The Travelling Thirds

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

After supper they sat about the table in the garden until nine o’clock, the men and several of the women smoking; and there was much talk of art, of books, of travel, gossip of the studios, of politics. Until the day before it had been a party grown intimate through the association of several weeks, and to-night, at this their third meal, the three Americans and the Englishman glided insensibly into the circle. It was a new society for all of them, and they were interested according to their respective bias.

Rothe was somewhat surprised to find that untidy artists could yet be gentlemen not to say men. His wife felt a sympathetic interest in the individual, and wondered if all these nice people were very poor and what their particular form of poverty was like; she had never come across artists in her charities. She longed vaguely to help them in some way without giving offence. And then she envied them their illusions, their faith, their enthusiasm, and wondered if the fount of eternal youth from which these endowments flowed washed from apprehension the everlasting pettiness of mortal life. Over was always interested when he was not bored, and Catalina pulsated with curiosity and thanked Heaven anew for her deliverance from the Moultons. She had spent the afternoon reading to Mrs. Rothe, then had taken a nap, ignoring Over’s existence.

But she sat opposite him at the table and looked very pretty in the candle-light, her arms extended, her hands clasped, her lithe body erect, her attitude one of absolute repose; the eyes, only, smiled occasionally above the serenity of the rest of her face. Once both she and Over became conscious that they had drifted from the conversation and were listening to the nightingales singing in the park beyond the wall. He met her eyes with a flash in his own, but she flashed defiance in response, and turned her attention to the German artist who was disputing hotly with the Frenchman, pounding the table and apoplectic with excitement. Miss Holmes with her admirable skill calmed the raging waters and scattered them into various channels. She was in white to-night with a black silk scarf about her shoulders and one end over her abundant fair hair; and the eyes of her devotees rarely left her face. The prince actually had arrived in the afternoon, and occupied the place of honor beside her, although she had contrived that Over should sit on her left; and she had played them against each other—or thought she had—throughout the evening.

The prince was a thick-set, melancholy looking man of middle years who had some reputation for historical research, a position of solid respectability wherever he went, and a turn for severe economy. His inconsiderable power to add to the gayety of the world was further depressed by the sense of his folly in falling in love with a penniless girl, but he glowered across at Over and resolved anew to win her if they had to rusticate on his meagre estate for the rest of their lives. She was the only woman who had ever lifted the weight from his spirit, made him forget for a moment the contemptible condition into which, through no fault of his, his ancient family had fallen. If it had not been for this condition it is possible that he might long since have turned his back on the temptation of the American girl, for he held republics in such scorn that he would not have hesitated to break faith with the citizen of an illegitimate nation, as one wholly outside his code of honor and inherited sense of conduct. But this girl had brought sweetness into his life and he was grateful to her, and in his manner loved her.

She had considered him in her clear-eyed fashion, had pictured herself as his companion, well loved, no doubt, and with the entrée to the best intellectual society on the Continent; but she knew him to be far more selfish than any man she had ever met, and with a pride which, no matter how he might love and admire her, would never permit him to forget that he was a prince and she a plebeian; it is only just to add that she might have belonged to the flower of American aristocracy and he would have made no distinction. It was always a risk for an American woman to marry a European aristocrat with his uncontrollable sense of social superiority not only over the inhabitants of the United States of America, but over those of every other nation but his own; and to marry one who took life seriously and was as poor as a church mouse was nothing short of foolhardy. But a prince was a prince, even if he were not the head of his family, and to become an indisputable princess was a great temptation to the self-made American girl—had been until she met Over. Now she would have sacrificed a prince of the blood with a malachite mine in Russia.

She had made herself very charming to Over throughout the evening, drawing him out, showing him to the others at his best, and he had been somewhat stimulated by the dull glow in the black, opaque eyes opposite. As they separated to dress for the party he asked Catalina once more to give him the initial dance, and when she refused, positively, he immediately and eagerly asked the same favor of Miss Holmes. After a moment’s sprightly thought and hesitation he was gratified.

Like most Englishmen of his class he was fond of dancing, although he regarded it as a sort of poetical exercise, and on the whole preferred golf; and one good dancer was much the same to him as another. He was far too practical to feel any desire to hold a particular girl in his arms in a public room where other men held other girls in conventional embrace; but this Catalina could not know, and ran up to her room angry and hurt.

Nevertheless, she dressed herself with elaborate care in an evening gown recently made in Paris, a white chiffon spangled with gold. It revealed the slim roundness of her neck and arms, and clasped her beautiful figure like mere drapery on a statue. She put a white rose on either side of the mass of hair she always wore low on her neck and found a long scarf of golden tissue to protect her when the night grew chill.

When she joined the others in the sala there was a murmur of admiration, rising high among the artists, which she received with absolute stolidity. Over came forward at once.