“What?” The Nachmeister’s astonishment was manifestly genuine.
“I heard—well, it is not worth talking about.”
“I should think not. Marie Schmidt! You! Her silly mother has never put stays on her and she will have a Munich waist in three years. And her complexion, her manners—but it does not matter. I happen to know that she is to marry her cousin, Heinrich Krauss. Schmidt means to keep the money in the family. Who could have started such a report?”
“Oh, one hardly knows where one hears such things.”
“Another time come to me at once with any little rumours that put you out of temper, and I will tell you if they are correct or not. There are no secrets in Munich from me. I may keep them, but I know them.”
“May I borrow this photograph?” Ordham looked as innocent as Moses in the bulrushes.
“You may have it—and the original, no doubt, if you are clever enough. But to tell you the truth, I do not know whether she retains her interest in you or not. It was evident enough when she was here; but maids as well as men are fickle.”
Ordham enthroned the photograph on his writing table. He even began a letter to Mrs. Cutting. But he could think of no excuse that would cover his long negligence, and after dreaming over his pen for a while he put it aside until a more fertile moment. But fate pursued its even way and drove Mabel Cutting far from his mind.
X
THE BIRTH OF AN ARTIST
The following night he was paddling on the Isar when he became aware that he approached the house of Margarethe Styr. It stood on a branch of the river that separated the Englischergarten from Schwabing, an old village now incorporated in the city of Munich. From the back projected a tower whose foundation was not in the garden, but in the bed of the stream. Her grounds were surrounded by a high wall, and on the day he had left his card he had seen nothing of the house but its baroque façade; but more than one of his friends, when driving him in the park, had pointed out the tower and commented upon the lonely dwelling of the Styr. There was a story that Ludwig I had built this villa for a beautiful woman of Siena, intending to visit her by way of the Isar, which flowed not far from the palace walls. The lady, however, could not make up her mind to brave the rigours of the North, and it had become the property of a romantic young couple, whose grandchildren had sold it to the present King when the whim seized him to present a dwelling to the Styr.