The afternoon’s programme was, I confess, not without attraction to me; for I knew that I was pretty, and I had not one of the strong and powerful minds which remained unelated by admiration and undepressed by the absence of it.
We drove to the picture exhibitions, and at both of them had a little crowd attending us. That crowd consisted chiefly of admirers, or professed admirers, of my sister, with von Francius in addition, who dropped in at the first exhibition.
Von Francius did not attend my sister; it was by my side that he remained and it was to me that he talked. He looked on at the men who were around her, but scarcely addressed her himself.
There was a clique of young artists who chose to consider the wealth of Sir Peter Le Marchant as fabulous, and who paid court to his wife from mixed motives; the prevailing one being a hope that she would be smitten by some picture of theirs at a fancy price, and order it to be sent home—as if she ever saw with anything beyond the most superficial outward eye those pictures, and as if it lay in her power to order any one, even the smallest and meanest of them. These ingenuous artists had yet to learn that Sir Peter’s picture purchases were formed from his own judgment, through the medium of himself or his secretary, armed with strict injunctions as to price, and upon the most purely practical and business-like principles—not in the least at the caprice of his wife.
We went to the larger gallery last. As we entered it I turned aside with von Francius to look at a picture in a small back room, and when we turned to follow the others, they had all gone forward into the large room; but standing at the door by which we had entered, and looking calmly after us, was Courvoisier.
A shock thrilled me. It was some time since I had seen him; for I had scarcely been at my lodgings for a fortnight, and we had had no haupt-proben lately. I had heard some rumor that important things—or, as Frau Lutzler gracefully expressed it, was wichtiges—had taken place between von Francius and the kapelle, and that Courvoisier had taken a leading part in the affair. To-day the greeting between the two men was a cordial if a brief one.
Eugen’s eyes scarcely fell upon me; he included me in his bow—that was all. All my little day-dream of growing self-complacency was shattered, scattered; the old feeling of soreness, smallness, wounded pride, and bruised self-esteem came back again. I felt a wild, angry desire to compel some other glance from those eyes than that exasperating one of quiet indifference. I felt it like a lash every time I encountered it. Its very coolness and absence of emotion stung me and made me quiver.
We and Courvoisier entered the large room at the same time. While Adelaide was languidly making its circuit, von Francius and I sat upon the ottoman in the middle of the room. I watched Eugen, even if he took no notice of me—watched him till every feeling of rest, every hard-won conviction of indifference to him and feeling of regard conquered came tumbling down in ignominious ruins. I knew he had had a fiery trial. His child, for whom I used to watch his adoration with a dull kind of envy, had left him. There was some mystery about it, and much pain. Frau Lutzler had begun to tell me a long story culled from one told her by Frau Schmidt, and I had stopped her, but knew that “Herr Courvoisier was not like the same man any more.”
That trouble was visible in firmly marked lines, even now; he looked subdued, older, and his face was thin and worn. Yet never had I noticed so plainly before the bright light of intellect in his eye; the noble stamp of mind upon his brow. There was more than the grace of a kindly nature in the pleasant curve of the lips—there was thought, power, intellectual strength. I compared him with the young men who were at this moment dangling round my sister. Not one among them could approach him—not merely in stature and breadth and the natural grace and dignity of carriage, but in far better things—in the mind that dominates sense; the will that holds back passion with a hand as strong and firm as that of a master over the dog whom he chooses to obey him. This man—I write from knowledge—had the capacity to appreciate and enjoy life—to taste its pleasures—never to excess, but with no ascetic’s lips. But the natural prompting—the moral “eat, drink, and be merry,” was held back with a ruthless hand, with chain of iron, and biting thong to chastise pitilessly each restive movement. He dreed out his weird most thoroughly, and drank the cup presented to him to the last dregs.