Our Own Set Part 3

The sketch was handed round; the likeness of Sterzl was unmistakable.

Soon after the Countess Ilsenbergh went away, and as the company were not in the best of humors the two friends also withdrew shortly after midnight followed by those gentlemen who had come in their train.

"Fritzi is really a victim to an _idee fixe_," the princess began when this indiscreet group had departed; "she wants me to entrench myself in dignified reserve against this poor little thing. What harm can the child do me?"

"I cannot imagine," said Siegburg; "indeed, if she is pretty and has some money, it strikes me I will marry her myself--that will set matters straight" Siegburg was fond of talking of the money that his wife must bring him, and liked to air the selfishness of which he was innocent, as very rich folks sometimes make a parade of poverty.

"And it was really very stupid of Fritzi to ventilate this idiotic nonsense before those two women," added the princess, who was apt to express herself strongly; but nothing that she said ever sounded badly, on the contrary, she lent a grace to whatever she said. "Does she think she can make me turn exclusive!"

"I hope you observed how that pinchbeck countess was prepared to tread in her footsteps," said Seigburg.

Truyn meanwhile was hunting eagerly about the chimney-shelf and the tables, a.s.sisted by the master of the house.

"What are you looking for, Erich?" asked his sister.

"For that sketch of Sempaly's. I should not like to leave the thing about. Excuse me, Nicki, the caricature was capital, I have nothing to say against it, if it had only been among ourselves; but you really ought not to have shown it to strangers. You are so heedless, you do not think of what you are doing."

"And what have I done now?" asked Sempaly without any trace of annoyance.

"You have simply stamped this young girl as an adventuress on the look-out for a husband."

"Pooh! as if so trifling a jest could be taken in earnest!" said Sempaly. They searched everywhere for the caricature but in vain.

"I am convinced that wretched woman put it in her pocket!" cried the princess indignantly. That wretched woman was of course Madame de Gandry.

It was true that Princess Vulpini was very fond of Sterzl, and he returned her regard with almost rapturous devotion. In spite of an unpolished and absent manner he had a vein of poetic chivalry and a pure reverence for true and lofty womanhood. He could not think it worth his while to offer to any woman that flattery--often impertinent enough in reality--that gratifies some of the s.e.x, and he had never learnt the A B C of modern gallantry; but in his intercourse with those whom he spoke of as "true women" there was a touch of chivalrous protection and reserved deference. His behavior to them was so full of an old-fas.h.i.+oned courtesy that he was certain to win their favor; he treated them partly like children that must be cared for, and partly like sacred beings before whom we must bow the knee.

Immediately on his arrival in Rome the princess found great pleasure in their acquaintance, she confided to him all her little indignation at this or that grievance in Rome, and allowed him to take a variety of small cares off her shoulders, being, as all women of her soft nature are, very fastidious and utterly unpractical.

There had been few sweeter girls in the Vienna world than the Countess Marie Truyn in her day, and there was not now in all Rome a more lovable woman than the Princess Vulpini. When in the afternoons she drove out in her open carriage, with her four or five children that looked as though they had been stolen straight out of one of Kate Greenaway's picture books, along the Corso to the Villa Borghese, her fas.h.i.+onable acquaintance, who had brought out their most recent or most fas.h.i.+onable bosom-friend instead of their children, would exclaim: "Here comes true happiness!" And the men bowed to her with particular respect, eager to win the friendly and gracious smile that warmed all hearts like a ray of spring suns.h.i.+ne. She had never been a regular beauty and had early lost her youthful freshness and the slim figure that had been almost proverbial. Nevertheless her charm was undiminished; her chief ornament, a wonderful abundance of bright brown hair, was as fine as ever and she wore it still, as when a girl of sixteen, simply combed back and gathered into a knot low down at the back. In spite of her faded complexion there was a childlike sweetness in her small round face, with its kind little eyes, its delicate turned-up nose, and soft lips that had no beauty till they smiled. All her movements were simple and graceful and her whole appearance conveyed the impression of exquisite refinement and the loftiest womanliness. Her dress was apt to be a little out of fas.h.i.+on, the latest _chic_ never suited her. She was a great reader, even of very solid books, especially affecting natural science; but she retained nevertheless the literal faith of her infancy, and this innocent orthodoxy was part and parcel of the simple fervency of her character.

Sempaly, who was sincerely attached to her, always spoke of her devout piety as one of her most engaging qualities; he declared that a woman to be truly sympathetic must be religious; that a man may allow himself to profess free thought, but that a sceptical woman was as odious as a woman with a hump. To this observation, which Sempaly once threw out in the presence of Sterzl, Cecil took great exception, though he himself was as devoid of religious beliefs as Sempaly himself; he thought it impertinent.

"Men do not jest about the women whose names are sacred to them," he said with the pedantic chivalry, which always provoked his colleague's opposition. However, Sempaly only retorted with a sneering smile and a shrug.

CHAPTER IV.

A few days after the evening when Sempaly had given such brilliant proof of his talent as a caricaturist, General von Klinger was sitting in his studio on a divan covered with a picturesque Persian rug and endeavoring--having for the moment nothing better to do--to teach his parrot to sing the Austrian anthem--a loyal task which the bird, perched on the top of its cage, persistently refused to learn. It was a gorgeous studio, with a coved ceiling painted in fresco and a _rococo_ plaster cornice, the walls hung with old tapestry, eastern stuffs and other "properties." It was so large that men looked like dwarfs in it, and the general's works of art like ill.u.s.trations cut out of a picture book. The scirocco brooded in the atmosphere and the general was out of sorts; he could not get on with his painting, and though it was now a quarter to five not a visitor had he seen. Usually by this hour he had a number--nay sometimes too many. The general often grumbled--to himself of course--at the interruption; but he always enjoyed the little dissipation; it made him melancholy to be left to himself.

He was thinking just now how difficult it was to get on as a painter; his coloring was capital--so all his artist friends a.s.sured him; but that his drawing left much to be desired he himself confessed. His two strong points were a harmonious effect of grey tone and horses seen from behind. All his pictures returned to him from the exhibitions unsold, excepting one which was purchased by the emperor in consideration of the general's former merits as a soldier rather than of his talents as an artist. The painters who came to smoke his cigarettes accounted for this by saying that his artistic aims were too independent, that he made no concessions to public taste and so could not hope for popularity.

He was in the very act of whistling the national anthem for the sixteenth time to the recalcitrant bird, when he heard a knock at the door; he rose to open it and Sempaly came in. He had called to inform the general that he had discovered a very fine though much damaged piece of tapestry in a convent, and had bought it for a mere song; he had in fact purchased it for the general because he knew that it was just such a specimen as he had long wished for. "But if you do not care to take it I shall be very glad to keep it," he added. No one had the art of doing an obliging thing with a better grace than he; it was one of his little accomplishments.

When they had settled their business Sempaly broke into loud lamentations that he was obliged to dine that day at the British emba.s.sy, and then to dance at the French amba.s.sador's, and raved about the ideal life led by his friend--he only wished he could lead such a life--in which there were no evening parties, routs, b.a.l.l.s or dinners.

Next he wandered round the room looking at all the studies that hid their faces against the wall. "Charming!" "Superb!" he kept exclaiming in French, with his Austrian accent, from a sheer impulse to say something pleasant--he always tried to make himself pleasant. "Why do not you work that thing up?" he said at length, pointing to a sketch on canvas of a group of bas.h.i.+bazouks.

"It might sell," replied the artist whose great difficulty always lay in the 'working up,' "but you know I am independent in my aims, I set my face against making concessions to the vulgar; I must work on my own principles and not to pander to the public."

Sempaly smiled at this profession of faith.

"As it is a mere whim with you ever to sell at all," he answered, "my advice is that you should never attempt it, but leave all your works to the nation, so that we may have a _Musee Wierz_ at Vienna."

The general a.s.sured him that he was quite in earnest in his desire to sell his pictures, but Sempaly smiled knowingly.

"There was once upon a time," he began, "a cobbler who was a man of genius, but he prided himself on his sense of beauty and his artistic convictions, and he heeded not the requirements of his customers--he would make nothing but Greek sandals. He died a beggar, but happy in the consciousness of never having made a concession to the vulgar."

The general was on the point of making an indignant reply to this malicious anecdote, when the loud rap was again heard which seems to be traditional at a studio door; it is supposed to be necessary to arouse the artist from his absorption in his work. The general went to admit his visitor.

There was a small ante-room between the studio and the stairs. The door was no sooner opened than in flitted a slender creature, fair and blooming, tall, slim, and bewitchingly pretty, in a dark dress and a sealskin jacket.

"What, you Zinka!" cried the old general delightedly. "This is a surprise! How long have you been in Rome?"

"Only since this morning," answered a gay voice.

"And are you alone?" asked the artist in astonishment, as Zinka shut the door and went forward into the atelier.

"Yes, quite alone," she said calmly. "I left the maid at home; she and mamma are fast asleep, resting after their journey. I came alone in a carriage--it was very nice of me do not you think?--Why, what a face to make!... And why have you not given me a kiss. Uncle Klinger?" She stood before him bright and confident, her head a little thrown back, her hands in a tiny m.u.f.f, gazing at him with surprise in her frank grey eyes.

"My dear Zinka...." the general began--for, like all conscientious old gentlemen with romantic memories, he was desperately punctilious as to the proprieties when any lady in whom he took an interest was implicated, "I am charmed, delighted to see you.... But in a strange place, where you know no one, and in a strange house where...."

"Oh, now I understand," cried the girl. "It is not proper!... I shall live to be a hundred before I know exactly what is proper; it is very odd, but Uncle Sterzl used always to say that it was of no use to worry about it; that if people were ladies and gentlemen everything was proper, and if they were not why it was all the same. But he did not know what he was talking about, it would seem!" and she turned sharply on her heel and made for the door.

"But, my dear Zinka," cried the general holding her back, "tell me at least where you are living before you whisk off like a whirlwind. Do not be so utterly unreasonable."

"I am perfectly reasonable," she retorted. She was both embarra.s.sed and angry; her cheeks were scarlet and her eyes full of tears. "It never would have occurred to me certainly that there was anything improper in calling on an old gentleman," and she emphasized the words quite viciously, "in his studio. Oh, the vanity of men! Who can foresee its limits!--But I am perfectly reasonable, I acknowledge my mistake--simpleton that I am!... And I have been looking forward all day to taking you by surprise. I meant to ask you to dine with us at the Hotel de l'Europe and to come with me first to the Pincio to see the sunset. And these are the thanks I get!... Do not trouble yourself to get your hat, it is waste of trouble; I do not want you now.

Good-bye." And she flew off, her head in the air, without looking back once at the general who dutifully escorted her to the carriage.

The old man came back much crest-fallen. A voice greeted him cheerfully:

"Quite in disgrace, general!"

It was Sempaly, who had witnessed the whole scene from a recess, and whom the general had entirely forgotten.

"So it seems," said he shortly, beginning to sc.r.a.pe his palette.

"But tell me who is this despotic little princess?"

"Who? My G.o.d-daughter, Zinka Sterzl."

Thunderbolts are out of date, no one believes in them now-a-days; nevertheless it is a fact, which Sempaly himself never contradicted, that he fell in love with Zinka at first sight. And when a few days after Zinka's irruption into the general's studio the old gentleman accepted an invitation to dine with the Baroness Sterzl at the Hotel de l'Europe, on entering the room he found, eagerly employed in looking over a quant.i.ty of photographs with the young lady--Count Sempaly.

The two gentlemen were the only guests, and yet--or perhaps in consequence--the little party was as gay and pleasant as was possible with so affected and formal a hostess as the "Baroness."