“The steward’s eyes were very wide open when he heard these things, signor, and he did not cease to mutter to himself while he raised the girl from the ground and put her into the arms of his master—strong arms, which made very light of the burden, yet bore it with much tenderness. He himself rode on as he had been told, cantering over the soft grass of the park to the great house which for five centuries has been the home of the Zaloskis and the keystone of their fortunes.
“‘Himmel,’ he said as he rode, ‘that he should bring a woman to his doors—he who has lived forty years without touching a woman’s hand—a slut that he picks off the road. And in the white room, too! What a thing to get abroad! He will be taking a wife next, and she will be calling me “fool” also. God of Heaven! that I was born to such a service.’
“He continued to mutter thus all the way to the great house; and when he had come within call of it he bawled to the grooms and the men about that they should run down the road and help their master. So great was the din which he made that all the household presently was abroad in the park, and only the maidservants and the priest were left to listen to him. Not that they failed to be ready listeners, excellency, for a woman could ever roll a scandal prettily in the mouth; and as for the priest, Father Mark, he would have walked an hour any day to wag his tongue with five minutes’ gossip.
“‘What,’ he cried now to the complaining steward, ‘the Herr Count brings a guest to the white room? He has picked her up in the road, say you? Out on you for a tale-bearer!’
“‘It is no tale, Father, as you may learn presently for yourself. He is coming through the park now, and is cuddling the woman as you would cuddle a bottle—that is to say, as I—sinner that I am——’
“The priest waited to hear no more. Hatless and without his cloak, thinking nothing of the heat of the sun or the dignity of his office, he strode over the grass with long strides on his journey to meet the Count. That a woman was to be brought as a guest to the house of Paul Zaloski was a thing he could not contemplate with equanimity. Yet he had to contemplate it presently, when little Christine lay sleeping in the white room of the château, and the servants were striving one against the other to do her service.”
CHAPTER IX
THE WHITE ROOM
“The white room, excellency, was, until a year ago, the only chamber in the house of Paul Zaloski which was set apart for the entertainment of women. Elsewhere, the many rooms which opened off from the cloisters and the silent corridors were so many tents for soldiers—barrack-like dens, in which the only furniture was a bed, and the only adornment a crucifix. There were periodical days when Count Paul would break these crucifixes with the flat of his sword or any weapon that came handy—for he was ever a man of a violent temper, and he had a religion that he kept to himself. Old Father Mark, the priest, was permitted rather than welcomed in the house. He had been a servant of the Count’s father; and while he would not swerve a hair’s-breadth from the formularies of his office, he did many a good deed among the poor of Jajce, and had once converted a Turk—a fact upon which he relied for a comfortable seat in Paradise. He it was who replaced the crucifixes when the Count broke them in his wrath; and he never failed after such an outburst to spend hours before the altar in the chapel, praying that a curse might not come upon the house.
“Side by side with these miserable apartments I have spoken of, the white room was a thing to see. The great bed of it was heavy with gold and painting; there was a canopy above, supported by carved figures of angels. Many mirrors with gold frames almost hid the panels of the wall, themselves decked with frescoes and medallions. The carpet had come from the looms at Serajevo; the roomy chairs were from Vienna; the fine cut glass from Venice. Twenty years before the day of which I write, the house had many rooms such as this to shew; but the people had plundered it when Austria came to take their country, and the last of the Zaloskis was no lover of gewgaws or of women’s finery. Camp beds, without crucifixes above them, were good enough for him. While there was a room ready for his sister, who came at Easter from Vienna and remained regularly one month in the château, he cared nothing in what state the other apartments might be.
“‘Let them rot,’ he would cry to the priest, when the good man spoke of restoration; ‘let those buy carpets who have nails in their feet. I have no money for fopperies. If you find my beds hard, there is an hotel in Jajce, Father, with pretty chambermaids to tuck you in, and a cellar full of sour Burgundy to split your head before matins. What! you have no tongue for that? Then mind your business and leave me to mine.’