CHAPTER IV.
Some one must have seen Zinka and Sempaly in the course of their moonlight walk or else have found out something about it in spite of the general's precautions; this was made evident by an article which came out on the Friday after the ball in a French 'society paper' published weekly in Rome. The title of the article was "a moonlight cotillon;" it began with an exact description of Zinka, of whom it spoke as Fräulein Z---- a S--l, the sister of a secretary in the Austrian Embassy; referred to the sensation produced by her appearance as Lady Jane Grey, spoke of her as an elegant adventuress--"a professional beauty"--and hinted at her various unsuccessful schemes for winning a princely coronet; schemes which had culminated in a moonlight walk, a few nights since, during a ball at the house of a distinguished member of Roman society, and which had outdone in audacity all that had ever been known to the chronique scandaleuse of Rome. "Will she earn her reward in the form of a coronet and will the pages of 'High Life' ere long announce a fashionable marriage in which this young lady will fill a part?--that is the question," so the article ended.
"High Life,"--this was the name of the paper graced by this effusion--was scouted, abused and condemned by everybody, covertly maintained by several, and read by most--with disgust and indignation it is true, but still read. On this fateful Friday every copy of "High Life" was sold in no time, and before the sun had set Zinka's name was in every mouth.
What said the world of Rome? Lady Julia cried, had some tea, and went to bed; Mr. Ellis said "shocking!" assured his wife that he was convinced of Zinka's innocence, and that it would certainly triumph over calumny; after which he quietly went about his business and spent two whole hours in practising a difficult passage on the concertina.
It was the Brauers--the Sterzls' old neighbors before mentioned--who contributed chiefly to the diffusion of the article, supplementing it with their own comments. They had some acquaintance among the "cream" of Rome, though they had not been invited to the ball at the Brancaleone palace. Frau Brauer assumed a tone of perfidious compassion: it was a terrible affair for a young girl's reputation, though, for her part, she could see nothing extraordinary in a moonlight wandering with an intimate friend. Her husband, to whom the Sterzl family had paid very little attention--the baroness out of conceit, and Cecil and Zinka because he was in fact intolerably affected, pompous and patronizing--said with a sneering smile that he had never seen anything to admire in that little adventuress, with her free and easy innocence--pushing herself into society she was not born to. He had always thought it most unbecoming; and it must be a pleasant thing indeed for the Duchess of Brancaleone to have such a scandalous business take place in her house--she would be more careful for the future whom she invited!
Madame de Gandry and Mrs. Ferguson thought the article very amusingly written--not that they would ever have said a word about such a piece of imprudence--for really no one was safe! To be sure any evil that might be written against them would be a lie--a pure invention--which in Zinka's case was quite unnecessary ... So they sent the paper round to all their friends as a warning against rushing into acquaintance with strangers: "One cannot be too careful." Zinka had seemed to them suspicious from the first, for after all she was not "the real thing."
All these spiteful and cruel insinuations they even ventured to utter in the presence of Princess Vulpini, in the general's atelier, the spot where all that circle concentrated whenever anything had occurred to excite or startle it, and they made the princess furious.
"I am an Austrian myself," she said, "and was brought up with ideas of exclusiveness which are as much above suspicion as they are beyond your comprehension. I am strictly conservative in all my views. But Zinka is elect by nature--an exceptional creature before whom all such laws give way. I should have regarded it as pure folly to sacrifice the pleasure of her acquaintance for the sake of a social dogma."
"Exceptions always fare badly," murmured the general.
Countess Ilsenbergh, who was as strict on points of honor as she was on matters of etiquette, was deeply aggrieved by the article; she expressed herself briefly but strongly on the subject of the freedom of the press, and confessed that, whether Zinka were innocent or guilty, things looked very ugly for Sempaly.
The count rushed into eloquence giving an exhaustive discourse on the whole social question.
"Princess Vulpini is quite right," he said. "Fräulein Sterzl is a bewitching creature, quite an exception--and if any departure from traditional law is ever permissible it would be so in her case. But the general too is right; exceptions must always fare badly in the world, and we cannot endanger the very essence and being of social stability in order to improve the position of any single individual. Above all, we must never create a precedent." And he proceeded to enlarge on the horrible consequences which must result from such a mixture of classes, referred to the example of France, and proposed the introduction of the Hindoo system of caste, in its strictest application, as a further bulwark for the protection of society in Europe and the coercion of ambitious spirits. His wife, at this juncture, objected that European society had not yet reached such a summit of absolute exclusiveness as he would assume, and that, consequently what was immediately needed was not any such far-reaching scheme for its protection, but some plan for dealing with the disagreeable circumstances in which its imperfection had at this time placed them.
He replied that the matter lay in a nutshell; either the story in 'High Life' was a lie, in which case Sempaly had nothing to do but to deny it categorically, to prove an alibi at the hour mentioned and to horsewhip the editor--or, the facts stated were true, and then--under the circumstances--there was nothing for it--but ... "the lady's previous character was quite above suspicion--there was nothing for it--but...." and he shrugged his shoulders.
"But to make Fräulein Sterzl Countess Sempaly!" cried Madame de Gandry. "Well, I must say I do think it rather too much to give an adventurous little chit a coronet as a reward for sheer impudence. But I beg your pardon, general,--I had forgotten that you are a friend of the family."
"And I," exclaimed the general beside himself, and quite pale with rage, "I, madame, was within an ace of forgetting that I was listening to a lady!"
Princess Vulpini interposed: "You yourself said, madame, that you had always avoided any acquaintance with Zinka; now I have known her intimately, and seen her almost every day; I have observed her demeanor with men--with young men--and heard her conversation with other girls, and I can assure you that the word impudence is no more applicable to her conduct than to that of my little girl of three.--And if she did, in fact, go into the garden with my cousin the night of the ball, it is a proof simply of romantic thoughtlessness, of such perfect, unsuspicious innocence that it ought of itself avail to protect her against slander. I spent last night with Zinka, by the bedside of my little niece who is ill, and no girl with a stain on her conscience could look so sweetly pure or smile with such childlike sincerity. I would put my hand in the fire for her spotless innocence!"
The princess spoke with such dignity and warmth, and while she spoke she fixed such a scathing eye on Madame de Gandry, that the Frenchwoman, abashed in spite of herself, could only mutter some incoherent answer and withdraw with Mrs. Ferguson in her wake.
The four Austrians were alone.
"The person who puzzles me in this business," said the princess, "is Nicki Sempaly. As soon as this wretched paper came into my hands I sent it to his rooms. There I heard that he had just gone out with the Jatinskys. I went to the Hotel de l'Europe to talk it over with my brother, but he had gone to lie down and I had not the heart to wake him. Besides, he could have done no good, and I could not bear to disturb his happiness over his child's amendment.--So I came to unburden my heart to you, general."
"Sempaly cannot have seen it yet," suggested Ilsenbergh. The princess shrugged her shoulders. Countess Ilsenbergh once more expressed her opinion that "it was a very unpleasant affair and that she had foreseen it all from the first," after which, finding that it would be difficult to prevent her husband from delivering another lecture, she rose to go.
At this instant Prince Vulpini came into the studio with a beaming countenance. "Ah! here you are! I saw the carriage at the door as I was passing.--Have you heard the latest news?"
"Sempaly is engaged to Zinka?" cried his wife.
"No!" cried the prince; "the wind last night tore down the national flag on the Quirinal. Hurrah for the Tramontana!"
A few minutes later the general was alone; after a moment's hesitation he took up his hat and hurried off to the palazetto to see how matters stood there. He was one of those who had been the latest to hear of the slanderous article and at the same time to be the most deeply wounded by it. But perhaps by this time Sempaly had engaged himself to Zinka, he said to himself, and he hastened his pace.
It was the baroness's day at home. The silly woman was sitting dressed and displayed--a grey glove on one hand, while with the other she pretended to arrange a dish of bonbons.
"How kind of you!--" she exclaimed as the general entered the room. The stereotyped formula came piping out of her thin lips without the smallest variation to every fresh visitor, as chilling and as colorless as snow.
He had hardly greeted the baroness when he looked round for Zinka--at first without seeing her; it was not till a bright voice exclaimed:
"Here I am, uncle, come and give me a kiss," that he discovered her, in the darkest corner of the room, leaning back in a deep arm-chair and looking rather tired and sleepy but wonderfully pretty and unwontedly happy.
"I am so tired, so tired!--you cannot think how tired I am," she said, laying his hand coaxingly against her cheek, "and mamma is so cruel as to insist on my staying in the drawing-room because it is her day at home, and I was sound asleep when you came in, for thank heaven! we have had no visitors yet. I sat with Gabrielle all last night and the night before without closing my eyes; but then I was so glad to think that the little pet would not take her medicine from anyone but me; and last night, at length, in the middle of one of my stories, she fell asleep on my shoulder. But then in order not to disturb her I sat quite still for six hours. I felt as if I had been nailed to a cross--and to-day I am so stiff I can hardly move." And she stretched her arms and curled herself into her chair again with a pretty caressing action of her shoulders. "You ought to have stayed in bed," said the general paternally. "Oh dear no! why I slept on till quite late in the morning. Besides, my being tired is of no real importance; the great point is that Gabrielle is out of danger: Oh, if anything had happened to her!..." and she shuddered; "I cannot bear to think of it. Count Truyn is firmly convinced that I have contributed in some mysterious way to the child's amendment, and when I came away this morning he kissed my hands in gratitude as if I had been the holy Bambino himself. I laughed and cried both at once, and now I am so happy--my heart feels as light as one of those air balls the children carry tied by a string, that they may not fly off up to the clouds. But why do you look so grave? are you not as glad as I am, uncle that...."
The baroness who had been looking at her watch here expressed her surprise that not a living soul had come near them to-day.
"You are evidently not a living soul, uncle--nothing but my dear grumpy old friend," said Zinka with her pathetic little laugh. There was something peculiarly caressing and touching about her to-day; the old man's eyes were moist and his heart bled for the sweet child.
Outside the door they heard a heavy swift step--the step of a man in pressing but crushing trouble; the door was torn open and Sterzl, breathless, green rather than pale, foaming with rage, stormed in--a newspaper in his hand.
"What is the matter--what has happened?" cried Zinka dismayed. He came straight up to her and stared at her with dreadful eyes.
"Were you really in the garden with Sempaly during the cotillon?" he said hoarsely.
"Yes," she said trembling.
He gave a little start and shuddered--tottered--then he pulled himself up and flung the newspaper at her feet--at hers--his butterfly, his darling!
"Read that," he said.
Von Klinger tried to seize the paper, but Sterzl held him with a firm hand. "Your leniency is out of place," he said dully; "she may read anything."
Zinka read; suddenly she sprang up with a cry of horror and the paper fell out of her hand. Even now she did not understand the matter,--exactly what she was accused of she did not know; only that it was something unwomanly and disgraceful.
"Cecil!" she began, looking into his face, "Cecil...." and then she covered her face, which from white had turned crimson, with her hands. He meanwhile had felt the absolute innocence of the girl, and was repenting of his rash and cruel wrath.
"Zini," he cried, "forgive me--I was mad with rage--mad." And he tried to put his arm round her. But she held him off.
"Leave me, leave me," she said. "No, I cannot forgive you. Oh Cecil! if all the newspapers in the world had said you had cheated, for instance--do you think I should have believed them?"
He bent his head before her with a certain reverence: "But this is different, Zini," he said very gently; "I do not say it as an excuse for myself, but it is different. You do not see how different because you are a child--an angel--poor, sweet, little butterfly," and he drew her strongly to his breast and laid his lips on the golden head; she however would not surrender and insisted on freeing herself.
"What on earth is going on?" the baroness asked again, for the twentieth time. Getting, even now, no reply, she picked up the newspaper that was lying on the floor, caught sight of the article, read a few lines of it, and broke out into railing complaints of Zinka--enumerating all the sins of which Zinka had been guilty from her earliest years and particularly within her recent memory, and ending with the words: "And you will ruin Cecil yet in his career."
"Be quiet, mother;" said Cecil sternly. "My career is not the present question--we must think of our honor and of her happiness," and leaning over the fragile and trembling form of his sister, he said imploringly:
"Tell me, Zini, exactly what happened."
She had freed herself from his clasp and was standing before him with her arms folded across--rigid though tremulous--and her voice was cold and monotonous as she obeyed him and gave with naïve exactitude her short and simple report, blushing as she spoke. When she had ended Cecil drew a deep breath.
"And since that you have heard nothing of Sempaly?" he asked.
"The next morning he sent me a note."
"Zinka, do not be angry with me ... show me that note."
She left the room and soon returned with the letter which she handed to Sterzl. He read it through with great gravity and marked attention then knitting his brows he slowly folded it up and turned it over.
"And you answered him?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And what did you say?"
"Very little--that I was quite prepared to marry him without his brother's consent, but behind his brother's back?--No!"
In the midst of his trouble a flash of pride lighted up Sterzl's weary eyes. "Bravo, Zini!" he murmured, "and he took this answer in silence?"
Zinka paused to think:
"Yes...." she said; "but no.--He sent me a note to the Hotel de l'Europe."
"And what does he say in that?"
"I have not read it yet; it came just at the moment when Gabrielle was at the worst and then I forgot it--but here it is...." and she drew it out of the pocket of her blue serge dress. Sterzl shook his head and glanced with a puzzled air at his sister; then he opened the note. It was as follows:
"My darling little treasure, my haughty indignant little sweetheart:
"Immediately on the receipt of your note I rushed to see you. The porter told me that you were not at home but with your poor little friend Gabrielle. Of course I cannot think of intruding on you there, though I would this day give a few years of my life for a sight of you--for one kiss. Sooner than lose you I am ready to throw up everything. Command and I obey ... but no, I must be wise for us both; I must wait till my affairs are somewhat in order. There is no help for it--I can only ask your forgiveness. I kiss your hands and the hem of your garment--I am utterly unworthy of you, but I love you beyond words.
"Sempaly."
When Sterzl had read this highly characteristic letter he slowly paced the room two or three times, and finally stood still in front of his sister. Then, taking her hand and kissing it fondly, he said:
"Forgive me, Zini--I am really proud of you. You have behaved like an angel ... but he--he is a contemptible sneak."
But this she could not stand. "I do not defend him," she exclaimed vehemently, "but at any rate he loves me, and he understands me.--He, at any rate, would never have suspected me ... and ... and...." But it was in vain that she paused for a word--she could say nothing more in his favor; but she called up all her pride, and holding her head very high she left the room; as soon as she was outside they could hear her sob convulsively.
The baroness rose to follow her, but Cecil stood in her way.
"Where are you going?" he asked sternly.
"To Zinka; I really must make her see what mischief she has done. It is outrageous ... why, at thirteen I should have known better!" Sterzl smiled bitterly:
"Very likely," he said, "but I must beg you to leave Zinka to herself; she is miserable enough without that."
"And are we to submit to her heedlessness without even reproving her for it?" said the baroness indignantly.
"Yes, mother," he said decidedly; "our business now is not to reprove her, but to protect and comfort her."
At this juncture dinner was announced. Sterzl begged the general to remain and dine with them, for he had, he said, several things to talk over with him. He evidently wished above everything to avoid being alone with his mother. Before sitting down he went to Zinka's room to see whether she would not eat at least a little soup; but he came back much distressed.
"She would hardly speak to me," he said; "she is quite beside herself." And he himself sat in silence, eating nothing, drinking little, crumbling his bread and playing with his napkin. Each time the door opened he looked anxiously round.
The meal was short and uncomfortable; when they had returned to the drawing-room and were drinking their coffee the servant brought Sterzl a letter. Cecil took it hastily, looked at the address, and, not recognizing the writing, at last opened it. It contained only a half-sheet of note-paper, with a cleverly sketched caricature: Sterzl himself as auctioneer, the hammer in one hand a doll in the other, and before him the coroneted heads of Rome. Sterzl at once recognized the likeness, though his lank figure was absurdly exaggerated, and his whole appearance made as grotesque as possible. He only shrugged his shoulders and said indifferently:
"Does any one really think that such a thing as this can hurt or vex me now? Look, general--Sempaly, no doubt, is the ingenious artist of this masterpiece."
The general took the paper, and would have torn it across to prevent Sterzl from examining it any further; but before he could do so Cecil, looking over his shoulder, had snatched it out of his hand.
"There is something written on it!" he said, deciphering the scribble in one corner, in Sempaly's weak, illegible hand-writing: "Mademoiselle Sterzl, going--going--gone--!... Ah! I understand!"
His face grew purple and he breathed with difficulty.
"To send you this is contemptible," cried the general; "Sempaly drew this before he had ever seen Zinka.... I know it, I was present at the time."
"What difference does that make?" said Sterzl; "if this is the view people took of me and my proceedings! Well, and after all they were right--I should have liked to see my sister brilliantly married--I meant it well ... and I have made myself ridiculous and have been the ruin of the poor child."
His rage and misery were beyond control; he walked up and down, then suddenly stood still, looking out of the open window; then again he paced the room.
"Sempaly is incomprehensible," he began, "quite incomprehensible! I had no very high opinion of his character--particularly lately; but I could not have supposed him capable of such baseness and cruelty. What do you gather from his not coming here to-day?"
"He simply has not happened to see the paper," the general suggested. "He is gone on some expedition with his brother and his cousins."
"Well, but even supposing that he has not read this article," said Sterzl, "it still is very strange that, as matters stand between him and Zinka, he should have let two days go by without making any attempt to see her."
The general was silent.
"You know him better than I do," Cecil began again presently, "and, as Zinka tells me, you were present during some part of this romantic moonlight promenade. Do you think he seriously intends to marry her?"
"I know that he is madly in love with her, and even the Ilsenberghs, who were discussing the matter at my house with the Princess Vulpini, saw no alternative for him--irrespective of his attachment to her--but to make her an offer."
"We shall see," murmured Sterzl. He looked at the clock: "half past nine!" he exclaimed. "This is becoming quite mysterious. I will try once more to see him at his rooms; his chasseur will perhaps know when he is expected to return home. Would you mind remaining here?" he added in a low voice; "keep my mother from going to Zinka; the poor child cannot bear it;" and he hurried off.
In about half an hour he returned.
"Well?" asked the general.
"He set out at one o'clock for Frascati, with the prince, the Jatinskys, and Siegburg," said Sterzl gloomily. "When I asked whether he was to be back this evening the man said certainly, for he was to set off to-morrow morning with his excellency the ambassador. He has been afraid to declare his engagement for fear of a scene with his brother--he is gone out of Rome for fear of a scene with me--'High Life' was lying open on his writing-table."
They heard the light rustle of a dress. Sterzl looked round--behind him stood Zinka with tumbled hair and anxious, eager, tear-dimmed eyes.
"Zinka!" he cried, stepping forward to catch her; for her gaze was fixed, she staggered, put out her hands with a helpless gesture and fell into his arms. He laid her head tenderly on his shoulder and carried her away.