"What would you have?" said the Baroness meekly enough, "I have known those Caprianis ever so long, they live magnificently in Paris."

"Indeed?" asked Mimi, "does any one visit them?"

"Oh yes, crowned heads even," said Zinka, "and especially Princes of the blood travelling incog."

"Oh, they--why, they go even to the _Mabille_," said Mimi, "and--well--perhaps there is a certain similarity between ....!"

"Oh, no, no," interrupted Zoe, "they have very decent manners; Capriani even turned out of his house lately a person who came without an invitation."

"Really?" said Zinka, "that, certainly, shows great progress; but is it true that at the Conte's last ball neither the eldest daughter, nor her husband was present?"

"Yes," Zoe admitted. "Those are some of the insolent airs with which Larothiere contrives to awe his father-in-law."

"Go on," said Mimi.

"I do not say that only the _elite_ appear at these b.a.l.l.s. _C'est toujours le monde a cote_, as they say in Paris, but,--good Heavens!

these Caprianis have been of service to me, and they always heaped me with attentions, but here they are beginning to behave positively disagreeably to me."

"Perhaps your services in your native country have not answered their expectations," said Mimi, "Pistasch told me that you had been invited to Schneeburg on purpose to introduce the Caprianis into Austrian society. Was that only one of his poor jokes, or ...."

"I really did promise to do my best ...."

"My dear Zoe'," exclaimed Mimi Dey horrified, "had you clean forgotten your Austria?"

"No, I had not forgotten it, only I fancied that in the last twenty-five years you might have conformed somewhat to the spirit of the age; but no, you are precisely the same as ever. When will you cease to entrench yourselves behind triple barriers?"

"When we feel sure that no suspicious individual will try to invade our realm," said Mimi; "our circle, moreover, is quite large enough, and if we are asked to admit a stranger, at least we have a right to discover beforehand whether he will or will not be an acquisition."

That this didactic little speech was uttered princ.i.p.ally for her edification, the Countess Truyn was perfectly aware. She merely smiled calmly.

"I have no prejudices," a.s.serted Fraulein Klette boldly. "I am perfectly ready to be introduced to the Caprianis."

"Yes, you are a great philosopher," replied Mimi, gravely patting her on the shoulder, "we all know that."

"I shall not fail to represent to Capriani the advantage to be derived from your acquaintance," said Zoe drily. "And now I must make haste and execute a commission; I should really prefer to extricate myself from these a.s.sociations, but since I have got into the claws of this vulture I must keep him in good humour at least until he has gotten my finances into a better condition. And that brings me to what I have to ask of you, Wjera; I want you to do me a great favour." Up to this point the Countess Lodrin had taken no part in the conversation, but had continued, apparently lost in thought, to work away with her large wooden needles at her woollen piece of knitting. Zinka, who had been watching her, thought her unusually pale. "A favour? What is it?" asked the Countess.

"It is about your 'old Vienna' set of china, which you used to be so anxious to complete. The other half was at Schneeburg, and now belongs to Capriani. When he learned from me that you--er--were very fond of the set, he--er--asked me,--very kindly, as you must admit,--to offer you his half."

The Countess's large wooden needles clicked louder, and more busily than ever, but she said not a word in reply.

"You really would do me a very great favour, Wjera," persisted the baroness, "three weeks ago he asked me to say this to you, and I have only to-day brought myself to do it. You will embarra.s.s me exceedingly by rejecting the china."

Then Wjera with a quick angry gesture dropped her work, and looked up.

Her face in its stern pallor was like chiselled marble, but a dark glow shone in her eyes; Zinka thought that she had never beheld anything more beautiful or more haughty than that face at that moment. "What price does your Herr Capriani ask for the china?" she asked curtly.

"Price?--Price?--he will deem himself only too happy by your acceptance of it...!"

"Ossi, that's a revoke!" exclaimed Pistasch spreading out two tricks upon the whist-table.

"He is playing very carelessly," remarked Truyn.

"Every allowance must be made for a man in love," said Georges kindly as he shuffled the cards.

Oswald, whose back was towards his mother, heard her say: "Your Monsieur Capriani's officiousness seems to me to pa.s.s all bounds. Pray tell him _de ma part_ that I am quite ready to buy the service of him, at any price that he may name, however high, but that it is not my habit to accept gifts from those with whom I neither have nor wish to have any social intercourse."

"But, good Heavens! I had forgotten one half of my message," said Zoe, striking her forehead. "He expressly hoped that you would see in this little attention nothing more than a proof of respectful esteem from a former servant,--he would not venture to say friend,--of your family.

He a.s.sures me that he attended yourself and your husband years ago while you were in the Riviera, and he declares that if you do not recognise Conte Capriani, you will surely remember Doctor--Doctor--I have forgotten the name--but at any rate the doctor that you had there."

"Why it must be Stein!" exclaimed Fraulein Klette.

"Yes, that was the name," said Zoe.

"Why, I knew him," Fraulein Klette went on eagerly. "You must remember me to him; he was practising at Nice, when I spent the winter with the Orczinskas. The women raved about him--he was a very handsome man then, and he had invented a hygienic corset, all the women wore it.--You must have known him too, Wjera. I am certain that I met him once at your villa, that winter that you and your husband pa.s.sed in the Riviera."

"He declares that he attended your husband," said Zoe.

There was a brief--a very brief pause, and then the Countess said clearly and distinctly, "Possibly, but it does not interest me, and you can tell him from me that I do not remember it!"

"How young you look when you're angry, Wjera," said Mimi Dey, laughing, "the old demon flashes in your eyes when you're vexed."

"There's a deal of pleasure in playing whist with you, Ossi," exclaimed Truyn at the same moment,--he was Oswald's partner,--"that's five trumps that you have thrown away--I had a slam in my hand."

"How could I guess that you had anything in diamonds?"

"I led."

"Clubs."

"No, diamonds! Just look."

"Don't you think that Ossi, when he puts on that gloomy face, looks astonishingly like young Capriani?" observed Pistasch.

No longer master of himself Oswald threw his cards down on the table.

"Come, come, behave yourself, Ossi," said Truyn.

"There's no use in trying to jest with you: you are as sensitive as a commoner," grumbled Pistasch.

"Let us rather say as irritable as a crowned head," said Georges laughing, "_Les extremes se touchent_."

"I really believe it is the reappearance of your old family spectre which must have affected your nerves lately, Ossi," Pistasch said innocently.

"Which family spectre are you talking of?" asked Oswald hoa.r.s.ely.

"Have you several of them then?" asked Pistasch. "I know only of the blind one that laughs--my man told me to-day while I was dressing that it has been heard laughing again. The butler had told him so."

"The gardener was talking to me of it to-day too," said Georges, "but I told him that there have been no ghosts since '48; ghosts as an inst.i.tution were quite done away with by the March revolution, whereupon, as he is an aspiring person addicted to free thinking he replied that he had arrived at that same conclusion himself."

"Stupid superst.i.tion!" muttered Oswald; then controlling himself by an effort he said very quietly, but pale as ashes. "Shall we not have another rubber?"