Madame de Gandry and Mrs. Ferguson thought the article very amusingly written--not that they would ever have said a word about such a piece of imprudence--for really no one was safe! To be sure any evil that might be written against them would be a lie--a pure invention--which in Zinka's case was quite unnecessary ... So they sent the paper round to all their friends as a warning against rushing into acquaintance with strangers: "One cannot be too careful." Zinka had seemed to them suspicious from the first, for after all she was not "the real thing."
All these spiteful and cruel insinuations they even ventured to utter in the presence of Princess Vulpini, in the general's atelier, the spot where all that circle concentrated whenever anything had occurred to excite or startle it, and they made the princess furious.
"I am an Austrian myself," she said, "and was brought up with ideas of exclusiveness which are as much above suspicion as they are beyond your comprehension. I am strictly conservative in all my views. But Zinka is elect by nature--an exceptional creature before whom all such laws give way. I should have regarded it as pure folly to sacrifice the pleasure of her acquaintance for the sake of a social dogma."
"Exceptions always fare badly," murmured the general.
Countess Ilsenbergh, who was as strict on points of honor as she was on matters of etiquette, was deeply aggrieved by the article; she expressed herself briefly but strongly on the subject of the freedom of the press, and confessed that, whether Zinka were innocent or guilty, things looked very ugly for Sempaly.
The count rushed into eloquence giving an exhaustive discourse on the whole social question.
"Princess Vulpini is quite right," he said. "Fräulein Sterzl is a bewitching creature, quite an exception--and if any departure from traditional law is ever permissible it would be so in her case. But the general too is right; exceptions must always fare badly in the world, and we cannot endanger the very essence and being of social stability in order to improve the position of any single individual. Above all, we must never create a precedent." And he proceeded to enlarge on the horrible consequences which must result from such a mixture of classes, referred to the example of France, and proposed the introduction of the Hindoo system of caste, in its strictest application, as a further bulwark for the protection of society in Europe and the coercion of ambitious spirits. His wife, at this juncture, objected that European society had not yet reached such a summit of absolute exclusiveness as he would assume, and that, consequently what was immediately needed was not any such far-reaching scheme for its protection, but some plan for dealing with the disagreeable circumstances in which its imperfection had at this time placed them.
He replied that the matter lay in a nutshell; either the story in 'High Life' was a lie, in which case Sempaly had nothing to do but to deny it categorically, to prove an alibi at the hour mentioned and to horsewhip the editor--or, the facts stated were true, and then--under the circumstances--there was nothing for it--but ... "the lady's previous character was quite above suspicion--there was nothing for it--but...." and he shrugged his shoulders.
"But to make Fräulein Sterzl Countess Sempaly!" cried Madame de Gandry. "Well, I must say I do think it rather too much to give an adventurous little chit a coronet as a reward for sheer impudence. But I beg your pardon, general,--I had forgotten that you are a friend of the family."
"And I," exclaimed the general beside himself, and quite pale with rage, "I, madame, was within an ace of forgetting that I was listening to a lady!"