“I shall be free tomorrow, my dear sir. Come when most convenient to you, preferably in the morning. You are not obliged to fix an exact time, for I shall be at home all day. I thank you for your suggestion; we shall be enabled to do a splendid piece of work together, I believe.”
“Nay, it is I who must thank you for being willing to help me raise a memorial to my unhappy boy that shall redeem his name among his fellow-men.”
They left the house together, and Wenk drove rapidly to the prison. “The lady left here long before four o’clock,” said the Governor.
“Indeed!” said Wenk, disappointed. “What did she leave for me?”
“Nothing!”
“And you yourself know nothing either? About the matter she had in hand, did she get any results?”
“I did not inquire.”
“Why not?” said Wenk, annoyed by his manner.
“I was not instructed to do so,” answered the Governor morosely.
“It is not a question of your exact instructions, but of attempting to track to earth one of the most dangerous bands of criminals Germany has ever known. You don’t seem to realize that. What you and your instructions may be counts for nothing.”
“So much the better. Perhaps another time I may be spared such innovations. …”
“You do not seem to feel yourself thoroughly comfortable in your post, Governor. I will say a word for you to the Home Secretary! Good morning.”
“What has happened?” said Wenk to himself. “What is up?” He felt disappointed and angry as he took his seat in the car again.
At seven o’clock that evening the Countess drove to the Privy Councillor’s mansion. She found the same company assembled there as on the last occasion, and this time, too, she saw as little of them. Around her and Dr. Mabuse, her partner at the supper-table, the conversation rose and fell, isolating them from the rest. Her neighbour was more silent than on the previous occasion, but everything he said was spoken with an impressive intent, directed towards a goal which was unrecognizable.
The Countess was divided in her own mind as to whether she should relate her experience in the prison to him, should tell him that she had come in contact with the soul of a woman, strong and fearless as the figures in his own recitals; yea, even stronger, since it was a woman, experienced in renunciation, and carrying on her conflict in resistance and defence.
In imagination she had entered so thoroughly into the struggle, and her encounter with this criminal seemed to open up such unusual circumstances, that the power of the man at her side insensibly seemed to lessen, and this second meeting with him appeared to yield nothing that her passionate anticipation had longed for. The man seemed to decline before her.
She noticed that while he uttered his imperious sentences, both at their first meeting and on this occasion, he kept his eyes fixed on her with a compelling look. They were grey eyes, and their glance was a steely one. She grew somewhat frightened, and in her anxiety yearned for some human being who could warm her breast with his sympathy and afford her troubled spirit peace.
She looked across at her husband. He was sitting near the medium, engaging her in talk, and it seemed as if his words were the mere play of his graceful fingers, on one of which the ring was flashing, as if dominating the whole. Then the woman’s heart was overcome with a strange sad feeling, stilling the fever in her breast—a feeling of lofty womanly sympathy. He seemed such a child, she said to herself. “Without me he would be defenceless. He is like a hoop rolling down the street, its course determined by the obstacles and unevennesses in its path.”
With this feeling upon her, she experienced a renewed glow as she thought of her encounter with the dancer; she was lifted out of her everyday existence, borne onward as in a mighty rush of passion, then again becoming cool and collected as at the contact with something cold and forbidding. It seemed to her then that she was struggling to reach her husband and ever as she approached him she was driven back, encountering the inflexible and steely glance of the man beside her.
Mabuse grew more and more silent. He ate nothing, and he took no pains to conceal his taciturnity. On the contrary, he seemed, as it were, to strive to impress it upon the whole company, just as a mighty African potentate might exercise his tyranny on his patient and long-suffering followers, and the very actions of the others served to accentuate this attitude of adoration of a superior force.
Count Told alone seemed to trifle with graceful gestures about the medium, who, black-haired and deadly pale, kept her unwieldy form pressed close to his side, seeming to have eyes for no other. Then the Countess felt that she hated the man who sat beside her in his sullen mood while her husband’s attitude was thus bordering on the ridiculous. And yet it was not hate she felt, but the inward conflict between the desire to yield herself to the domination of a self-sufficing and stronger heart and brain and resistance to the impulse of subjugation.
The supper-table was cleared and the company stood around talking for a while. Mabuse had left his table-companion and sought the society of Count Told. He engaged him in a discourse on the psychological aspect of gambling.
“I am a born gambler,” said the Count. “When I am losing, I remain as cold as ice, but when I am winning my brain lights up and my fantasies are redoubled.”
Then Mabuse said: “Games of chance are the oldest form, the strongest and most widespread form, in which a man who is not gifted with artistic expression may yet feel himself an artist.”
“That is an interesting idea,” said the Count; “pray follow it up a little further.”
“It is because in a game of chance every man
