MORE than a week went by, and it seemed quite natural now to Lord Fordyce to shape his days according to the plans of the American party, and when they met at the Schlossbrunn in the morning at half-past seven, and he and Mr. Cloudwater and the Princess had drunk their tumblers of water together, their custom was to go on down to the town and there find Sabine, who had bought their slices of ham and their rolls, and awaited them at the end of the Alte Weise with the pink paper bags, and then the four proceeded to walk to the Kaiser Park to breakfast.
This meal was so merry, Mrs. Howard tantalizing the others by having cream in her coffee and sugar upon her wild strawberries, while they were only permitted to take theirs plain.
During the stroll there it was Sabine's custom persistently to adhere to the side of Mr. Cloudwater, leaving the other two tête-à-tête—and, delightful as Lord Fordyce found the Princess, this irritated him. He discovered himself, as the days advanced, to be experiencing a distinct longing to know what was passing in that little head, whose violet eyes looked out with so much mystery and shadow in their depths. He could not tell himself that she avoided him; she was always friendly and casual and perfectly at her ease, but no extra look of pleasure or welcome for him personally ever came into her face, and never once had he been able to speak to her really alone. Mr. Cloudwater and the two ladies drove back from breakfast each day, and he was left to take his exercises and his bath. Now and then he had encountered the Princess in the near woods just before luncheon, returning from the Kaiserbad, but Mrs. Howard never—and when he inquired how she spent her time, she replied however she happened to fancy, which gave him no clue as to where he might find her—and with all her frank charm, she was not a person to whom it was easy to put a direct question. Lord Fordyce began to grow too interested for his peace of mind. When he realized this, he got very angry with himself. He had never permitted a woman to be anything but a mild recreation in his life, and at forty it was a little late to begin to experience something serious about one.
They often motored in the afternoon to various resorts not too far distant, and there took tea; and for two whole days it had been wet and, except at meals, the ladies had lain perdues.
However fate was kind on a Saturday morning, and allowed Lord Fordyce to chance upon Mrs. Howard, right up at the Belvedere in the far woods, looking over the valley. She was quite alone, and her slender figure was outlined against the bright sunlight as she leaned on the balustrade gazing down at the exquisite scene.
Henry could have cried aloud in joy, "At last!" but he restrained himself, and instead only said a casual "Hullo!" Mrs. Howard turned and looked at him, and answered his greeting with frank cordiality.
"Have you never been here before? I think it is one of the most lovely spots in the whole woods, and at this time there is never any one—what made you penetrate so far?"
"Good fortune! The jade has been unkind until now."
They leant on the balustrade together.
"I always like being up on a high mountain and looking down at things, don't you?" she said.
"No, not always—one feels lonely—but it is nice if one is with a suitable companion. How have you, at your age, managed to become self-sufficing?"
"Circumstance, I expect, has taught me the beauty of solitude. I spend months alone in Brittany."
"And what do you do—read most of the time?"
He was so enchanted that she was not turning the conversation into banal things, he determined not to say anything which would cause her again to draw down the blind of bland politeness.
"Yes, I read a great deal. You see, Moravia and I were at a convent together, and there, beyond teaching us to spell and to write and do a few sums and learn a garbled version of French history, a little music, and a great deal of embroidery, they left us totally ignorant—one must try to supply the deficiencies oneself. It is appalling to remain ignorant once one realizes that one is."
"Knowledge on any subject is interesting—did you begin generally—or did you specialize?"
"I always wanted to be just—and to understand things. The whole of life and existence seemed too difficult—I think I began trying to find some key to that and this opened the door to general information, and so eventually, perhaps, one specializes."
He was wise enough not to press the question into what her specializing ran. He adored subtleties, and he noted with delight that she was not so completely indifferent as usual. If he could keep her attention for a little while, they might have a really interesting investigation of each other's thoughts.
"I like thinking of things, too—and trying to discover their meanings and what caused them. We are all, of course, the victims of heredity."
"That may be," she agreed, "but the will can control any heredity. It can only manifest itself when we let ourselves drift. The tragedy of it is that we have drifted too far sometimes before we learn that we could have directed the course if we had willed. Ignorance is seemingly the most cruel foe we have to encounter, because we are so defenseless, not knowing he is there."
She sighed unconsciously and looked out over the beautiful tree-tops, down to where the Kaiser Park appeared like a little doll's châlet set among streams and pastures green.
Lord Fordyce was much moved. She was prettier and sweeter than he had even fancied she would be could he ever contrive to find her all alone. He watched her covertly; the exquisite peachy skin with its pure color, and her soft brown hair dressed with a simplicity which he thought perfection, all appealed to him, and those strange violet eyes rather round and heavily lashed with brown-shaded lashes, darker at the tips. The type was not intense or of a studious mould. Circumstance must indeed have formed an exotic character to have grafted such deep meaning in their innocent depths. She went on presently, not remarking his silence.
"It is heredity which makes my country women so nervous and unstable as a rule. You don't like them, as I know," and she smiled, "and I think, from your point of view, you are right. You see, we are nearly all mushroom growths, sprung up in a night—and we have not had time for poise, or the acceptance with calmness of our good fortune. We are as yet unbalanced by it, and don't know what we want."
"You are very charming," and he looked truthful, and at that moment felt so.
"Yes, I know—we can be more charming than any other women because we have learnt from all the other nations and play which ever part we wish to select."
"Yes," he admitted, rather too quickly—and her rippling laugh rang out. He had hardly ever heard her laugh, and it enchanted him, even though he was nettled at her understanding of his thought.
"It remains for men to make us desire to play the same part always—if they find it agreeable."
Again he said "Yes"—but this time slowly.
"Now you Englishmen have the heredity of absolute phlegm to fight. While we ought to be trying to counteract jumping from one rôle to another, you ought to try to teach yourselves that versatility is a good thing, too, in its way."
"I am sure it is. I wish you would teach me to understand it—but you yourself seem to be restful and stable. How have you achieved this?"
"By studying the meaning of things, I suppose, and checking myself every time I began to want to do the restless things I saw my countrywomen doing. We have wonderful wills, you know, and if we want a thing sufficiently, we can get anything. That is why Moravia says we make such successful great ladies in the different countries we marry into. Your great ladies, if they are nice, are great naturally, and if they are not, they often fail, even if they are born aristocrats. We do not often fail, because we know very well we are taking on a part, and must play it to the very best of our ability all the time—and gradually we play it better than if it were natural."
"What a little cynic! 'Out of the mouths of babes'!" and he laughed.
"I am not at all a cynic! It is the truth I am telling you. I admire and respect our methods far more than yours, which just 'growed' like Topsy!"
"But cynicism and truth are, unfortunately, synonymous. Only you are too young, and ought not to know anything about either!"
"I like to know and do things I ought not to!" Her eyes were merry.
"Tell me some more about your countrywomen. I'm awfully interested, and have always been too frightened of their brilliancy to investigate myself."
"We are not nearly so bothered with hearts as Europeans—heredity again. Our mothers and fathers generally sprang from people working too hard to have great emotions—then we arrive, and have every luxury poured upon us from birth; and if we have hardy characters we weather the deluge and remain very decent citizens."
"And if you have not?"
"Why, naturally the instincts for hard work, which made our parents succeed, if they remain idle must make some explosion. So we grow restless in our palaces, and get fads and nerves and quaint diseases—and have to come to Carlsbad—and talk to sober Englishmen!" The look of mischief which she vouchsafed him was perfectly adorable. He was duly affected.
"You take us as a sort of cure!"
"Yes——!"
"How do you know so much about us and our faults? I gathered, from what you said last night at dinner, that you have never been in England but once, for a month, when you were almost a child."
"The rarest specimens come abroad," and a dimple showed in her left cheek, "and I read about you in your best novels—even your authors unconsciously give you away and show your selfishness and arrogance and self-satisfaction."
"Shocking brutes, aren't we?"
"Perfectly."
Then they both laughed, and Sabine suggested it was time they returned to luncheon.
"It is quite two miles from here, and Mr. Cloudwater, although the kindest dear old gentleman, begins to get hungry at one o'clock."
So they turned and sauntered downwards through the lovely green woods, with the warm hum of insects and the soft summer, glancing sunshine. And all of you who know the beauties of Carlsbad, or indeed any other of those Bohemian spas, can just picture how agreeable was their walk, and how conducive to amiable discussion and the acceleration of friendship. Henry tried to get her to tell him some more of the secrets of her countrywomen, but she would not be serious. She was in a merry mood, and turned the fire into the enemy's camp, making him disclose the ways of Englishmen.
"I believe you like us as a rule because we are such casual creatures!" he said at last, "rather indifferent about petits soins, and apt to seize what we desire, or take it for granted."
A sudden shadow came into her face which puzzled him, and she did not answer, but went on to talk of Brittany and the place which she had bought. Héronac—just a weird castle perched right upon a rock above a fishing village, with the sea dashing at its base and the spray rising right to her sitting-room windows.
"I have to go across a causeway to my garden upon the main land—and when it is very rough, I get soaking wet—it is the wildest place you ever saw."
"What on earth made you select it?" Lord Fordyce asked. "You, who look like a fresh rose, to choose a grim brigand's stronghold as a residence!"
"It suited my mood on the day I first saw it—and I bought it the following week. I make up my mind in a minute as to what I want."
"You must let me motor past and look at it," he pleaded, "and when my twenty-one days of drinking this uninteresting water is up, I intend going back in my car to Paris, and from there down to see Mont St. Michel."
"You shall not only look at it—you may even come in—if you are nice and do not bore me between now and then," and she glanced up at him slyly. "I have an old companion, Madame Imogen Aubert—who lives with me there—and she always hopes I shall one day have visitors!"
Lord Fordyce promised he would be a pure sage, and if she would put him on probation, and really take pains to sample his capabilities of not boring in a few more walks, he would come up for judgment at Héronac when it was her good pleasure to name a date.
"I shall be there toward the middle of August. After we leave here, the Princess and dear Cloudie go to Italy with her little son, the baby Torniloni: he is such a darling, nearly three years old—he is at Héronac now with his nurses."
"And you go back to Brittany alone?"
"Yes——"
"Then I shall come, too."
"If, at the end of your cure, you have not bored me!"
By this time they had got down to the Savoy gate—and there found Moravia and Mr. Cloudwater waiting for them on the balcony—clamoring for lunch.
Princess Torniloni gave a swift, keen glance at the two who had entered, but she did not express the thought which came to her.
"It is rather hard that Sabine, who does not want him and is not free to have him, should have drawn him instead of me."
That night in the restaurant there came in and joined their party one of those American men who are always to be met with in Paris or Aix or Carlsbad or Monte Carlo, at whatever in any of these places represents the Ritz Hotel, one who knew everybody and everything, a person of no particular sex, but who always would make a party go with his stories and his gaiety, and help along any hostess. Cranley Beaton was this one's name. The Cloudwater party were all quite glad to welcome him and hear news of their friends. One or two decent people had arrived that afternoon also, and Moravia felt she could be quite amused and wear her pretty clothes. Sabine hated the avalanches of dinners and lunches and what not this would mean. Her sense of humor was very highly developed, and she often laughed in a fond way over her friend, who was, in her search for pleasure, still as keen as she had been in convent days.
"You do remain so young, Morri!" she told her, as they linked arms going up to bed. Their rooms were on the first floor, and they disdained the lift. "Do you remember, you used to be the mother to all of us at St. Anne's—and now I am the mother of us two!"
"You are an old, wise-headed Sibyl—that is what you are, darling!" the Princess returned. "I wish I could ever know what has so utterly changed you from our convent days," and she sighed impatiently. "Then you were the merriest madcap, ready to tease any one and to have any lark, and for nearly these four years since we have been together again you have been another person—grave and self-possessed. What are you always thinking of, Sabine?"
They had reached their sitting-room, and Mrs. Howard went to the window and opened it wide.
"I grew up in one year, Moravia—I grew a hundred years old, and all the studies which I indulge in at Héronac teach me that peace and poise are the things to aim at. I cannot tell you any more."
"I did not mean to probe into your secrets, darling," the Princess exclaimed hastily. "I promised you I never would when you came to me that November in Rome—we were both miserable enough, goodness knows! We made the bargain that there should be no retrospects. And your angelic goodness to me all that time when my little Girolamo was born, have made me your eternal debtor. Why, but for you, darling, he might have been snatched from me by the hateful Torniloni family!"
"The sweet cherub!"
Then their conversation turned to this absorbing topic, the perfections of Girolamo! and as it is hardly one which could interest you or me, my friend, let us go back to the smoking-room and listen to a conversation going on between Cranley Beaton and Lord Fordyce. The latter, with great skill, had begun to elicit certain information he desired from this society register!
"Yes, indeed," Mr. Beaton was saying. "She is a peach—The husband"—and he looked extremely wise. "Oh! she made some frightful mésalliance out West, and they say he's shut in a madhouse or home for inebriates. Her entrance among us dates from when she first appeared in Paris, about three years ago, with Princess Torniloni. She is awfully rich and awfully good, and it is a real pity she does not divorce the ruffian and begin again!"
"She is not free, then?" and Lord Fordyce felt his heart sink. "I thought, probably, she had got rid of any encumbrance, as it is fairly easy over with you."
"Why, she could in a moment if she wanted to, I expect," Mr. Beaton assured his listener. "She hasn't fancied anyone else yet; when she does, she will, no doubt."
"Her husband is an American, then?"
"Why, of course—didn't I tell you she came from the West? Why, I remember crossing with her. She was in deep mourning—in the summer of 1908. She never spoke to anyone on board, and it was about eighteen months after that I was presented to her in Paris. She gets prettier every day."
Lord Fordyce felt this was true. "So she could be free if she fancied anyone, you think?" he hazarded casually, as though his interest in the subject had waned—and when Mr. Beaton had answered, "Yes— rather," Lord Fordyce got up and sauntered off toward bed.
"One has to be up so early in the morning, here," he remarked agreeably. "See you tomorrow at the Schlossbrunn?—Good-night!"