“I wonder why,” she said, looking into the fire, “you hate me.”
Steinmetz looked down at her with his grim smile. The mise en schne was perfect, from the thoughtful droop2 of the head to the innocent display of slipper3.
“I wonder why you think that of me,” he replied.
“One cannot help perceiving that which is obvious.”
“While that which is purposely made obvious serves to conceal4 that which may exist behind it,” replied the stout5 man.
Etta paused to reflect over this. Was Steinmetz going to make love to her? She was not an inexperienced girl, and knew that there was nothing impossible or even improbable in the thought. She wondered what Karl Steinmetz must have been like when he was a young man. He had a deft6 way even now of planting a double entendre when he took the trouble. How could she know that his manner was always easiest, his attitude always politest, toward the women whom he despised. In his way this man was a philosopher. He had a theory that an exaggerated politeness is an insult to a woman’s intellect.
“You think I do not care,” said the Princess Howard Alexis.
“You think I do not admire you,” replied Steinmetz imperturbably7.
She looked up at him.
“Do you not give me every reason to think so?” she returned, with a toss of the head.
She was one of those women—and there are not a few—who would quarrel with you if you do not admire them.
“Not intentionally8, princess. I am, as you know, a German of no very subtle comprehension. My position in your household appears to me to be a little above the servants, although the prince is kind enough to make a friend of me and his friends are so good as to do the same. I do not complain. Far from it. I am well paid. I am interested in my work. I am more or less my own master. I am very fond of Paul. You—are kind and forbearing. I do my best—in a clumsy way, no doubt—to spare you my heavy society. But of course I do not presume to form an opinion upon your—upon you.”
“But I want you to form an opinion,” she said petulantly9.
“Then you must know that I could only form one which would be pleasing to you.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” replied Etta. “Of course I know that all that you say about position and work is mere10 irony11. Paul thinks there is no one in the world like you.”
Steinmetz glanced sharply down at her. He had never considered the possibility that she might love Paul. Was this, after all, jealousy12? He had attributed it to vanity.
“And I have no doubt he is right,” she went on. Suddenly she gave a little laugh. “Don’t you understand?” she said. “I want to be friends.”
Karl Steinmetz had been up to the elbows, as it were, in the diplomacy14 of an unscrupulous, grasping age ever since his college days. He had been behind the scenes in more than one European crisis, and that which goes on behind the scenes is not always edifying15 or conducive16 to a squeamishness of touch. He was not the man to be mawkishly17 afraid of soiling his fingers. But the small white hand rather disconcerted him.
He took it, however, in his great, warm, soft grasp, held it for a moment, and relinquished18 it.
“I don’t want you to address all your conversation to Maggie, and to ignore me. Do you think Maggie so very pretty?”
There was a twist beneath the gray mustache as he answered, “Is that all the friendship you desire? Does it extend no farther than a passing wish to be first in petty rivalries19 of daily existence? I am afraid, my dear princess, that my friendship is a heavier matter—a clumsier thing than that.”
“A big thing not easily moved,” she suggested, looking up with her dauntless smile.
“It may be—who knows? I hope it is,” he answered.
“The worst of those big things is that they are sometimes in the way,” said Etta reflectively, without looking at him.
“And yet the life that is only a conglomeration21 of trifles is a poor life to look back upon.”
“Meaning mine?” she asked.
“Your life has not been trifling,” he said gravely.
She looked up at him, and then for some moments kept silence while she idly opened and shut her fan. There was in the immediate22 vicinity of Karl Steinmetz a sort of atmosphere of sympathy which had the effect of compelling confidence. Even Etta was affected23 by it. During the silence recorded she was quelling24 a sudden desire to say things to this man which she had never said to any. She only succeeded in part.
“Do you ever feel an unaccountable sensation of dread,” she asked, with a weary little laugh; “a sort of foreboding with nothing definite to forebode?”
“Unaccountable—no,” replied Steinmetz. “But then I am a German—and stout, which may make a difference. I have no nerves.”
He looked into the fire through his benevolent25 gold-rimmed spectacles.
“Is it nerves—or is it Petersburg?” she asked abruptly26. “I think it is Petersburg. I hate Petersburg.”
“Why Petersburg more than Moscow or Nijni or—Tver?”
She drew in a long, slow breath, looking him up and down the while from the corners of her eyes.
“I do not know,” she replied collectedly; “I think it is damp. These houses are built on reclaimed27 land, I believe. This was all marsh28, was it not?”
He did not answer her question, and somehow she seemed to expect no reply. He stood blinking down into the fire while she watched him furtively29 from the corners of her eyes, her lips parched30 and open, her face quite white.
A few moments before she had protested that she desired his friendship. She knew now that she could not brave his enmity. And the one word “Tver” had done it all! The mere mention of a town, obscure and squalid, on the upper waters of the mighty31 Volga in Mid-Russia!
During those few moments she suddenly came face to face with her position. What had she to offer this man? She looked him up and down—stout, placid32, and impenetrable. Here was no common adventurer seeking place—no coxcomb33 seeking ladies’ favors—no pauper34 to be bought with gold. She had no means of ascertaining35 how much he knew, how much he suspected. She had to deal with a man who held the best cards and would not play them. She could never hope to find out whether his knowledge and his suspicions were his alone or had been imparted to others. In her walk through life she had jostled mostly villains37; and a villain36 is no very dangerous foe38, for he fights on slippery ground. Except Paul she had never had to do with a man who was quite honest, upright, and fearless; and she had fallen into the common error of thinking that all such are necessarily simple, unsuspicious, and a little stupid.
She breathed hard, living through years of anxiety in a few moments of time, and she could only realize that she was helpless, bound hand and foot in this man’s power.
It was he who spoke39 first. In the smaller crises of life it is usually the woman who takes this privilege upon herself; but the larger situations need a man’s steadier grasp.
“My dear lady,” he said, “if you are content to take my friendship as it is, it is yours. But I warn you it is no showy drawing-room article. There will be no compliments, no pretty speeches, no little gifts of flowers, and such trumpery40 amenities41. It will all be very solid and middle-aged42, like myself.”
“You think,” returned the lady, “that I am fit for nothing better than pretty speeches and compliments and floral offerings?”
She broke off with a forced little laugh, and awaited his verdict with defiant43 eyes upraised. He returned the gaze through his placid spectacles; her beauty, in its setting of brilliant dress and furniture, soft lights, flowers, and a thousand feminine surroundings, failed to dazzle him.
“I do,” he said quietly.
“And yet you offer me your friendship?”
He bowed in acquiescence44.
“Why?” she asked.
“For Paul’s sake, my dear lady.”
She shrugged her shoulders and turned away from him.
“Of course,” she said, “it is quite easy to be rude. As it happens, it is precisely45 for Paul’s sake that I took the trouble of speaking to you on this matter. I do not wish him to be troubled with such small domestic affairs; and therefore, if we are to live under the same roof, I shall deem it a favor if you will, at all events, conceal your disapproval46 of me.”
He bowed gravely and kept silence. Etta sat with a little patch of color on either cheek, looking into the fire until the door was opened and Maggie came in.
Steinmetz went toward her with his grave smile, while Etta hid a face which had grown haggard.
Maggie glanced from one to the other with frank interest. The relationship between these two had rather puzzled her of late.
“Well,” said Steinmetz, “and what of St. Petersburg?”
“I am not disappointed,” replied Maggie. “It is all I expected and more. I am not blasie like Etta. Every thing interests me.”
“We were discussing Petersburg when you came in,” said Steinmetz, drawing forward a chair. “The princess does not like it. She complains of—nerves.”
“Nerves!” exclaimed Maggie, turning to her cousin. “I did not suspect you of having them.”
Etta smiled, a little wearily.
“One never knows,” she answered, forcing herself to be light, “what one may come to in old age. I saw a gray hair this morning. I am nearly thirty-three, you know. When glamour47 goes, nerves come.”
“Well, I suppose they do—especially in Russia, perhaps. There is a glamour about Russia, and I mean to cultivate it rather than nerves. There is a glamour about every thing—the broad streets, the Neva, the snow, and the cold. Especially the people. It is always especially the people, is it not?”
“It is the people, my dear young lady, that lend interest to the world.”
“Paul took me out in a sleigh this morning,” went on Maggie, in her cheerful voice that knew no harm. “I liked every thing—the policemen in their little boxes at the street corners, the officers in their fur coats, the cabmen, every-body. There is something so mysterious about them all. One can easily make up stories about every-body one meets in Petersburg. It is so easy to think that they are not what they seem. Paul, Etta, even you, Herr Steinmetz, may not be what you seem.”
“Yes, that is so,” answered Steinmetz, with a laugh.
“You may be a Nihilist,” pursued Maggie. “You may have bombs concealed48 up your sleeves; you may exchange mysterious passwords with people in the streets; you may be much less innocent than you appear.”
“All that may be so,” he admitted.
“You may have a revolver in the pocket of your dress-coat,” went on Maggie, pointing to the voluminous garment with her fan.
His hand went to the pocket in question, and produced exactly what she had suggested. He held out his hand with a small silver-mounted revolver lying in the palm of it.
“Even that,” he said, “may be so.”
Maggie looked at it with a sudden curiosity, her bright eyes grave.
“Loaded?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I will not examine it. How curious! I wonder how near to the mark I may have been in other ways.”
“I wonder,” said Steinmetz, looking at Etta. “And now tell us something about the princess. What do you suspect her of?”
At this moment Paul came into the room, distinguished-looking and grave.
“Miss Delafield,” pursued Steinmetz, turning to the new-comer, “is telling us her suspicions about ourselves. I am already as good as condemned49 to Siberia. She is now about to sit in judgment50 on the princess.”
Maggie laughed.
“Herr Steinmetz has pleaded guilty to the worst accusation,” she said. “On the other counts I leave him to his own conscience.”
“Any thing but that,” urged Steinmetz.
Paul came forward, and Maggie rather obviously avoided looking at him.
“Tell us of Paul’s crimes first,” said Etta, rather hurriedly. She glanced at the clock, whither Karl Steinmetz’s eyes had also travelled.
“Oh, Paul,” said Maggie, rather indifferently. Indeed, it seemed as if her lightness of heart had suddenly failed her. “Well, perhaps he is deeply involved in schemes for the resurrection of the Polish kingdom, or something of that sort.”
“That sounds tame,” put in Steinmetz. “I think you would construct a better romance respecting the princess. In books it is always the beautiful princesses who are most deeply dyed in crime.”
Maggie opened her fan and closed it again.
“Well,” she said, tapping on the arm of her chair with it; “I give Etta a mysterious past. She is the sort of person who would laugh and dance at a ball with the knowledge that there was a mine beneath the floor.”
“I do not think I am,” said Etta, with a shudder51. She rose rather hurriedly, and crossed the room with a great rustle52 of silks.
“Stop her!” she whispered, as she passed Steinmetz.
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1
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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slipper
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| n.拖鞋 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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imperturbably
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| adv.泰然地，镇静地，平静地 | |
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8
intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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9
petulantly
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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pouting
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| v.撅（嘴）( pout的现在分词 ) | |
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diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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edifying
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| adj.有教训意味的，教训性的，有益的v.开导，启发( edify的现在分词 ) | |
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16
conducive
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| adj.有益的，有助的 | |
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mawkishly
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| adv.mawkish（淡而无味的）的变形 | |
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18
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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19
rivalries
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| n.敌对，竞争，对抗( rivalry的名词复数 ) | |
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20
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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21
conglomeration
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| n.团块，聚集，混合物 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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24
quelling
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| v.（用武力）制止，结束，镇压( quell的现在分词 ) | |
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25
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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27
reclaimed
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| adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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coxcomb
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| n.花花公子 | |
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pauper
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| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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35
ascertaining
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的现在分词 ) | |
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villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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villains
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| n.恶棍( villain的名词复数 )；罪犯；（小说、戏剧等中的）反面人物；淘气鬼 | |
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38
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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39
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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40
trumpery
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| n.无价值的杂物；adj.（物品）中看不中用的 | |
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41
amenities
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| n.令人愉快的事物；礼仪；礼节；便利设施；礼仪( amenity的名词复数 )；便利设施；（环境等的）舒适；（性情等的）愉快 | |
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42
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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43
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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44
acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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45
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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46
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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47
glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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48
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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49
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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50
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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51
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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52
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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