Her manner irritates him extremely, princ.i.p.ally because it shows him that he stands by no means so high in her favour as he had supposed.

The fair friendship, founded upon flattery, or at least upon mutual consideration for personal vanity, is in danger of a breach. Fainacky is consumed by a desire to irritate still further this insulting woman, and to do Treurenberg an injury.

"Indeed!--a manifestly false piece of gossip?" he drawls, contemptuously.

"Yes, nothing else," she declares; "apart from the fact that my husband has personal control of a considerable income,--my father made sure of that before he gave his consent to my marriage; he never would have welcomed as a son-in-law an aristocrat without independent means,--apart from this fact, of course my money is at his disposal."

"Indeed! really? I thought you kept separate purses!" says the Pole, now--thanks to his irritation--giving free rein to his impertinence.

Selina bites her lips and is silent.

Meanwhile, Fainacky continues: "I can only say that my information as to Treurenberg's financial condition comes from the most trustworthy source, from Abraham himself. That indiscreet confidant informed me one day that the husband of 'the rich Harfink'--that was his expression--owed him money. The circ.u.mstance seemed to gratify his sense of humour. He has a fine sense of humour, the old rascal!"

"I cannot understand--it is impossible. Lato cannot have so far forgotten himself!" exclaims the Countess, pale and breathless from agitation. "Moreover, his personal requirements are of the fewest. He is no spendthrift."

"No," says the Pole, with an ugly smile, "he is no spendthrift, but he is a gambler! You may perhaps be aware of this, Countess, ignorant as you seem to be of your husband's private affairs?"

"A gambler!" she breaks forth. "You are fond of big words, apparently."

"And you, apparently, have a truly feminine antipathy to the truth. Is it possible that you are not aware that even as a young man Treurenberg was a notorious gambler?"

"Since his marriage he has given up play."

"Indeed? And what carries him to X---- day after day? How does he pa.s.s his mornings there? At cards!" Selina tries to speak, but words fail her, and the Pole continues, exultantly, "Yes, he plays, and his resources are exhausted,--and so is Abraham Goldstein's patience,--so he has taken to borrowing of his friends, as I happen to know; and if I am not vastly mistaken, Countess, one of these days he will swallow his hidalgo pride and cry _peccavi_ to you, turning to you to relieve his financial embarra.s.sments; and if I were you I would not repulse him,--no, by heaven! not just now. You must do all that you can to keep your hold upon him just at this time."

"And why just at this time?" she asks, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Why?" He laughs. "Have you no eyes? Were my hints, my warnings, the other evening, not sufficiently clear?"

"What do you mean? What do you presume to----" Selina's dry lips refuse to obey her; the hints which had lately glanced aside from her armour of self-confidence now go to the very core,--not of her heart, but of her vanity.

Drawing a deep breath, she recovers her voice, and goes on, angrily: "Are you insane enough to imagine that Lato could be seriously attracted for one moment by that school-girl? The idea is absurd, I could not entertain it for an instant. I have neglected Lato, it is true, but I need only lift my finger----"

"I have said nothing," the Pole whines, repentantly,--"nothing in the world. For heaven's sake do not be so angry! Nothing has occurred, but Treurenberg has no tact, and Olga is the daughter of a play-actor, and also, as you must admit, and as every one can see, desperately in love with Lato. All I do is to point out the danger to you. Treat Treurenberg with caution, and then----"

"Hush! Go!" she gasps.

He rises and leaves the room, turning in the doorway to say, with a voice and gesture that would have won renown for the hero of a provincial theatre at the end of his fourth act, "Selina, I have ruined myself with you, I have thrown away your friendship, but I have perhaps saved your existence from shipwreck!"

Whereupon he closes the door and betakes himself to the garden-room to have a last look at the decorations there. He does not think it worth while to carry thither his heroic air of self-sacrifice; on the contrary, as he gives an order to the upholsterer, a triumphant smile hovers upon his lips. "It will surprise me if Treurenberg now succeeds in arranging his affairs in that quarter," he thinks to himself.

Meanwhile, Selina is left to herself. She does not suffer from wounded affection; no, her heart is untouched by what she has just heard. But memory, rudely awakened, recalls to her a hundred little occurrences all pointing in the same direction, and she trembles with rage at the idea that any one--that her own husband--should prefer that simpleton of a girl to her own acknowledged beauty.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

FAILURE.

The clever Pole had, however, been quite mistaken as to the contents of Lato's letter. Abraham Goldstein's patience with the husband of the "rich Harfink" was not exhausted,--it was, in fact, inexhaustible; and if, nevertheless, the letter brought home to Lato the sense of his pecuniary embarra.s.sments, it was because a young, inexperienced friend, whom he would gladly have helped had it been possible, had appealed to him in mortal distress. His young cousin Flammingen was the writer of the letter, in which he confessed having lost at play, and entreated Lato to lend him three thousand guilders. To the poor boy this sum appeared immense; it seemed but a trifle to the husband of the "rich Harfink," but nevertheless it was a trifle which there would be great difficulty in procuring. And the lad wanted the money within twenty-four hours, to discharge gambling-debts,--debts of honour.

Treurenberg had once, when a young man, been in a like situation, and had been frightfully near vindicating his honour by a bullet through his brains. He was sorry for the young fellow, and, although his misery was good for him, he must be relieved. How? Lato turned his pockets inside out, and the most he could sc.r.a.pe together was twelve hundred guilders. This sum he enclosed in a short note, in which he told Flammingen that he hoped to send him the rest in the course of the afternoon, and despatched the waiting messenger with this consolation.

His cousin's trouble made him cease for a while to ponder upon his own.

Although he could not have brought himself to apply to his wife for relief in his own affairs, it seemed to him comparatively easy to appeal to her for another. He did not for an instant doubt that she would comply with his request. She was not parsimonious, but hard, and he could endure that for another's sake. He went twice to her room, in hopes of finding her there, but she was still in the dining-room.

He frowned when her maid told him this, and, lighting a cigar, he went down into the garden, annoyed at the necessity of postponing his interview with his wife.

Meanwhile, Olga, out of spirits and unoccupied, had betaken herself to the library. All day she had felt as if she had lost something; she could not have told what ailed her. She took up a book to amuse herself; by chance it was the very novel of Turgenieff's which she had been about to read, seated in the old boat, when Fainacky had intruded upon her. She had left the volume in the park, whence it had been brought back to her by the gardener. She turned over the leaves, at first listlessly, then a phrase caught her eye,--she began to read. Her interest increased from chapter to chapter; she devoured the words. Her breath came quickly, her cheeks burned. She read on to where the hero, in an access of anger, strikes Zenaide on her white arm with his riding-whip, and she calmly kisses the crimson welt made by the lash.

There the book fell from the girl's hand; she felt no indignation at Zenaide's guilty pa.s.sion, no horror of the cruel rage of the hero; no, she was conscious only of a kind of fierce envy of Zenaide, who could thus forgive. On the instant there awoke within her a pa.s.sionate longing for a love which could thus triumph over all disgrace, all ill usage, and bear one exultantly to its heaven!

She had become so absorbed in the book as to be insensible to what was going on around her. Now she started, and shrank involuntarily. A step advanced along the corridor; she heard a door open and shut,--the door of Selina's dressing-room.

"Who is there?" Selina's voice exclaimed.

"I." It was Treurenberg who replied.

Selina's dressing-room was separated by only a part.i.tion-wall from the library.

It was well-nigh noon, and Selina's maid was dressing her mistress's hair, when Treurenberg entered his wife's dressing-room for the first time for years without knocking. She had done her best to recover from the agitation caused her by Fainacky's words, had taken a bath, and had then rested for half an hour. Guests were expected in the afternoon, and she must impress them with her beauty, and must outshine the pale girl whom Lato had the bad taste to admire. When Treurenberg entered she was sitting before the mirror in a long, white peignoir, while her maid was brushing her hair, still long and abundant, reddish-golden in colour. Her arms gleamed full and white from out the wide sleeves of her peignoir.

"Who is it?" she asked, impatiently, hearing some one enter.

"Only I," he replied, gently.

Why does the tone of his soft, melodious voice so affect her to-day?

Why, in spite of herself, does Lato seem more attractive to her than he has done for years? She is irritated by the contradictory nature of her feelings.

"What do you want?" she asks, brusquely.

"To speak with you," he replies, in French. "Send away your maid."

Instead of complying, Selina orders the girl, "Brush harder: you make me nervous with such half-work."

Treurenberg frowns impatiently, and then quietly sends the maid from the room himself. Selina makes no attempt to detain her,--under the circ.u.mstances it would be scarcely possible for her to do so,--but hardly has the door closed behind Josephine, when she turns upon Lato with flashing eyes.

"Why do you send away my servants against my express wish?"

"I told you just now that I want to speak with you," he replies, with more firmness than he has ever hitherto displayed towards her,--the firmness of very weak men in mortal peril or moral desperation. "What I have to say requires no witnesses and can bear no delay."

"Go on, then." She folds her arms. "What do you want?"

He has seated himself astride of a chair near her, and, with his arms resting on the low back and his chin in his hands, he gazes at her earnestly. Why do his att.i.tude and his way of looking at her remind her so forcibly of the early time of their married life? Then he often used to sit thus and look on while she arranged her magnificent hair herself, for then--ah, then----! But she thrusts aside all such reflections. Why waste tenderness upon a man who is not ashamed to--who has so little taste as to----

"What do you want?" she asks, more crossly than before.