Villa Rubein and Other Stories | Page 9

should, and I think it brings good luck."
>From the doorstep she looked round at Harz, then ran into the house.
A broad, thick-set man, with stiff, brushed-up hair, a short, brown,
bushy beard parted at the chin, a fresh complexion, and blue glasses
across a thick nose, came out, and called in a bluff voice:
"Ha! my good dears, kiss me quick--prrt! How goes it then this
morning? A good walk, hein?" The sound of many loud rapid kisses
followed.
"Ha, Fraulein, good!" He became aware of Harz's figure standing in the
doorway: "Und der Herr?"
Miss Naylor hurriedly explained.
"Good! An artist! Kommen Sie herein, I am delight. You will breakfast?
I too--yes, yes, my dears--I too breakfast with you this morning. I have
the hunter's appetite."
Harz, looking at him keenly, perceived him to be of middle height and
age, stout, dressed in a loose holland jacket, a very white, starched shirt,
and blue silk sash; that he looked particularly clean, had an air of
belonging to Society, and exhaled a really fine aroma of excellent
cigars and the best hairdresser's essences.
The room they entered was long and rather bare; there was a huge map
on the wall, and below it a pair of globes on crooked supports,
resembling two inflated frogs erect on their hind legs. In one corner
was a cottage piano, close to a writing-table heaped with books and
papers; this nook, sacred to Christian, was foreign to the rest of the
room, which was arranged with supernatural neatness. A table was laid

for breakfast, and the sun-warmed air came in through French
windows.
The meal went merrily; Herr Paul von Morawitz was never in such
spirits as at table. Words streamed from him. Conversing with Harz, he
talked of Art as who should say: "One does not claim to be a
connoisseur--pas si bete--still, one has a little knowledge, que diable!"
He recommended him a man in the town who sold cigars that were "not
so very bad." He consumed porridge, ate an omelette; and bending
across to Greta gave her a sounding kiss, muttering: "Kiss me
quick!"--an expression he had picked up in a London music-hall, long
ago, and considered chic. He asked his daughters' plans, and held out
porridge to the terrier, who refused it with a sniff.
"Well," he said suddenly, looking at Miss Naylor, "here is a gentleman
who has not even heard our names!"
The little lady began her introductions in a breathless voice.
"Good!" Herr Paul said, puffing out his lips: "Now we know each
other!" and, brushing up the ends of his moustaches, he carried off Harz
into another room, decorated with pipe-racks, prints of dancing- girls,
spittoons, easy-chairs well-seasoned by cigar smoke, French novels,
and newspapers.
The household at Villa Rubein was indeed of a mixed and curious
nature. Cut on both floors by corridors, the Villa was divided into four
divisions; each of which had its separate inhabitants, an arrangement
which had come about in the following way:
When old Nicholas Treffry died, his estate, on the boundary of
Cornwall, had been sold and divided up among his three surviving
children--Nicholas, who was much the eldest, a partner in the well-
known firm of Forsyte and Treffry, teamen, of the Strand; Constance,
married to a man called Decie; and Margaret, at her father's death
engaged to the curate of the parish, John Devorell, who shortly
afterwards became its rector. By his marriage with Margaret Treffry the
rector had one child called Christian. Soon after this he came into some
property, and died, leaving it unfettered to his widow. Three years went
by, and when the child was six years old, Mrs. Devorell, still young and
pretty, came to live in London with her brother Nicholas. It was there
that she met Paul von Morawitz--the last of an old Czech family, who
had lived for many hundred years on their estates near Budweiss. Paul

had been left an orphan at the age of ten, and without a solitary
ancestral acre. Instead of acres, he inherited the faith that nothing was
too good for a von Morawitz. In later years his savoir faire enabled him
to laugh at faith, but it stayed quietly with him all the same. The
absence of acres was of no great consequence, for through his mother,
the daughter of a banker in Vienna, he came into a well-nursed fortune.
It befitted a von Morawitz that he should go into the Cavalry, but,
unshaped for soldiering, he soon left the Service; some said he had a
difference with his Colonel over the quality of food provided during
some manoeuvres; others that he had retired because his chargers did
not fit his legs, which were, indeed, rather round.
He had an admirable appetite for