Othmar

by Ouida

It was absurd, he felt, and exaggerated, and probably wholly ungrounded in every way, but there were moments when he imagined that she wished to remind him of his social inferiority to herself, moments when the recollection of the origin of the Othmar fortunes spoilt for a passing hour her pleasure in the existence of her children. Though he did not harbour the suspicion, but threw it away from him as unworthy of both himself and her, it yet existed and made him over-sensitive to any slight upon her part, quick to perceive the faintest tinge of contempt in her tone to him. He knew that she could count her great ancestries far beyond the dim days of Rurick; whilst there were courts of Europe where feudal etiquette still prevailed strongly enough to make his presence in their throne-rooms impossible. These were mere nominal differences, no doubt, and he might perchance have saved from bankruptcy the very state in which he would have been forbidden to pass the palace gates if he had sought to accompany her through them; but still there were moments when the voice and the glance of his wife recalled these conventional things to him out of the limbo of absolute nullity in which, but for those, he let them lie. Never by any spoken word or hint had she ever reminded him of them, yet now and then in her colder moments he thought: 'Perhaps she remembers that two hundred years ago if her forefathers rode over the plains of Croatia they could ride down mine before them, and drive them with their whips like so many acorn-eating swine!'

He began to believe that she was in truth as cruel as the world had always called her; and a feeling which was almost hatred at times awoke in him and blent with the suffering she caused him.

It seemed to him that no man on earth ever gave a woman such passion and such worship as he had given her; these might at least, he thought, have secured respect from her, even if they had failed to hold her sympathy.

He said nothing to her. Remonstrance would have been useless, supplication unmanly. He let time drift them where it would: and in the ever-exercising burden of his pain Damaris became almost forgotten.

Some weeks after the performance of Lemberg's cantata, Blanche de Laon, calling on the woman whom she hated on her 'jour,' came late, stayed until the rooms were nearly emptied of their crowd, and then sank down beside her hostess on a low couch in a corner palm-shadowed, where banks of lilies of the valley gave out their fragrance under rose-shaded lamps, and great Japanese vases were filled with the rosy flowers of the gesneria and the philesia. She always paid great outward deference to Nadège, was coaxing and câline, and for her alone subdued the rudeness and the shrillness of her voice and manner. She leaned now beside her on the broad low seat of the cushioned corner, whilst the few people who remained in the rooms conversed in little groups, and the flowers, the porcelains, the stuffs, the pictures, the embroidered satins of the walls, the long vista of salons opening one out of another, made up one of those pictures of harmonised colour and of artistically arranged luxuries of which the modern world is so full. Blanchette had all manner of confidential things to disclose, secrets of this toilette and that, of this scandal and the other, of the true reason of a dear friend's sudden indisposition, and the actual cause of a coming duel; all these secrets de Polichinelle, which society loves to carry about and distribute, things which are mysteries of life and death yet whispered at every 'petit quart d'heure' in every house known to fashion.

Nadine listened, leaning back amongst her cushions indifferent, scarcely affecting attention, thinking of her own costume at a coming ball she was about to give, in which the règne animal of Cuvier was to furnish the dresses. She had chosen a panther. All the yellow and black would make her delicate colourless skin look so well, and she would wear all her diamonds, and ——. She was aroused from her meditation by the question which Blanche de Laon put suddenly to her.

'Do tell me,' she said, leaning down amongst her cushions: 'You know I like to be the first to hear things—when will the new genius make her début with you?'

'What do you mean?'

'Oh, you know what I mean; this young artist whom Rosselin is training, in whom your husband is interested, and who is to make her first appearance here? Who is she? Do tell me about her. I should like to have her appear at my house if you have no proprietary rights to her exclusive production.'

'I have no idea of what person you speak of; I am not fond of untried artists,' she answered, with perfect indifference, but Blanchette saw a shade of surprise and a coldness of displeasure on her face.