me to move, and I could not stir. She was lovable, but I did
not love her; she had love to give, but I could not ask for it. To marry
her was my duty, to seem to desire the marriage my _role_. There
obligation stopped; inclination refused to carry on the work. I had
driven a bargain with fate; I would pay the debt to the last farthing,
but I could not open my purse again for a gratuity or a bounty. I
acquiesced with fair contentment in it, and in the relations which it
produced between Elsa and myself. There was a tacit agreement among all
of us that a calm and cousinly affection was the best thing, and fully
adequate to the needs of the situation. The advice of the women chimed
in with my own mood. Making love to her would have seemed to them a
dangerous indiscretion, to me a rather odious taking advantage of one
who was not a free agent, and a rather humiliating bit of pretence
besides. We had all made up our minds that matters had better be left
considerably below boiling-point.

While things stood thus I received a letter from Varvilliers (who was at
Forstadt) accepting my invitation to Artenberg. His acceptance
signified, he went on:

"Of course all the town is full of you and your _fiancee_--her
portrait is everywhere, your name and hers in every mouth. There
is another coupled with them, surely in a strange conjunction!
When they speak of you and the Princess they speak of Wetter
also. It is recalled that you and he were friends and associates,
companions in amusement and sport (especially, of course, in
pistol practice!). Hence springs a theory that the fellow's odd
rhapsody (mad and splendid!) was directly inspired by yourself,
that you chose him as your medium, desiring to add to the formal
expressions usual on such occasions an unofficial declaration of
your private feelings. So you are hailed as a model and most
romantic lover, and every tea-table resounds with your praises.
Early indiscretions (forgive a pen itself indiscreet) are
forgotten, and you are booked for the part of the model husband,
an example of the beauty (and the duty) of marriages of
inclination in high places. Believe me, your popularity is
doubled. And the strange fellow himself, having money in his
pocket and that voice of his in magnificent order, is to be seen
everywhere, smiling mysteriously and observing a most significant
reticence w