'Gloria Victis!' A Romance. Ossip Schubin

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      "Oho!" said Truyn banteringly, "our Ella is beginning to be vain."

      Whereupon Gabrielle blushed deeply and to hide her confusion went to the piano and began to strum "Annette and Lubin." She did not play well but her hands looked very pretty running over the keys.

      "I am surprised that Ossi does not make his appearance," said Truyn, laying aside his Figaro. Like all Austrians residing in Paris he had a special preference for that frivolous journal. "I met him this afternoon on the Boulevard, and he asked me expressly whether we were to be at home this evening."

      Gabrielle looked, as her father observed with surprise, rather embarrassed. He had spoken thoughtlessly, and in masculine ignorance of the state of affairs. He was just beginning to teaze the girl about her behaviour when the footman announced the Baroness Melkweyser.

      Her head-dress of red feathers sat somewhat askew upon the old-fashioned puffs of hair that framed her sallow face. She wore a gown of flowered brocade, the surpassing ugliness of which showed it to have been purchased at a bargain at some great bazaar as a "fin de saison." She squinted slightly, winked constantly, was entirely out of breath, and sank exhausted into an arm-chair, before uttering a word of greeting.

      "Ah, if you only knew all I have done this blessed day!" she exclaimed.

      The Truyn trio looked at her in smiling silence.

      "Confessed and received the sacrament very early," the baroness began the list of her achievements, "always on the second of every month--I never can manage it on the first--then at the Pierson sale I bought six things marked with Louis Philippe's cipher, then I went to see Ada de Thienne's trousseau,--then to a breakfast at the new minister's--too comical--his wife made herself perfectly ridiculous, in a bare neck at two o'clock in the daytime!"

      "That is the inevitable consequence of a change of ministers," Zinka remarked. Her manner of speech, quiet, and rather inclined to irony, was that of those who, with rigid self-control have for years endured with dignity some great grief.

      The baroness, meanwhile, rattled on, unheeding. "Then I went my round of charities, then looked for a wedding-present for my niece Stefanie. … "

      "Heavens, Zoë!" Truyn groaned.

      "Yes, I lead a most fatiguing existence," the baroness wailed. "Just as I sat down to supper,--I missed my dinner--it occurred to me that it really would be better not to let to-day pass without making you a very important communication--that is--hm--discussing--a most important matter with you--and--here I am. Pray, Zinka, let me have a sandwich, for I am dying of hunger."

      "Ring the bell, Erich," Zinka said with a smile.

      "And now to business," said the baroness, "je tiens une occasion--it really is the most advantageous opportunity!"

      "You shall have your sandwich, Zoë," said Truyn, quietly stretching out his hand to the bell handle, "but pray spare me your advantageous opportunities. If I had availed myself of all your boasted 'opportunities,' I should now be the proud possessor of fourteen rattle-trap Bühl pianos and at least twenty-five tumble-down country houses. As it is I have bought for love of you three holy-water pots of Mme. Maintenon's, an inkstand of the Pompadour's, and I can't tell how many nightcaps of Louis XVI., warranted genuine."

      "And an excellent bargain you had of them," the baroness declared. "Louis Sixteenth's nightcaps have latterly been going up in price. But this time there is no question of purchase," she went on to say, "and that is the best of it."

      "That certainly is very fine," muttered Truyn.

      "The question is,--I suppose I ought to ask Gabrielle to leave the room, that used to be the way, girls never were allowed to be present while their parents disposed of their future, but I. … j'aime à attaquer les choses franchement. The question is, in fact, with regard to--Gabrielle's marriage."

      Zinka with a smile took the hand of the young girl standing beside her in her own, and tenderly laid it against her cheek.

      "Gabrielle's beauty produced a sensation at the last ball at the Spanish embassy's," the baroness continued.

      "I must entreat you not to make such a fatal assault upon my daughter's modesty," exclaimed Zinka.

      "Bah!" the baroness shrugged her shoulders, "stop up your ears, Gabrielle. Produced a sensation is the correct phrase. It is remarkable--the succés that the Austrian women always have in Paris. I have a suitor for Gabrielle--the most brilliant parti in Paris."

      "Stop, stop, Zoë, I beg you," said Truyn, provoked, "you make me nervous! You always forget how your French way of arranging marriages goes against the grain with us and our old-fashioned Austrian ideas. You say I have a rich husband for your daughter in just the same tone in which you say I have a purchaser for your house! And I seriously entreat you to consider that a jewel like my dear comrade yonder, may be bestowed, upon one deemed worthy of such a possession, but can never be sold."

      "Ah, here is my sandwich!" exclaimed the baroness, paying no attention to his words in her satisfaction over the tea-tray. Whilst Gabrielle was occupied with making tea the visitor applied herself to the refreshments, whispering meanwhile confidentially and mysteriously to Truyn. "I thought that your new domestic relations might make you desirous to have Gabrielle mar. … "

      An angry flash in Truyn's blue eyes, usually so kindly, warned her that she was on the wrong track; she lost countenance and consequently proceeded rather too precipitately in her investigations as to 'how the land lay.'

      "At least my proposition is worth being taken into serious consideration," she said hastily. "Count Capriani commissioned me to ask you whether there was any prospect of his obtaining Gabrielle's hand for his only--remember, his only son."

      "Count Capriani, I do not know who he is," Truyn said coldly.

      "Well then, Conte Capriani," Zoë explained impatiently.

      "Ah, indeed, Conte Capriani," Truyn said significantly,--"the railroad Capriani!"

      "Yes."

      "And he dares to ask my daughter's hand for his son?"

      Perfect silence reigned for a moment. Gabrielle's little nose expressed intense disdain.

      "Zoë, you are insane," Truyn said at last, very contemptuously. "This is not, I believe, the first of April."

      "I cannot understand your irritation," the baroness rejoined, with the bravado that is the result of great embarrassment. "You are always proclaiming yourself a Liberal with no prejudices!"

      Truyn coloured slightly. He had grown more decided than he had been a few years before, and his shirt collars were perhaps a little higher and stiffer. His whole bearing expressed the dignified content that distinguishes the man of conservative views of life. He gently twitched his high collar as he began: "I am a Liberal--at least I fancy that I am. If my daughter had set her heart upon marrying a man her inferior as regards birth and family, I should certainly consent to her doing so, provided the man were one whose character and attainments atoned for his low origin."

      Zinka smiled sceptically with a scarcely perceptible shrug. Truyn's colour deepened. "I do not deny," he admitted, "that it would be very hard for me, but all the same I should consent and should do all that I could to assist such a son-in-law to attain a position worthy СКАЧАТЬ