CHAPTER XXI.
[AN AUSTRIAN HOST.]
"Hm! indeed! Now I can no longer be shabby at my ease." These were the words with which the Baroness on her return home greeted Stella's joyous announcement of Madame de Rohritz's visit. "I took such pleasure in living in a place where nobody knew me."
However problematical in some respects the creative power of the Baroness may be, she is certainly thoroughly saturated with what the English call 'the sublime egotism of genius.'
When on the morning after her visit a note redolent of violets arrives from Madame de Rohritz, inviting in the kindest manner the two ladies to dinner at half-past seven the next evening but one, the Baroness makes a wry face, and remarks that really Madame de Rohritz might have waited until her call had been returned,--that such a degree of eagerness on the part of a woman of the world betokens a degree of exaggeration,--but, despite her grumbling, permits herself to accede to the entreaty in her daughter's eyes, and to accept the invitation.
"Upon condition that you attend to my dress," she says; to which Stella of course makes no objection.
The evening wardrobe of the Baroness consists of a black velvet gown which is now precisely seventeen years old, and which underwent renovation at the time of her eldest daughter's marriage. The number of Stella's evening dresses is limited to two very charming gowns which the colonel had made for her in Venice, regardless of expense, by the best dress-maker there, but which are at present slightly old-fashioned.
But, neglectful as the Baroness is about her personal appearance, she has an air of great distinction when she makes up her mind to be presentable, and covers her short gray hair, usually flying loose about her ears, with a black lace cap; while Stella is always charming. She would be lovely in the brown robe of a monk; in her pale-blue cachemire, with a bunch of yellow roses on her left shoulder, directly below her ear, she is bewitching. Her heart throbs not a little as she drives with her mother in a draughty, rattling fiacre across Paris to the Avenue Villiers.
She is not at all tired of life to-day, but, entirely forgetting how quickly her air-built castles fall to ruin, she is eagerly engaged again in similar architecture.
Madame de Rohritz occupies a rather small hôtel with a court-yard and garden. The entire household conveys the impression of distinguished comfort without ostentation. In the vestibule--a gem of a vestibule, with two ancient Japanese monsters on either side of the door of entrance, with Flanders tapestries embroidered in gold on the walls, and Oriental rugs under-foot--a servant relieves the ladies of their wraps.
Stella immediately perceives by the way in which her mother arranges her hair before the mirror that, whether it be the monsters at the door, or the Arazzi on the wall, something has had a beneficial effect upon her mood,--that to-night, as is sometimes the case, her ambition is roused to prove that a learned woman under certain circumstances can be more amiable and amusing than any woman with nothing in her head save 'dress and the men.'
In the salon, whither they are conducted by the maître-d'hôtel, a familiar spirit who is half a head shorter but half a head more dignified than the footman, they find only the master of the house. Not introduced, and quite unacquainted, he nevertheless advances with both hands extended, saying,--
"It rejoices me exceedingly to welcome two of my compatriots!"
"It rejoices us also," the Baroness amiably assures him.
Baron Rohritz scans her with discreetly-veiled curiosity. "Why did my brother write that I should find the Baroness rather extraordinary at first? She is a charming, distinguished old lady." Aloud he says, "My wife made promises loud and earnest to be here in time to present me to the ladies; but it seems she was mistaken."
"Perhaps we were too punctual," the Baroness replies, smiling.
"Not at all," the Baron declares; "but my poor wife is proverbially unpunctual. No one has ever been able to convince her that there are but sixty minutes in an hour, and consequently she always tries to do in an afternoon that for which an entire week would hardly suffice. Pray warm yourselves meanwhile, ladies: here, these are the most comfortable places,--not too near the blaze. I have had an Austrian fire made for you, and have actually nearly succeeded in warming the entire salon. We Austrians require a higher degree of heat than these crazy Frenchmen; they always maintain they are never cold; they are quite satisfied if they can see a little picturesque blaze in the chimney, and they sit down close to it and thrust their hands and feet and heads into it, thereby giving themselves chilblains, neuralgia, rheumatism, and heaven knows what else; but they are never cold."
Although the fire is large enough, Baron Rohritz throws on another log, so eager is he to bear his testimony to the affectation and self-conceit of the Parisians.
"How wonderfully cosey and comfortable you have contrived to make your home here! As I entered I seemed to be breathing the air of Austria. Since we came to Paris I have not felt so comfortable as at present," says the Baroness. If Baron Rohritz knew that since her arrival in Paris her time has been spent either on the top of an omnibus or in rather comfortless furnished lodgings, the worth of this compliment might be less: in happy ignorance, however, he feels extremely flattered, and, with a bow, rejoins,--
"I am very glad our nest pleases you. The chief credit for its arrangement belongs to my wife. You cannot imagine how she runs herself out of breath to pick up pretty things. But it is like Austria here, is it not?"
"Entirely," the Baroness assures him.
"My wife is incomprehensible to me," the master of the house remarks, after the above interchange of civilities, glancing uneasily at the clock on the chimney-piece. "It is now just half an hour since I helped her half dead out of a fiacre, with I cannot tell how many packages. I trust she is not----"
The portière rustles apart. Extremely slender, bringing with her the odour of violets, and shrouded in a mass of black crêpe de Chine and black lace, dying with fatigue and sparkling with vivacity, the Baroness Rohritz enters, fastening the clasp of a bracelet as she does so.
"Good-evening. I beg a thousand pardons! I am excessively glad to make your acquaintance, Baroness Meineck. Can you forgive my ill-breeding in keeping you waiting on this the first evening that you have given me the pleasure of seeing you here? It is terrible!"
"Ah, don't mention it," the Baroness replies, and, although the younger lady speaks German in her honour, answering in French: she is very proud of her French.
"Mais si, mais si, I am most unfortunate, but innocent,--quite innocent. It is positively impossible to be in time in Paris. Well, and how do you do?" turning to Stella and lightly passing her hand over the girl's cheek. "You are always twitting me with my enthusiasm, Edmund: did I exaggerate this time?"
"No, not in the least," her husband affirms: it would have been difficult, however, for him to make any other reply without infringing upon the rules of politeness.
"Who made your dress for you? It is charming. And how beautifully you have put in your roses!--but violet suits light blue better than yellow. Shall we change?" And, unfastening the roses from Stella's shoulder, Thérèse Rohritz takes a bunch of dark Russian violets from her girdle and arranges them on Stella's gown, all with the same graceful, laughing, breathless amiability.
To conquer all hearts, to make everybody happy, to give every one advice, to attend to every one's commissions, to oblige all the world,--this is the mania of Edgar's sister-in-law. He once declared that she went whirling through existence, a perfect hurricane of over-excellent qualities.
"What are we waiting for, Thérèse?" the master of the house interrupts the flow of his wife's eloquence, in a rather impatient tone.
"For Zino."
"He excused himself. I put his note on your dressing-table. When he received your invitation he was unfortunately--very unfortunately, underscored--engaged; but he hopes to be here soon after ten," Rohritz explains, having rung the bell meanwhile, whereupon the maître-d'hôtel, throwing open the folding-doors, announces,--
"Madame la Baronne est Servie."