This Colonel Turr, be it known, was a Hungarian who had deserted from the Austrian service, and entering that of her Majesty Queen Victoria, had been employed in some commissariat capacity in Wallachia, and taken prisoner at Bucharest by the very regiment to which he had previously belonged. The question was much vexed and agitated at the time, as to the Austrian right over a deserter on a neutral soil, and Colonel Turr became for the nonce an unconscious hero. The officer to whom I have alluded, having listened attentively to the _pros_ and _cons_ of the case, as set forth by his friends, dismissed the subject with military brevity, in these words:--"If you say he deserted his regiment before an enemy, I don't care what countryman he is, or in whose service, _the sooner they hang him the better!_" This ill-advised remark, be it observed, was made _sotto voce_, and in his own language. His surprise may be imagined when, on perusing the Government papers the following morning, he read the whole conversation, translated into magniloquent German, and detailed at length as being the expressed opinion of the British army and the British public on the case of Colonel Turr.
I am happy to be able to observe, _en passant_, that the latter gentleman was not hanged at all, but escaped, after a deal of diplomatic correspondence, with a six weeks' imprisonment in the fortress of Comorn, and has since been seen taking his pleasure in London and elsewhere.
To return to Monsieur Stein. It is evening, and those who have permission from the police to give a party, have lighted their lamps and prepared their saloons for those receptions in which the well-bred of all nations, and particularly the ladies, take so incomprehensible a delight. At Vienna, every house must be closed at ten o'clock; and those who wish to give balls or evening parties must obtain a direct permission to do so, emanating from the Emperor himself. So when they _do_ go out, they make the most of it, and seem to enjoy the pleasure with an additional zest for the prohibition to which it is subject.
Let us follow Monsieur Stein into that brilliantly-lighted room, through which he edges his way so unobtrusively, and where, amongst rustling toilettes, crisp and fresh from the dressmaker, and various uniforms on the fine persons of the Austrian aristocracy, his own modest attire passes unobserved. This is no _bourgeois_ gathering, no assemblage of the middle rank, tainted by mercantile enterprise, or disgraced by talent, which presumes to rise superior to _blood_. No such thing; they are all the "_haute volee_" here, the "_creme de la creme_," as they themselves call it in their bad French and their conventional jargon.
Probably Monsieur Stein is the only man in the room that cannot count at least sixteen quarterings--no such easy matter to many a member of our own House of Peers; and truth to tell, the Austrian aristocracy are a personable, fine-looking race as you shall wish to see. Even the eye of our imperturbable police-agent lights up with a ray of what in any other eye would be admiration, at the scene which presents itself as he enters. The rooms are spacious, lofty, and magnificently furnished in the massive, costly style that accords so well with visitors in full dress. The floors are beautifully inlaid and polished; as bright, and nearly as slippery, as ice. The walls are covered with the _chef d'oeuvres_ of the old masters, and even the dome-like ceilings are decorated with mythological frescoes, such as would convert an enthusiast to paganism at once. Long mirrors fill up the interstices between the panellings, and reflect many a stalwart gallant, and many a "lady bright and fair." There is no dancing, it is merely a "reception"; and amongst the throng of beauties congregated in that assembly, impassible Monsieur Stein cannot but admit that the most captivating of them all is Princess Vocqsal.
So thinks the War-Minister, who, forgetful of accounts and responsibilities, regardless even of the threatening glances darted at him from the other end of the room by his excellent wife, is leaning over the back of the Princess's seat, and whispering, in broad Viennese German, a variety of those soft platitudes which gentlemen of three-score are apt to fancy will do them as good service at that age as they did thirty years ago. The Baron is painfully agreeable, and she is listening, with a sweet smile and a pleasant expression of countenance, assumed for very sufficient reasons. In the first place, she owes him a good turn for the information acquired this morning, and the Princess always pays her debts when it costs her nothing; in the second, she wishes, for motives of her own, to strengthen her influence with the Court party as much as possible; and lastly, she enjoys by this means the innocent pleasure of making two people unhappy--viz. Madame la Baronne, who is fool enough to be jealous of her fat old husband; and one other watching her from the doorway, with a pale, eager face, and an expression of restless, gnawing anxiety, which it is painful to behold.
Victor de Rohan, what are you doing here, like a moth fluttering round a candle? wasting your time, and breaking your heart for a woman that is not worth one throb of its generous life-blood; that cannot appreciate your devotion, or even spare your feelings? Why are you not at Edeldorf, where you have left _her_ sad and lonely, one tear on whose eyelash is worth a thousand of the false smiles so freely dealt by that heartless, artificial, worn woman of the world? For shame, Victor! for shame! And yet, as our friend the Turk says, "_Kismet_! It is destiny!"
He is dressed in a gorgeous Hussar uniform, his own national costume, and right well does its close fit and appropriate splendour become the stately beauty of the young Count de Rohan. At his side hangs the very sword that flashed so keenly by the waters of the Danube, forward in the headlong charge of old Iskender Bey. On its blade is engraved the Princess's name; she knows it as well as he does, yet ten to one she will pretend to forget all about it, should he allude to the subject to-night. Ah! the blade is as bright as it was in those merry campaigning days, but Victor's face has lost for ever the lightsome expression of youth; the lines of passion and self-reproach are stamped upon his brow, and hollowed round his lip, and he has passed at one stride from boyhood to middle age.
He makes a forced movement, as though to speak to her, but his button is held by a jocose old gentleman, whose raptures must find vent on the engrossing topic of Marie Taglioni's graceful activity; and he has to weather the whole person and draperies of a voluminous German dowager ere he can escape from his tormentor. In the meantime Monsieur Stein has been presented to the Princess, and she allows him to lead her into the tea-room, for a cup of that convenient beverage which continental nations persist in considering as possessed of medicinal virtue.
"I have the unhappiness to have escaped Madame's recollection," observed the police-agent, as he placed a chair for the Princess in a corner secure from interruption, and handed her cup; "it is now my good fortune to be able to restore something that she has lost," and he looked at her with those keen grey eyes, as though to read her very soul, while he gave her the letter which had been placed in his pocket-book by faithless Jeannette. "If she cares for him," thought Monsieur Stein, "she will surely show it now, and I need take no further trouble with _her_. If not, she is the very woman I want, for the fool is madly in love with her, and upon my word it is not surprising!"
Monsieur Stein looked at women with hypercritical fastidiousness, but, as he himself boasted, at the same time, quite "_en philosophe_."
The Princess, however, was a match for the police-agent; she never winced, or moved a muscle of her beautiful countenance. With a polite "Excuse me," she read the letter through from beginning to end, and turning quietly round inquired, "How came you by this, Monsieur?"
Unless it leads to a _revoke_, a lie counts for nothing with a police-agent, so he answered at once, "Sent to my _bureau_ from the office, in consequence of an informality in the post-mark."
"You have read it?" pursued the Princess, still calm and unmoved.
"On my honour, no!" answered he, with his hand on his heart, and a low bow.
She would have made the better spy of the two, for she could read even his impassible face, and she knew as well as he did himself that he had, so she quietly returned him the letter, of which she judged, and rightly, that he had kept a copy; and laying her gloved hand on his sleeve, observed, with an air of bewitching candour--"After that affair at Comorn, you and I can have no secrets from each other, Monsieur.
Tell me frankly what it is that your employers require, and the price they are willing to pay for my co-operation."
She could not resist the temptation of trying her powers, even on Monsieur Stein; and he, although a police-agent, was obliged to succumb to that low, sweet voice, and the pleading glance by which it was accompanied. A little less calmly than was his wont, and with almost a flush upon his brow, he began--
"You are still desirous of that appointment we spoke of yesterday for the Prince?"
"_Ma foi_, I am," she answered, with a merry smile; "without it we shall be ruined, for we are indeed overwhelmed with debt."
"You also wish for the earliest intelligence possessed by the Government as to the issues of peace and war?"
"Of course I do, my dear Monsieur Stein; how else can I speculate to advantage?"
"And you would have the attainder taken off your cousin's estates in the Banat in your favour?"
The Princess's eyes glistened, and a deep flush overspread her face.
This was more than she had ever dared to hope for. This would raise her to affluence, nay, to splendour, once again. No price would be too great to pay for this end, and she told Monsieur Stein so, although she kept down her raptures and stilled her beating heart the while.
"All this, Princess, I can obtain for you," said he; "all this has been promised me, and I have got it in writing. In less than a month the Government will have redeemed its pledge, and in return you shall do us one little favour."
"_C'est un trahison, n'est ce pas?_" she asked quickly, but without any appearance of shame or anger; "I know it by the price you offer. Well, I am not scrupulous--say on."
"Scarcely that," he replied, evidently emboldened by her coolness; "only a slight exertion of feminine influence, of which no woman on earth has so much at command as yourself. Listen, Princess; in three words I will tell you all. Count de Rohan loves you passionately--madly. You know it yourself;--forgive my freedom; between you and me there must be no secrets. You can do what you will with him."--(He did not see her blush, for she had turned away to put down her cup.)--"He will refuse you nothing. This is your task:--there is another conspiracy hatching against the Government; its plot is not yet ripe, but it numbers in its ranks some of the first men in Hungary. Your compatriots are very stanch; even I can get no certain information. Several of the disaffected are yet unknown to me. Young Count de Rohan has a list of their names; that list I trust to you to obtain. Say, Princess, is it a bargain?"
She was fitting her glove accurately to her taper fingers.
"And the man that you were good enough to say adores me so devotedly, Monsieur," she observed, without lifting her eyes to his face, "what will you do with him? shoot him as you did his cousin in 1848?"
"He shall have a free pardon," replied the police-agent, "and permission to reside on his lands. He is not anxious to leave the vicinity of the Waldenberg, I believe," he added mischievously.
"_Soit_," responded the Princess, as she rose to put an end to the interview. "Now, if you will hand me my bouquet we will go into the other room."
As he bowed and left her, Monsieur Stein felt a certain uncomfortable misgiving that he had been guilty of some oversight in his game. In vain he played it all again in his own head, move for move, and check for check; he could not detect where the fault lay, and yet his fine instinct told him that somewhere or another he had made a mistake. "It is all that woman's impassible face," he concluded at last, in his mental soliloquy, "that forbids me to retrieve a blunder or detect an advantage. And what a beautiful face it is!" he added almost aloud, as for an instant the official was absorbed in the man.
In the meantime Victor was getting very restless, very uncomfortable, and, not to mince matters, very cross.
No sooner had the Princess returned to the large _salon_ than he stalked across the room, twirling his moustaches with an air of unconcealed annoyance, and asked her abruptly, "How she came to know that ill-looking Monsieur Stein, and why he had been flirting with her for the last half-hour in the tea-room?"
"That gentleman in plain clothes?" answered she, with an air of utter unconsciousness and perfect good-humour; "that is one of my ancient friends, Monsieur le Comte; shall I present him to you?"
This was another refined method of tormenting her lovers. The Princess had one answer to all jealous inquiries as to those whom she favoured with her notice--"_Un de mes anciens amis_," was a vague and general description, calculated to give no very definite or satisfactory information to a rival.
"Have a care, Madame," whispered Victor angrily; "you will make some of your ancient friends into your deadliest enemies if you try them so far."
She looked lovingly up at him, and he softened at once.
"Now it is _you_ that are unkind, Victor," she said in a low soft voice, every tone of which thrilled to the young Count's heart. "Why will you persist in quarrelling with me? I, who came here this very evening to see you and to do you a kindness?"
"Did you know I should be in Vienna so soon?" he exclaimed eagerly.
"Did you receive my letter?"
"I did, indeed," she replied, with a covert smile, as she thought of the mode in which that missive had reached her, and she almost laughed outright (for the Princess had a keen sense of the ludicrous) at the strange impersonation made by Monsieur Stein of Cupid's postman; "but, Victor," she added, with another beaming look, "I go away to-morrow.
Very early in the morning I must leave Vienna."
He turned paler than before, and bit his lip. "So I might as well have stayed at home," he exclaimed in a voice of bitter annoyance and pique, none the less bitter that it had to be toned down to the concert pitch of good society. "Was it to see you for five minutes here in a crowd that I travelled up so eagerly and in such haste? To make my bow, I suppose, like the merest acquaintance, and receive my _conge_. Pardon, Madame la Princesse, I need not receive it twice. I wish you good-evening; I am going now!"
She, too, became a shade paler, but preserved the immovable good-humour on which she piqued herself, as she made him a polite bow, and turned round to speak to the Russian Minister, who, covered with orders, at that moment came up to offer his obeisance to the well-known Princess Vocqsal. Had he not constant advices from his intriguing Court to devote much of his spare time to this fascinating lady? And had she not once in her life baffled all the wiles of St. Petersburg, and stood untempted by its bribes? Ill-natured people affirmed that another Power paid a higher price, which accounted satisfactorily for the lady's patriotism, but the Autocrat's Minister had his secret orders notwithstanding.
And now she is deep in a lively argument, in which polished sarcasm and brilliant repartee are bandied from lip to lip, each pointed phrase eliciting a something better still from the Princess's soft mouth, till her audience--diplomatists of many years' standing, warriors shrewd in council and dauntless in the field, grey ambassadors and beardless _attaches_--hang enraptured on her accents, and watch her looks with an unaccountable fascination; whilst Victor de Rohan, hurt, moody, and discontented, stalks fiercely to the doorway and mutters to himself, "Is it for this I have given up home, friends, honour, and self-respect? To be a mere puppet in the hands of a coquette, a woman's plaything, and not even a favourite plaything, after all!"
Ladies have a peculiar gift which is enjoyed by no other members of the creation whatsoever. We allude to that extraordinary property by which, without any exertion of the visual organs, they can discern clearly all that is going on above, below, around, and behind them. If a man wants to _see_ a thing he requires to _look at it_. Not so with the other sex.
Their subtler instinct enables them to detect that which must be made palpable to _our_ grosser senses. How else could Princess Vocqsal, whose back was turned to him, and who was occupied in conversation with the _elite_ of Austrian diplomatic society, arrive at the certainty that Victor was not gone, as he had threatened--that he still lingered unwillingly about the doorway, and now hailed as deliverers those prosy acquaintances from whom, in the early part of the evening, he had been so impatient to escape?
And yet he despised himself for his want of manhood and resolution the while; and yet he reproached himself with his slavish submission and unworthy cowardice; and yet he lingered on in hopes of one more glance from her eye, one more pressure from her soft gloved hand. He had parted with her in anger before, and too well he knew the bitter wretchedness of the subsequent hours; he had not fortitude enough, he _dared_ not face such an ordeal again.
So she knew he was not going yet; and, confident in her own powers, pleased with her position, and proud of her conquests, she sparkled on.
"That's a clever woman," said an English _attache_ to his friend, as they listened in the circle of her admirers.
And the friend, who was a little of a satirist, a little of a philosopher, a little of a poet, and yet, strange to say, a thorough man of the world, replied--