The waning of the slight affection which he had ever been able to give his young wife, the growing constraint of her manner to him and before him, the visible chillness which had fallen on their life together since that December night when she herself had arrived in Paris were all plain enough to her unerring perceptions, however slight might be the outward signs of that separation which was only not estrangement, because on the one side there was a devotion so timid, grateful, and constant that it could not be estranged.
Her world observed that she treated Yseulte with much more kindliness than it was common with her to show to women so young. Whenever she spoke of her, or to her, she always used some phrase which was gracious or flattering, with that most subtle and delicate flattery of which she had the secret as well as she had those of the most cruel ironies and insinuations; the extreme charm of her flatteries, as the intense sting of her cruelties, always lay in the fact that they contained a visible truth; they were not the mere offspring of invention.
Yseulte did not show to equal advantage when she received them; she was always embarrassed, even almost rude, so far as rudeness was possible to one nurtured in all the grand traditions of French patrician courtesy. In her own heart the child suffered excruciating mortification whenever the one woman whom she knew her husband had loved—did love—met her with sweet and praiseful words. She had all the exaggerated honesty of exceeding youth; she could not believe that sincerity permitted the sincere to smile on what they hated, and almost—almost—she hated this exquisite woman who was so gracious to her. It became an absolute dread upon her lest she should meet the one person who had this power to make her feel insignificant, ignorant, and awkward: a power never expressed, never even hinted at, yet lying beneath all those pretty phrases which the Princess Napraxine addressed to her or spoke before her. Her own innocent pleasure in these new pleasures of the world was marred by the constant apprehension of meeting her one enemy, who did not even give her the frank offence of an enemy, but always approached her with the smiling grace of a friendship the insincerity of which her own sincere instincts detected. The routine of their world brought them in almost perpetual contact, and Yseulte felt her presence before she saw her, and was conscious of a nervousness which she could not conquer, though she strove to conceal it. There was no one to whom she dared to speak of what she felt, and she was indeed ashamed of it. Youth dies a hundred deaths in silence in these unavowed antagonisms and apprehensions. If she had ventured to confess what she felt to Othmar, she would have ceased to be haunted by these vague terrors; but there was a look in his face whenever the name of Nadine Napraxine was spoken before him, which told her she herself must never speak it in blame or in fear. A chill and desolate consciousness had by degrees stolen upon her that they were right who said her husband loved this other woman as he never had and never would love herself. She said nothing to anyone, not even in the confessional; but a coldness like frost seemed to have come over her glad, warm, and grateful life just opened like the primroses in spring.
The day after he had left that simple bouquet of narcissus and white violets, Othmar had called at the Hôtel Napraxine. It was not her day, but she was at home and received him; it was the twilight hour so favourable to dreams, to confidence, to familiarity; when he had left the house he was conscious that he had done an unwise thing, perhaps even an unmanly thing; but he had been for the moment almost happy, which he had not been for a year.
They had not been even alone; but the sound of her voice, the languid glance of her eyes in the dim half-light, the music of her slight, low laugh, had all thrilled his veins with a thousand memories of passion and of hope; he had said to himself, ‘I will never go back,’ but he had gone back, and he knew that life would only count to him in future by the moments when he should return. In the evening which followed on his visit he was, quite unwittingly, colder and more preoccupied than Yseulte had ever seen him; he was even for once almost irritable. She looked at him wistfully. Friederich Othmar, who was present there, thought to himself in futile fury: ‘That sorceress has bewitched him once more. In another twelvemonths’ time, if he be not her accepted lover he will have shot himself. This poor fair child would cut her heart out of her breast to serve him; but she will grow less and less to him, less and less, every day. It is no fault of hers. He never cared for her, and she has no philtre of which she can make him drink. Innocent women do not brew them. Poor sweet fools! They can only pray!’
The old man had never cared for these women before; but now he did care. His heart which had been so cold all his life melted towards Yseulte.
Why could not Othmar be content with his coin du feu? When the Baron came into her apartment and saw the tall figure of the girl, with her fair head carried with a little droop like a flower’s after rain, he was every day more and more angry to find her husband so seldom there. Yseulte seemed to him to have in herself all those beauties and qualities which should be sweetest in the eyes of a man. But she was left alone, very constantly alone.
To one who had loved her she would have been full of interest, of surprises for the imagination, and of nascent character for influence to work upon; but to Othmar she was only a child, tame, quiet, without power to arrest or to excite him.
In the presence of Nadine Napraxine every fibre of his being was thrilled and awake, every nerve of his mind and body was alternately soothed and strung; her discursive and ironical intelligence seemed to light up the universe of thought, and every syllable she spoke, every slight gesture, smile, and suggestive glance, were fuller of meaning and more appealing at once to the intellect and the senses than hours of effort and provocation from other women. When he passed from her presence into that of Yseulte it was as though he passed from the marvellous intricacies of the passion music of Tristan und Isolde to the simple peace and prayer of a Gregorian chaunt sung by a child chorister. The latter was not without beauty of its own; beauty harmless and holy; but which had no power to move him.
Little by little his caresses grew fewer, his attentions grew rarer to his wife; he was always full of courteous observance and unremitting kindness to her as before; but the times were rare in which he sought her alone—the evenings few in which he entered her apartments.