Prince Zilah | Page 9

who advanced, excessively pale. "By what happy
chance do I see you, my dear boy?"
"I heard in London that you were to give this fete. The English
newspapers had announced your marriage, and I did not wish to wait
longer--I----."
He hesitated a little as he spoke, as if dissatisfied, troubled, and a
moment before (Zilah had not noticed it) he had made a movement as if
to go back to the quay and leave the boat.
Michel Menko, however, had not the air of a timid man. He was tall,
thin, of graceful figure, a man of the world, a military diplomat. For
some reason or other, at this moment, he exhibited a certain uneasiness
in his face, which ordinarily bore a rather brilliant color, but which was
now almost sallow. He was instinctively seeking some one among the
Prince's guests, and his glance wandered about the deck with a sort of
dull anger.
Prince Andras saw only one thing in Menko's sudden appearance; the
young man, to whom he was deeply attached, and who was the only
relative he had in the world (his maternal grandmother having been a
Countess Menko), his dear Michel, would be present at his marriage.
He had thought Menko ill in London; but the latter appeared before him,
and the day was decidedly a happy one.
"How happy you make me, my dear fellow!" he said to him in a tone of
affection which was almost paternal.
Each demonstration of friendship by the Prince seemed to increase the
young Count's embarrassment. Beneath a polished manner, the

evidence of an imperious temperament appeared in the slightest glance,
the least gesture, of this handsome fellow of twenty-seven or
twenty-eight years. Seeing him pass by, one could easily imagine him
with his fashionable clothes cast aside, and, clad in the uniform of the
Hungarian hussars, with closely shaven chin, and moustaches brushed
fiercely upward, manoeuvring his horse on the Prater with supple grace
and nerves like steel.
Menko's gray eyes, with blue reflections in them, which made one
think of the reflection of a storm in a placid lake, became sad when
calm, but were full of a threatening light when animated. The gaze of
the young man had precisely this aggressive look when he discovered,
half hidden among the flowers, Marsa seated in the bow of the boat;
then, almost instantaneously a singular expression of sorrow or anguish
succeeded, only in its turn to fade away with the rapidity of the light of
a falling star; and there was perfect calm in Menko's attitude and
expression when Prince Zilah said to him:
"Come, Michel, let me present you to my fiancee. Varhely is there
also."
And, taking Menko's arm, he led him toward Marsa. "See," he said to
the young girl, "my happiness is complete."
She, as Michel Menko bowed low before her, coldly and almost
imperceptibly inclined her dark head, while her large eyes, under the
shadow of their heavy lashes, seemed vainly trying to meet the gray
eyes of the young man.
Andras beckoned Varhely to come to Marsa, who was white as marble,
and said softly, with a hand on the shoulder of each of the two friends,
who represented to him his whole life--Varhely, the past; Michel
Menko, his recovered youth and the future.
"If it were not for that stupid superstition which forbids one to proclaim
his happiness, I should tell you how happy I am, very happy. Yes, the
happiest of men," he added.

Meanwhile, the little Baroness Dinati, the pretty brunette, who had just
found Varhely a trifle melancholy, had turned to Paul Jacquemin, the
accredited reporter of her salon.
"That happiness, Jacquemin," she said, with a proud wave of the hand,
"is my work. Without me, those two charming savages, so well suited
to each other, Marsa and Andras Zilah, would never have met. On what
does happiness depend!"
"On an invitation card engraved by Stern," laughed Jacquemin. "But
you have said too much, Baroness. You must tell me the whole story.
Think what an article it would make: The Baroness's Matchmaking!
The romance! Quick, the romance! The romance, or death!"
"You have no idea how near you are to the truth, my dear Jacquemin: it
is indeed a romance; and, what is more, a romantic romance. A
romance which has no resemblance to--you have invented the
word--those brutalistic stories which you are so fond of."
"Which I am very fond of, Baroness, I confess, especially when they
are just a little--you know!"
"But this romance of Prince Andras is by no means just a little--you
know! It is--how shall I express it? It is epic, heroic, romantic--what
you will. I will relate it to you."
"It will sell fifty thousand copies of our paper," gayly exclaimed
Jacquemin,