But Zinka burst into tears--: "Oh, uncle," she said, "if only Cecil were here!"
And Sempaly?
After the catastrophe he vanished from the scene--went to the East, and there again came to the surface. A Sempaly may do anything. He is now considered one of our most brilliant diplomatists.
But he has gone through a singular change; from a dandified, frivolous attaché he became a hard-and-fast official. He looks if possible more distinguished than ever and his features are more sharply cut. He is irritable, arrogant and ruthless; never sparing man or woman the biting sarcasms that dwell on the tip of his tongue, and yet, still--nay, more than ever--he exercises an almost irresistible spell over all who come in contact with him.
One day, when the general was waiting at some frontier station in Hungary for a train to Vienna, he was struck by the full rich voice of a traveller in a seal-skin coat, with a fur cap pulled down over his brows, who was giving peremptory orders to his servant. The old man looked round and his eyes met those of the stranger--it was Sempaly, also on his way to Vienna, from the East. They spoke--exchanging a few commonplace remarks, but without any cordiality. Presently Sempaly began with the abruptness for which his name was a by-word:
"You have just come from Paris. You were present at the wedding? What do you think of Truyn's marriage?"
"I am delighted at it," said the general.
"Well, everybody seems satisfied. Marie Vulpini is enchanted, and Gabrielle pleaded for her papa--so I hear.--So everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds!" he added in his sharp, hasty tones--"and Zinka--how is she looking? The papers said she was lovely."
"She is still very charming," said the general, with the facile garrulity of old age, "and happiness always beautifies a woman--she had but one regret: that Cecil had not lived to see it."