The White Morning | Page 5

with all that life meant
in the free and beautiful city by the Isar, could also revel in luxury; and
this wonderful summer, following as it did the bitter climax of her first
serious love affair, seemed to her all the consolation that a mere woman
could ask. At all events she felt for it an intense and lasting gratitude.
2
It was during her first summer at Bar Harbor that the second
determining experience of her life began, and it lasted for three years.
She dwelt upon it to-night with humor, sadness, and, for a moment,
thrilling regret, but without bitterness. That had passed long since.
She was virtual mistress of the house at Bar Harbor, and as the children
had a trained nurse and a maid, besides many little friends, she had
more leisure than in the city with her one day of complete detachment.
She met Freiherr Franz von Nettelbeck when she was walking with her
charges and he was strolling with the little girls of the Howland family.
The introductions were informal, and as they fell naturally into German
there was an immediate bond. Nettelbeck was an attaché of the German
Embassy who preferred to spend his summers at Bar Harbor. He was of
the fair type of German most familiar to Americans, with a fine slim
military figure, deep fiery blue eyes and a lively mind. His golden hair
and mustache stood up aggressively, and his carriage was exceeding
haughty, but those were details too familiar to be counted against him
by Gisela. Her rich brunette beauty was now as ripe as her tall full
figure, and she was one of those women, rare in Germany, who could
dress well on nothing at all. She too possessed a lively mind, and after
her long New York winter was feeling her isolation. Her first interview
(which included a long stroll and a canoe ride) with this young
diplomat of her own land, visibly lifted her spirits, and she sang as she
braided her heavy mass of hair that night.
Franz, like most unattached young Germans, was on the lookout for a
soul-mate (which he was far too sophisticated to anticipate in
matrimony), and this handsome, brilliant, subtly responsive, and wholly
charming young woman of the only country worth mentioning entered
his life when he too was lonely and rather bored. It was his third year in
the United States of America and he did not like the life nor the people.

Nevertheless, he was trying to make up his mind to pay court to Ann
Howland, a young lady whose dashing beauty was somewhat
overpoised by salient force of character and an uncompromisingly keen
and direct mind, but whose fortune eclipsed by several millions that of
the high-born maiden selected by his family.
Here was a heaven-sent interval, with intellectual companionship in
addition to the game of the gods. Being a German girl, Gisela Döring
would be aware that he could not marry out of his class, unless the
plebeian pill were heavily gilded. To do him justice, he would not have
married the wealthiest plebeian in Germany. An American: that was
another matter. If there were such a thing as an aristocracy in this
absurd country which pretended to be a democracy and whose
"society" was erected upon the visible and screaming American dollar,
no doubt Miss Howland belonged to the highest rank. In Germany she
would have been a princess--probably of a mediatized house, and, he
confessed it amiably enough, she looked the part more unapologetically
than several he could mention.
So did Gisela Döring. He sighed that a woman who would have graced
the court of his Kaiser should have been tossed by a bungling fate into
the rank and file of the good German people; so laudably content to
play their insignificant part in their country's magnificent destiny.
Gisela never told him the truth. Sometimes, irritated by his subtle
arrogance, she was tempted. Also consuming love tempted her. But of
what use? She was without fortune and he must add to his. He had a
limited income and expensive tastes, and when a young nobleman in
the diplomatic service marries he must take a house and live with a
certain amount of state. Moreover, he intended to be an ambassador
before he was forty-five, and he was justified in his ambitions, for he
was exceptionally clever and his rise had been rapid. But now he was
care-free and young, and love was his right.
Gisela understood him perfectly. Not only was she of his class, but her
brother Karl had madly loved a girl in a chocolate shop and wept
tempestuously beside her bed while their father slept. He married
philosophically when his hour struck.
But if she understood she was also romantic.