"But do you rank M. —— with Rachel as a dramatic artist?" I asked.
"I cannot tell," he answered; "but if she had not the studied perfection of Rachel, which was always the same and could not be altered without harm, she had at least a capacity of impulsive self-adaptation about her which made her for the time the character she personated,—not always the same, but such as the woman she represented might have been in the shifting phases of the passion that possessed her. And to think that she died at eight-and-twenty! What might not ten years more have made her!"
"It is odd," I observed, "that her fame should be forever connected with the name she got by her first unlucky marriage in New York. For it was unlucky enough, I believe,—was it not?"
"You may say that," responded the Consul, "without fear of denial or qualification. It was disgraceful in its beginning and in its ending. It was a swindle on a large scale; and poor Maria G—— was the one who suffered the most by the operation."
"I have always heard," said I, "that old G—— was cheated out of the price for which he had sold his daughter, and that M. M. —— got his wife on false pretences."
"Not altogether so," returned the Consul. "I happen to know all about that matter from the best authority. She was obtained on false pretences, to be sure, but it was not G—— that suffered by them. M. M. ——, moreover, never paid the price agreed upon, and yet G—— got it for all that."
"Indeed!" I exclaimed, "it must have been a neat operation. I cannot exactly see how the thing was done; but I have no doubt a tale hangs thereby, and a good one. Is it tellable?"
"I see no reason why not," said the Consul; "the sufferer made no
secret of it, and I know of no reason why I should. Mynheer Van
Holland told me the story himself, in Amsterdam, in the year
'Thirty-five."
"And who was he?" I inquired, "and what had he to do with it?"
"I'll tell you," responded the Consul, filling his glass and passing the bottle, "if you will have the goodness to shut the window behind you and ring for candles; for it gets chilly here among the mountains as soon as the sun is down."