AT THE OPERA COMIQUE.

Two days later Pierre Olsdorf arrived in Paris, at a quarter past seven in the evening, by the Cologne express. He had traveled without a break.

By eight o'clock he was at the Grand Hotel, and in ten minutes' time, Yvan, his body-servant, was on his way to the Rue Lafitte with a letter which he was to deliver in person to the princess, if she were at home, or to leave with a servant to be taken at once to his mistress, if it were known where she was pa.s.sing the evening. The prince did not wish his letter to be read by a lady's-maid before it reached its address.

At the Rue Lafitte, Yvan was told that the princess had just gone to the Opera Comique, and a promise was made that a footman should go to the theater immediately with the letter.

The man, indeed, started at once, and the prince's servant, on his way back to the boulevard, saw him turn down the Rue Marivaux.

A stock-piece was being played this evening. The princess was seated at the front of the box, while Paul Meyrin, who was her companion, sat behind her. As usual she was listening attentively to the music when the door of the box opened. Rather surprised, for she was expecting n.o.body, at least until between the acts, the young woman turned round and took from the hat, held salver-wise, of her footman the letter he offered to her.

"I beg pardon, madame, but a stranger who delivered this letter said that it must be given to Madame the Princess at once."

"Is there any answer?" asked Lise Olsdorf, visibly growing paler, for she had recognized her husband's writing on the envelope.

"The bearer went away without saying anything," the footman replied.

"Very well. You can go."

The door of the box was closed again. Frowning, the princess, who did not want to open the letter before the end of the act, seemed to guess what threatened her within the envelope.

"What is the matter?" asked Paul Meyrin, uneasy at her silence.

"The letter is from the prince," replied Lise Olsdorf.

"Well, is that very extraordinary?"

"It has not come by post. See, there is no stamp on it. A commissionaire must have brought it to the house, so that my husband is in Paris. He has left St. Petersburg without warning. I am lost!"

Paul Meyrin had grown very pale.

He had sometimes said to himself that the prince at last would be surprised at his wife's long stay in Paris, and that in casting about a bit he would easily find out that it was not merely care for her health which kept her away from Russia. But like an irresolute man who dares not look danger in the face, the artist would not dwell in fancy on the possible consequences of his amour with a married woman, and now that the upshot was near he trembled.

"Read it, any way," he said, in a changed voice.

The curtain had just fallen on the first act of the "Pre aux Clercs."

The princess rose from her chair, and supposing that Paul's fear was for her alone, she pressed his hand; then, with quick fingers, she opened the letter. It contained only these few lines:

"MADAME,--Made acquainted with the true reason for your long stay in Paris, I am come hither not to force you to return to your husband's roof, but to insist upon the only possible ending, according to my view, of the situation that you have made. Desiring, therefore, to see you as soon as possible, I will call upon you at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning.

"Do not fear either a scene or reproaches. You will not have to treat with the outraged husband, but merely with a father who would not that his son should have either a compromised mother, or a dishonored name.

"PRINCE PIERRE OLSDORF."

After reading this letter several times, which was full of threats the more serious the less they were defined, the princess handed it to Paul Meyrin.

He ran through it rapidly, and, not less alarmed than his mistress, said:

"What will you do?"

"I don't know."

"Shall you see the prince?"

"How can I do otherwise?"

"Shall we go back home?"

"No. People saw the letter handed to me. Our going would seem strange, and my return home would surprise my servants too much to not set them thinking. We will sit out the 'Pre aux Clercs.' When it is over we will decide what is best to be done."

Taking again the attentive att.i.tude that she always a.s.sumed at the theater, the princess seated at the front of the box seemed to forget the terrible news she had just received.

At the thought of the struggle she was about to engage in, at the idea of the dangers that threatened her, on the eve of the conjugal drama of which she was the heroine, the actress's nature that she inherited from her mother and from her true father awoke in her, counseling revolt and strategy. She might have feared violence; but as the prince wrote that she had nothing of the sort to face, she cared little for the rest, provided always that she was not to be separated from her lover; as she was prepared for everything but this sacrifice, her calmness had suddenly returned.

Paul Meyrin was less at his ease. He thought more of the next day than his mistress seemed to do. Would the prince force his wife to retire to some convent far from Paris, not in France? From him, the lover, the husband would surely demand satisfaction for the stain upon his honor.

The painter, without being a coward, was no duelist. He scarcely knew how to hold a sword, and with a pistol he could not hit the target more than once in ten shots. In a word, he loved Lise as much as his egotism suffered him to love. She was a mistress that flattered his pride and cost him nothing. We might even say that she was, on the contrary, profitable to him, since, as we have seen, she heaped presents on the whole Meyrin family and let slip no chance of offering Paul a trinket or some costly knickknack.

And this baby a few months old whom the prince would not shelter! Paul foresaw with alarm, for the paternal sentiment scarcely existed in him, that it would fall to his care, and he did not hide from himself that his mother, Mme. Meyrin, would refuse downright to take charge of it.

Foreseeing disputes without end, a thousand domestic worries, he forgot completely in thinking only of himself what the princess might have to dread and suffer.

It was in this frame of mind that the painter sat out the last two acts of Herold's masterpiece, and when, accompanying Lise home, he found himself again in the little room in the Rue Lafitte, where, in the course of the past few months, he had spent so many long and happy hours, he was seized by a deep sadness.

Lise Olsdorf, who had left him alone while her maid took off her things, soon returned, wearing a long dressing-gown of blue velvet, but even when she knelt before the artist, laying her head on his knees, Paul scarcely roused himself.

The princess was the first to break silence.

"Come," she said, "we must not let ourselves be beaten like this. There is one thing: whatever happens, nothing shall separate us. Anything may come but that."

"Is it so?" exclaimed Paul, tenderly.

"Yes, I swear it. The prince may threaten as he likes. He shall not part me from you."

Lise spoke the words with the savage pa.s.sion that she felt for her lover. At the moment she was a living proof of the physiological phenomenon which too often makes of the most distinguished woman the servile courtesan of a man whose birth, education, and sentiments would seem to part him from her.

Rea.s.sured by this sensual fervor, and feeling that his mistress was still his body and soul, Paul took her on to his knees, and as he thanked her with a thousand caresses, she went on, thrilling in his arms:

"After all, what can the prince do? We are not in Russia; I am not the daughter of one of his serfs. I have my own fortune which he, a n.o.bleman, dare not touch. And I love you--I love you. Is it my fault?

Is not it rather his fault? Look! I would rather he should know everything. I am tired of mysteries and lying. What has now happened was fated. It is better so, for now I shall be yours only and always."

Lise Olsdorf was intoxicated by her own words. She was superb in her unsatiated pa.s.sion. Winding her bare arms about her lover, she was Venus herself. Her long hair floated over her marble shoulders; she was Mary Magdalene before her repentance.

"But who has betrayed us?" asked Paul Meyrin, suddenly, drawing himself gently, after a long silence, from the ardent embrace of the young woman. "Who can have given the prince such exact particulars?"

"Why, everybody," replied the princess with a smile which seemed to mean that the fact could not have been otherwise; "first of all the newspapers. This long time they have coupled your name and mine in their notices of first nights. And then, no doubt, there are some dear friends jealous of our happiness. What does it matter who it was?"

"But our daughter; we are forgetting the dear little thing. What will become of her?"

"The prince will believe that Tekla is his daughter. There will be no question about her between him and me."