CHAPTER II.
She had scarcely left the room, accompanied by Irene, when the baron stepped up to Schnetz.
"Well, I must confess," he cried, "you are not a cheerful man to pick bones with! For Heaven's sake, tell me, mon vieux, what devil possesses you to talk in this reckless way to that old court mummy?"
Schnetz looked him coolly in the face, and once more began to rub his mutilated ear.
"Do you really think she understood me?"
"Understood you? Que diable! You certainly left nothing to be desired on the score of plainness. I must say though, my good friend, now that we are quite alone again, that, excellent as I find your plan of bringing the two offended lovers together under cover of the freedom of a masquerade, I really can't approve of the way in which you have gone to work. For no matter how much my niece may be shaken in her whim by the prospect of America, or how thankful she may be at heart for every chance that is given her to capture her roving bird again--still, just think how difficult you have made the matter for her, by bringing up this question of the ball before that old woman! I ought to have been kept out of the game too. Now, if she asks me on my conscience as uncle and guardian----."
"On your conscience? On which, if I may ask? On your conscience as a baron or as a man?"
"H'm! I should imagine that two old tent companions, such as we are, would agree pretty well as to the matter itself. But you must admit that much, which might seem quite innocent to me as a bachelor, could hardly meet my approval as a guardian, in my official capacity, so to speak. And more than this, it seems to me that there really are two different moral standpoints for men and women, and what is right for the one is not always proper for the other."
"There you hit it exactly!" cried Schnetz, flying into a rage, and throwing his whip down on the table. "That is why we never come across a single sprig of fresh verdure in our social relations! that is why we must eternally carry about lies, narrow-hearted makeshifts, and mean reservations, all because we adopt a double standard of weights and measures, and regard a damned shrug of the shoulders as an excellent preventive for all the cancers of society! Neither of the two sexes, when they are together, dares express itself openly, neither says all that it thinks, each thinks to fool the other with its tricks and quibbles, while both know very well what they are about, and ought by good rights to laugh in each other's faces over these miserable and perfectly fruitless sham fights. And because this whole farce is so cursedly insipid, and this high tone of high society makes the women gape as well as the men, therefore both sides struggle all the more eagerly to indemnify themselves for the boredom they have suffered, each in his own way, in clubs or worse places, or under four eyes, where one throws aside all masks and strait-lacing. Honest old Sir John was quite right--'A plague of all cowards, say I'--And this modern world of ours will never grow healthy again until the two sexes become tired of this childish mummery and meet each other half-way in an honest endeavor to give truth a trial, without prudery and without coarseness!"
He raved on in this fashion for some time longer, without giving the baron a chance to get in a syllable. Not until his breath had given out, and he had seized upon his hat, did the other venture to offer a meek reply.
"All very good and fine, my dear friend, all admitted in theory. But in praxi--since the world has not yet become entirely sensible--won't it be necessary to respect the prejudices of a stupid majority for a while longer? Can our young lady--now that this old chatterer knows about it--go, without any further consideration, to your paradisaical festival, where she is sure to meet dubious daughters of Eve? where it is possible that the girl who was running after our Felix, the little, red-haired waiter-girl, may, God knows in what costume, stir up another scene of murder and manslaughter?"
Schnetz had remained standing with his hand on the door. As the baron said these words he let it go again, and stared at the excited speaker for a while; then he laughed bitterly, and stepped back into the room once more.
"This waiter-girl?" said he, laying his hand on the baron's shoulder. "Well, of all the games the devil ever played! Old friend, do you know who this waiter-girl is, who nursed this youngster Felix so faithfully, while others looked on from a distance? This waiter-girl, this child of the people, who would not be fitting company for a young baroness? Well, then, she is your own daughter, baron, and first cousin of your high-born niece!"--
The baron stepped back a step or two. "Trève de plaisanteries, mon cher!" he stammered, trying to laugh. "What sort of a romance is this you are trying to palm off on me! I--I am--ha, ha, ha! A delightful farce!"
"I congratulate you and your good child upon the cheerful mood in which this unhoped-for discovery finds you," remarked Schnetz, dryly. "To be sure, the affair is by no means so tragic as it would have been, were the mother still living. This poor deserted"--here he stepped close up to the baron, who stood as if petrified, and pronounced her name--"this sacrifice to our double code of morals has been dead for a year; nor has the child any suspicion that her dear papa is leading a jolly bachelor's life in the same city with her."
The baron sank upon the sofa; his arms hung at his sides; the only sign of life that he gave was in his little, restless eyes, that wandered about anxiously and unsteadily, without seeming to rest on anything. In the mean while Schnetz strode up and down with noiseless tread, apparently waiting to see whether his friend, who had received so severe a shock, stood in any need of his help or his advice. Ten minutes passed, and neither of them had uttered a word more.
"You will permit me to light a cigarette," growled Schnetz at length, between his teeth; "the lady of the house seems to have no intention of showing herself again--"
At this moment the door of the neighboring room opened, and Irene entered, paler than before, and with such an agitated, sad expression upon her young face, that Schnetz gazed upon her with a feeling of remorse.
No sooner had the door begun to creak than her uncle sprang up, hastily pressed his friend's hand, and whispered to him that he must speak with him about this matter at all hazards; then he rushed out without a glance at his ward.
The extraordinary haste with which he retreated did not seem to strike Irene as at all strange. She advanced quickly to the window at which Schnetz was standing, and said:
"Were you really in earnest about your invitation to the masquerade?"
He assured her that it would afford him the greatest pleasure to accompany her; all the more because, after what had been said on the subject, he should consider it not only as a proof of her confidence in him, but even as a token of true friendship and esteem, if she would not refuse to accept his invitation.
She went on to ask whether she would be allowed to come in a plain domino and mask--talking all the time with a half-absent expression.
He replied that only masks in costume would be admitted. As she considered four days to be too short a time for getting ready a complete costume, he proposed to her that, since she expressed herself as willing to be admitted to Bohemia, she should come as a gypsy. He offered to provide her, through his artist friends, with beautiful and genuine materials. It would be very easy for her to get plenty of bright coral and pearl ornaments and strings of coins with which to ornament her hair; and he would take her to some stores where such things could be bought. This costume, he concluded, would have the double advantage of being easily gotten up with a few feathers and scraps, and of permitting the wearer--since masks for the face were prohibited--to dye her skin, to blacken her eyebrows, and to make herself as unlike herself as possible. "I, myself, always appear as a Spaniard, as the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, or as Duke Alba. If I could have a Gitana upon my arm, I should be quite in character, and should create a sensation for the first time; for they are not used to seeing me appear with a beautiful partner."
As he said this he kissed the young lady's hand, quite in the courtly Spanish manner, and made as though he would take leave. But she still held him tightly.
"Will--that girl come, too?" she said, hesitatingly.
"What girl, Fräulein?"
She looked steadily before her. "I heard all!" she said, with a slight tremor in her voice. "The walls in this hotel are so thin that one cannot help overhearing, in spite of one's self, all that is being said in the next room. Oh, tell me candidly; is it really true?"
"Unquestionably. My dear young lady, if you were a little better acquainted with the society which surrounds you, you would find this case by no means an extraordinary one. Besides, the circumstances are favorable enough this time. Her own grandfather has already taken his long-lost granddaughter in charge; so jealously, indeed, that he would not give her up to her father, even if the latter wished it; and the girl herself is good and respectable. She is--"
"I know her," interrupted Irene, blushing. "And yet--it would agitate me greatly if I should chance to meet her at the ball. There are all sorts of--I will tell you some other time, if you feel interested."
She suddenly broke off, and he saw that she was struggling with her tears.
"You may make your mind easy, my dear Fräulein," said he, taking up his hat and whip. "The poor child will not be present. She is in such a strange mood since she went to live with her grandfather, and so carefully avoids meeting any one who knew her under former circumstances, that all the power in the world could not induce her to visit our Paradise. But seriously, now--á Dios, as we Spaniards say. Be of good courage; I believe everything will turn out better than we dream of now."
He gave the hand of the speechless girl a hearty pressure, and left her alone with her aching heart, which found that it could do nothing wiser than relieve itself by a flood of tears.