But all this could not be written. It would look cold-blooded and calculating in black and white, a ridiculous postscript to a love-letter. When they were together once more the subject would naturally be forgotten for a while; he could assume, without discussion, the future legalizing of their union, or profess that it was not worth talking about until the end of his period of public deference to the memory of his wife. He certainly would marry her if he discovered that she really wished it—but he trusted to time. Therefore he did not write, but telegraphed daily, intimating that the attempt to talk to her on paper made him sick and that he was bending all his energies toward hastening his departure. He did leave for London in less than a week, and there he found a long letter from Styr. She made no reference to her confession, nor to the death of his wife; but it was probably as passionate a love-letter as man ever received from woman, and it caused Ordham (as we may as well continue to call him during these remaining pages devoted to his youth) to ignore both the Foreign Office and his solicitors, and take the next train for the Continent.
LX
LIFE, THE POTTER
Ordham sat alone in the vast black auditorium of the Hof. Old Kurt had met him at the station with a note from Countess Tann which informed him briefly that the King had commanded a midnight performance of Götterdämmerung, and that she had without difficulty bribed the doorkeeper to smuggle in the Englishman so favourably remembered; in these days there was little awe of the King’s displeasure, but he must be careful to make no sound. “I shall sing to you, not to the King,” the note concluded. “Do not forget that, but make no attempt to see me until to-morrow afternoon at one. It will be dawn before the performance finishes, and I shall be nothing but a worn-out prima donna with not a wish on earth but for supper and sleep. I shall hide in one of the hotels this evening and console myself by writing you a letter, which you will find at your hotel upon your return. Mind you tell Kurt where you are stopping.”
Ordham raged at the further delay. But when he had worn his temper down with a long walk and a German supper, he began to feel agreeably alive to the adventure. At a quarter before midnight he presented himself at the side entrance of the Hof. The door was slightly ajar and opened upon his approach. Reënforcing the hand held out to him in the darkness, he tiptoed through the vestibule and foyer, then, left inside a door near the middle of the parkett, he fumbled unaided to a seat.
The orchestra was tuning and covered what sound he made. The jets of light above the scores of its musicians, and the solitary globe in the box of the King were all that relieved the black vacuum in which he found himself. He could not make out a feature of the familiar tiers which always formed a part of the mental picture of this graceful opera house when he fell to dreaming of it. Dowdy as many of the women might be, they made a brilliant scene in totality, and there were always familiar faces, particularly in the balkon. And all were music lovers, come to hear, not to be seen, hardly daring to breathe audibly until the curtain went down. To-night, Ordham could have sworn the galleries were full of ghosts, so difficult was it to believe that he was to hear a performance of Götterdämmerung in an empty house. He turned his head, whimsically expectant of seeing the space behind the parkettsitz crowded with shadowy forms: the students, men and women, who felt themselves fortunate in being able to pay for standing room, and to stand for five hours!
And since he was forced to put an extinguisher on the lover in him until the morrow and had finished cursing the King, he gave his fancy rein and found it no effort to imagine himself in some vast underground cavern watching restless spirits bearing each a tiny torch at the entrance, and a throne cut in the rock behind him high up toward the dome. In truth the air in which he sat was damp and cold, although the month was August; the opera house had been closed since the first of July.
His mind indulged in fantasies but for a few moments however, presently returning to Styr’s note. He had read it twice and wished he might strike a match and read it again. Something in it had induced a vague sensation of uneasiness, of doubt. In spite of her assurance that she should sing to him alone, it had been abrupt, almost cold. She might be wise in refusing to see him before the performance; but at least she could have written something of the regret she might reasonably be expected to feel; but this omission, no doubt, was due to the ill temper generally induced by these commands to sing at midnight. Then fear assailed him. Did she mean to convey some message of renunciation to-night? Prepare him for her decision in favour of art? He had never questioned that for this great artist to renounce the stage at the height of her powers and in the dawn of a world-wide fame would be no light matter. In his breast pocket were the fiery vows he had received a few hours before his departure from London. There were no half measures about Styr; this letter had enveloped him in an electric mist. But her last note might have been written the summer before. Had she faltered when she received his last telegram from Cologne?—sternly admonished, perhaps, by that twin sister of hers in Valhalla, Brynhildr, whose temporary reincarnations, mayhap, it was that made Ludwig despise the women of Earth? . . .
Ordham felt his long jaw grow prognathic. Munich was not England. He forgot the death of his brother. He was in a romantic city, in a romantic adventure, he was youth on fire, man balked once more in his desire for the woman he loved with the strength of both youth and maturity. He vowed to own her in the uninterrupted possession of marriage if he had to blast the voice in her throat. He felt as primitive as the characters in the drama about to be presented, as he sat there, frowning, dogged, almost growling, in the cavernous darkness of that opera house which he has never set foot in since, nor ever will again.
The musicians stood up and faced about, standing in an attitude of extreme respect. Ordham turned his head. The King had entered his box. He still wore a light overcoat, as if he had but just now stepped from the carriage that brought him from one of his castles. He also did not think it worth while to remove his hat, a large soft hat, tipped over his heavy white face. Altogether he bore little resemblance to the romantic and brilliant youth, probably the handsomest figure that ever ornamented a throne, who had witnessed his first exclusive performance from that box in 1865. He sat down heavily. The musicians took their places. The overture began.
Ordham felt as if he had dropped gently from a fire-swept plain, haunted by furies, into a vast warm rhythmic sea whose tides swept sense to thought and rushed it back again to the senses, until that complete union was effected of which all mortals dream but only the Ordhams and Styrs can attain.