The greater part of Ordham’s reserve melted, as was natural, when he sprawled on the divan with his coat off on a hot day, and his hostess sat in her rocking-chair fanning herself and wearing one of those white lawn wrappers that an American woman would retain in her wardrobe were she elevated to a throne. By no means frank by temperament, he indulged in frankness as a sort of luxury where his confidence had been won; and feeling more intimate with Styr than he had ever felt with anybody, he talked to her freely about himself, his family, his hopes, desires, and sentiments toward most things, until Margarethe knew him far better than either of them realized at the time.
But he was not fond of talking about himself, nor of personalities in general. Books, the theatre, life, the mysterious back-waters of human nature, interested him far more. He always brought out his London newspaper, and being too lazy to read aloud himself, made her read to him the news of the day and the editorial comment, while he explained the relationship of the present to the immediate past. Her house was littered with reviews, the works of the various masters he was obliged to study, and of the novelists and poets of the day: George Meredith, Turgénev, Rossetti, Swinburne, Browning. They wrangled across the dissecting-table of Maupassant, and picked the jewelled bones of Flaubert.
She went often to the theatre with him, sitting behind the curtains of a box; and, several famous Gasts from other capitals coming to Munich that summer, there were few pastimes they enjoyed more than this, the drama being the one subject upon which they were in perfect accord. Moreover, as the play was a diversion which she had never denied herself, she experienced no uneasy consciousness of knocking down outposts of old defences.
It was on the nights after the theatre that he remained until the small hours; he always returned with her for supper, as she would not go to a restaurant with him. There are no people wiser in human conduct than servants, and the comment indulged in between the old butler and the maids was upon the astonishing impeccancy of the relationship above stairs. Had it been otherwise, these good Bavarians would have taken it as a matter of course and made no comment whatever. The ingenuous morals of the Bavarians were a source of evergreen interest to Styr, who had been brought up in a country that wore silk over its rags. Upon one occasion, however, she was more embarrassed than moved to ethical musings. She was sitting with Ordham in the gallery after the evening meal, when her housemaid entered and asked permission to leave on the following morning for Leoni, her native village. Kurt withheld his consent, so she appealed to her gn?dige frau.
“What is the matter that you go so suddenly, and when do you return?” asked Margarethe, who did not like her household upset.
“I think I cannot return, Frau Gr?fin. One of my children is ill, and as I shall soon have another—which will make three—Heinrich and I have decided that it will now be cheaper to marry.”
Ordham, who was willing to discuss in the abstract all questions under the sun, blushed scarlet and dropped out of a window into the garden. Countess Tann remarked tartly:
“Indeed! It is a pity you did not think of it sooner, and then your other two children would have had the advantage of legal birth.”
“That matters not, gn?dige frau, and we must be sure of children to support us when we are old and tired, before we marry and perchance have none. And, then, apart, we can make more money for some years, and the babies can be farmed until they become too many. Divorce is not easy with us, gn?dige frau, as in America, and we find this arrangement right and just. It works well.”
Styr, who had never supposed the beer-soaked brain of a Bavarian peasant to be capable of any reasoning process whatever, looked at the girl with more interest. She was a plain heavily built creature, but nothing could be more honest, amiable, and sensible than her face.
“Very well! Tell Kurt to give you a month’s extra wages and to engage a new maid at once, I hope you will find your child better and have a merry wedding.”
The girl kissed her hand, protested gratitude, and withdrew.
“After all,” said Margarethe, when Ordham ventured to return, “who shall say? In Zulu land the biggest liar is king.”
“At least they have the advantage of the support of society! Ours are no better and are such shocking hypocrites, when no worse—you never hear of infanticide in this country. Probably most morality could be sifted down to utility. It is wrapped up in charming and traditional sentiments, but the kernel is plastic. These peasants find it more economical after the third discretion to set up an establishment of their own. For most of us, alas! the straight and narrow way is a more comfortable fit in the long run.”
“The simplicity and safety of your philosophy is delightful, but I fancy your temperament has saved you from a good many disasters. And I am told that you very nearly scorched your fingers not so long ago, and that only a goitre saved you. Do you ever think of poor little Frau von Wass dosing and varnishing herself in her lonely castle?”
Ordham scowled, and when he scowled he no longer looked very young. “I do not think of things I wish to forget,” he said shortly. “What is the use?”
“None whatever! How fortunate you are. No doubt you will forget all this a month after the inevitable end.”
“Oh! oh! How can you say such a thing?” He shook his finger at her, his gayety instantly restored. “Besides, I shall never be very far away. I shall always be coming back to see you. Munich, thank heaven, is in the middle of Europe. I shall come here often, no matter where I am sent.”
“Suppose you are sent to St. Petersburg or the United States?”
“I shall manage not to be. Great heaven! Fancy not to be able to see you for months at a time!” He looked appalled.
“What if you marry?”
“What difference will that make?” He moved his head impatiently and sighed, throwing himself back on the divan and biting a tassel of one of the cushions. “I dread returning to England. Only this morning I had a letter from my mother. She has some English girl or other picked out for me. At first she wrote a lot about an American girl with a fortune, the daughter of a friend of hers; but now, it seems, these dear friends have quarrelled, or my mother no longer admires Americans. At all events she is all for marrying me to some rich English girl of my own class that she has found.”
“No doubt she is quite right. Please don’t eat up my cushion.”
“I am so sorry!”
“Is the English girl beautiful?”
“I suppose so. My mother would not venture to recommend her otherwise. She knows that I hate ugliness as she does herself—and am not fond of English girls.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Let her amuse herself. One thing is positive: I shall marry to please myself.”
“I wonder?”
“What do you mean by that?” Ordham had eyes capable of a great variety of expressions. Now they looked large and cold. “Do you fancy I could be married against my will?”
“Always remember that the cleverest of men is no match for a clever woman, and if two or three clever women—” She halted, recalling her compact. “Why should you object to being steered into the matrimonial harbour by your wise mother? She is far less likely to make a mistake than you are, for you are too indolent to give such a grave subject the proper amount of deliberation. And you would soon tire of any girl you married, for you have the order of mind that demands variety. You can find that in friendships, so why miss the opportunity of an advantageous marriage.”
Ordham set his long jaw. “My mother shall not pick out my wife. The very fact that she insisted upon one of any two girls would make me believe the other was the better suited to all my requirements. I and my mother are too like and too unlike to judge for each other.”