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The door opened, and to my amazement William Adolphus ran in, closely followed by Coralie Mansoni. I was past speaking, soon I became past consciousness. The last I remember is that Coralie was kneeling by me, Vohrenlorf still supporting me, the rest standing round. Yet, though I did not know it, I spoke. Varvilliers told me afterward that I muttered, "An accident my fault."
It seemed to me that the philosopher should have spared more consideration to this side of the matter. Had he reached such heights as to be indifferent not only to his own sufferings, but to being a cause of suffering to others? Perhaps Marcus Aurelius had attained to this; Coralie Mansoni, by the way, seemed most blessedly to have been born into it. To me it was a stone of stumbling.
Out of this last taste of William Adolphus came the strained relations between his wife and himself to which I have referred. Among those who have crossed my path few have stamped themselves more clearly on my memory than Coralie Mansoni. She was by no means so great a force in my life as was the Countess von Sempach, but she remains a singularly vivid image before my eyes.
"It is really you?" she asked in a whisper, with a lift of her eyelids. "Oh, without the least doubt!" I answered. "And it is you also?" Struboff came forward, tumbler in hand. "Pray, is your King fond of music?" he asked. "He will adore it from the lips of Madame Struboff," I answered, bowing. "He adored it from the lips of Mlle. Mansoni," observed Wetter, with a malicious smile.
"Were you once in love with my wife?" he asked bluntly. His deference wore away under the corrosion of Steinberg and distress. "Let us choose our words, my dear M. Struboff. Once I professed attachment to Mlle. Mansoni." "She loved you?" "It is discourteous not to accept any impression that a lady wishes to convey to you," I answered, smiling.
Whose fault is anything? Whose fault is it that Coralie Mansoni is a pretty woman?" "I've never seen her." "Ah, you wouldn't think her pretty if you had." Victoria looked at me for a few seconds; then she suddenly drew up a low chair and sat down at my feet. She turned her face up toward mine and took my hand. Well, we never really disliked one another, Victoria and I.
She being now reputably impresarioed, the Sempachs have shown her some civility. I told Wetter this when I last ran against him at the club. He raised his brows, twisted his lips, scratched his chin, looked full in my face and said with a smile, 'My dear Vicomte, Madame Mansoni is passionately attached to her husband. They are ideal lovers. Your Majesty shall interpret, if it be your pleasure.
While I lay ill, Princess Heinrich was the dominant influence in the administration of affairs. When I recovered, I found that Coralie Mansoni was no longer playing in Forstadt, and had left the town some weeks before. I put no questions to my mother. I also found that Varvilliers had resigned his official position in the French service, and remained in Forstadt as a private person.
He could not quarrel seriously with his wife's brother on such a ground. He returned to Victoria, and, I had no doubt, received the castigation which he certainly deserved. My interest in him vanished as he vanished from the society that centred round Mlle. Mansoni. At the same time my share in his defeat and humiliation left a soreness between us which lasted for a long while.
My burden was ever with me; the woman I had loved was gone; the girl I must be made husband to was soon to come. I was not and could not be as other young men. That all this, the conversation with Varvilliers, its effect on me, my restless discontent and angry protests against my fate, should follow on meeting Coralie Mansoni at supper will not seem strange to anybody who remembers her.
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