"First of all, your sympathy," he replies, gravely.

"Oh, indeed! is this what you had to tell me that could bear no delay?"

He moves his chair a little nearer to her. "Lina," he murmurs, "we have become very much estranged of late."

"Whose fault is it?" she asks, dryly.

"Partly mine," he sadly confesses.

"Only partly?" she replies, sharply. "That is a matter of opinion. The other way of stating it is that you neglected me and I put up with it."

"I left you to yourself, because--because I thought I wearied you," he stammers, conscious that he is not telling quite the truth, knowing that he had hailed the first symptoms of her indifference as a relief.

"It certainly is true that I have not grieved myself to death over your neglect. It was not my way to sue humbly for your favour. But let that go; let us speak of real things, of the matter which will not bear delay." She smiles contemptuously.

"True," he replies; "I had forgotten it in my own personal affairs. I wanted to ask a favour of you."

"Ah!" she interposes; and he goes on: "It happens that I have no ready money just now; what I have, at least, does not suffice. Will you advance me some?"

She drums exultantly upon her dressing-table, loaded with its apparatus of gla.s.s and silver. "I would have wagered that we should come to this.

H'm! how much do you want?"

"Eighteen hundred guilders."

"And do you consider that a trifle?" she exclaims, provokingly. "If I remember rightly, it amounts to the entire year's pay of a captain in the army. And you want the money to--discharge a gambling-debt, do you not?"

"Not my own," he says, hoa.r.s.ely. "G.o.d knows, I would rather put a bullet through my brains than ask you for money!"

"That's very easily said," she rejoins, coldly. "I am glad, however, to have you a.s.sure me that you do not want the money for yourself. To pay your debts, for the honour of the name which I bear, I should have made any sacrifice, but I have no idea of supporting the extravagancies of the garrison at X----." And Selina begins to trim her nails with a glittering little pair of scissors.

"But, Selina, you have no idea of the facts of the case!" Treurenberg exclaims. He has risen, and he takes the scissors from her and tosses them aside impatiently. "Women can hardly understand the importance of a gambling-debt. A life hangs upon its payment,--the life of a promising young fellow, who, if no help is vouchsafed him, must choose between disgrace and death. Suppose I should tell you tomorrow that he had shot himself,--what then?"

"He will not shoot himself," she says, calmly. "Moreover, it was a principle with my father never to comply with the request of any one who threatened suicide; and I agree with him."

"You are right in general; but this is an exception. This poor boy is not yet nineteen,--a child, unaccustomed to be left to himself, who has lost his head. What if you are right, and he cannot find the courage to put an end to himself,--the hand of a lad of eighteen who has condemned himself to death may well falter,--what then? Disgrace, for him, for his family; dismissal from the army; a degraded life. Have pity, Selina, for heaven's sake!"

He pleads desperately, but he might as well appeal to a wooden doll, for all the impression his words make upon her, and at last he pauses, breathless with agitation. Selina, tossing her head and with a scornful air, says, "I have little sympathy for young good-for-naughts; it lies in the nature of things that they should bear the consequences of their actions; it is no affair of mine. I might, indeed, ask how it happens that you take such an interest in this case, did I not know that you have good reason to do so,--you are a gambler yourself."

Treurenberg starts and gazes at her in dismay. "A gambler! What can make you think so? I often play to distract my mind, but a gambler!--'tis a harsh word. I am not aware that you have ever had to suffer from my love for cards."

"No; your friendship with Abraham Goldstein stands you in stead. You have spared me, if it can be called sparing a woman to cause her innocently to incur the reputation for intense miserliness!"

There is some truth in her words, some justice in her indignation. Lato casts down his eyes. Suddenly an idea occurs to him. "Fainacky has told you, then, of my relations with Abraham Goldstein?"

"Yes."

"Ah!" he exclaims; "I now understand the change in you. For heaven's sake, do not allow yourself to be influenced by that shallow, malicious c.o.xcomb!"

"I do not allow myself to be influenced by him," the Countess replies; "but his information produced an impression upon me, for it was, since you do not deny it, correct. You are a gambler; you borrow money at a high rate of percentage from a usurer, because you are too arrogant or too obstinate to tell me of your debts. Is this not so?"

Treurenberg has gone towards the door, when he suddenly pauses and collects himself. He will make one more attempt to be reconciled with his wife, and it shall be the last. He turns towards her again.

"Yes," he admits, "I have treated you inconsiderately, and your wounding of my pride, perhaps unintentionally, does not excuse me. I have been wrong,--I have neglected you. I play,--yes, Selina, I play,--I seek the society of strangers, but only because I am far, far more of a stranger at home. Selina," he goes on, carried away by his emotion, and in a voice which expresses his utter misery, "I cannot reconcile myself to life amid your surroundings; call it want of character, weakness, sensitiveness, as you please, but I cannot. Come away with me; let us retire to any secluded corner of the earth, and I will make it a paradise for you by my grat.i.tude and devotion; I will serve you on my knees; my life shall be yours, only come away with me!"

Poor Lato! he has wrought his own ruin. Why does he not understand that every word he speaks wounds the most sensitive part of her,--her vanity?

"You would withdraw me from my surroundings? And, pray, what society do you offer me in exchange?" she asks, bitterly. "My acquaintances are not good enough for you; I am not good enough for the atmosphere in which you used to live."

He sees his error, perceives that he has offended her, and it pains him.

"Selina," he says, softly, "there shall be no lack of good friends for you at my side; and then, after all, what need have we of other people?

Can we not find our happiness in each other? What if G.o.d should bless us with an angel like the one He has taken from us?"

He kneels beside her and kisses her hand, but she withdraws it hastily.

"Do not touch me!" she exclaims; "I am not Olga!"

He starts to his feet as if stung by a serpent. "What do you mean?"

"What I say."

"I do not understand you!"

"Hypocrite!" she gasps, her jealousy gaining absolute mastery of her; "I am not blind; do you suppose I do not know upon whom you lavish kind words and caresses every day, which fall to my share only when you want some favour of me?"

It seems to him that he hears the rustle of feminine garments in the next room. "For G.o.d's sake, Selina, not so loud," he whispers.

"Ah! your first emotion is dread of injuring her; all else is indifferent to you. It does not even occur to you to repel my accusation."

"Accusation?" he murmurs, hopelessly. "I do not yet understand of what you accuse me."

"Of your relations with that creature before my very eyes!"

Transported with indignation at these words, he lifts his hand, possessed by a mad impulse to strike her, but he controls himself so far as only to grasp her by the arm.

"Creature!" he exclaims, furiously. "Creature! Are you mad? Olga!--why, Olga is pure as an angel, more spotless than a snowflake before it has touched the earth."

"I have no faith in such purity. If she has not actually fallen, her pa.s.sion is plainly shown in her eyes. But there shall be no open scandal,--she must go. I will not have her in the house,--she must go!"

"She must go!" Treurenberg repeats, in horror. "You would turn her out of doors,--a young, inexperienced, beautiful girl? Selina, I will go, and the sooner the better for all I care, but she must stay."

"How you love her!" sneers the Countess.

For a moment there is silence in the room. Lato gazes at his wife as if she were something strange which he had never seen before,--gazes at her in amazement mingled with horror. His patience is at an end; he forgets everything in the wild desire to break asunder the fetters which have bound him for so long, to be rid of the self-control which has so tortured him.

"Yes," he says, raising his voice, "I love her,--love her intensely, unutterably; but this is the first time that I have admitted it even to myself, and you have brought me to do so. I have struggled against this pa.s.sion night and day, have denied its existence, have done all that I could to stifle it, and I have tried to the utmost to be reconciled with you, to begin with you a new life in which I could hope to forget her. How you have seconded me you know. Of one thing, however, I can a.s.sure you,--the last word has been uttered between you and myself; it would not avail you now though you should sue for a reconciliation on your knees. A woman without tenderness or compa.s.sion I abhor. I have a horror of you!" He turns sway, and the door closes behind him.