"But isn't it a lot?"
"I suppose it is," I remarked. "But have anything you ought to have. You like the frocks, Elsa?"
She gave that little emphatic double nod of hers.
We talked no more of the frocks then, but during the few days which followed Elsa's perusal of Wetter's speech there was infinite talk of frocks and all the rest of the furnishings and appurtenances of Elsa's new rank. The impulse which moved women so different as my mother, the Duchess, and Victoria, to a common course of conduct was doubtless based on an universal woman's instinct. All the three seemed to set themselves to dazzle the girl with the glories and pomp that awaited her; at the same time William Adolphus became pressing in his claims on my company. Now Victoria never really supposed that I desired to spend my leisure with William Adolphus; she set him in motion when she had reason to believe that I had better not spend it with some other person. So it had been in the days of the Countess and in Coralie's epoch; so it was now. The idea was obvious; just at present it was better for Elsa to think of her glories than to be too much with me; she was to be led to the place of sacrifice with a bandage over her eyes, a bandage that obscured the contrasted visions of Wetter's imagination and of my actual self. I saw their plan and appreciated it, but seeing did not forbid yielding. I was not hoodwinked, but neither was I stirred to resistance. It seemed to me then that kindness lay in not obtruding myself upon her, in being as little with her as courtesy and appearances allowed, in asking the smallest possible amount of her thoughts and making the least possible claim on her life. They asked me to efface myself, to court oblivion, to hide behind the wardrobe. It was all done with a soothing air, as though it were a temporary necessity, as though with a little patience the mood would pass, almost as though Elsa had some little ailment which would disappear in a few days; while it lasted, men were best out of the way, and would show delicacy by asking no questions. The way in which women act, look, and speak, when they desire to create that impression, is clear and unmistakable; a wise man goes about his business or retires to his smoking-room, his papers, and his books.
The treatment seemed to answer well, and its severity was gradually relaxed. William Adolphus, sighing relief I doubt not (for I was well-nigh as tedious to him as he to me), went off to his horses. I was again encouraged to be more with Elsa, under a caution to say nothing that could excite her. She met me with a quiet gay contentment, seemed pleased to be with me, and was profuse and sincere in thanks for my kindness. Sometimes now she talked of our life after we were married, when Princess Heinrich would be gone and we alone together. She was occupied with innocent wonderings how we should get on, and professed an anxiety lest she should fail in keeping me amused. Then she would take refuge in reminding herself of her many and responsible duties. She would have nearly as much to do as I had, she said, and was not her work really almost as important as mine?
"Princess Heinrich says that the social influence I shall wield is just as important to the welfare of the country," she would say, with that grave inquiring look in her pretty blue eyes.
"All the fashionable folk in Forstadt will think it much more important," said I, laughing. "Especially the young men, Elsa."
"As if I should care about that!" she cried scornfully.
Now and then, at intervals, while I talked to her, the idea of doing what my mother had meant by exciting her came into my head, the idea of satisfying her unconscious longings and of fulfilling for her the dream which had taken shape under the wand of that magician Wetter. I believed then that I could have succeeded in the task; there may be vanity in that opinion, but neither lapse of time nor later experience has brought me to renounce it. Why, then, did I yield to the women's prescription, and renounce the idea of gaining and chaining her love and her fancy for myself? Nothing in her gives the answer to that question; it must be sought in my mind and my temper. I believed and I believe that if I could have stirred myself I could have stirred her. The claim is not great; Wetter had done half the work for me, and nature was doing the better part of the rest. I should have started with such an advantage that the battle must have been mine. This is not merely perceived in retrospect; it was tolerably clear to me even at the time. But the impulse in me was wanting. I could have won, but I did not truly desire to win. I could have given what she asked, but my own heart was a niggard. It was from me more than from her that the restraint came; it was with me to move, and I could not stir. She was lovable, but I did not love her; she had love to give, but I could not ask for it. To marry her was my duty, to seem to desire the marriage my rôle. There obligation stopped; inclination refused to carry on the work. I had driven a bargain with fate; I would pay the debt to the last farthing, but I could not open my purse again for a gratuity or a bounty. I acquiesced with fair contentment in it, and in the relations which it produced between Elsa and myself. There was a tacit agreement among all of us that a calm and cousinly affection was the best thing, and fully adequate to the needs of the situation. The advice of the women chimed in with my own mood. Making love to her would have seemed to them a dangerous indiscretion, to me a rather odious taking advantage of one who was not a free agent, and a rather humiliating bit of pretence besides. We had all made up our minds that matters had better be left considerably below boiling-point.
While things stood thus I received a letter from Varvilliers (who was at Forstadt) accepting my invitation to Artenberg. His acceptance signified, he went on: