Othmar

by Ouida

'Of course he does not believe me,' he thought. 'Nobody will ever believe me. They will always suppose that I have base reasons which have never even approached me; they will always accredit me with the coarsest of motives.'

Rosselin, with his power of divining the thoughts of others, guessed what was thus passing through his mind.

'Yes, they will certainly never accredit you with a good motive,' he said, answering the unspoken thoughts of his visitor. 'For that you must be prepared. But if you think that I shall do so, you mistake. You are a man, my dear Count Othmar, who is much more likely to be fascinated by a disinterested action than by a vulgar amour. I understand you, but I warn you that nobody else will.'

'I suppose not,' said Othmar. 'That must be as it may. How did you divine so well what I was thinking of?'

'Divination of that kind is easy after experiences as long as mine are,' answered Rosselin, gathering one of his carnations and fastening it in his linen coat. 'If we do not acquire that much from life we live to be old to little purpose. You have done a generous thing, and probably the world will punish you for it; it always does. The position your chivalry has led you into is of course certain to be explained in one way, and one only, by people in general. The world is not delicate, and it never appreciates delicacy.'

'Of that I am well aware,' returned Othmar. 'It is on account of the coarseness of all hasty and ordinary judgments that I wish to keep my own name and personality hidden as much as possible in relation to this child. If her own talents could secure independence for her, it would be very much to be desired that they should do so. Will you do me the favour to judge of them?'

Rosselin hesitated.

'You can command me in all ways,' he added. 'But I think it only fair to warn you that, even if she have very great talent, as you seem to believe, neither technique nor culture come by nature. Training, long, arduous, severe, and to the young most odious, is the treadmill on which everyone must work for years before being admitted into the kingdom of art. Has she enough to live on during these years of probation?'

'Yes,' answered Othmar; he did not feel called upon to confess his device for supplying this necessity. 'All I would ask of you is your judgment of her talents. Of course she is only a child; she has seen and heard nothing; even the poorest stage she has never seen. She has not had any of those indirect lessons which the very poverty and misery of their surroundings gave Rachel and Desclée. They were always in the road of their art, even though they went to it through mire. She knows nothing, absolutely nothing; I tell you she has not been even inside the booth of strolling players at a fair. Yet she gave to my wife and to me the impression of latent genius. Will you see her and hear her, and then give me your opinion?'

'I would do much more for you, my dear friend,' replied Rosselin with a vague sense of reluctance. 'But I have seen so many of these maidens who dream of the stage—little, quiet, good girls, with mended stockings and holes in their umbrellas, thronging to the Conservatoire to pipe out "O sire! je vais mourir" or "Infame! croyez-vous," going away with their mothers like chickens under the hen's wing when a big dog is in the poultry-yard; falling in love with the student who gives them the réplique, keeping chocolate in their pockets to nibble at like little mice between the scenes; little good girls, some pretty, some ugly, some saucy, some shy, all of them as poor as church rats, all of them with hair-pins tumbling out of their braids—j'en ai vu tant! And hardly a spark of genius amongst them! When they have fine shoulders and big eyes, then their career is certain—in a way; when they have no figure at all and no complexion, then they go into the provinces and one hears no more of them; or, perhaps, they leave their illusions altogether at the Conservatoire, and take a place behind a counter. It is the prudent ones who do that: "elles commencent où les autres finissent." Some clever woman has said so before me. Is it not better to begin so? Why not get a little snug shop for Mademoiselle Bérarde from the first?'