‘I do not think I shall ever change,’ she said, hurriedly. ‘It seems to me as if one must remain what one is born.’
‘The ivory must; the clay changes,’ said Othmar. ‘You are very pure ivory, my love. I robbed you from Christ.’
He was seated on one of the marble benches in the balustrade of the terrace; she stood before him, while his hand continued to play with the rose he had put at her breast. She wore a white woollen gown, which fell about her in soft folds, edged with ermine; a broad gold girdle clasped her waist, and old guipure lace covered her heart, which beat warm and high beneath his touch as he set the great crimson rose against it. In an innocent way she suddenly realised her own charm and its power which it gave her over any man; she lost her timidity, and ventured to ask him a question.
‘What is it that the Baron wishes you so much to do?’ she said, as she stood before him. ‘I did not understand.’
‘He wishes me, instead of putting roses in your corsage, to busy myself with setting the torch of war to dry places.’
‘I do not understand. What is it you can do?’
‘I will try and tell you in a few words. There are a few men, dear, who have such an enormous quantity of gold that they can arrange the balance of the world much at pleasure. One man, called Vanderbilt, could, for instance, make such a country as England bankrupt if he chose, merely by throwing his shares wholesale on the market. The Othmar are such men as this. My forefathers made immense fortunes, mostly very wickedly, and by force of their own unscrupulousness have managed to become one of these powers of the world. I have no such taste for any such power. It is with my indifference that my uncle reproaches me. He thinks that if I bestowed greater attention to the state of Europe I could double the millions I possess. I do not want to do that; I do not care to do that; so a great chasm of difference yawns for ever between him and me.’
‘He loves you very much?’
‘Oh, in his way; but I irritate him and he irritates me. We have scarcely a point in common.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Yseulte, amazed at her own boldness in suggesting a fault in him, ‘perhaps you have not quite patience with his difference of character?’