The old physician listened with emotion and with surprise. Of the moral defects Sabran spoke of, he had seen none. Since his marriage his tenderness to his wife, his kindliness to his dependants, his courage in field sports, and his courtesy as a host had been all that anyone had seen in him; whilst his abstinence from all interference with and all appropriation of his wife's vast possessions had aroused a yet deeper esteem in all who surrounded him. As he heard, over the old man's mind drifted the memories of all he had observed at the time of Sabran's accident in the forest and subsequent prostration of nerve and will. But he thrust these vague suspicions away, for he was blameless in his loyalty to the house he served, and honoured as his master the husband of the Countess von Szalras.
'I will do my uttermost to deserve so precious a trust,' he said, with deep feeling. 'I think that you exaggerate childish foibles, and attach too much importance to them. The little Count Bela is imperious and high-spirited, nothing more; and in this great household, where everyone salutes him as the heir, it is difficult to keep him wholly unspoiled by adulation and consciousness of his own future power. But a great pride has been always the mark of the race of Szalras, although my lady has so chastened hers that you may well believe the line she springs from has been always faultless as—if one may say so of any mortal—one may say she herself is. It is not from you alone that the child inherits his arrogance, if arrogant he be. As for his facility, it is like a fairy's wand, a caduceus of the gods; it may be used for good unspeakable. At least believe this, my dear lord, what any human teacher can do I will do, thankful to pay my debt so easily. I have always,' he added less gravely, 'had my own theories as to the education of young princes, and like all theorists believe everyone else who has had any doctrine on that subject to be wrong. I shall be charmed to have so happy an occasion in which to put my theories to the test. I think nature and learning together, the woods and the study, should be the preparation for the world.'
'I have entire confidence in your judgment,' said Sabran. 'Above all, try and keep the boy from pride. Train him, as Madame de Genlis trained the d'Orléans boys, for any reverse of fortune. He is born with that temper which would make any humiliation, any loss of position, unbearable to him; and who can say——'
He paused abruptly: what he thought was, who could say that in future years Egon Vàsàrhely might not tell his son of that secret shame which hung over Hohenszalras, a cloud unseen, but big with tempest? Greswold looked at him in a surprise which he could not conceal, and Sabran left his presence hastily, under excuse of visiting some stallions arrived that morning from Tunis; he was afraid of the interrogations which the old man might be led in all innocence to make. Greswold looked after him with some anxiety; he had become sincerely attached to his lord, whose life he had saved in Pregratten; but the unevenness of his spirits, the unhappiness which evidently came over him at times in the midst of his serene and fortunate life, the strangeness of a few words which from time to time he let fall, had not escaped the quick perception of the wise physician, and gave him at intervals a vague, uncertain feeling of apprehension.
'Pride!' he thought now. 'If the little Count were not proud he would be no Szalras; and if his father have not also that superb sin he must be a greater philosopher than I have ever thought him, and no fit mate for our lady. What should overtake the child? If war or revolution ruin him when he grows up that will be no humiliation; he will be none the less Bela von Szalras, and if he be like my lady he will be quite content with being that. Nevertheless, one must try and teach him humility—that is, one must try and make the stork creep and the oak bend!'
Sabran, as he examined his Eastern horses and conversed about them with Ulrich, was haunted by the thoughts which his own words had called up in him. It was possible, it was always possible, that if she ever knew, she might divorce him, and the children would become bastards. The Law would certainly give her her divorce, and the Church also. The most severe of judges, the most austere of pontiffs, would not hold her bound to a man who had so grossly deceived her.
By his own act he had rendered it possible for her, if she knew, to sever herself entirely from him, and make his sons nameless. Of course he had always known this. But in the first ardours of his passion, the first ecstasies of his triumph, he had scarcely thought of it. He had been certain that Vassia Kazán was dead to the whole world. Then, as the years had rolled on, the security of his position, the calmness of his happiness, had lulled all this remembrance in him. But now tranquillity had departed from him, and there were hours when an intense dread possessed him.
True, he did justice to the veracity and honour of his foe. He believed that Vàsàrhely would never speak whilst he himself was living; but then again he himself might die at any moment, a gun accident, a false step on a glacier, a thrust from a boar or a bear, ten thousand hazards might kill him in full health, and were he dead his antagonist might be tempted to break his word. Vàsàrhely had always loved her; would it not be a temptation beyond the power of humanity to resist, when by a word he could show to her that she had been betrayed and outraged by a traitor?
And then the children?
Though were he himself dead, she would in all likelihood never do aught that would let the world know his sin, yet she would surely change to his offspring, most probably would hate them when she saw in their lives only the evidence of her own dishonour, and knew that in their veins was the blood of a man born a serf.