He realized suddenly that he felt closer to Styr than he had ever felt before. And she was the one person on earth to whom he could confess the horrid experience of this night. He made up his mind to return to her at once, no matter where she was. They could meet in the various cities where she sang, as freely as in her home, although not, of course, as delightfully.
Then his mind swung to the future, the future he must face upon his second return from Munich. He should never willingly exchange a syllable with his brother again. There was not the faintest hope that Bridgminster would increase his income. Nor was the man’s health, as far as he could judge, seriously impaired. He might go mad and be chucked into an asylum, but lunatics lived forever. True, he might fall on his gun, or break his neck on the hunting field, but these were mere contingencies. Meanwhile, save for this passing relief, his own problem was as serious as ever. He should spend five times his present income in any capital to which he was accredited, and he could think of nothing he would not rather do than force his mother into heavy sacrifices. Turn over the detestable question as often as he might, he could find but one solution. He had disliked the prospect of matrimony before he knew Margarethe Styr, and it was doubly hateful now. He did not want to marry her, nor could he spend his life dawdling at her skirts; but—well—once more he was forced to admit that he could not have everything in life he wanted at once. There should be that last long visit to Munich, however, and then he would return and swallow his medicine.
But he was not to return to Munich and Margarethe Styr at present. That excellent friend of his, Princess Nachmeister, having ascertained throughout the summer that, although indefatigable in his attendance upon the prima donna, he wore neither the hopeless mien of rejected love nor that of sublime content, had kept her lance in rest. Moreover, she well knew that the vestal Lutz would never have lent her countenance to a liaison, neither could it have escaped eyes sharp with an old maid’s resentful curiosity. Therefore, although uneasy, Excellenz had not thought it worth while to interfere with his studies; but upon the day she learned of his departure for London she wrote to Lady Bridgminster, with whom she had some time since fallen into correspondence, advising her to prevent her son’s return to Munich. Only he could have resisted Styr during long months of intimacy, and then only because she had chosen that he should. But he was growing older every hour, there was no telling in what moment he might awake and call himself an ass, nor, in faith, when Styr would recover from her long attack of virtue. Sudden interruptions in deep but continent intimacies had proved fatal before. They would not be the first to discover that they could not exist apart. Better divert his mind at once.