"I hope you won't regret it, not a very good meal--the girls are so impulsive--such informal invitation; we shall be very glad."But Greta pulled softly at her sister's sleeve, and Christian, gathering her things, led the way.
Harz followed in amazement; nothing of this kind had come into his life before.He kept shyly glancing at the girls; and, noting the speculative innocence in Greta's eyes, he smiled.They soon came to two great poplar-trees, which stood, like sentinels, one on either side of an unweeded gravel walk leading through lilac bushes to a house painted dull pink, with green-shuttered windows, and a roof of greenish slate.Over the door in faded crimson letters were written the words, "Villa Rubein.""That is to the stables," said Greta, pointing down a path, where some pigeons were sunning themselves on a wall."Uncle Nic keeps his horses there: Countess and Cuckoo--his horses begin with C, because of Chris--they are quite beautiful.He says he could drive them to Kingdom-Come and they would not turn their hair.Bow, and say 'Good-morning' to our house!"
Harz bowed.
"Father said all strangers 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.Atable 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.