Scirocco helped her in everything. He found out auction sales in the Hôtel Drouot for her, stood for half the afternoon on an old Flemish chair, to drive a nail with his own hands in the wall for her to hang a Diaz or a Corot upon--procured all the invitations for her which she wished--in short, was unweariedly obliging, and, nota bene, he only paid her enough attention to make her the fashion.
She was clever enough to take with him the good-natured, brusque tone of a woman who may permit herself little liberties because she is sure of her heart and of the respect of the man with whom she associates.
She lived in the seventh heaven. To drive every day, leave orders with Worth and Fanet, not to dine at home a single day, to attend two balls and three routs in one night, never to have a moment for reflection, to be always out of breath with pleasure, and besides this, to be surrounded by a crowd of young men with distinguished attractions and fine names, animated by the consciousness that for her sake an attaché, in despair over her virtuous harshness, had had himself transferred to Persia--oh! in her romantic boarding-school dreams she had never suspected such a lovely life.
And Felix.
Scirocco had proposed him in the most exclusive club. Felix had not resisted this, and came seldom to the club. He could not avoid playing little games of écarté. He won. His opponent doubled, increased tenfold the stakes--Felix continued to win. The sweat stood on his brow; he was deathly pale. "Do not play with me--I always win--it is a curse!" he cried suddenly, throwing down the cards and completely losing his self-control.
Scirocco grew embarrassed and nervously bit his nails. "If he had anything to reproach himself with!" he thought to himself. "But that is absolutely not the case, absolutely not!"
The others who did not know Baron Lanzberg's history only laughingly called him "un drôle de corps!"
The story went that Felix Lanzberg had once lost his mind from an unfortunate love-affair, and had spent two years in an insane asylum. Scirocco had probably invented this rumor and set it in motion to take away room for other rumors.
Except Scirocco and Count X, none of the Austrians in Paris at that time knew the true state of affairs. A single one had a suspicion, wrote to Vienna to inform himself, and received for answer--this and that. But this one was a parvenu, and when he wished to spread his news the others listened to him with mocking smiles, shrugged their shoulders arrogantly, and condemned the communication so harshly that he never again referred to it. He noticed that it was considered the thing to believe in Lanzberg.
Felix grew daily more unsociable, and liked to go to places only where he was sure of meeting no one whom he knew, no people of society. He took long trips on the steamboats, passed the afternoon in the quiet peace of the gardens, sometimes stood for a quarter of an hour gloomily before a half-decomposed corpse in the morgue, or wandered through the quiet rooms of the Louvre, which are so persistently avoided by certain Parisians.