(Continued.)
A year had fled by. New Christmas holidays had come, another New Year's Eve had stealthily crept in, to take the place of the one which was "seen in" by the little gathering in the house of the hospitable would-be magnate.
The wish Lila Rianoff burned at the stroke of twelve a year ago had found its fulfilment; her aunt and Anna Karssoff, and a good many more of her Parisian friends now thought of her as of one absent, for it was long since she was safely reestablished under the paternal roof, in her beloved Russia.
However, she was not the only defaulter. Many of last year's party were missing. Out of the few who still were true to their purposes was Anna Karssoff, who was making brilliant progress at the Conservatoire, and also her especial friend Nicholas Saradsky. She had only one year more to stay in Paris, but he had two. And yet it was the ardent desire of both their hearts not to return home otherwise than in each other's company. Their reasons were plausible enough, for were it in the least bit possible, their way to Russia would be through the Embassy Church. But neither of them had much more than brilliant expectations, and so their wedding was postponed until a happier future.
Many of their friends were speculating on the subject, but the only one who knew exactly how matters stood, was Lila Rianoff, a letter from whom Anna was now reading, gaily smiling to herself, almost laughing aloud. The letter was so long, so full of details, of happy humor and wit, that Anna lingered a long time over it, — such a long time, indeed, that she was still far from the end, when Nicholas rang at the door. The girl well knew who it was who rang so energetically, and ran to open the door herself, letter in hand.
"Well," asked the young fellow, "are you ready to start? And is it the opera or the varieties you have made up your mind for? Oh! I see, you have some good news."
"Very good news, indeed!" exclaimed Anna. "Lila is engaged to be married."
"To be married, and to whom, pray?"
"To Tlyinsky, doubtless."
"So that after all he had turned out to be the man of the bridge?"
"The man of the bridge, exactly. In this letter she tries to be as reserved as usual, but her heart is too full. It's the funniest, the happiest letter you can imagine. She is evidently perfectly convinced that Tlyinsky is her right fate, as the moment they met they felt like very old friends indeed, that at first glance they both knew they belonged to each other, that they loved — oh, more than that, that they always had loved each other, from the beginning of time, no matter whether they did or did not meet in actual life. So there is no help for it, they must be married."
"What an imagination the girl must have! It's all this new-fangled doctrine of the transmigrations of the soul, I suppose. May I have a cigarette?"
"Yes, do. But you are not right with regard to this question of transmigration. It is no transmigration, no metempsychosis at all, but repeated lives, or rather one continuous life, which is no more broken by death than, by sleep."
"So, something like Buddhism, then?" asked Saradsky not over eagerly, in fact more interested in the cigarette he was lighting, than in the topic of their conversation.
"Not quite. Lila has lots of fancies and ideas of her own. And she is so set on them, it's no use contradicting her, or even arguing with her. Some of the Parisian Spiritualists tried to convert her into their ranks, but without success. She says they differ on too many points."
"Ah! the whole business is utter bosh!" was Monsieur Nicholas Saradsky's verdict. "As well share the Persian belief, that Allah always creates husband and wife in one piece, then divides it in two and sends the halves to search for each other in this big world of ours. No wonder so many mistakes are committed, so many wrong halves take each other for the right ones."
"Exactly our case, I believe," stated Anna, in a tone the coldness of which was just a trifle too marked to be real.
But this statement her fiance immediately tried to disprove in such a practical way, that the girl ran from him, and he ran after her until two chairs and a table were upset and a rug displaced.
This pleasant game was interrupted by the arrival of two future lady doctors, who had also known and liked Lila and with whom Anna could discuss the news at a greater length and altogether more satisfactorily than with Nicholas, who, she said, "was only a man, after all, and so could never show proper feeling."
"And did she actually recognize his face?" eagerly asked one of the girls.
"No, she did not," said Anna, "Lila would not dissemble with me, or with any one else in such a matter, and she says quite positively his face played no part in the recognition." . . .
"Of course!" sneered the only man present, "the recognition was purely of the spirit."
At this the girls threatened to go into Anna's room, to read Lila's letter in peace, and Nicholas held his tongue.
"Well," went on Anna, "the whole business is altogether uncanny. You know what a sensitive plant Lila is — how she always shuns new acquaintances. Indeed, her manner is only too cold and reserved even with the people she cares for. And — well, would you believe it? Three months ago, the very first evening they met, she talked to him as openly and freely as if they were the oldest of friends. But besides, there are two most wonderful particulars. Firstly, this Tlyinsky turns out to be a very close relation of the Kitaroffs. He is a nephew of the old man — the son of Kitaroff's own sister. But these two had quarrelled long before Tlyinsky was born, so the nephew and the uncle do not know each other. "
"May I ask, is the nephew as rich as his uncle?" asked Saradsky.
"Oh, no! far from it. Lila writes he has nothing but what he earns."
"What a pity," regretfully said one of the visitors. "Were she to marry Kitaroff, would not she be just rolling in wealth!"
"God forbid! To marry a horrid old ruin like that.
"Oh, no! I mean the son, not the father. Was it not the young fellow who proposed to her?"
"Mademoiselle, you are utterly misinformed," put in Saradsky. "You ask Miss Anna Karssoff here present, she being the only reliable source of information, and moreover one of the dramatis pcrsona in the Kitaroff Comedy of Errors." Anna did not deign to take any notice of her fiance's sneering remarks.
"That's the worst of it," she said. "The younger Kitaroff did not propose, at all, but his father did. Both father and son acted abominably to her, but the old man had some notions of honor, at least, whereas the other one, this dilapidated young monkey, with dandified airs, is altogether too used to pay everything with money and deserves to be horsewhipped for the way he treated Lila."
Anna's guests laughed.
"The loving father and the dutiful son serenading under the same window. That's fun."
"But you ought to have seen the way Lila disposed of them. At first she was so hurt, so indignant, that her impulse was to throw Kitaroff's jewelry out of the window and never to set eyes on the worthy pair again. But when her anger cooled down, she thought she would have some fun out of the young fool."
"Well done!"
"It was very well done, indeed. She wrote him a very polite little note, asking him to call on her the same evening, and at the same time sent word to me and to one or two more friends so that we knew what to expect. Her aunt was also present and was in an awful fume, saying Lila was a young fool and was going to spoil the greatest chance a girl may have in life. Well, at the appointed hour, as sure as clock work, Monsieur Andre Kitaroff puts in an appearance, freshly shaven, dressed, shod and gloved like a fashion plate. Seeing Lila was not alone, he pulled a long face at first, but after a while Lila put him in the best of spirits and when his excitement was at the highest, she said: "By the way, Monsieur Andre, here are the beautiful things you and your kind father sent me, you will oblige me by taking them back, likewise the note in which your father proposes to me. No doubt, it was most kind, most thoughtful of you to show me in such a delicate way you would be glad to have me for a stepmother. But kindness is a little too hasty sometimes. As to your venerable parent, please, tell him, I have too great a solicitude for his happiness to marry him, without loving him. So I must thwart your hopes of becoming my step-son." And all this with the sweetest smile, in the sweetest tone of voice!" concluded Anna. "Well I may-live to be a hundred but I shall never forget what a pitiful object this unsuccessful lady-killer looked. And the climax was reached when Lila's little cousin, who was not there at all but was purposely locked in the next room, began to snigger quite audibly."
Here Nicholas, who heartily enjoyed the story every time he heard it, also sniggered, the two girls joined him, and the merriment grew general and quite loud.
"Now to the second wonderful circumstance of this affair. Would you believe, that almost the very first words Tlyinsky ever said to her: 'I can not account for it, but do you know, Miss Rianoff, we have positively met before. I know you, but where we met before, puzzles and perplexes me, a sort of recurring thought, one can't drive away.' And a few days later, in Lila's home, he looked at her, with the same puzzled expression, and again said: 'As you sat there playing the piano, I positively could not get rid of a picture which repeatedly rose before my eyes. And is not it strange that a landscape I am not aware of ever having seen should be so vivid before my mental vision? It is a ravine or may be a gorge, all buried under deep snow, and a bridge, an old fashioned bridge, with a steep arch, also some tumbled down building close by.' . . . In fact, the very surroundings of Lila's own dream. Is not it wonderful!"
(To be continued.)