"True, Gabrielle--but--do you really not know for whose sake I have come so often, so very often?"

She was silent.

His breath came more quickly, the colour rose to his cheek. Surely he must have divined Gabrielle's innocent secret from the young girl's tell-tale shyness, but yet at this decisive moment the words died in his throat as they must for every genuine, honest lover who would fain ask the momentous question of her whom he loves.

"Gabrielle," he murmured hastily and somewhat indistinctly, "will you take the full heart I offer you--can you accept it, or...." he hesitated and looked inquiringly into her lovely face. "Ella, all my happiness lies in your hands!"

Her heart beat loudly, the lace ruffles on her bosom trembled, as she slowly lifted her eyes to his.--How handsome he was, how well the tender humility in his face became him! His happiness lies in her hands! Her eyes filled with tears. "I do not know ... I ... Oswald ... Ossi!" she murmured disconnectedly, and then she placed her slender hand in the strong one held out to her.

Truyn with his back to the window, noticed nothing, but the baroness who had been observing this romantic intermezzo through her eyegla.s.s with cold-blooded curiosity, said drily to herself: "_J'en suis pour mes frais_;" then turning for the last time to Truyn, she said, "I have communicated to you Capriani's proposal."

"And you are at liberty to tell him how I received it," Truyn replied stiffly.

"_J'arrangerai un peu_," the baroness said as she rose, "do not disturb the young people, I will slip out on tiptoe. Adieu." And with a courteous glance around, she hurried away.

"Well, what do you think?" exclaimed Truyn, as he returned to the drawing-room, after escorting her to the hall. "What do you think, Georges?" and sitting down beside the young man he tapped him on the knee. "Capriani sends that goose Zoe in all seriousness to ask for my daughter's hand for his son. What do you say to that?"

"Audacious enough," said Georges shrugging his shoulders, "but what would you have--'tis a sign of the times!"

This dry way of judging of the matter did not please Truyn at all.

"Ossi!" he called.

"What, uncle?" The young people advanced together into the room.

"I have an interesting piece of news for you. A secret agent of the _Maison Foy_ has made a proposal to-day for Ella's hand for Capriani, jr! What do you say to that?"

"Ella's hand for the son of that railway Capriani!" exclaimed Oswald angrily. "Impossible! The secret agent deserves .... and he made an expressive motion with his hand. His indignation became him extremely well, and Truyn's glance rested with evident admiration upon the young fellow's athletic figure as he stood with head slightly thrown back, and eyes flashing scornfully.

"Unfortunately it was a lady--Zoe Melkweyser," the elder man explained.

"Then she deserves at least six months of Charenton," said Oswald, "'tis incredible!" and he clinched his hand. "Your daughter, uncle, and the son of the Conte--I suppose he is a Conte--or a Marchese perhaps--Capriani! You know that little orang-outang, Georges?"

"Of course, one meets him everywhere. He addressed me by my first name yesterday," Georges replied calmly. "Ah, my dear friends, you entirely misconceive this extraordinary proposal. For my part, I see in it no personal insult to the Countess Gabrielle, but simply a symptom of an approaching social earthquake. The triumph of the tradesman is manifest everywhere. Zola in his most prominent work has celebrated the apotheosis of the bag-man and the shop-girl; Chapu has designed the facade of the latest millinery establishment; Paris will yet see the Bourse hold its sessions in _La Madeleine_, and the _Bon Marche_ will set up a branch of its trade in _Notre Dame_."

"Likely enough," said Truyn with a troubled sigh, "I am only surprised that Capriani has not tried to be President of the French Republic."

"He has not thought the position at present a favourable one for his speculations," said Georges, "but what is not, may be."

"Ah, I am proud of my Austria," said Truyn, suddenly becoming stiff and wooden of aspect. "Such adventurers have at least no position there."

"Do not be too proud of your Austria," rejoined Georges, "I heard something at the emba.s.sy to-day that will hardly please you. _Id est_, Capriani has bought Schneeburg and will be your nearest neighbour in Bohemia."

Truyn started to his feet. "Capriani .... Schneeburg .... impossible! How could Malzin bring himself to such a sacrifice!"

"It must have gone hard with the poor fellow, G.o.d rest his soul! The night after the contract had been signed he died of apoplexy."

"Good Heavens!" murmured Truyn, pacing restlessly to and fro. "Good Heavens!"

"And there is another interesting piece of news," Georges went on.

"Well?"

"Fritz--do you remember him?"

"Certainly. The only Malzin now left, a very amiable lad who unfortunately made an impossible marriage."

"Yes, he married an actress, and just at the time when every one else was tired of ...."

"Georges!" exclaimed Oswald frowning and glancing towards Gabrielle. He was evidently of the opinion that such things should not be mentioned in the presence of young girls.

"Hm--hm," muttered Georges, "and he has accepted the post of Capriani's private secretary."

"Frightful!" exclaimed Oswald.

"He must have become morally corrupt to some degree, before he could make up his mind to submit to such a humiliation," interposed Truyn indignantly.

"Poor devil!" said Oswald.

"What would you have?" the philosophic Georges remarked and hummed ironically the air of '_Garde la reine_.' "_Ce n'est pas toujours les memes qui ont l'a.s.siette au beurre_. I tell you it is all up with us."

All preserved a melancholy silence for a while, then Truyn favoured the party with a few grand political aphorisms, and Oswald at last said to himself perfectly calmly, and as if impromptu, "Gabrielle and Capriani's son!"

The melancholy mood vanished and they talked and laughed so that there was a sound as of merry bells through the silence of the night.

CHAPTER III.

Zoe Melkweyser was an Austrian and a distant relative of Truyn's. Very well-born, but in very narrow pecuniary circ.u.mstances, she had grown up on her widowed father's heavily-mortgaged estate, condemned through want of means to a continued residence there, restless as was the temperament with which nature had endowed her. As a school-girl she had no greater pleasure than imaginary journeys from place to place upon the map, and one day she confided to her governess, Mrs. Sidney, under the seal of secrecy, that she would consent to marry any man, even were he a negro, who would promise to indulge her restlessness and allow her to travel to her heart's content.

It was no negro, however, but a banker from Brussels, who finally fulfilled her requirements. She met him at a watering-place, whither she had gone under the chaperonage of a wealthy and compa.s.sionate relative. In spite of her thirst for travel she could hardly have made up her mind to marry an Austrian banker, but a Belgian Cr[oe]sus was quite a different affair in her opinion.

All the objections and remonstrances of her aristocratic connections in Austria upon her return thither betrothed, she cut short with, "What would you have? Of course I never should have met him here, but he was received at court in Brussels."

And in fact Baron Alfred Melkweyser was not only received at court in Brussels, but what was still more extraordinary, by the Princess L----, being admitted to the most exclusive Belgian circles, 'among the people whom everyone knows.'

It would have been difficult to find any fault with him except for his brand-new patent of n.o.bility, and Zoe never had any cause to repent her marriage. His manners were perfectly correct, he rode well, had a laudable pa.s.sion for antiquities, ordered his clothes at Poole's, always used _vous_ in talking with his wife, paid all her bills without even a wry face, patiently travelled with her all over the world, and at her desire removed with her to Paris.

After ten years of childless marriage he died suddenly, of his first and unfortunately unsuccessful attempt to drive four-in-hand. As this, his first ambitious folly, was also his last, society forbore to ridicule it, and even after his death he enjoyed the reputation of an '_homme parfaitement bien_.'

His widow bewailed his loss sincerely, and purchased all her mourning of _Cypres_ at reduced prices. Bargains had always been a pa.s.sion with her, and scarcely had her year of mourning pa.s.sed, before, thanks to her expensive taste for cheap, useless articles, she had disposed of half the source of her income. Among other things she purchased at low prices various stocks which turned out badly. She owed her familiarity with financial affairs entirely to her speculative vein, and not at all, as her aristocratic relatives and country-folk erroneously imagined, to her deceased husband, who had, in fact, held himself persistently aloof from former financial acquaintances.

It was not acquisitiveness that spurred Zoe on to her various undertakings, but the restlessness of her temperament. She delighted in everything novel and fatiguing, whether it were a pilgrimage to _Lourdes_, a bargain day at the _Bon Marche_, or a first representation at the _Francais_, to which, by persistent wire-pulling and constant appeals to one and another person of influence, she was able to obtain tickets of admission not only for herself but for all her most intimate friends. She had one means, however, far more entertaining than all others, of procuring the excitement needed by her temperament, and this was the introduction to 'the world,' of American or European financial magnates. She extorted for them invitations to the most distinguished routs, she designed the b.a.l.l.s which these wealthy people were to give to dazzle Paris withal, and she expended an incredible amount of cunning and energy in inducing the aristocratic world to appear at these entertainments. Her tactics were those of genius; instead of contenting herself after the fashion of less skilful mortals with inviting the poorer and more modest members of Paris society, she bent all her efforts to securing the presence of some legitimist d.u.c.h.ess at the ball, if only for an hour. She succeeded in doing this in most cases by placing at the d.u.c.h.ess' disposal a large sum of money for charitable purposes. When she had gained over two or three of these fixed stars, the planets of Parisian society began to appear at these b.a.l.l.s.

Planets, in their social relations, are notably much more fastidious than fixed stars, as is but natural; they are forced to reflect a light not their own.