And what excuse for such deterioration? His mind flew to Margarethe Styr, who had lifted herself from untold horrors to the very heights of character, intellect, fame. Where had she found that strength? What mysterious arrangement of particles had enabled her to rise from that abyss in which thousands of her sort burned out their brief lives? Was it genius alone? Genius availed little those that began life in the dark back-waters of society unless propelled by force of character, an indomitable will. She too, in her determined seclusion, lived a selfish life of a sort, but at least she gave delight to thousands, she spent freely on promising young singers, and she was an example for all women, dreaming ambitiously, to follow. More, she was an inspiration. And she had come out of what? The picture was not to be invoked, but the bare fact made the man downstairs, who had been born one of the inheritors of the earth, the more unfit to live.

He realized suddenly that he felt closer to Styr than he had ever felt before. And she was the one person on earth to whom he could confess the horrid experience of this night. He made up his mind to return to her at once, no matter where she was. They could meet in the various cities where she sang, as freely as in her home, although not, of course, as delightfully.

Then his mind swung to the future, the future he must face upon his second return from Munich. He should never willingly exchange a syllable with his brother again. There was not the faintest hope that Bridgminster would increase his income. Nor was the man’s health, as far as he could judge, seriously impaired. He might go mad and be chucked into an asylum, but lunatics lived forever. True, he might fall on his gun, or break his neck on the hunting field, but these were mere contingencies. Meanwhile, save for this passing relief, his own problem was as serious as ever. He should spend five times his present income in any capital to which he was accredited, and he could think of nothing he would not rather do than force his mother into heavy sacrifices. Turn over the detestable question as often as he might, he could find but one solution. He had disliked the prospect of matrimony before he knew Margarethe Styr, and it was doubly hateful now. He did not want to marry her, nor could he spend his life dawdling at her skirts; but—well—once more he was forced to admit that he could not have everything in life he wanted at once. There should be that last long visit to Munich, however, and then he would return and swallow his medicine.

XXX
LADY BRIDGMINSTER, POTTER

But he was not to return to Munich and Margarethe Styr at present. That excellent friend of his, Princess Nachmeister, having ascertained throughout the summer that, although indefatigable in his attendance upon the prima donna, he wore neither the hopeless mien of rejected love nor that of sublime content, had kept her lance in rest. Moreover, she well knew that the vestal Lutz would never have lent her countenance to a liaison, neither could it have escaped eyes sharp with an old maid’s resentful curiosity. Therefore, although uneasy, Excellenz had not thought it worth while to interfere with his studies; but upon the day she learned of his departure for London she wrote to Lady Bridgminster, with whom she had some time since fallen into correspondence, advising her to prevent her son’s return to Munich. Only he could have resisted Styr during long months of intimacy, and then only because she had chosen that he should. But he was growing older every hour, there was no telling in what moment he might awake and call himself an ass, nor, in faith, when Styr would recover from her long attack of virtue. Sudden interruptions in deep but continent intimacies had proved fatal before. They would not be the first to discover that they could not exist apart. Better divert his mind at once.

Therefore, when Ordham drove up to his mother’s house on his return from the north, he was surprised to find the curtains up, the door opened by a footman instead of the caretaker that had attended to his wants during his previous visit. He wished that he had driven from Paddington to Victoria, for he was in no humour to meet any other member of his family at present; but when the footman informed him that her ladyship would expect him for tea in the drawing-room in half an hour he summoned what grace was in him, and sent her word that he would join her as soon as he had rid himself of soot and dust.

His bath braced him somewhat, and he went downstairs resignedly to answer his mother’s questions. He hated questions, and she could ask more than any one he knew. Lady Bridgminster was seated at the tea-table, and knowing better than to wait for him, had just finished her first cup. She rose and met him halfway, for it was several years since she had treated him negligently, and even her kiss, if not too maternal, was something more than a peck. He told her that she was looking very handsome, and in that rosy light she seemed little older than her portrait. She wore clinging trailing garments of smoke-colored chiffon embroidered with peacocks’ feathers, and long strands of dull green and blue beads covered her flat chest and were wound through the mazes of her beautiful silvery blonde hair. She looked as æsthetic as Wilde himself, and, indeed, he designed more than one of her gowns.

“Glad to see you so fit, Johnny dear,” she said in a very light musical voice. “It is too delightful that you have passed those tiresome examinations. How is Bridg?”

“Beastly drunk, probably.”

Lady Bridgminster, who had floated back to her chair, opened her eyes very wide. She rarely altered her expression, as it was then the belief that immobility made for perpetual youth, but she allowed her well-trained orbs to shed forth her astonishment.