CHAPTER XXIV. A DRAUGHT FROM CIRCE’S CUP.
There was no hope for it. Harmony fled the Austrian Embassy. It had already been bruited that young Ehrenstein was inconveniently demanded by a bloodthirsty warrior, whose sister he had jilted in a scandalous way. The report reached Selaka’s ear, and he looked askance upon the perfidious youth. At first the baron dismissed the affair with a laugh, then, upon scandal mounting higher, and taking a shriller tone, he questioned Rudolph, and being a gentleman, expressed himself in very strong terms upon the young reprobate’s conduct.
Rudolph had sulked and fretted and made everybody around him only a degree less uncomfortable than himself. Twice he had started to go to Andromache and confess the full extent of his iniquity, but he had not had the courage to face the ordeal. If she should cry, or reproach him, or meet him with sad silence! it would be equally unbearable, and there would be nothing left for him but to go away and cut his throat. What was the good of anything? Life was a blunder, a fret, a torment. Without any evil in him, kindly, pure, sweet natured, here was he involved in a mesh of inextricable troubles, behaving to a dear and innocent child like an arrant villain. And all the while his heart bled for her, and in any moment left him by the haunting thought of Inarime, he was pursued by the soft pain of Andromache’s pretty eyes.
But every one blamed him, and all Athens spoke of him as a heartless scoundrel. The baroness, who was coldly condemnatory, suggested a return to Austria. The baron, sarcastic, plagued him in the “I warned you” tone.
“You are much too sentimental and susceptible, Rudolph, for a life of idleness. You have yet to learn the art of trifling gracefully and uncompromisingly. Remember, a man has not to choose between being a victim or a brute. You have proved yourself both to that little Athenian—first the victim and then the brute. Now, my advice to you is, go back to Rapoldenkirchen. Meditate instructively upon the excellent advantages you have had here, and resolve to continue your education in matters feminine with the married ladies. Avoid girls as you would avoid poison, until you are ready to fix yourself in reasonable harness with one particular girl, whom I advise you to choose as little as possible like yourself. Vienna or Paris will be of infinite service to you just now, and if you like, I could use my influence to obtain you a diplomatic post. As long as you remain in this state of lamentable idleness, so long will your life be precarious.”
But this excellent counsel had fallen on dull ears. An hour after Inarime’s rejection, Rudolph started to go to Andromache, and instead of cutting through Academy Street, as he should have done, he turned up towards the barrack, and before even he was aware of the propelling instinct that pushed him, he was knocking at Photini’s door.
“Is Mademoiselle Natzelhuber visible?” he asked of Polyxena, with an indifference of look and tone not at all assumed.
“She is upstairs, if that is what you mean,” cried Polyxena, and left him to shut the door behind him.
He walked up the steep stone stairs without a sign of hurry or purpose, and rapped listlessly at Photini’s door. In response to a loud “Come in,” he entered, and found Photini in the midst of her cats and dogs, reading the “Palingenesia.” She threw away the shabby little newspaper, and made room for him on the sofa beside her, eyeing him with a look of sharp scrutiny.