"All sorts of people," he repeated.

But de Sterny burst out laughing and cried, "Still so sensitive! I did not mean it in that way. We know you are an exceptional being. Sacre bleu! I am the last who would deny it! As soon as I have completed an important work I will lay it before you. But that"--with a glance at the writing desk, "that is nothing, just nothing--the sketch of some ballet music. Princess L----, you remember her, surely, has asked for it. Already at Vienna she wrote me about it--you understand. I couldn't put it off. _C'est a.s.somant_. A Countess-ballet!

"And now be so good as to ring, that they may bring in the breakfast.

During the meal you shall confide to me what it really is that holds you fast chained in Brussels, for that you remain solely in order to find leisure for composition I don't believe!"

Over the breakfast Gesa confided his great secret to his friend.

De Sterny started up. "So that is it. Well you could not have contrived anything more stupid for yourself!" cried he. "I suspected something, some long drawn out liaison, from which I should have to extricate you.

But a betrothal! Oh, yes! What are you thinking of? To marry and become a paterfamilias at your age! It is ruin! It is the grave! The grave of your genius mind, not of your body, that will flourish in the atmosphere of sleek morality. You'll grow fat. You'll celebrate a christening every year. You'll run from one street to another with your trousers turned up and a music book under one arm, giving lessons. And your ambition will culminate in obtaining the post of first violin in some orchestra, or perhaps if it soars very high in becoming conductor of the same. Sapristi! You need the whip of the manager over your back, and not the feather bolster of family life under your head! What is more _this_ bolster which you are stuffing for yourself will contain few feathers. But that is all one to you. You only need a pretext for laziness, and would go to sleep on a potato sack!"

"You speak like a heretic, like a regular atheist in love," cried Gesa, who had not outgrown his pa.s.sion for large words. "Who told you I was going to be married the day after to-morrow? I shall not receive her hand until I have secured a position."

"Ah--so! Well--that is some comfort. But who is she? One of your pupils? The blonde daughter of a square-built burgher?"

"She is the daughter of my foster-father."

"O--h! The Gualtieri's daughter. And her you will marry? Marry?"

"You cannot possibly imagine how charming she is," murmured Gesa.

"That the Gualtieri's daughter is charming I can easily imagine," said the virtuoso, and there came suddenly into his eyes an expression of dreamy pa.s.sion to which they were quite unaccustomed, "but that a man would want to marry the Gualtieri's daughter, I cannot understand.

Perhaps you do not know who the Gualtieri was."

Gesa bit his lip.

"She made my foster-father happy."

"So--hm! Made him happy! He was mad as we all were. To have been permitted to black her shoes would have made him happy. I know the history of Delileo's marriage. It is a legend which they still relate in artist circles, only they have got the names wrong. I know the right names because ... Delileo interests me for your sake, and--and--because the Gualtieri ... was my first love!"

Gesa shrank back. "Your first love!" he repeated, breathlessly.

The virtuoso pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead and smiled bitterly.

"Yes! I became acquainted with her in the salon of the d'Agoult. I looked like a girl myself then, was scarcely eighteen years old, and in love! Oh! in love! She laughed at me--I fretted myself with vain desire, she would never notice me. I cannot hear her name now after twenty years without feeling as I did then. Heavens! How beautiful she was! Form, smile, tresses! Dark hair with auburn lights in neck and temples--as if powdered with gold dust. Withal a certain grand carriage...."

The virtuoso ceased and gazed musingly into vacancy. The remembrance of the Gualtieri was a sore spot in his heart. Gesa looked, deeply moved, into the changed countenance of his friend.

"How could such a woman consent to marry Delileo?"

"How? Yes--how? She had lost her voice, her lovers, her health. She was thirty-eight years old. He was of a good family, and still possessed the remains of a handsome fortune, of which he had already squandered the greater part in philanthropic enterprises. He spoiled and pampered her as if she were a princess, and she ... she ran away from him one year and a half after the birth of her child, your bride,--with an obscure Polish adventurer. Delileo discovered her afterward in the greatest misery, dying of consumption, in a garret; he took her home and nursed her till she died. Poor devil! He had united himself to her against the will of his family, and the counsel of his friends, he was at the end of his money--so he buried himself in the Rue Ravestein. His lot is hard; but--at least he lived a year and a half at her side!"

Alphonse de Sterny ceased, and looked down, brooding.

Gesa laid a hand on his arm.

"The memory of this woman lives so powerfully in you still, and yet you marvel that I want her daughter for my wife--her daughter, who inherits all the mother's charm, without her sinfulness?"

De Sterny smiled, no pleasant smile. "How old is she then--sixteen or seventeen, if I reckon rightly is she not?"

Gesa nodded.

"Ah! So! And you will judge already of her temperament?" He drummed a march on the table. Gesa colored. "De Sterny!" he cried after a pause.

"Much as I love you I will not bear to hear you speak in that way. Do me a favor and learn to know the little one--then judge yourself. Come sometime in the evening and drink tea with us, unless you are afraid of the Rue Ravestein!"

"When you will, big child! to-morrow, day after!--You always keep early hours there. I can come before I have to go into society!"

A few minutes later Gesa took leave. De Sterny accompanied him to the door of the apartment, and called gaily after him, over the banisters.

"The day after to-morrow then, about eight! I am curious to see your Capua!"--

XIII

Great excitement reigned in Rue Ravestein No. 10. An odor of freshly baked tea cakes pervaded the stairs and halls. Annette with constantly changing color settled the furniture, now in this place, now in that, trying to hide its deficiencies, her beautiful eyes rested on the green carpet, and she murmured faint-heartedly--"how will it look to him here?" Gesa only smiled, kissed her on the forehead, gave her a confident little pat on the cheek, and said, "He comes to make your acquaintance, my treasure, not to criticize our dwelling."

Even more excited than his daughter was the old Delileo. He had exhumed from a worm-eaten chest an ancient frock with a mighty collar in the ponderous taste of the citizen-king, and attired in this garment, and smelling strongly of camphor, he wandered restlessly from one little chamber to another, dusting off a picture frame with his pocket handkerchief, casting a half-shamed glance into the dull mirror, and pulling with trembling fingers at his imposing silk neck kerchief, which with his beautifully embroidered but rather yellow cambric shirt, had been young under the umbrella-sceptre of Louis Philippe.

Gesa joked at the agitation of his little family, but nevertheless felt it to be perfectly justifiable, in antic.i.p.ation of the great event.

At eight o'clock every heart beat; five minutes after eight Delileo remarked "perhaps he won't come"; at a quarter past Annette turned a surprised look on her lover, and said, "but he promised you positively, Gesa!" at half past eight a stir was heard on the floor below. "It is an excuse from de Sterny," said Delileo, going to meet disappointment, as was his custom.

"Shall I find Monsieur Delileo here?" a very cultivated voice was heard asking, on the stairs. Gesa rushed out. The old journalist pa.s.sed a thumb and fore finger over his cheeks--to give himself an unembarra.s.sed air, Annette disappeared.

A few seconds later the door opened, and into the shabby green salon there came an aristocratic-looking blonde man, who was a little embarra.s.sed by the fact that he had not been able to lay aside his fur coat in the hall. This did not last a moment, however. Scarcely had Gesa relieved him of the heavy garment than he held out his hand cordially to the master of the house, whom Gesa formally presented, and said "we are old acquaintances!" and when the "droewige Herr" would have set aside this compliment with a deprecating wave of the hand, de Sterny continued, "You perhaps may not remember the love-sick dreamer whom you met in old times at the Countess d'Agoult's. But I have not forgotten your sympathizing kindness. It did me good. We had then, as I believe, the same trouble--only"--with a glance at the Gualtieri's picture which his quick searching eye had already discovered--"later you were happier than I!"

Then verily tears filled the eyes of the "droewigen Herrn," and he pressed the virtuoso's hand.

"Well?" de Sterny glanced merrily at Gesa, "I was promised something more than a meeting with old friends,--a new acquaintance?"

Gesa looked around. "Oh, the little goose, she has hidden." He hurried into the next room--they heard his tender rea.s.suring "_vollons fillette_, don't be a child!"

On Gesa's arm, timid, abashed, pale from excitement, deep feverish red on her lips, she came toward the virtuoso, and laid her little ice-cold fingers in his offered hand.

As if bewitched he stared at the young girl, then collecting himself, he kissed her soft child-hand, chivalrously and said, "You must pardon me this, Fraulein, I am a very old friend of your betrothed, and was once an obscure, but intense admirer of your mother." Then turning to Delileo, he added "the resemblance is perfectly startling--it is a resurrection!"

No one could be more amiable than de Sterny was in the Rue Ravestein, and moreover his amiability cost him not the slightest effort. Like other grand gentlemen he took pleasure in making small excursions into spheres where it would have been frightful for him if he had been obliged to live.

Toward old Delileo he adopted a tone of modest deference, toward Gesa, as always heretofore, one of half boon-companion, half paternal banter.

He drank two cups of tea, boasted of his hunger, and praised the dainty tea cakes.

Delileo poured out reminiscences which dated as far back as his frock, and were just as much in accordance with modern taste. Silent and pale the Gualtieri's daughter sat before the guest. She did not raise her eyes to him once, yet no detail of his appearance escaped her. As he expected that evening to return from the Rue Ravestein into the world, he wore evening dress which became him well. His white cravat, his open waistcoat and carefully arranged hair, were for her a revelation.

He addressed her repeatedly, but she only answered in monosyllables.

"Is not mademoiselle musical?" he asked, turning from these laborious attempts at conversation to Delileo.

"Yes, she sings a little!"