Have you forgotten that you used to speak of her? Ah, yes, you've forgotten all that you used to say! The Countess is still handsome."

"What of that? So are you."

"True, it doesn't matter much," Coralie admitted. "Does your Princess love you?"

"Don't you love your husband?"

A faint slow smile bent her lips as she glanced at Struboff--himself and his locket.

"n.o.body acts without a motive," said I. "Not even in marrying."

The bitterness that found expression in this little sneer elicited no sympathetic response from Coralie. I was obliged to conclude that she considered her marriage a success; at least that it was doing what she had expected from it. At this moment she yawned in her old, pretty, lazy way. Certainly there were no signs of romantic misery or tragic disillusionment about her. Again I asked myself whether my sympathy were not more justly due to Struboff--Struboff, who sat now smoking a big cigar and wobbling his head solemnly in answer to the emphatic taps of Wetter's forefinger on his waistcoat. The question was whether human tenderness lay anywhere under those wrappings; if so, M. Struboff might be a proper object of compa.s.sion, his might be the misery, his (O monstrous thought!) the disillusionment. But the prejudice of beauty fought hard on Coralie's side. I always find it difficult to be just to a person of markedly unpleasant appearance. I was piqued to much curiosity by these wandering ideas; I determined to probe Struboff through the layers.

Soon after I took my leave. Coralie pressed me to return the next day, and before I could speak Wetter accepted the invitation for me. There was no very strong repugnance in Struboff's face; I should not have heeded it had it appeared. Wetter prepared to come with me. I watched his farewell to Coralie; his smile seemed to mock both her and himself.

She was weary and dreary, but probably only because she wanted her bed.

It was a mistake, as a rule, to attribute to her other than the simplest desires. The moment we were outside, Wetter turned on me with a savagely mirthful expression of my own thoughts.

"A wretched thing to leave her with him? Not the least in the world!" he cried. "She will sleep ten hours, eat one, sing three, sleep three, eat two, sleep---- Have I run through the twenty-four?"

"Well, then, why are we to disturb ourselves?" I asked.