"Why of course--I thought I should amuse myself as well as at the Carl Theatre. Yes--that was what I fancied. What a disappointment! The dinner was not bad, perfectly correct, alas! The wife spoke of nothing but the evils of the social question. I did not know where to look, and the husband spoke of nothing but the evils of his stomach. Except for that, they were both very charming, on my word. Paid me compliments to my face with a sans gêne. Bah! I was never very kindly disposed to Felix, but I pity him on account of this match. For my part I should rather marry into a Hottentot family than such people."
I do not believe that during this speech Eugene Rhoeden felt exactly upon roses.
There are parvenus who listen in society to such speeches with self-satisfied indifference; yes, even laugh at them, and applying the English proverb, "Present company always excepted," to their own case, fancy themselves unreferred to. But Rhoeden does not belong to these enviable ones.
He smiles slightly to himself, and after the conversation had continued for some time in a similar manner he begins:
"There was once a French poet named Voltaire, and once when he went to London the street boys laughed at him, and sang mocking songs about Frenchmen. Then the poet turned round and said: 'You good people, is it not hard enough not to have been born among you? Really, you should pity us, not despise us!'"
After this little anecdote a universal silence followed, then Scirocco cried, "Bravo, Rhoeden!"
The good-natured Countess Dey blushed and said:
"We had entirely forgotten that you are related to these people," which sounds like a betise, but is balm for Eugene's vanity. Pistasch, however, puts on an irritated expression, and cries with his colossal impertinence, "I pity you uncommonly!"
Half an hour later the Countess is conferring in her dressing-room with her maid concerning her costume for to-morrow, and Pistasch has seated himself in a bad temper at the piano, where with his handsome, unpractised hands he thumps out the march from Norma, the only achievement of a ten years' study of music.
Scirocco and Rhoeden stand below on the rain-wet terrace. "Your cigar bores me," cries Scirocco, "throw it away and fill your lungs with pure air," and he draws a deep breath so as to enjoy the fragrance of the summer evening after the rain.