“Well, then, it was a lie!” she cried. “The money is mine, honestly my own—now yours. This was an unworthy act that you proposed. But I love your honour, and I swore to myself that I should save it in your teeth. I beg of you to let me save it”—with a sudden lovely change of tone. “Otto, I beseech you let me save it. Take this dross from your poor friend who loves you!”
“Madam, madam,” babbled Otto, in the extreme of misery, “I cannot—I must go.”
And he half rose; but she was on the ground before him in an instant, clasping his knees. “No,” she gasped, “you shall not go. Do you despise me so entirely? It is dross; I hate it; I should squander it at play and be no richer; it is an investment, it is to save me from ruin. Otto,” she cried, as he again feebly tried to put her from him, “if you leave me alone in this disgrace, I will die here!” He groaned aloud. “Oh,” she said, “think what I suffer! If you suffer from a piece of delicacy, think what I suffer in my shame! To have my trash refused! You would rather steal, you think of me so basely! You would rather tread my heart in pieces! Oh, unkind! Oh my Prince! Oh Otto! Oh pity me!” She was still clasping him; then she found his hand and covered it with kisses, and at this his head began to turn. “Oh,” she cried again, “I see it! Oh what a horror! It is because I am old, because I am no longer beautiful.” And she burst into a storm of sobs.
This was the coup de grâce. Otto had now to comfort and compose her as he could, and before many words, the money was accepted. Between the woman and the weak man such was the inevitable end. Madame von Rosen instantly composed her sobs. She thanked him with a fluttering voice, and resumed her place upon the bench, at the far end from Otto. “Now you see,” she said, “why I bade you keep the thief at distance, and why I came alone. How I trembled for my treasure!”
“Madam,” said Otto, with a tearful whimper in his voice, “spare me! You are too good, too noble!”
“I wonder to hear you,” she returned. “You have avoided a great folly. You will be able to meet your good old peasant. You have found an excellent investment for a friend’s money. You have preferred essential kindness to an empty scruple; and now you are ashamed of it! You have made your friend happy; and now you mourn as the dove! Come, cheer up. I know it is depressing to have done exactly right; but you need not make a practice of it. Forgive yourself this virtue; come now, look me in the face and smile!”
He did look at her. When a man has been embraced by a woman, he sees her in a glamour; and at such a time, in the baffling glimmer of the stars, she will look wildly well. The hair is touched with light; the eyes are constellations; the face sketched in shadows—a sketch, you might say, by passion. Otto became consoled for his defeat; he began to take an interest. “No,” he said, “I am no ingrate.”
“You promised me fun,” she returned, with a laugh. “I have given you as good. We have had a stormy scena.”
He laughed in his turn, and the sound of the laughter, in either case, was hardly reassuring.
“Come, what are you going to give me in exchange,” she continued, “for my excellent declamation?”
“What you will,” he said.
“Whatever I will? Upon your honour? Suppose I asked the crown?” She was flashing upon him, beautiful in triumph.
“Upon my honour,” he replied.
“Shall I ask the crown?” she continued. “Nay; what should I do with it? Grünewald is but a petty state; my ambition swells above it. I shall ask—I find I want nothing,” she concluded. “I will give you something instead. I will give you leave to kiss me—once.”
Otto drew near, and she put up her face; they were both smiling, both on the brink of laughter, all was so innocent and playful; and the Prince, when their lips encountered, was dumbfounded by the sudden convulsion of his being. Both drew instantly apart, and for an appreciable time sat tongue-tied. Otto was indistinctly conscious of a peril in the silence, but could find no words to utter. Suddenly the Countess seemed to awake. “As for your wife—” she began in a clear and steady voice.
The word recalled Otto, with a shudder, from his trance. “I will hear nothing against my wife,” he cried wildly; and then, recovering himself and in a kindlier tone, “I will tell you my one secret,” he added. “I love my wife.”
“You should have let me finish,” she returned, smiling. “Do you suppose I did not mention her on purpose? You know you had lost your head. Well, so had I. Come now, do not be abashed by words,” she added somewhat sharply. “It is the one thing I despise. If you are not a fool, you will see that I am building fortresses about your virtue. And at any rate, I choose that you shall understand that I am not dying of love for you. It is a very smiling business; no tragedy for me! And now here is what I have to say about your wife; she is not and she never has been Gondremark’s mistress. Be sure he would have boasted if she had. Good night!”
And in a moment she was gone down the alley, and Otto was alone with the bag
