Ordham had forgotten Hélène Wass. He would rather have made no reply, but when she paused, he took refuge, after his habit when excited, in commonplace:
“That is perhaps your greatest acting—that first act of Tristan. But of course there is no other in which you run the gamut of the passions—although in Götterdämmerung—but really I am not up to criticism. You are terribly real in all of your tragic rôles. I wonder how real it all is—if you are capable of sweeping a man out into eternity with you to-day? You must have been once.”
“I am capable of nothing but acting to-day; and of getting quite wrought up in the novelty of talking to some one besides myself in this room. I receive those I receive at all in the salon, but in this I live. Let me show it to you.”
He followed her about the long room that reminded him of galleries in certain old houses in England. It must have been very bright during the day, for the side facing the river was made almost entirely of windows. The other three walls were set thick with pictures, many of them sketches laid at the feet of Die Styr by the devotees of another art; a few old prints and etchings, and an infinite number of photographs. Ordham wondered how a woman who made so few friends had managed to collect so many signed presentments, until he examined the signatures and found that they were all from celebrities or members of the royal families of Bavaria and other German states. Ludwig had sent her no less than twelve, ranging from the supreme if morbid beauty of his young manhood to the pallid corpulence of the present, in which nothing lived to remind the world of one of the most promising monarchs that ever had ascended a throne but the deathless ideality of the eyes. Other members of the royal and ducal Wittelsbachs, kindly and genuine people, who came sometimes to drink a cup of tea with the great artist (whom they admired with that true reverence for art that the centuries had bred in them) had sent their photographs handsomely framed and affectionately autographed. Ennobled though she was, the fact that she was of those that received payment for services rendered debarred her from court functions at the Residenz, but that was all. She had dined with the Queen-mother more than once, and was invited to the routs at the other palaces in common with the rest of the Bavarian aristocracy. Although that strong brain could never turn, it must have admitted an occasional wave of astonishment, perhaps exultation, at the significance of this eccentric curve in her fortunes.
Some such thought flitted through Ordham’s mind, but he made no comment, and admired the graceful crowded room in general. It looked as if the disposition of the tables and chairs were changed daily, and although the walls were of a delicate grey, there was colour somewhere, in what he could not define, so perfect was the harmony, that gave the room warmth and brightness. At one end a marble bust of Wagner stood alone on a pedestal. The books were in the tower, opposite whose arch was the divan with its many pillows.
“You should be very happy in such a room,” he said with a sigh, as he returned to the deep comfort of his chair. “I can well imagine that here you can conjure up any vision you wish. I have been here but half an hour, and already it seems more like home to me than any room in Munich. I cannot fancy anything disagreeable happening in it.”
“But there are so many beautiful rooms in Munich.” She took a chair facing him, lit a cigarette, and prepared to draw him out.
“Beautiful, but not gemütlich—wonderful word! Either they are magnificent, like Princess Nachmeister’s, or merely formal, with fine things in them, or quite awful, with stuffy ancestral furniture that should have been refilled seven generations ago. My room at the Legation is done up in chintz and is very pretty and fresh, but it is not—well, it does not shut out the world as this room does.”
“But your place is in the world. And it is very good to you.”
“Oh, sometimes.”