“Yes, Munich!—I too love Munich—Bavaria,” Ordham said softly, his eyes straying to the mountains beyond the narrow gorge. The windows were open and he could hear the low roar of the Pöllat waterfall.
“Now don’t fall into a dream,” said Excellenz, tartly. “It isn’t often that I have you alone. What a situation—what surroundings! It makes me feel almost young again.”
“Then tell me something about the Styr.” Ordham sometimes amused himself playing on the strings of the old coquette’s remnant of sex. But he always smiled so charmingly that she really did feel younger for the moment. The Nachmeister was never able to decide whether it was his manners or his smile that enabled her to understand the relations between Elizabeth and Essex.
Her fine little nose seemed to rise and point further downward as her round brilliant eyes, whose expression never changed, returned his steady ingenuous gaze. In a moment the corners of her protesting mouth moved upward and she shrugged her shoulders.
“Enfin, mon enfant gâté! What do you want to know? Surely you hear the gossip of the town.”
“All gossip is more or less alike. Is she the King’s mistress?”
“That I am sure you have never heard. His worst enemy would not raise the point. I do not know but that I had better carry you over into the Kemenate to-night.”
“Great heaven!” Ordham upset his champagne. “Why then does he show her more favour than the other singers—why has he given her a title and a house?”
“Her voice. Her art. Are not those enough—for this King? He is quite mad over both. One might have hoped for the supreme Isolde, Kundry, Brünhilde, in the course of another ten or twenty years—for has not Wagner revolutionized voices as well as music?—but she burst upon the world full blown. One day she appeared in Bayreuth and demanded audience of The Master. He taught her the great rôles himself; her voice was ready for them—perfectly placed and trained, flexible, sweet, resonant, noble, enormous, three perfect octaves. Wonderful! No doubt he and the King put their heads together and determined that she should leave Bavaria for short gastspiels only. But where did she come from? Who is she? Why has she no credentials? Even if lowly born, which would seem incredible did not the most queenly creatures appear now and again among the peasantry,—while as for queens—do not they often look as if Nature, worn out, had peevishly sent her highest back to the soil to begin over again?—Tiens! Genius is no respecter of quarterings—but, even so, why such reticence? Beyond the bare assertion that she is an American she has barely alluded to her impossible country. Why doesn’t she invent a plausible story that would put people’s imaginations to sleep? Has it occurred to you as odd that she never will be photographed?” she concluded abruptly.
“How fatiguing to think about anything that matters so little!” He had fumed more than once because he could not obtain even a magazine sketch of her. “The ordinary prima donna caprice, no doubt. Or réclame. Such self-abnegation is enough to make any ‘artist’ notorious.”