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Updated: July 26, 2025
My head was clear, and I saw the order of events that followed. Varvilliers also had started toward me. Suddenly he stopped. Wetter had rushed across the room toward where the cartridges lay. Varvilliers sprang upon him and caught him resolutely by the shoulders. I myself cried, "Stop him!" even as I sank on the ground, my shoulders propped up against the wall.
"You sing it to perfection," said I. "There's nothing wrong, nothing at all. Wetter here is mad." "Wetter is certainly mad," echoed Varvilliers, rising from the sofa. "Wetter is damned mad," said Wetter. "Wetter is right ah, so right," came in a despairing grumble from poor Struboff, who still played away. "To supper, to supper!" cried Wetter. "You're right, all of you. And I'm right. And I'm mad.
For a while we talked all to all; then I began to tell the Countess a little story. Varvilliers and Elsa fell into a conversation apart. She had made him sit by her. I bent down over my chair back, to converse more easily with my Countess. All this was right enough, unless the talk were to continue general. I do not know how long we went on thus; some time I know it was.
I stood between my friends, sipping my wine and detaining them, although the room was nearly empty. I felt a reluctance to part and an invincible repugnance to my bed. "Come to my quarters," I said, "and we'll have cigars." Varvilliers bowed ready assent. Wetter's face twisted into a smile. "I must plead excuse to the command," he said.
"Should I send them to a hotel, sire? My friends the Struboffs! No, no!" Sipping my wine, I looked doubtfully from one to the other. "The King," observed Wetter to Varvilliers, "would be interested in hearing a rehearsal of the song." "But," said I, "Krak comes to-night, and I daren't look as if I'd sat up beyond my hour." Wetter laid his finger on my arm. "One more night," he said.
For me there was significance in nothing save in Elsa's eyes. They were all for Varvilliers, for him sparkled, for him clouded, for him wondered, laughed, applauded, lived. Presently I dropped out of the conversation and sat silent, facing this new thing. It was not bitter to me; my mood of desire had gone too utterly. There was no pang of defeated rivalry.
Wetter laughed loudly and sneeringly. Coralie turned a gaze of indifferent curiosity on him. He puzzled her, tiresomely sometimes. I knew that he meant an insult. My blood runs hot at such moments. I was about to speak when Varvilliers forestalled me.
"I back to France," answered Varvilliers. "We to Munich," said Coralie, with a shrug. "I the deuce knows where," laughed Wetter. "I also the deuce knows where. Come, then, to our next merry supper!" I poured out a glass of wine. They all followed my example, and we drank. "But we shall have no more," said Wetter. A moment's silence fell on us all. Then Wetter spoke again.
I ran forward to the group, and, as they parted to let me through, I came quickly to Varvilliers with outstretched hands. He seemed to me a good genius. Even my mother looked smiling and happy. The faces of the rest were alight with gaiety. Victoria was in the full tide of a happy laugh, and did not interrupt it on account of my arrival.
Several men whom I knew were present, among them Wetter and M. le Vicomte de Varvilliers, second secretary of the French Embassy and a mirror of fashion. We were quite informal. Varvilliers sat on my left and employed himself in giving me an account of my right-hand neighbour Coralie. I listened absently, for the sight of Wetter had stirred other thoughts in my mind.
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