The next day Rue had to go to a rehearsal for the Rhine Daughters in Die Götterdämmerung, and Paul was whistling the Spring Song from Die Walküre in his room when a knock at his door brought the news that a lady wished to see him. He wondered who the lady was, and, as the parlor of the house had been turned into a bedroom, he put on his hat and went into the hall, to be confronted by Helena, shamefaced but resolute.
“Come out into the street,” he begged, for in her implacable eyes he read signs of the approaching storm.
They silently descended to a lower étage. Then she turned and faced him:
“So you didn’t come to me this morning,” she said. Roumania excited was a stirring spectacle, nevertheless Paul wished that he was up the Hudson playing golf.
He endeavored to placate her. Helena, angered at her loss of dignity in condescending to call on this man, reproached him bitterly, and it seemed to him that she was about to sing the picturesque songs of hate which Carmen Sylva has made known to us, when they reached the street. Then her rage vanished in a moment.
“You conceited man, and you really took me in solemn earnest! I fancied the Americans had a sense of humor. Pooh! You’re not a man to love more than a moment, anyhow,” and she went on her way laughing mockingly, leaving Paul shamefaced, angered, his self-love all bruised and his senses aroused, for Helena wrathful was more beautiful than Helena amiable.
He was so distressed in mind that he only sat through one act of Die Götterdämmerung; his Wagner madness seemed to have evaporated. He hovered around the back of the theatre, and caught a glimpse of Rue getting in a carriage with the same fat old German—her singing-teacher, he fancied.
Although it was late, he called at her house. She had not yet arrived, the maid told him. He mooned about disconsolately until one o’clock, keeping at a safe distance from the Hotel Sonne. Then he wearily went to bed and dreamed that the Nornes were chasing him down Fifth Avenue.
The next morning he called again on Rue. She sent down word that she was tired. He called again in the afternoon; she was not at home. In the evening, feeling as if he were going mad, he was told that she had gone out and would not be back until late. He hung around the house in a hungry-dog fashion, smiling bitterly at times and beginning to doubt even his own intentions. But no Rue.
He went home at last, and in a rage of love and jealousy he sat down and wrote to Rue this letter: