“It seems that one of the old gossips of the Union Club spent a few days not long since in Munich and recognized Styr as a woman—well, whom every New York man once knew by sight, at least. He always spends the season in London, and now that Styr is becoming famous, it gives him great satisfaction to add his little quota of scandal.”
“It is quite possible that he mistook her for some one else. She looks like one woman off the stage, and another on.” Ordham felt an uncontrollable nervousness in his knees and moved about the room, staring at the soft pastels.
“He saw her both on and off. There is no doubt, I fancy. She was supposed to be dead, lost with a cheap company of players on the Pacific Coast. But he says that no one that had ever seen her could possibly mistake her for any one else, greatly as she has gone off—he says that she was a beautiful tigress when she squandered fortunes in New York. But, as you say, it does not matter in Munich, where, dear souls, they would worship the devil himself if he could sing. And, of course, she meditates no social conquest of London or New York. Levering says that she is very clever!”
“She is quite above thinking of such things.” Then, not wishing to hurt this charming woman’s feelings, he added hastily: “Art is a very exalting as well as exacting mistress. Nothing else seems worth while to so ardent a votary as Frau von Tann. If ever she comes here to sing, I fancy she will be the one to raise the social defences. You know that we too can be indifferent to pasts when they are walled off by fame. If Countess Tann created a furore at Covent Garden, she would be run after by every lion hunter in London. Remember Bernhardt.”
The colour left Mrs. Cutting’s cheek, and an angry light sprang to her eyes. But if prompted to deliver her mind of its disgust for the complaisance of a society in which she found no other fault, she thought better of it and replied calmly:
“Well—Bernhardt is French. One never expects much of people that have not had the advantages of the strict tenets of the Anglo-Saxon race; and when a transgressor is the most famous actress in the world, and has lived her life in Paris, the most feverish of all lives in the most feverish of all cities—well, of course, one not only makes allowances, but looks upon her as such a sheer outsider that one feels justified in paying tribute to her genius—or further satisfying one’s curiosity, whichever it may be. But this Styr—ah! here is the carriage. You will drive with us for an hour in the Park? Of course there will be nobody to look at, but the air will be delightful.”
He sat opposite the graceful voluble mother and the silent beautiful daughter with her eyes full of dreams and the hideous pug on her lap; and not only in the park, but during the drive down to Richmond, where he persuaded them to go for dinner. Once only, as they drove home through the twilight, he held Mabel’s eyes for a full minute. There was none of the old innocent coquetry in them, but they looked as if they were taking his measure and pronouncing him worth while if not heroic.
Styr’s name was not mentioned again, nor for many a day after.
XXXIII
SLOW MAGIC
Lady Bridgminster paid her son a visit next morning while he was still in bed and drinking his tea. He was but half awake and pretended to no enthusiasm. But his mother pushed a chair to the bedside and tapped the coverlet with her long fingers. It was patent that for once in her life she was nervous.