The King's Mirror Part 54

"She can't feel it," said Struboff, taking his handkerchief and wiping brow and eyes.

"She's a fortunate woman," remarked Varvilliers from his sofa.

"You'd think she could," said Wetter, taking both her hands and surveying her from top to toe. "You'd think she could understand. Look at her eyes, her brows, her lips. You'd think she could understand. Look at her hands, her waist, her neck. It's a little strange, isn't it? See, she smiles at me. She has an adorably good temper. She doesn't mind me in the least. It's just that she happens not to be able to feel."

During all this outburst Struboff played softly and tenderly; a large tear formed now in each of his eyes, and presently trickled over the swelling hillocks underneath his cheek bones. Coralie was smiling placidly at Wetter, thinking him mad enough, but in no way put out by his criticism.

"I can feel it," said Wetter, in a whimsically puzzled tone. "Why should I feel it? I'm not young or beautiful, and my voice is the worse for wear, because I've had to denounce the King so much. Nevertheless I can feel it."

"You can make a big fool of yourself," observed Coralie, breaking into a laugh and s.n.a.t.c.hing her hands away from him.

"Yes, yes, yes, I should hope so," he cried. "She catches the point! Is there hope? No, she won't make a fool of herself. There's no hope." He sank into a chair with every appearance of dejection.

"I think it's supper-time," she said, moving toward the table. "What are you still playing for?" she called to Struboff.

"Let him play," said I. "Perhaps he would rather play than sup."

"It's very likely," Coralie admitted with a shrug. Struboff looked at me for a moment, and nodded solemnly. He was playing low now, giving a plaintive turn to the music that had been joyful.

"No, you shall try it once again," cried Wetter, leaping up. "Once again! A verse of it! I'll stand opposite to you. See, like this; and I'll look at you. Now try!"

She was very good-natured with him, and did as he bade her. He took his stand just by her, behind Struboff, and gazed into her face. I could see him; his lips twitched, and his eyes were set on her in an ardour of pa.s.sion.

"Look in my eyes and sing!" he commanded.

"Ah, you're silly," she murmured in her pleasant lazy drawl. She threw out her chest, and filled the room with healthy tuneful sound.

"Stop!" he cried. "Stop! I can endure no more of it. Can you eat? Yes, you can eat. In G.o.d's name, come and eat, dear Coralie."

Coralie appealed to me.

"Don't you think I sing it very well?" she asked. "I can fill the Grand Opera House quite easily."

"You sing it to perfection," said I. "There's nothing wrong, nothing at all. Wetter here is mad."

"Wetter is certainly mad," echoed Varvilliers, rising from the sofa.

"Wetter is d.a.m.ned mad," said Wetter.

"Wetter is right--ah, so right," came in a despairing grumble from poor Struboff, who still played away.

"To supper, to supper!" cried Wetter. "You're right, all of you. And I'm right. And I'm mad. To supper! No, let Struboff play. Struboff, you want to play. Play on."

Struboff nodded again and played on. His notes, now plaintive, now triumphant, were the accompaniment to our meal, filling the pauses, enriching, as it seemed, the talk. But Coralie was deep in _foie gras_, and paid no heed to them. Wetter engaged in some vehement discussion with Varvilliers, who met him with good-humoured pertinacity. I had dropped out of the talk, and sat listening dreamily to Struboff's music.

Suddenly Coralie laid down her knife and turned to me.

"Wouldn't it be nice if I were going to be married to you?" she asked.

"Charming," said I. "But what of our dear M. Struboff? And what of my Cousin Elsa?"

"We wouldn't trouble about them." She was looking at me with a shrewd gaze. "No," she said, "you wouldn't like it. Shall we try another arrangement?" She leaned toward me and laid her pretty hand on my arm.

"Wetter and I--I am not very well placed, but let it pa.s.s--Wetter and I, Varvilliers and the Princess, you and the Countess."

I made no sign of appreciating this rather penetrating suggestion.

"You're more capricious than fortune, more arbitrary than fate, madame,"

said I. "Moreover, you have again forgotten to provide for M. Struboff."

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"No," she said meditatively. "I don't like that after all. It might do for M. de Varvilliers, but the Countess is too old, and Wetter there would cut my throat. We can't sacrifice everything to give Varvilliers a Princess." She appeared to reflect for a few seconds. "I don't know how to arrange it."

"Positively I should be at a loss myself if I were called upon to govern the world at short notice."

"I think I must let it alone. I don't see how to make it better."

"Thank you. For my own part I have the good luck to be in love with my cousin."

Coralie lifted her eyes to mine. "Oh, no!" she drawled quietly. Then she added with a laugh, "Do you remember when you fought Wetter?"

"Heavens! yes; fools that we were! Not a word of it! n.o.body knows."

"Well, at that time you were in love with me."

"Madame, I will have the honour of mentioning a much more remarkable thing to you."

"If you please, sire," she said, taking a bunch of grapes and beginning to eat them.

"You were all but in love with me."

"That's not remarkable. You're too humble. I was; ah, yes, I was. I was very afraid for you. _Mon ami_, don't you wish that, instead of being King here, you were the Sultan?"

I laughed at this abrupt and somewhat unceremonious question.

"In fact, Coralie," said I, "there are only two really satisfactory things to be in this life; all else is miserable compromise."

"Tell them to me."

"A Sultan or a monk. And--pardon me--give me the latter."

"Well, I once knew a monk very well, and----" began Coralie in a tone of meditative reminiscence. But, rather to my vexation, Wetter spoiled the story by asking what we were talking about with our heads so close together.

"We were correcting Fate and re-arranging Destiny," I explained.

"Pooh, pooh!" he cried. "You'd not get rid of the tragedy, and only spoil the comedy. Let it alone, my children."

We let it alone, and began to chatter honest nonsense. This had been going on for a few minutes, when I became aware suddenly that Struboff had ceased playing my wedding-song. I looked round; he sat on the piano-stool, his broad back like a tree-trunk bent to a bow, and his head settled on his shoulders till a red bulge over his collar was all that survived of his neck. I rose softly, signing to the others not to interrupt their conversation, and stole up to him. He did not move; his hands were clasped on his stomach. I peered round into his face; its lines were set in a grotesque heavy melancholy. At first I felt very sorry for him; but as I went on looking at him something of Coralie's feeling came over me, and I grew angry. That he was doubtless very miserable ceased to plead for him, nay, it aggravated his offence. What the deuce right had this fellow to make misery repulsive? And it was over my wedding song that he had tortured himself into this ludicrous condition! Yet again it was a pleasant paradox of Nature's to dower this carca.s.s with the sensibility which might have given a crowning charm to the beauty of Coralie. In him it could attract no love, to him it could bring no happiness. Probably it caused him to play the piano better; if this justifies Nature, she is welcome to the plea. For my part, I felt that it was monstrously bad taste in him to come and be miserable here and now in Forstadt. But he overshot his mark.

"Good G.o.d, my dear Struboff!" I cried in extreme annoyance, "think how little it matters, how little any of us care, even, if you like, how little you ought to care yourself! You've tumbled down on the gravel; very well! Stop crying, and don't, for Heaven's sake, keep showing me the graze on your knee. We all, I suppose, have grazes on our knees. Get your mother to put you into stockings, and n.o.body will see it. I've been in stockings for years." I burst into a laugh.