Pomp and circumstance

Part III Chapter Page

I. "CERBERUS" GOES A-WOOING 183

II. THE "SHOW" 199

III. IN THE HEART OF THE FOG 214

IV. THE SURRENDER 235

V. THE "BOUDOIR HERALD" 249

VI. "!GEN OR NEM?" 261

VII. THE VERDICT 275

VIII. THE SUMMONS 286

IX. Two SPHINXES 300

X. THE APPEAL 315

XL THE PROMISE 330

XII. "IGEN" 342

EPILOGUE 358

Chapter I In The Ball-room

"FRAU HARDING does this sort of thing very well, don't you think?"

"Mrs. Harding, you should say, if you care about staying in her good graces. She considers that the English flavour gives a prestige, you know."

"Ah, to be sure ! Well, Frau or Mrs., she understands a hostess's business. Floor, food, flowers, and fiddles about as good as I have seen them anywhere this Carnival. The 'Anglo-Saxon' must be doing famous business."

"It would need to," came the retort, together with the dry chuckle of the critic — "always granted that to-night's bills are cashed. I put down the evening" — and through her gold-rimmed lorgnon the speaker swept the eye of a connoisseur round the room — "I put down the evening at not a kreutzer under a thousand florins."

The second speaker in the dialogue collapsed into a pause, presumably filled with arithmetical calculations.

The scene upon which the two stout, middle-aged, much frizzled and much bejewelled matrons gazed was, nevertheless, worthy of other mental operations than addition and multiplication. For Vienna is the city not only of fair faces, lithe figures and a feminine taste in dress which has awakened Paris herself to the need of looking to her laurels — it is, above all, the city of perfect dancers — a fact which goes far towards reconciling the mere looker-on to his or her fate. The pulse of even the sleepiest of chaperons could not fail to be at moments stirred by this whirl of young forms, so erect, so elastic, so refreshingly unconscious; for that standing dilemma of the average British cub — where and how to bestow his arms and legs with the minimum of personal embarrassment — is non-existent for his Austrian prototype. Add to this that he is, musical to his finger-tips. The strains of the* Strauss waltz, floating through a screen of hothouse flowers, were acting as directly upon the nerves of these young men and women as did the scent of the flowers themselves. The result, besides the harmony of movement, lay in many a blissful smile, in many a frankly enchanted gaze; for the Austrian, even with money in his pocket, has not yet learnt to be ashamed of enjoying himself.

That most of those present had money in their pockets was proclaimed by the size and water of the diamonds in the room — usually displayed upon fat necks — as well as by the look of the women's gowns, of which the overwhelming majority— even at this fag-end of the Carnival — were obviously at their first night. Among the men black coats predominated — a circumstance which, taken in conjunction with the millinery and the jewels, as well as of an occasional unmistakably Semitic profile among the' prosperous-looking men in the card-room, would, for a Viennese eye, have sufficed to label the gathering as one of the haute finance. Eminently a civilian affair. What uniforms were there had been mostly brought to the matrimonial market, and were being temptingly displayed before the eyes of heiresses.

"Yes — I daresay that's« about the figure," remarked the* last speaker, after that pause. "It couldn't well be done- under a thousand. She's going it strong this season. After all, when you have daughters, to marry "

She brought back her eyes from, the brilliant scene to her neighbour's hard, brick-red face. Her own wide» and jovial countenance, upon. which the rice-powder showed as» plainly as the flour on an unbaked pudding, visibly expanded, while the two small black eyes, which might have been two isolated currants half-buried in the dough, twinkled with enjoyment — for this branch of the subject promised good sport.

"As though she hadn't been doing it for years past, while both the girls were in the schoolroom!" openly sneered the brick-red lady. Upon which she abruptly softened and graciously conceded :

"Small blame to her either for not living behind a screen. She's quite worth looking at yet."

"Not with Irma beside her," gently corrected her companion. "Don't you think that girl has wonderfully improved of late?"

"I don't think she comes near to her mother."

"Oh, don't you?"

The jovial lady, leant back, fanning herself slowly and immensely enjoying herself. That question of daughters to marry, which by a childless woman could be viewed with perfect detachment, was, as she well knew, a delicate' point with her neighbour.

"The mother is more showy, if you like; but, to my mind, the daughter beats her entirely. Just look at her eyes!"

"Just look at the mother's figure!"

"That grace of movement!"

"That stateliness of stature!"

For a minute or two the rival claims of mother and daughter flamed over two eager pairs of lips.

A casual listener might have supposed that Mrs. Harding was the idol of the brick-red lady's heart, whereas in reality she was precious to her only as an extinguisher to Irma's more inconvenient charms; just as her pudding-faced companion was using Irma herself solely as a pin wherewith to prod this mother of plain-faced daughters, just for the fun of the. thing — unless possibly the grudge against Fate for not having given her daughters of her own had anything to do with it.

The climax came with the remark:

"Well, anyway, a good, majority of the men seem to be of my opinion — Baron Kiraly among others. This is the second cotillon he has danced with her this week."

The complexion alongside turned more distinctly apoplectic, while with the heaving of the ample bosom the diamond riviere seemed to spit fire. For Baron Kiraly was a parti, and at the outset of the Carnival there had been signs

Her neighbour, remembering the excellence of the dinners given by the wearer of the riviere, took fright. Baron Kiraly was the biggest of the pins she had run into her victim's flesh to-night. Perhaps it was time to apply balm to the puncture. The sight of a fair-haired, angular-looking girl across the room determined the form which that balm was to take. It was somewhat hastily that she said:

"But the younger one is nothing to speak of. Looks more bony than ever, now that they have put her into long frocks. Quite the English strain. — and the wrong strain too, for the father is said to have been a fine man in his day. What has become of him to-night, by-thevby? Queer he shouldn't be here to do the honours of his own house."

"Very queer! Some talk of an extra press of business. But business isn't usually done at this hour of night. Extraordinary idea to leave one's wife unsupported on such an occasion as this."

"She doesn't seem to mind it much, does she?"

Just at that moment the floor automatically cleared, for the music had paused. Both pairs of eyes turned towards the figure in the opposite doorway. Mrs. Harding stood with slightly inclined head, listening to some suggestion of the cotillon leader, touching the next figure. Even had her comparative isolation not marked her out, she would probably have remained the most conspicuous figure in the room; and this not only because of her commanding stature and imposing bust, but also because of a certain brilliancy of appearance which caught the eye as unavoidably as does the glitter of a spangle. It was through the richness of its colouring, its strongly contrasted and strongly accentuated tints, that her irregular face agreeably surprised the spectator. The red on cheeks and lips was pure carmine, the brown eyes full of golden lights, showing even in the whites a gleam as of mother-o'-pearl, to which the whiteness of the teeth flashed response; the dark eyebrows as sharply pencilled as though they were painted, the black hair lustrous as satin. The ample shoulders, generously displayed, rose massive as marble, and almost as dazzling, above the black velvet of the gown, its sombreness relieved only by one huge cluster of yellow roses. Mrs. Harding never made the mistake of dressing below her age, and had wisely renounced round dances years ago, well aware of the perils which, to complexions over forty, lurk in violent movement.

A fresh paroxysm of admiration came over the brick-red lady.

"It's no wonder, surely, if she has got him under her thumb ! They say he is quite silly about her still. He'd be sillier yet if he saw her in that gown I"

She spoke truer than she knew. While the words were on her lips a man, who had let himself into the flat with a latchkey, was standing in a back passage, beside a door barely ajar. Through the narrow gap a section of the brilliantly lighted room was visible. The man — a middle-aged person, wearing an overcoat — stood rigid and unobserved for about a minute at his post, and during that minute his eyes never moved from the figure in black velvet. Had any one of the laughing, chattering women caught sight of the apparition in the door-chink it is probable that she would have instinctively shrieked, in recognition of the skeleton at the feast; for what could this face of despair be seeking among all these mirthful countenances?

But public attention was otherwise occupied, which was why the man in the overcoat was able to pass unnoticed and unsuspected down the passage and to a room beyond.

"The toy-shop figure!" ejaculated the mother of daughters, as the music once more struck up. "Why, that in itself is an affair of fifty florins!"

"Only one more week of Carnival!" eloquently sighed Baron Kiraly, his black eyes no less eloquently fixed upon his partner's face.

Irma Harding laughed, dandling, meanwhile, upon her knee the penny doll which had fallen to her share in the toy-shop figure. "You're mistaken there, Baron! I mean to have ten years of Carnival yet, whatever the calendar may say. I don't intend to begin strewing the ashes till I'm twenty-eight. Don't you think that will be time enough?"

"I think that will be just twenty years too soon. You pretend to be eighteen now, but I don't believe it. Nobody over eight, at most, could handle a doll as you're doing this one. Tell me the truth, Fraulein Irma, you do play with them still, behind closed doors, don't you?"

"Oh, if that's the way to tell ages, then you must be over a hundred, at least ; for you evidently haven't a notion what to do with your air-gun."

"If it was a real gun I'd know in a moment what to do with it."

"Frighten the old ladies?"

"No, soften the hearts of the young ones — of one young lady at least, by dying at her cruel feet."

Irma made a little grimace, still dandling her doll.

"Don't you know that blood-stains are ruin to a white dress?"

An hour later the cotillon had reached its final phase. Breathless men, their hands full of exquisite bunches of hyacinths and tea-roses, provided by Mrs. Harding's munificence — and estimated by the brick-red calculator at a florin apiece — were hurrying across the floor, seeking out the ladies of their choice. This was the moment which irrevocably crowned the queen of the ball. In order to assign the sceptre of the evening to its rightful owner there was nothing to do but count the bouquets, as a red-skin might count his scalps. To-night calculation seemed superfluous. The mound of flowers steadily growing upon the seat upon which Irma Harding found no moment for repose settled the great question at a glance. As daughter of the house it could not well be otherwise — io POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE

so urged various young ladies with smaller collections of bouquets and longer breathing spaces between the waltz tunes. Yet even they were bitterly aware that this exceptional position was but one factor in her triumph of the evening, for Irma, while less brilliant, or, at any rate, less conspicuous, was unquestionably more beautiful than her mother. That somewhat overdone colouring, those violent contrasts, were here toned down by just that degree which makes for charm rather than for mere effect. The shades of the hair were less intense, the rose of the cheeks less vivid, while in the more delicate oval of the face a pair of thickly fringed eyes shone so darkly that only at close quarters did the enchanted spectator discover them to be blue and not black. The dash of blue was the one hint she had taken from her Anglo-Saxon forefathers. In all else, in the delicacy of hands and feet, in the elasticity of form and ease of carriage, she belonged, physically, at least, to her mother's nation.

As now she passed from one arm to the other, Irma was visibly drinking her triumph in full draughts. The music, the lights, the admiration in the men's eyes, no less than the envy in the women's, all were ingredients in her cup of enjoyment. Earlier in the evening there had been a disturbing flavour in the cup, or, rather, there had been one ingredient wanting — the approving gaze of her father. Where was he ? Why had he not

POiMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 11

kept his promise of admiring her new frock? Always that stupid business! Evidently he worked too hard. He had been looking so worried lately ; but, then, he always looked worried. Twice in the course of the evening she had escaped from the ball-room to look into his private room, only to find it empty. Why was he not returned from the bank? Surely he was not taken ill?

"Not a bit of it," was Mrs. Harding's serene reply when, in a fit of anxiety, Irma questioned her. "He'll be answering business letters in his office. So like him to put off things till these impossible hours. Just look after the guests, Irma, and don't trouble about your father. You know he always shirks when he possibly can."

But this had been hours ago. Since then every twinge of anxiety had gone down in the whirlpool of enjoyment; for care for the guests did not necessarily imply neglect of oneself. That the biggest parti in the room should, very obviously, be basking in the light of her smiles, could not but heighten intoxication. Not that Baron Kiraly's bold black eyes had done the smallest damage to her heart, or that she had any intention whatever of parting with her liberty in his favour, but simply that he represented for her the first handy object on which to try her woman's powers. Though she might not want him for herself, it was amusing to keep him from the others. That imp of coquetry which slumbers in all but a few exceptional women's hearts flourished unavoidably in the too congenial surroundings. The same thing was going on on all sides. Having tried her hand at the game, and finding that she could play it at least as well as any other, it was not in human nature to desist. Let the ten years' carnival she promised herself last but two, and the unspoiled girl's heart would have become as light, possibly as damaged a ware, as any that beat beneath these many-colcured gowns; for we are but the product of our circumstances (so we are told), and in Vanity Fair virtue, pure and simple, is not marketable. If there was anything in Irma Harding beyond gaiety, vivacity and an unlimited capacity for enjoyment, it ran fair risk of missing its way upon the primrose path she had hitherto trod, and which she hoped to continue treading. For how much longer? It was a question which she had never so much as put to herself — least of all thought of putting to herself to-night — to-night, with the ordeal so close already and so cruel ! Under the brilliancy of the electric light how should she have discerned the shadow already fallen upon the future? — how, through the strains of the dance-music, have distinguished the footfall of approaching Fate ?

"You will be on the ice to-morrow, or rather to-day— will you not, Fraulein Irma?" asked the amorous Baron, as the last, long-drawn note of the fiddlers died out among a whirl of skirts.

"That depends upon how much my feet hurt me!" And the Queen of the Ball sank down breathless beside her mound of flowers, to rise again within the same minute at her mother's signal and do her part in the speeding of the parting guests.

Half an hour later Mrs. Harding looked round the abandoned room with the satisfied eye of a victorious general upon a vacated battlefield. Like a battlefield, too, the shining parquet was strewn with remains, though only of ribbons and faded flowers, which one of the hired waiters — unconscious representative of the inevitable "hyena" — was already beginning to collect.

"I think it has been a success !" the hostess pronounced.

Just then the clock of a neighbouring church struck clear through the frosty air.

"Four o'clock!"

Irma began to stretch her stiff arms above her head; then, at a sudden recollection, dropped them again.

"And papa? What has become of him? It's impossible he shouldn't be home yet!"

Chapter II During The Ball

IN a room at the end of the passage, to which the highest tones of the fiddles penetrated, shrill and yet faint, Edward Harding sat with his elbmvs upon the writing-table and his head between his hands. Beside him there lay a small steel revolver, which, after having locked the door and switched on the electric light, he had taken from the back of a drawer. He had not thought of removing his overcoat. For what he had to do it did not seem worth while; or perhaps the temperature of the room made its thickness welcome, for in the absorption of the evening's festivities the stove in here had very naturally been neglected.

The master of the house in which so brilliant an entertainment was taking place was a man of some fifty-odd years, tall, fleshless, with, in his somewhat narrow shoulders, that slight stoop which always betrays desk-work, fair hair much bleached already and very thin about the temples, and a haggard, over-mobile face, upon which the fine network of creases was ceaselessly playing into new patterns. The mouth, seldom at rest for more than a few moments at a time, completed the disquieting effect of the face ; while upon the whole man there hung that undefmably "hunted" look which proclaims a set of ruined nerves.

Presently he dropped his hands and drew towards him a sheet of paper. With the dance-music in his ears and the revolver lying close to his hand, he began to write precipitately.

"Isabella — my Queen, my one and only Love," — (it was characteristic of the woman he was writing to, that no one, not even her own husband, had ever attempted to curtail the name into either "Isa" or "Bella") — "I have just looked upon you — for the last time. Never have you appeared to me more beautiful. It is difficult to die with my eyes still full of that image, and yet it is more impossible to live. This is my confession. When you have read it you will understand — but will you forgive? Isabella, I am too weak to face ruin and disgrace, and that is what awaits us all — through my fault. It can only be my fault for not having succeeded. In the race of Life there is no mercy for those who fall by the way, and I have fallen.

"The details cannot matter. You never had patience for business affairs, my darling, so I will not weary you. But this you must know: seeing myself at the end of our own resources, and with the many bills pressing, I allowed myself to be tempted into using some of the sums deposited in my hands. In the hope of retrieving our fortunes I speculated with them — and there was reason for this hope. God knows I acted in the firm belief of harming no one. But Fate decided against me. The money is gone — much more than the original sum; discoveryis unavoidable before anothertwelve hours are past ; and discovery means not ruin alone, but an ignominious exposure — and prison. That is why the revolver is now lying ready. Evidently I have no vocation for a criminal. The mere shame of the arrest would have killed me. It is easier to die by my own hand. After the hard fight of the last years — of the last months, in especial— that little steel instrument blinks at me almost like the eye of a friend. It promises rest, if nothing else.

"But, my love, my beautiful mistress, do not suppose that because I talk of a hard fight there is a single thought of reproach in my mind. It is myself only that I blame. If we have lived beyond our means it was only because I was too cowardly to admit to you our true position. Nor could I have borne to see my Queen in mean surroundings— not seated upon the throne which is her due. I cannot bear to see it now. I prefer to go. If I was not able to build up that throne I had no right to claim you. I am but paying the penalty of my presumption.

"But you? My one consolation in this final moment is the thought of your own small fortune. That will at least stave off misery; and the girls, of course, will have to work. My last prayer is that they prove a comfort to you. Dare I add to it the hope of forgiveness? When I think of what your life might have been without me, I can only ask you to think of me as leniently as you can. Do not let my end blacken your life. They are not black thoughts that fill my mind as I look into the past — they are golden thoughts. The happiness I enjoyed in gaining you is more than comes to the lives of most men. Even on the edge of the grave I still feel the glow of it upon me, and from the bottom of my heart I thank you for those moments of perfect bliss !

"Your unhappy and devoted

"EDWARD."

With the last word he threw down the pen and once more took his head between his hands. Beneath the electric light the steel handle of the revolver flashed aggressively. There was nothing remaining to do now but to grasp it; but with the accomplishment of his confession the extreme need of hurry was past. A respite of a few minutes could alter nothing — just time enough for another mental look at that figure seen in the doorway, to take with him as a last draught of life into the shadows of death. Had he ever seen her more beautiful? Yes — once, perhaps, on that evening, twenty years ago, when, in a box of the Vienna Opera House, she had first dawned upon his sight. That time it had been a white and spotless vision — the roses in her cheeks the only flowers that decked her; her brilliant eyes, her girlish grace, the only jewels that adorned. From the moment that his gaze had fallen upon her the events upon the stage no longer enjoyed his attention. Steadily, throughout the three acts, his eyes returned to that box in the first row, which for him contained all the beauty of the packed house. The coup de foudre in its most literal sense, and enduring, as lightning flashes are not in the habit of enduring. Looking back at it across the gulf of twenty years, and with those penetrating fiddle notes pricking into his consciousness like so many fine needles, he could still feel the thrill of it in his veins.

From that moment onward, and even before an introduction was obtained, he had been her slave. It was on that evening that he had discovered the real meaning of life.

There followed six months filled by the fluctuations of hope and despair. Isabella Feldegg, a recognised beauty of the circle in which she moved, was surrounded by suitors, among whom he could not, either socially or financially, claim the first place. True, his position in the old-established Anglo-Saxon Bank, which for half a century had been doing good business on Austrian soil, was even then a good one, his future more than assured. But among his rivals were men with hundreds of acres to a titled name. When his homage was finally accepted he could scarcely believe his good fortune. Isabella's friends did not understand it at all; and a very few months after the marriage Isabella herself did not understand it, either. Over-susceptibility of the heart was by no means her weak point; but she had Hungarian blood in her veins, and Hungarian fancies are inflammable. The tall, fair-haired Englishman, with the regular features and the blue eyes — so different from her swarthy countrymen — had worked by contrast upon her imagination. His evident ardour had ended by carrying her off her feet — for a time. That time had sufficed to fill his cup of bliss — and to seal his fate; for Edward Harding was one of those men who are born to live neither for riches, fame, nor adventure, nor even for Woman in the abstract, but only for one individual woman. Sometimes men of this especial category fail to meet the exact woman who holds the key of their souls. In that case they walk through life desolately, even in the midst of what looks like success, vaguely aware of not being upon the right road. You can run against them any day wandering up and down both the highways and byways of life. Sometimes again they meet her, and then they become either the most fortunate or the most unfortunate of men, according to the quality of their subjugator. But even in failure and betrayal and wretchedness they will die with the paradoxically satisfying feeling which comes with the consciousness of a destiny fulfilled.

All Harding's married life had been one long effort to procure to the expensive picture he had purchased the frame it deserved. And it was a very expensive picture, as he speedily discovered. Grown up as the spoilt child of her own family, Isabella had inevitably become the spoilt child of her especial circle. It was unthinkable that her position should in any way deteriorate. To slave for her pleasure had been the only pleasure Harding had ever known since she had deigned to cross his threshold.

That she should accept it all serenely, as no more than her due, could not chill him. Rather it fitted all the more perfectly into his conception of his "sovereign lady." Thus, with this gracious condescension, should a queen take the offerings laid at her feet. And yet, in all but this, the man was no fool. Outside the field of his love he was able to judge and to observe, within it only able to worship. For the value of any bonds on the money market he had a keen eye — none for that of a woman. Even when she began to talk, halfplayfully at first, of the partis she might have made had she chosen — and this she began to do soon after the honeymoon — his blindness was not cured. In time the remarks became less playful and more fretful, without enlightening him further. The rapture of finding himself the favoured one among so many had bred in him an ineradicable gratitude which not even she herself could destroy. Was it not enough that she should be faithful to him? Oh, truly, he was blest beyond his deserts.

Necessarily his attitude towards his daughters had suffered from the absorption of his dominating feeling. Though he had in him all the makings of a tender and affectionate father, they had been cramped by the passion of his life. You cannot do two things intensely; one of them is bound to suffer. The most selfless and disinterested of men, he had yet arrived at systematically disregarding the true interests of his children. For selflessness of this particular category often works like egoism towards all but the beloved object. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that it actually becomes a variety of egoism, since the object has grown into a second self.

Of late the material strain had been intensifying. Even the directorship of the "Anglo-Saxon," attained some years ago, no longer sufficed to fill the measure of his goddess's requirements. With the growing up of two daughters it was but natural that household wants should increase. Irma had to be brought out, and she should be brought out in a fashion worthy of such a mother. No petty jealousy of her daughter's younger charms disturbed Mrs. Harding. To be a leader in her circle, to shine as a hostess, to see the invitations to her house scrambled for — such had been her dream, and in the attainment of it her own beauty was only one ingredient in many, since personal vanity did not happen to be her foible. She rejoiced quite frankly in Irma's good looks, as offering not only a better pretext for social display, but likewise as promising good things for the future. It was as though that social ambition which, in a moment of impulse, had been sacrificed to a passing sentiment, had drawn from the very defeat a more furious determination to assert its vitality.