“Kyrios Oïdas?”
“I am compromised—pledged.”
She bent her head, and at that moment the bell announced the arrival of her friends.
The Baroness von Hohenfels, hearing of Selaka’s intended departure and a meditated return for the meeting of the German School, called and warmly pressed Inarime to stay with her during M. Selaka’s absence. She would not hear of refusal. There was a room at the Embassy at Mademoiselle Selaka’s disposal; her friends would be desolated to lose her so soon—in fact, she must come.
“You will not have time to miss me, Inarime,” Pericles sang out cheerily from the doorstep, as she drove away in the Baroness’s carriage, her engagement still hanging in the balance of indecision. She had some faint hope of consulting the baroness, and seeking strength and resolution in her judgment.
Inarime took the Austrian Embassy by storm. That evening Rudolph returned from a short absence at Vienna, where he had been bound on pre-nuptial affairs, intending to startle his family by the announcement of his engagement to Andromache and his determination to marry immediately. Tongues were already set wagging, and vague and disconcerting reports had reached the baron and baroness. But their faith was built on the genius of Mademoiselle Veritassi. Rudolph might waver and glory in other chains of captivity, but he would end by sullenly admitting the superlative charm and conquering force of the girl of fashion.
He came back, saw Inarime, fell prostrate in new adoration, tugged with feeble heart-strings by the soft glimmer of the March violets he remorsefully shrank from seeking.
The diplomatic baron, too, stumbled into captivity, assisted in his fall by the baroness, herself under the spell of Inarime’s beauty. Indeed, not one of the three had shown a spark of resistance.
The heavy ambassador danced hourly attendance upon the young goddess, and under her glance, sparkled, astounded spectators by feats of chivalry and semi-veiled gallantry that turned the clock of time for him back by twenty years. Ah, but his enslavement was not a serious defection. There was the wretched Rudolph, held breathless by his own faithlessness and variable heart-beats. The feeling he gave Andromache was but a rushlight, compared with this blaze of fire. He slept not, nor did he eat. Life died within him out of Inarime’s presence, and was flame in his members when she was near him. The old fancy dropped from him like a toy; this was a consuming need, a poignant hunger with his uprising, and a hunger with added thirst upon his lying down.
To Inarime he was merely a dull and pretty boy to whom it behoved her to show some kindness and forbearance. His gloomy blue eyes fixed silently upon her, vaguely irritated her, and she put command into hers to check their persistent following. Still she preferred him to his uncle, whose gallant attentions and man-of-the-world deference vexed and fretted her. His was a novel language to her, and she hesitated to read it lest there might be studied insult beneath it. From the baroness she heard of Rudolph’s unfortunate entanglement with Andromache, and upon pressure of confidence, admitted her father’s desire to see her married to Oïdas, whom she did not like or even moderately esteem. She imagined Rudolph forcibly separated from Andromache, and read in that fact his evident unhappiness, which appealed to her for sympathy and touched her with the wand of brotherhood.