There were about a dozen of us at supper, a merry party enough when the champagne had gone round once or twice.
“What an awful thing this is about poor Von Orsova,” some one remarked.
“Ah, poor man!” the hostess said, “I dare not think of it. It is too horrible; to think that I was waltzing with him an hour before. To be dancing with an already half dead man,”—she gave a little affected shudder.
“He was to have been one of your guests to-night, was he not?” Furello asked.
“Oh, yes, indeed. Who could have suspected when he accepted my invitation that he knew he would be dead long before.”
“Does any one know the reason he had for suicide?” a lady next him asked Furello.
The Count gave a shrug. “Nothing has yet transpired. But the motives for such an act are often impossible to ascertain. There is nothing so irresponsible and eccentric as the mind of a man who has a tendency to self-murder. A sudden impulse is enough to bring about the catastrophe. Who knows? I for one should be very sorry to insist on an adequate motive.”
I looked at the man and wondered at his coolness. He spoke easily, without a trace of effort to suppress the truth. It was hard to recognize the grim executioner in the glib, urbane society man.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, let us change the subject!” the Baroness cried. “Life is quite miserable enough without dwelling on these horrors. The poor man is dead; what does it matter now? It is all shockingly sad; but what can we do? After all, life is for the living. Do all of you fill your glasses, and banish melancholy for an hour at least.”
“I hope, Baroness,” I said, for, as a foreigner, I occupied the place of honour, “you do not expect so soon a return?”