On strange and brittle threads hang the apples of fate. Hélène Wass had matured her plan for the following Wednesday night. Like all plans promising success, it was very simple. She divined Ordham’s nervous dread of finding himself alone with her, but parties at her house were always gay, and he was ever more than willing to be amused. She invited him to dinner “to meet a party of friends from Vienna who were giving her a night on their way to Paris.” Upon arrival he would discover that the party had disappointed her, but he could not well refuse to eat her dinner; nor could he run away immediately after. The Herr Geheimrath never graced these late dinners of his wife, adhering stoutly to the heavy midday meal of his ancestors, and partaking of a Spartan supper of eggs, cold ham, sausage, tongue, salad, and comp?te at six o’clock. At eight he was slumbering peacefully. The dainty French repast finished, Hélène would sing in her boudoir,—all the newest, gayest songs,—until Ordham’s apprehensions, if he cherished any, were lulled, and he had made himself too comfortable to think of moving before eleven o’clock, at least. Then she would confide to him a long list of new indignities, visited upon her by Munich society and her old husband, gradually working herself up into a mighty passion—no difficult matter at any time—and when, in a climax of uncontrollable excitement, she had flung herself into his arms, her faithful maid, having awakened the virtuous Geheimrath, would usher him in at precisely the right moment and exhibit the scandalous tableau. She would shriek and sob and plead for forgiveness, which, she well knew, would never kindle in that flabby mass of vanity, shocked out of the fatuousness of a lifetime. Ordham, of course, would not plead his innocence, and when she cowered to the floor, wailing that now indeed all the world was against her, he would walk over and take his place at her side. There would be no duel, for the Herr Geheimrath had chronic rheumatism in his right shoulder, and she would leave Munich with the young Englishman at eight o’clock on the following morning.
She had not the least doubt that, given conditions as she planned them, Ordham would go with her, and that between sympathy and Italy—her villa was romantically situated in the Alban Hills—she could persuade him that he loved the dainty versatile charming creature who had sacrificed the world for his sake. And, it may be, the vanity of youth being very great indeed, she would continue to win in the uneven game.
Hélène Wass was as clever as only a subtle unscrupulous highly seasoned European can be. She belonged to a class that responds automatically to the intrigues hatched under thrones and disseminated to the outposts of society; in whose brains are dark and tortuous recesses furrowed by generations of ancestors that have lied and schemed for royal favour; and what birth had not given her, she had industriously colonized in the rich soil of her brain for twenty years.
But the cleverest of mere mortals, even the wise old statesman at the helm, is unable to see far into that dense belt just beyond his horizon, can but guess at the forces generating there. Hélène Wass’s inimical forces were trivial, almost ridiculous, but less have wrecked life and reputation.
She had written a month since to her Parisian milliners to set to work on her summer trousseau at once, for even then she had contemplated a house party in her Italian villa, where Ordham would find it difficult to dodge her. On the day of their apparent reconciliation she telegraphed orders that it be sent at once. If delivered to her in Munich, her husband must pay the bill, to say nothing of the duties. Munich had denounced her extravagance as regularly as the seasons called their attention to it; but she was, in truth, a thrifty creature, and had kept her own inheritance, capital and income, intact. The Italian villa was her only personal extravagance, and Wass supported that. This trousseau, in spite of letters and telegrams, was unaccountably delayed. Go without it she would not, and not only for economical reasons, but because it was already hot in Italy, and she depended in no small measure upon these exquisite diaphanous garments for the ultimate conquest of her observing young lover.
It had been a mere chance that had taken Ordham on the Isar that night, or, to speak by the book, an undetected chain of circumstances. Paddling on the river in the city limits was a privilege granted to few, but a friend of Ordham, Count Kilchberg, whose garden sloped to the banks, had long since invited him to use a boat whenever he chose; and on the night when he had so unpremeditatedly won the friendship of Margarethe Styr, he had, after excusing himself from a dinner where he was likely to meet Frau von Wass, suddenly bethought himself of this novel and congenial way of passing the evening.
The trousseau arrived on Monday, and, still unpacked, was ready to be spirited out of the house by the annoyed but acquisitive Lotte, who, as a guardian of secrets and a surgeon of obstacles, received a salary rather than a wage, and was meditating respectable matrimony at no distant date. Lotte, although profoundly indifferent to moral lapses, did not like Italy and was in love with a valet de chambre in the Residenz. She was in a bad humour at the proposed flight, but dared not forsake her mistress, who, beyond question, would give her a wedding present. On Tuesday morning the Herr Geheimrath suddenly took it into his fussy old head to go to Berlin and attend a scientific conference. He invited Hélène to accompany him, and she screamed her refusal, almost beside herself. Assuming that she was merely more nervous than usual, he departed in haste, promising to bring her a present, and to return in the course of ten days; he needed a little vacation and should see many of his old friends.
She spent the greater part of Tuesday in bed, after her fashion when her astonished ego was forced to admit that there were conflicting egos in the world which her stupid patron saint went to sleep and forgot. She wept, she had hysterics, she bit several handkerchiefs to pieces, she tormented herself with visions of Ordham’s sudden recall to England before her husband’s return; finally, in a flash of blinding light, saw him infatuated with Margarethe Styr. That cordial hand-shake, that unstereotyped smile, had meant something from the woman who would have the world believe that she dwelt on a pedestal—in a niche—with a curtain in front of her. Ordham, true to his temperament, had not mentioned his meeting with Styr at Neuschwanstein, but Hélène knew of the visit, and leaped at conclusions not far from the truth. Of course he was fascinated, no doubt was talking Wagner (they were sure to begin on Wagner) with her at that very moment.
She sprang out of bed and ordered her victoria brought round in an hour. She must have movement, diversion, or her mind would become so inflamed that she could not plan, and a new plan was imperative, unless, indeed, she found the self-control to await her husband’s return.
It was a cold spring with occasional warm days. Lotte, anxious to shake out one of the new gowns, expatiated upon the weather. Frau von Wass, soothed by the thought that she could always command the envy of Munich, permitted herself to be arrayed in a gown and hat designed to make its wearer look as like a butterfly as a mere mortal can. The parasol, the slippers and stockings, the gloves and handkerchief, assisted to transform her into at least the Parisian she loved to be mistaken for, and she forgot her woes for an hour in the delight of showing herself. But she by no means forgot Ordham and directed her coachman to drive in the Englischergarten, where he occasionally strolled with Kilchberg and other friends. The beautiful day had brought out all Munich, driving, riding, walking; the great park was filled with good-natured saunterers, many of whom stared in open admiration, amazement, or disapproval at the dazzling vision behind the liveries of the excellent Geheimrath Wass.
But she saw nothing of the young Englishman. She ordered her coachman to leave the park by the Schwabing entrance and drive to the tennis court on the other side of the village. This was a sacred enclosure, which, with all her social adroitness and her husband’s popularity, she had never penetrated. Reserved in the first instance for the young and active members of the House of Wittelsbach, poverty in numbers had forced them to open the gates to the embassies and legations, as well as to the older families of the Bavarian aristocracy. Ordham had been admitted to this club as a matter of course, and tennis being the only form of exercise that he tolerated, he was an expert player, and might be seen at the courts four or five times a week.
To-day, the air being charged with the elixir of spring, he was frisking about like a kitten; and the sight not only made Hélène Wass pale with fury, but induced a spasm of bitter despair. It was manifest that nothing in ............