The King's Mirror Part 50

"Because even now I can't," she whispered. "No, don't think I mean--I mean a thing which would oblige you to laugh now. It's all over, all over. But that it should have been, Augustin?" My name slipped from unconscious lips. "That it should have been isn't bad to me; it's good.

That's wicked? I can't help it. It's the thing--the thing of my life.

I've no place like yours. I've nothing to make it come second. Ah, I'm forgetting again how old I am. How you always make me forget it! I mustn't talk like this."

"We shall never, I suppose, talk like this again. You go back to Paris?"

"Yes, soon. I'm glad."

"But it's not hard to you now?"

She seemed to reflect, as though she were anxious to give me an answer accurately true.

"Not very hard now," she said at last, looking full at me. "Not very hard, but very constant, always with me. I love them all, all my folk.

But it's always there."

"You mean--What do you mean? The thought of me?"

"Yes, or the thought that somehow I have just missed. I'm not miserable.

And I like to dream--to be gorgeous, splendid, wicked in dreams." She gave a laugh and pressed my hand for a moment. "Tote grows pretty," she said. "Don't you think so?"

"Tote was unhappy with me, and I let her go. Yes, she's pretty; she won't be like you, though."

"I'll appeal to you again in five, in ten years," said she, smiling, pleased with my covert praise. "Oh, it's pleasant to see you again," she went on a moment later. "I'm a bad penitent. I wish I could be with you always. No, I am not dreaming now. I mean, just in Forstadt and seeing you."

"A moment ago you were glad to go back to Paris."

"Ah, you a.s.sume more ignorance of us than you have. Mayn't I be glad of one thing and wish another?"

"True; and men can do that too."

I felt the old charm of the quick word coming from the beautiful lips, the twofold appeal. Though pa.s.sion was gone, pleasure in her remained; my love was dead. As I sat there I wished it alive again; I longed to be back in the storm of it, even though I must battle the storm again.

"After all," she said, with a glance at me, "I have my share in you. You can't think of your life without thinking of me. I'm something to you.

I'm one among the many foolish things--You don't hate the foolish things?"

"On my soul, I believe not one of them; and if you're one, I love one of them."

"I like you to say that."

A long silence fell on us. The thing had not come in either of the fashions in which I had pictured it, neither in weariness nor in excitement. It came full with emotions, but emotions that were subdued shadows of themselves, of a mournful sweetness, bewailing their lost strength, yet shrinking from remembrance of it. Would we have gone back if we could? Now I could not answer the question. Yet we could weep, because to go back was impossible. But it was with a slight laugh that at last I rose to my feet to say good-bye.

"It's like you always to laugh at the end," she said, a little in reproach, but more, I think, in the pleasure of recognising what was part of her idea of me. "You used often to do it, even when you were--even before. You remember the first time of all--when we smiled at one another behind your mother's back? That oldest memory comforts me.

Do you know why? I was never so many centuries older than you again. I'm not so many even now. You look old, I think, and seem old; if we're nearer together, it's your fault, not my merit. Well, you must go. Ah, how you fill time! How you could have filled a woman's life!"

"Could have? Your mood is right."

"Surely she'll be happy with you? If you could love her?"

"Not even then. I'm not to her measure."

"Are you unhappy?"

"It's better than the worst, a great deal better. Good-bye."

I pressed her hand and kissed it. With a sudden seeming formality she curtseyed and kissed mine.

"I don't forget what you are," she said, "because I have fancied you as something besides. Good-bye, sire. Good-bye, Augustin."

"There's a name wanting."

"Ah, to Caesar I said good-bye five years ago." The tears were in her eyes as I turned away and left her.

I had a fancy to walk back alone, as I had walked alone from her house on the day when I cut the bond between us that same five years ago.

Having dismissed my carriage, I set out in the cool of the autumn evening as dusk had just fallen, and took my way through the decorated streets. Only three days more lay between the decorations and the occasion they were meant to grace. There was a hum of gaiety through all the town; they had begun their holiday-making, and the shops did splendid trade. They in Forstadt would have liked to marry me every year. Why not? I was to them a sign, a symbol, something they saw and spoke of, but not a man. I reviewed the troops every year. Why should I not be married every year? It would be but the smallest extension of my functions, and all on the lines of logic. I could imagine Princess Heinrich according amplest approval to the scheme.

Suddenly, as I pa.s.sed in meditation through a quiet street, a hand was laid on my shoulder. I knew only one man who would stop me in that way.

Was he here again, risen again, in Forstadt again, for work, or mirth, or mischief? He came in fitting with the visit I had paid. I turned and found his odd, wry smile on me, the knit brows and twinkling eyes. He lifted his hat and tossed back the iron-gray hair.

"I am come to the wedding, sire," said he, bowing.

"It would be incomplete without you, Wetter."

"And for another thing--for a treat, for a spectacle. They've written an epithalamium, haven't they?"

"Yes, some fool, according to his folly."

"It is to be sung at the opera the night before? At the gala performance!"

"You're as well up in the arrangements as Bederhof himself."

"I have cause. Whence come you, sire?"

"From paying a visit to the Countess von Sempach."

He burst into a laugh, but the look in his eyes forbade me to be offended.

"That's very whimsical too," he observed. "There's a smack of repet.i.tion about this. Is fate hard-up for new effects?"

"There's variety enough here for me. There were no decorations in the streets when I left her before."

"True, true; and--for I must return to my tidings--I bring you something new." He paused and enjoyed his smile at me. "Who sings the marriage song?" he asked.

"Heavens, man, I don't know! I'm not the manager. What is it to me who sings the song?"

"You would like it sung in tune?"

"Oh, unquestionably."

"Ah, well, she sings in tune," he said, nodding his head with an air of satisfaction. "She is not emotional, but she sings in tune."