“I think I shall go now. It is late and I have kept you up long enough. Thank you so much.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“Everything. When may I come again?”
“Tuesday evening for supper, if you are not invited.”
“Of course I shall come.”
They shook hands and Ordham left as he had entered. As he rowed up the Isar and heard the iron shutters slam, he felt some exultation in the thought that no longer were they closed to him. And he knew that an atmosphere both bracing and quickening was his to command. There was the scent of neither violets nor patchouli in it, in other words, neither bland conservatism nor commonplace outlawry. He was too modern for the one and too fastidious for the other. He could not identify scent at all with Margarethe Styr, not even those rare and subtle perfumes fabricated for the elect, among whom was himself; and this a little disappointed him.
XII
LA BELLE HÉLÈNE
On strange and brittle threads hang the apples of fate. Hélène Wass had matured her plan for the following Wednesday night. Like all plans promising success, it was very simple. She divined Ordham’s nervous dread of finding himself alone with her, but parties at her house were always gay, and he was ever more than willing to be amused. She invited him to dinner “to meet a party of friends from Vienna who were giving her a night on their way to Paris.” Upon arrival he would discover that the party had disappointed her, but he could not well refuse to eat her dinner; nor could he run away immediately after. The Herr Geheimrath never graced these late dinners of his wife, adhering stoutly to the heavy midday meal of his ancestors, and partaking of a Spartan supper of eggs, cold ham, sausage, tongue, salad, and compôte at six o’clock. At eight he was slumbering peacefully. The dainty French repast finished, Hélène would sing in her boudoir,—all the newest, gayest songs,—until Ordham’s apprehensions, if he cherished any, were lulled, and he had made himself too comfortable to think of moving before eleven o’clock, at least. Then she would confide to him a long list of new indignities, visited upon her by Munich society and her old husband, gradually working herself up into a mighty passion—no difficult matter at any time—and when, in a climax of uncontrollable excitement, she had flung herself into his arms, her faithful maid, having awakened the virtuous Geheimrath, would usher him in at precisely the right moment and exhibit the scandalous tableau. She would shriek and sob and plead for forgiveness, which, she well knew, would never kindle in that flabby mass of vanity, shocked out of the fatuousness of a lifetime. Ordham, of course, would not plead his innocence, and when she cowered to the floor, wailing that now indeed all the world was against her, he would walk over and take his place at her side. There would be no duel, for the Herr Geheimrath had chronic rheumatism in his right shoulder, and she would leave Munich with the young Englishman at eight o’clock on the following morning.
She had not the least doubt that, given conditions as she planned them, Ordham would go with her, and that between sympathy and Italy—her villa was romantically situated in the Alban Hills—she could persuade him that he loved the dainty versatile charming creature who had sacrificed the world for his sake. And, it may be, the vanity of youth being very great indeed, she would continue to win in the uneven game.
Hélène Wass was as clever as only a subtle unscrupulous highly seasoned European can be. She belonged to a class that responds automatically to the intrigues hatched under thrones and disseminated to the outposts of society; in whose brains are dark and tortuous recesses furrowed by generations of ancestors that have lied and schemed for royal favour; and what birth had not given her, she had industriously colonized in the rich soil of her brain for twenty years.