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diff --git a/14393-0.txt b/14393-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..df0dc03 --- /dev/null +++ b/14393-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9709 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14393 *** + +THE + +INNER + +SHRINE + +A NOVEL +OF TODAY + +ILLUSTRATED + +HARPER & BROTHERS +NEW YORK AND LONDON +M.C.M.I.X + + + +Copyright, 1908, 1909, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +_All rights reserved._ + +Published May, 1909. + +[Transcriber's note: The name of the author, Basil King, does not appear +in the text.] + + + +_ILLUSTRATIONS_ + + +SHE STOOD WATCHING THE RISE AND DIP OF +THE STEAMER'S BOW (See page 61) _Frontispiece_ + +THE BANKER TOOK A LONGER TIME THAN WAS +NECESSARY TO SCAN THE POOR LITTLE LIST _Facing p_. 46 + +PRESENTLY ALL FOUR WERE ON THEIR WAY +BACK TO THE DRAWING-ROOM " 78 + +DIANE PROPPED THE CABLEGRAM IN A CONSPICUOUS +PLACE " 152 + +"I'VE NO ONE TO SPEAK A WORD FOR ME BUT +YOU" " 202 + +IT WAS WHAT MRS. WAPPINGER CALLED AN +"OFF-DAY" " 252 + +MRS. BAYFORD WAS PURRING TO HER GUESTS " 260 + +HAVING MADE A COPY OF THIS LETTER, SHE +CALLED SIMMONS AND FULTON AND GAVE +THEM THEIR INSTRUCTIONS " 264 + +"SINCE THE INNER SHRINE IS UNLOCKED--AT +LAST--I'LL GO IN" " 354 + + + + + +_THE INNER SHRINE_ + + + + + +_THE INNER SHRINE_ + +I + + +Though she had counted the strokes of every hour since midnight, Mrs. +Eveleth had no thought of going to bed. When she was not sitting bolt +upright, indifferent to comfort, in one of the stiff-backed, gilded +chairs, she was limping, with the aid of her cane, up and down the long +suite of salons, listening for the sound of wheels. She knew that George +and Diane would be surprised to find her waiting up for them, and that +they might even be annoyed; but in her state of dread it was impossible +to yield to small considerations. + +She could hardly tell how this presentiment of disaster had taken hold +upon her, for the beginning of it must have come as imperceptibly as the +first flicker of dusk across the radiance of an afternoon. Looking back, +she could almost make herself believe that she had seen its shadow over +her early satisfaction in her son's marriage to Diane. Certainly she had +felt it there before their honeymoon was over. The four years that had +passed since then had been spent--or, at least, she would have said so +now--in waiting for the peril to present itself. + +And yet, had she been called on to explain why she saw it stalking +through the darkness of this particular June night, she would have found +it difficult to give coherent statement to her fear. Everything about +her was pursuing its normally restless round, with scarcely a hint of +the exceptional. If life in Paris was working up again to that feverish +climax in which the season dies, it was only what she had witnessed +every year since the last days of the Second Empire. If Diane's gayety +was that of excitement rather than of youth, if George's depression was +that of jaded effort rather than of satiated pleasure, it was no more +than she had seen in them at other times. She acknowledged that she had +few facts to go upon--that she had indeed little more than the terrified +prescience which warns the animal of a storm. + +There were moments of her vigil when she tried to reassure herself with +the very tenuity of her reasons for alarm. It was a comfort to think how +little there was that she could state with the definiteness of +knowledge. In all that met the eye George's relation to Diane was not +less happy than in the first days of their life together. If, on Diane's +part, the spontaneity of wedded love had gradually become the adroitness +of domestic tact, there was nothing to affirm it but Mrs. Eveleth's own +power of divination. If George submitted with a blinder obedience than +ever to each new extravagance of Diane's Parisian caprice, there was +nothing to show that he lived beyond his means but Mrs. Eveleth's +maternal apprehension. His income was undoubtedly large, and, for all +she knew, it justified the sumptuous style Diane and he kept up. Where +the purchasing power of money began and ended was something she had +never known. Disorder was so frequent in her own affairs that when +George grew up she had been glad to resign them to his keeping, taking +what he told her was her income. As for Diane, her fortune was so small +as to be a negligible quantity in such housekeeping as they maintained--a +poverty of _dot_ which had been the chief reason why her noble kinsfolk +had consented to her marriage with an American. Looking round the +splendid house, Mrs. Eveleth was aware that her husband could never +have lived in it, still less have built it; while she wondered more than +ever how George, who led the life of a Parisian man of fashion, could +have found the means of doing both. + +Not that her anxiety centred on material things; they were too remote +from the general activities of her thought for that. She distilled her +fear out of the living atmosphere around her. She was no novice in this +brilliant, dissolute society, or in the meanings hidden behind its +apparently trivial concerns. Hints that would have had slight +significance for one less expert she found luminous with suggestion; and +she read by signs as faint as those in which the redskin detects the +passage of his foe across the grass. The odd smile with which Diane went +out! The dull silence in which George came home! The manufactured +conversation! The forced gayety! The startling pause! The effort to +begin again, and keep the tone to one of common intercourse! The long +defile of guests! The strangers who came, grew intimate, and +disappeared! The glances that followed Diane when she crossed a room! +The shrug, the whisper, the suggestive grimace, at the mention of her +name! All these were as an alphabet in which Mrs. Eveleth, grown skilful +by long years of observation, read what had become not less familiar +than her mother-tongue. + +The fact that her misgivings were not new made it the more difficult to +understand why they had focussed themselves to-night into this great +fear. There had been nothing unusual about the day, except that she had +seen little of Diane, while George had remained shut up in his room, +writing letters and arranging or destroying papers. There had been +nothing out of the common in either of them--not even the frown of care +on George's forehead, or the excited light in Diane's eyes--as they +drove away in the evening, to dine at the Spanish Embassy. They had +kissed her tenderly, but it was not till after they had gone that it +seemed to her as if they had been taking a farewell. Then, too, other +little tokens suddenly became ominous; while something within herself +seemed to say, "The hour is at hand!" + +The hour is at hand! Standing in the middle of one of the gorgeous +rooms, she repeated the words softly, marking as she did so their +incongruity to herself and her surroundings. The note of fatality jarred +on the harmony of this well-ordered life. It was preposterous, that she, +who had always been hedged round and sheltered by pomp and circumstance, +should now in her middle age be menaced with calamity. She dragged +herself over to one of the long mirrors and gazed at her reflection +pityingly. + +The twitter of birds startled her with the knowledge that it was dawn. +From the Embassy George and Diane were to go on to two or three great +houses, but surely they should be home by this time! The reflection +meant the renewal of her fear. Where was her son? Was he really with his +wife, or had the moment come when he must take the law into his own +hands, after their French manner, to avenge himself or her? She knew +nothing about duelling, but she had the Anglo-Saxon mother's dread of +it. She had always hoped that, notwithstanding the social code under +which he lived, George would keep clear of any such brutal +senselessness; but lately she had begun to fear that the conventions of +the world would prove the stronger, and that the time when they would do +so was not far away. + +Pulling back the curtains from one of the windows, she opened it and +stepped out on a balcony, where the long strip of the Quai d'Orsay +stretched below her, in gray and silent emptiness. On the swift, +leaden-colored current of the Seine, spanned here and there by ghostly +bridges, mysterious barges plied weirdly through the twilight. Up on the +left the Arc de Triomphe began to emerge dimly out of night, while down +on the right the line of the Louvre lay, black and sinister, beneath the +towers and spires that faintly detached themselves against the growing +saffron of the morning. High above all else, the domes of the Sacred +Heart were white with the rays of the unrisen sun, like those of the +City which came down from God. + +It was so different from the cheerful Paris of broad daylight that she +was drawing back with a shudder, when over the Pont de la Concorde she +discerned the approach of a motor-brougham. + +Closing the window, she hurried to the stairway. It was still night +within the house, and the one electric light left burning drew forth +dull gleams from the wrought-metal arabesques of the splendidly sweeping +balustrades. When, on the ringing of the bell, the door opened and she +went down, she had the strange sensation of entering on a new era in her +life. + +Though she recalled that impression in after years, for the moment she +saw nothing but Diane, all in vivid red, in the act of letting the +voluminous black cloak fall from her shoulders into the sleepy footman's +hands. + +"Bonjour, petite mère!" Diane called, with a nervous laugh, as Mrs. +Eveleth paused on the lower steps of the stairs. + +"Where is George?" + +She could not keep the tone of anxiety out of her voice, but Diane +answered, with ready briskness: + +"George? I don't know. Hasn't he come home?" + +"You must know he hasn't come home. Weren't you together?" + +"We were together till--let me see!--whose house was it?--till after the +cotillon at Madame de Vaudreuil's. He left me there and went to the +Jockey Club with Monsieur de Melcourt, while I drove on to the +Rochefoucaulds'." + +She turned away toward the dining-room, but it was impossible not to +catch the tremor in her voice over the last words. In her ready English +there was a slight foreign intonation, as well as that trace of an Irish +accent which quickly yields to emotion. Standing at the table in the +dining-room where refreshments had been laid, she poured out a glass of +wine, and Mrs. Eveleth could see from the threshold that she drank it +thirstily, as one who before everything else needs a stimulant to keep +her up. At the entrance of her mother-in-law she was on her guard again, +and sank languidly into the nearest chair. "Oh, I'm so hungry!" she +yawned, pulling off her gloves, and pretending to nibble at a sandwich. +"Do sit down," she went on, as Mrs. Eveleth remained standing. "I should +think you'd be hungry, too." + +"Aren't you surprised to see me sitting up, Diane?" + +"I wasn't, but I can be, if that's my cue," Diane laughed. + +At the nonchalance of the reply Mrs. Eveleth was, for a second, half +deceived. Was it possible that she had only conjured up a waking +nightmare, and that there was nothing to be afraid of, after all? +Possessing the French quality of frankness to an unusual degree, it was +difficult for Diane to act a part at any time. With all her Parisian +finesse her nature was as direct as lightning, while her glance had that +fulness of candor which can never be assumed. Looking at her now, with +her elbows on the table, and the sandwich daintily poised between the +thumb and forefinger of her right hand, it was hard to connect her with +tragic possibilities. There were pearls around her neck and diamonds in +her hair; but to the wholesomeness of her personality jewels were no +more than dew on the freshness of a summer morning. + +"I thought you'd be surprised to find me sitting up," Mrs. Eveleth began +again; "but the truth is, I couldn't go to bed while--" + +"I'm glad you didn't," Diane broke in, with an evident intention to keep +the conversation in her own hands. "I'm not in the least sleepy. I could +sit here and talk till morning--though I suppose it's morning now. +Really the time to live is between midnight and six o'clock. One has a +whole set of emotions then that never come into play during the other +eighteen hours of the day. They say it's the minute when the soul comes +nearest to parting with the body, so I suppose that's the reason we can +see things, during the wee sma' hours, by the light of the invisible +spheres." + +"I should be quite content with the light of this world--" + +"Oh, I shouldn't," Diane broke in, with renewed eagerness to talk +against time. "It's like being content with words, and having no need of +music. It's like being satisfied with photographs, and never wanting +real pictures." + +"Diane," Mrs. Eveleth interrupted, "I insist that you let me speak." + +"Speak, petite mère? What are you doing but speaking now? I'm scarcely +saying a word. I'm too tired to talk. If you'd spent the last eight or +ten hours trying to get yourself down to the conversational level of +your partners, you'd know what I've been through. We women must be made +of steel to stand it. If you had only seen me this evening--" + +"Listen to me, Diane; don't joke. This is no time for that." + +"Joke! I never felt less like joking in my life, and--" + +She broke off with a little hysterical gasp, so that Mrs. Eveleth got +another chance. + +"I know you don't feel like joking, and still less do I. There's +something wrong." + +"Is there? What?" Diane made an effort to recover herself. "I hope it +isn't indiscreet to ask, because I need the bracing effect of a little +scandal." + +"Isn't it for you to tell me? You're concealing something of which--" + +"Oh, petite mère, is that quite honest? First, you say there's something +wrong; and then, when I'm all agog to hear it, you saddle me with the +secret. That's what you call in English a sell, isn't it? A sell! What a +funny little word! I often wonder who invents the slang. Parrots pass it +along, of course, but it must take some cleverness to start it. And +isn't it curious," she went on, breathlessly, "how a new bit of slang +always fills a vacant place in the language? The minute you hear it you +know it's what you've always wanted. I suppose the reason we're obliged +to use the current phrase is because it expresses the current need. When +the hour passes, the need passes with it, and something new must be +coined to meet the new situation. I should think a most interesting book +might be written on the Psychology of Slang, and if I wasn't so busy +with other things--" + +"Diane, I entreat you to answer me. Where is George?" + +"Why, I must have forgotten to tell you that he went to the Jockey Club +with Monsieur de Melcourt--" + +"You did tell me so; but that isn't all. Has he gone anywhere else?" + +"How should I know, petite mère? Where should he go but come home?" + +"Has he gone to fight a duel?" + +The question surprised Diane into partially dropping her mask. For an +instant she was puzzled for an answer. + +"Men who fight duels," she said, at last, "don't generally tell their +wives beforehand." + +"But did George tell you?" + +Again Diane hesitated before speaking. + +"What a queer question!" was all she could find to say. + +"It's a question I have a right to ask." + +"But have I a right to answer?" + +"If you don't answer, you leave me to infer that he has." + +"Of course I can't keep you from inferring, but isn't that what they +call meeting trouble half-way?" + +"I must meet trouble as it comes to me." + +"But not before it comes. That's my point." + +"It has come. It's here. I'm sure of it. He's gone to fight. You know +it. You've sent him. Oh, Diane, if he comes to harm his blood will be on +your head." + +Diane shrugged her shoulders, and took another sandwich. + +"I don't see that. In the first place, it's quite unlikely there'll be +any blood at all--or more than a very little. One of the things I admire +in men--our men, especially--is the maximum of courage with which they +avenge their honor, coupled with the minimum of damage they work in +doing it. It must require a great deal of skill. I know I should never +have the nerve for it. I should kill my man every time he didn't kill +me. But they hardly ever do." + +"How can you say that? Wasn't Monsieur de Cretteville killed? And +Monsieur Lalanne?" + +"That makes two cases. I implied that it happens sometimes--generally by +inadvertence. But it isn't likely to do so in this instance--at least +not to George. He's an excellent shot--and I believe it was to be +pistols." + +"Then it's true! Oh, my God, I know I shall lose him!" + +Mrs. Eveleth flung her cane to the floor and dropped into a seat, +leaning on the table and covering her face with her hands. For a minute +she moaned harshly, but when she looked up her eyes were tearless. + +"And this is my reward," she cried, "for the kindness I've shown you! +After all, you are nothing but a wanton." + +Diane kept her self-control, but she grew pale. + +"That's odd," was all she permitted herself to say, delicately flicking +the crumbs from her fingertips; "because it was to prove the contrary +that George called Monsieur de Bienville out." + +"Bienville! You've stooped to _him?_" + +"Did I say so?" Diane asked, with a sudden significant lifting of the +head. + +"There's no need to say so. There must have been something--" + +"There was something--something Monsieur de Bienville invented." + +"Wasn't it a pity for him to go to the trouble of invention--?" + +"When he could have found so much that was true," Diane finished, with +dangerous quietness. "That's what you were going to say, isn't it?" + +"You have no right to ascribe words to me that I haven't uttered. I +never said so." + +"No; that's true; I prefer to say it for you. It's safer, in that it +leaves me nothing to resent." + +"Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!" Mrs. Eveleth moaned, wringing +her hands. "My boy is gone from me. He will never come back. I've always +been sure that if he ever did this, it would be the end. It's my fault +for having brought him up among your foolish, hot-headed people. He will +have thrown his life away--and for nothing!" + +"No; not that," Diane corrected; "not even if the worst comes to the +worst." + +"What do you mean? If the worst comes to the worst, he will have +sacrificed himself--" + +"For my honor; and George himself would be the first to tell you that +it's worth dying for." + +Diane rose as she spoke, Mrs. Eveleth following her example. For a brief +instant they stood as if measuring each other's strength, till they +started with a simultaneous shock at the sharp call of the telephone +from an adjoining room. With a smothered cry Diane sprang to answer it, +while Mrs. Eveleth, helpless with dread, remained standing, as though +frozen to the spot. + +"Oui--oui--oui," came Diane's voice, speaking eagerly. "Oui, c'est bien +Madame George Eveleth. Oui, oui. Non. Je comprends. C'est Monsieur de +Melcourt. Oui--oui--Dites-le-moi tout de suite--j'insiste--Oui--oui. +Ah-h-h!" + +The last, prolonged, choking exclamation came as the cry of one who +sinks, smitten to the heart. Mrs. Eveleth was able to move at last. When +she reached the other room, Diane was crouched in a little heap on the +floor. + +"He's dead? He's dead?" the mother cried, in frenzied questioning. + +But Diane, with glazed eyes and parted lips, could only nod her head in +affirmation. + + + +II + + +During the days immediately following George Eveleth's death the two +women who loved him found themselves separated by the very quality of +their grief. While Diane's heart was clamorous with remorse, the +mother's was poignantly calm. It was generally remarked, in the +Franco-American circles where the tragedy was talked of, that Mrs. Eveleth +displayed unexpected strength of character. It was a matter of common +knowledge that she shrank from none of the terrible details it was +necessary to supervise, and that she was capable of giving her attention +to her son's practical affairs. + +It was not till a fortnight had passed that the two women came face to +face alone. The few occasions on which they had met hitherto had been +those of solemn public mourning, when the great questions between them +necessarily remained untouched. The desire to keep apart was common to +both, for neither was sufficiently mistress of herself to be ready for a +meeting. + +The first move came from Diane. During her long, speechless days of +self-upbraiding certain thoughts had been slowly forming themselves into +resolutions; but it was on impulse rather than reflection that, at last, +she summoned up strength to knock at Mrs. Eveleth's door. + +She entered timidly, expecting to find some manifestation of grief +similar to her own. She was surprised, therefore, to see her +mother-in-law sitting at her desk, with a number of businesslike +papers before her. She held a pencil between her fingers, and was +evidently in the act of adding up long rows of figures. + +"Oh, come in," she said, briefly, as Diane appeared. "Excuse me a +minute. Sit down." + +Diane seated herself by an open window looking out on the garden. It was +a hot morning toward the end of June, and from the neighboring streets +came the dull rumble of Paris. Beyond the garden, through an opening, +she could see a procession of carriages--probably a wedding on its way +to Sainte-Clotilde. It was her first realizing glimpse of the outside +world since that gray morning when she had driven home alone, and the +very fact that it could be pursuing its round indifferent to her +calamity impelled her to turn her gaze away. + +It was then that she had time to note the changes wrought in Mrs. +Eveleth; and it was like finding winter where she expected no more than +the first genial touch of autumn. The softnesses of lingering youth had +disappeared, stricken out by the hard, straight lines of gravity. Never +having known her mother-in-law as other than a woman of fashion, Diane +was awed by this dignified, sorrowing matron, who carried the sword of +motherhood in her heart. + +It was a long time before Mrs. Eveleth laid her pencil down and raised +her head. For a few minutes neither had the power of words, but it was +Diane who spoke at last. + +"I can understand," she faltered, "that you don't want to see me; but +I've come to tell you that I'm going away." + +"You're going away? Where?" + +The words were spoken gently and as if in some absence of mind. As a +matter of fact, Mrs. Eveleth was scarcely thinking of Diane's words--she +was so intent on the poor little, tear-worn face before her. She had +always known that Diane's attractions were those of coloring and +vivacity, and now that she had lost these she was like an extinguished +lamp. + +"I haven't made up my mind yet," Diane replied, "but I want you to know +that you'll be freed from my presence." + +"What makes you think I want to be--freed?" + +"You must know that I killed George. You said that night that his blood +would be on my head--and it is." + +"If I said that, I spoke under the stress of terror and excitement--" + +"You needn't try to take back the words; they were quite true." + +"True in what sense?" + +"In almost every sense; certainly in every sense that's vital. If it +hadn't been for me, George would be here now." + +"It's never wise to speculate on what might have happened if it hadn't +been for us. There's no end to the useless torture we can inflict on +ourselves in that way." + +"I don't think there ought to be an end to it." + +"Have you anything in particular to reproach yourself with?" + +"I've everything." + +"That means, then, that there's no one incident--or person--I didn't +know but--" She hesitated, and Diane took up the sentence. + +"You didn't know but what I had given George specific reason for his +act. I may as well tell you that I never did--at least not in the sense +in which you mean it. George always knew that I loved him, and that I +was true to him. He trusted me, and was justified in doing so. It wasn't +that. It was the whole thing--the whole life. There was nothing worthy +in it from the beginning to the end. I played with fire, and while +George knew it was only playing, it was fire all the same." + +"But you say you were never--burnt." + +"If I wasn't, others were. I led men on till they thought--till they +thought--I don't know how to say it--" + +"Till they thought you should have led them further?" + +"Precisely; and Bienville was one of them. It wasn't entirely his fault. +I allowed him to think--to think--oh, all sorts of things!--and then +when I was tired of him, I turned him into ridicule. I took advantage of +his folly to make him the laughing-stock of Paris; and to avenge himself +he lied. He said I had been his--No; I can't tell you." + +"I understand. You needn't tell me. You needn't tell me any more." + +"There isn't much more to tell that I can put into words. It was +always--just like that--just as it was with Bienville. He wasn't the +only one. I made coquetry a game--but a game in which I cheated. I was +never fair to any of them. It's only the fact that the others were more +honorable than Bienville that's kept what has happened now from having +happened long ago. It might have come at any time. I thought it a fine +thing to be able to trifle with passion. I didn't know I was only +trifling with death. Oh, if I had been a good woman, George would have +been with us still!" + +"You mustn't blame yourself," the mother-in-law said, speaking with some +difficulty, "for more than your own share of our troubles. I want to +talk to you quite frankly, and tell you things you've never known. The +beginning of the sorrows that have come to us dates very far back--back +to a time before you were born." + +"Oh?" + +Diane's brown eyes, swimming in tears, opened wide in a sort of mournful +curiosity. + +"I admit," Mrs. Eveleth continued, "that in the first hours of our--our +bereavement I had some such thoughts about you as you've just expressed. +It seemed to me that if you had lived differently, George might have +been spared to us. It took reflection to show me that if you _had_ lived +differently, George himself wouldn't have been satisfied. The life you +led was the one he cared for--the one I taught him to care for. The +origin of the wrong has to be traced back to me." + +"To you?" Diane uttered the words in increasing wonder. It was strange +that a first rôle in the drama could be played by any one but herself. + +"I've always thought it a little odd," Mrs. Eveleth observed, after a +brief pause, "that you've never been interested to hear about our +family." + +"I didn't know there was anything to tell," Diane answered, innocently. + +"I suppose there isn't, from your European point of view; but, as we +Americans see things, there's a good deal that's significant. Foreigners +care so little about who or what we are, so long as we have money." + +Diane raised her hand in a gesture of deprecation, intimating that such +was not her attitude of mind. + +"And I've never wanted to bore you with what, after all, wasn't +necessary for you to hear. I shouldn't do so now if it had not become +important. There's a great deal to settle and arrange." + +"I can understand that there must be business affairs," Diane murmured, +for the sake of saying something. + +"Exactly; and in order to make them clear to you, I must take you a +little further back into our history than you've ever gone before. I +want you to see how much more responsible I am than you for our +calamity. You were born into this life of Paris, while I came into it of +my own accord. You did nothing but yield naturally to the influences +around you, while I accepted them after having been fully warned. If you +knew a little more of our American ideals I should find it easier to +explain." + +"I should like to hear about them," Diane said, sympathetically. The new +interest was beginning to take her out of herself. + +"My husband and I," Mrs. Eveleth went on again, "belong to that New York +element which dates back to the time when the city was New Amsterdam, +and the State, the New Netherlands. To you that means nothing, but in +America it tells much. I was Naomi de Ruyter; my husband, on his +mother's side, was a Van Tromp." + +"Really?" Diane murmured, feeling that Mrs. Eveleth's tone of pride +required a response. "I know there's a Mr. van Tromp here--the American +banker." + +"He is of the same family as my husband's mother. For nearly three +hundred years they've lived on the island of Manhattan, and seen their +farms and pastures grow into the second city in the world. The world has +poured in on them, literally in millions. It would have submerged them +if there hadn't been something in that old stock that couldn't be kept +down. However high the tide rose, they floated on the top. My people +were thrifty and industrious. They worked hard, saved money, and lived +in simple ways. They cared little for pleasure, for beauty, or for any +of the forms of art; but, on the contrary, they lived for work, for +religion, for learning, and all the other high and serious pursuits. It +was fine; but I hated it." + +"Naturally." + +"I longed to get away from it, and when I married I persuaded my husband +to give up his profession and his home in order to establish himself +here." + +"But surely you can't regret that? You were free." + +"Only the selfish and the useless are ever free. Those who are worth +anything in this world are bound by a hundred claims upon them. They +must either stay caught in the meshes of love and duty, or wrench +themselves away--and that's what I did. Perhaps I suffered less than +many people in doing the same thing; but I cannot say that I haven't +suffered at all." + +"But you've had a happy life--till now." + +"I've had what I wanted--which may be happiness, or may not be." + +"I've heard that you were very much admired. Madame de Nohant has told +me that when you appeared at the Tuileries, no one was more graceful, +not even the Empress herself." + +"I had what I wanted," Mrs. Eveleth repeated, with a sigh. "I don't deny +that I enjoyed it; and yet I question now if I did right. When my +husband died, and George was a little boy, my friends made one last +effort to induce me to take him back, and bring him up in his own +country. I ignored their opinions, because all their views were so +different from mine. I was young and independent, and enamoured of the +life I had begun to lead. I had scruples of conscience from time to +time; but when George grew up and developed the tastes I had bred in +him, I let other considerations go. I was pleased with his success in +the little world of Paris, just as I had been flattered by my own. When +he fell in love with you I urged him to marry you, not because of +anything in yourself, but because you were Mademoiselle de la +Ferronaise, the last of an illustrious family. I looked upon the match +as a useful alliance for him and for me. I encouraged George in +extravagance. I encouraged him when he began to live in a style far more +expensive than anything to which he had been accustomed. I encouraged +him when he built this house. I wanted to impress you; I wanted you to +see that the American could give you a more splendid home than any +European you were likely to marry, however exalted his rank. I was not +without fears that George was spending too much money; but we've always +had plenty for whatever we wanted to do; and so I let him go on when I +should have stopped him. It was my vanity. It wasn't his fault. He +inherited a large fortune; and if I had only brought him up wisely, it +would have been enough." + +"And wasn't it enough?" + +In spite of her growing dread, Diane brought out the question firmly. +Mrs. Eveleth sat one long minute motionless, with hands clasped, with +lips parted, and with suspended breath. + +"No." + +The monosyllable seemed to fill the room. It echoed and re-echoed in +Diane's ears like the boom of a cannon. While her outward vision took in +such details as the despair in Mrs. Eveleth's face, the folds of crape +on her gown, the Watteau picture on the panel of moss-green and gold +that formed the background, all the realities of life seemed to be +dissolving into chaos, as the glories of the sunset sink into a black +and formless mass. When Mrs. Eveleth spoke again, her voice sounded as +though it came from far away. + +"I want to take all the blame upon myself. If it hadn't been for me, +George would never have gone to such extremes." + +"Extremes?" + +Diane spoke not so much from the desire to speak as from the necessity +of forcing her reeling intelligence back to the world of fact. + +"I'm afraid there's no other word for it." + +"Do you mean that there are debts?" + +"A great many debts." + +"Can't they be paid?" + +"Most of them can be paid--perhaps all; but when that is done I'm afraid +there will be very little left." + +"But surely we haven't lived so extravagantly as that. I know I've spent +a great deal of money--" + +"It hasn't been altogether the style of living. When my poor boy saw +that he was going beyond his means he tried to recoup himself by +speculation. Do you know what that is?" + +"I know it's something by which people lose money." + +"He had no experience of anything of the kind, and his men of business +tell me he went into it wildly. He had that optimistic temperament which +always believes that the next thing will be a success, even though the +present one is a failure. Then, too, he fell into the hands of +unscrupulous men, who made him think that great fortunes were to be made +out of what they call wildcat schemes, when all the time they were +leading him to ruin." + +Ruin! The word appealed to Diane's memory and imagination alike. It came +to her from her remotest childhood, when she could remember hearing it +applied to her grandfather, the old Comte de la Ferronaise. After that +she could recollect leaving the great château in which she was born, and +living with her parents, first in one European capital, and then in +another. Finally they settled for a few years in Ireland, her mother's +country, where both her parents died. During all this time, as well as +in the subsequent years in a convent at Auteuil, she was never free from +the sense of ruin hanging over her. Though she understood well enough +that her way of escape lay in making a rich marriage, it was impressed +upon her that the meagreness of her _dot_ would make her efforts in this +direction difficult. When, within a few months of leaving the convent, +she was asked by George Eveleth to become his wife, it seemed as if she +had reached the end of her cares. She had the less scruple in accepting +what he had to give in that she honestly liked the generous, easy-going +man who lived but to gratify her whims. During the four years of her +married life she had spent money, not merely for the love of spending, +but from sheer joy in the sense that Poverty, the arch-enemy, had been +defeated; and lo! he was springing at her again. + +"Ruin!" she echoed, when Mrs. Eveleth had let fall the word. "Do you +mean that we're--ruined?" + +"It depends on how you look at it. You will always have your own small +fortune, on which you can live with economy." + +"But you will have yours, too." + +Mrs. Eveleth smiled faintly. + +"No; I'm afraid that's gone. It was in George's hands, and I can see he +tried to increase it for me, by doing with it--as he did with his own. +I'm not blaming him. The worst of which he can be accused is a lack of +judgment." + +"But there's this house!" Diane urged, "and all this furniture!--and +these pictures!" + +She glanced up at the Watteau, the Boucher, and the Fragonard, which +gave the key to the decorations of the dainty boudoir. The faint smile +still lingered on Mrs. Eveleth's lips, as it lingers on the face of the +dead. + +"There'll be very little left," she repeated. + +"But I don't understand," Diane protested, with a perplexed movement of +the hand across her brow. "I don't know much about business, but if it +were explained to me I think I could follow." + +"Come and sit beside me at the desk," Mrs. Eveleth suggested. "You will +understand better if you see the figures just as they stand." + +She went over the main points, one by one, using the same untechnical +simplicity of language which George's men of business had employed with +herself. The facts could be stated broadly but comprehensively. When all +was settled the Eveleth estate would have disappeared. Diane would +possess her small inheritance, which was a thing apart. Mrs. Eveleth +would have a few jewels and other minor personal belongings, but nothing +more. The very completeness of the story rendered it easy in the +telling, though the largeness of the facts made it impossible for Diane +to take them in. It was an almost unreasonable tax on credulity to +attempt to think of the tall, fragile woman sitting before her, with +luxurious nurture in every pose of the figure, in every habit of the +mind, as penniless. It was trying to account for daylight without a sun. + +"It can't be!" Diane cried, when she had done her best to weigh the +facts just placed before her. + +Mrs. Eveleth shook her head, the glimmering smile fixed on her lips as +on a mask. + +"It is so, dear, I'm afraid. We must do our best to get used to it." + +"I shall never get used to it," Diane cried, springing to her +feet--"never, never!" + +"It will be hard for you to do without all you've had--when you've had +so much--but--" + +"Oh, it isn't that," Diane broke in, fiercely. "It isn't for me. I can +do well enough. It's for you." + +"Don't worry about me, dear. I can work." + +The words were spoken in a matter-of-fact tone, but Diane recoiled at +them as at a sword-thrust. + +"You can--what?" + +It was the last touch, not only of the horror of the situation, but of +its ludicrous irony. + +"I can work, dear," Mrs. Eveleth repeated, with the poignant +tranquillity that smote Diane more cruelly than grief. "There are many +things I could do--" + +"Oh, don't!" Diane wailed, with pleading gestures of the hands. "Oh, +don't! I can't bear it. Don't say such things. They kill me. There must +be some mistake. All that money can't have gone. Even if it was only a +few hundred thousand francs, it would be something. I will not believe +it. It's too soon to judge. I've heard it took a long time to settle up +estates. How can they have done it yet?" + +"They haven't. They've only seen its possibilities--and +impossibilities." + +"I will never believe it," Diane burst out again. "I will see those men. +I will tell them. I am positive that it cannot be. Such injustice would +not be permitted. There must be laws--there must be something--to +prevent such outrage--especially on you!" She spoke vehemently, striding +to and fro in the little room, and brushing back from time to time the +heavy brown hair that in her excitement fell in disordered locks on her +forehead. "It's too wicked. It's too monstrous. It's intolerable. God +doesn't allow such things to happen on earth, otherwise He wouldn't be +God! No, no; you cannot make me think that such things happen. You work! +The Mater Dolorosa herself was not called upon to bear such humiliation. +If God reigns, as they say He does--" + +"But, Diane dear," Mrs. Eveleth interrupted, gently, "isn't it true that +we owe it to George's memory to bear our troubles bravely?" + +"I'm ready to bear anything bravely--but this." + +"But isn't this the case, above all others, in which you and I should be +unflinching? Doesn't any lack of courage on our parts imply a reflection +on him?" + +"That's true," Diane said, stopping abruptly. + +"I don't know how far you honor George's memory--?" + +"George's memory? Why shouldn't I honor it?" + +"I didn't know. Some women--after what you've just discovered--" + +"I am not--some women! I am Diane Eveleth. Whatever George did I shared +it, and I share it still." + +"Then you forgive him?" + +"Forgive him?--I?--forgive him? No! What have I to forgive? Anything he +did he did for me and in order to have the more to give me--and I love +him and honor him as I never did till now." + +Mrs. Eveleth rose and stood unsteadily beside her desk. + +"God bless you for saying that, Diane." + +"There's no reason why He should bless me for saying anything so +obvious." + +"It isn't obvious to me, Diane; and you must let _me_ bless you--bless +you with the mother's blessing, which, I think, must be next to God's." + +Then opening her arms wide, she sobbed the one word "Come!" and they had +at last the comfort, dear to women, of weeping in each other's arms. + + + + +III + + +In the private office of the great Franco-American banking-house of Van +Tromp & Co., the partners, having finished their conference, were about +to separate. + +"That's all, I think," said Mr. Grimston. He rose with a jerky movement, +which gave him the appearance of a little figure shot out of a box. + +Mr. van Tromp remained seated at the broad, flat-topped desk, his head +bent at an angle which gave Mr. Grimston a view of the tips of shaggy +eyebrows, a broad nose, and that peculiar kind of protruding lower lip +before which timid people quail. As there was no response, Mr. Grimston +looked round vaguely on the sombre, handsome furnishings, fixing his +gaze at last on the lithographed portrait of Mr. van Tromp senior, the +founder of the house, hanging above the mantelpiece. + +"That's all, I think," Mr. Grimston repeated, raising his voice slightly +in order to drown the rumble that came through the open windows from the +rue Auber. + +Suddenly Mr. van Tromp looked up. + +"I've just had a letter," he said, in a tone indicating an entirely new +order of discussion, "from a person who signs herself Diana--or is it +Diane?--Eveleth." + +"Oh, Diane! She's written to you, has she?" came from Mr. Grimston, as +his partner searched with short-sighted eyes for the letter in question +among the papers on the desk. + +"You know her, then?" + +"Of course I know her. You ought to know her, too. You would, if you +didn't shut yourself up in the office, away from the world." + +"N-no, I don't recall that I've ever met the lady. Ah, here's the note, +just sit down a minute while I read it." + +Mr. Grimston shot back into his seat again, while Mr. van Tromp wiped +his large, circular glasses. + +"'Dear Mr. van Tromp,' she begins, 'I am most anxious to talk to you on +very important business, and would take it as a favor if you would let +me call on Tuesday morning and see you very privately. Yours sincerely, +Diane Eveleth.' That's all. Now, what do you make of it?" + +The straight smile, which was all the facial expression Mr. Grimston +ever allowed himself, became visible between the lines of his closely +clipped mustache and beard. He took his time before speaking, enjoying +the knowledge that this was one of those social junctures in which he +had his senior partner so conspicuously at a disadvantage. + +"It's a bad business, I'm afraid," he said, as though summing up rather +than beginning. + +"What does the woman want with me?" + +"That, I fear, is painfully evident. You must have heard of the Eveleth +smash a couple of months ago. Or--let me see!--I think it was just when +you were in New York. No; you'd be likely not to hear of it. The +Eveleths have so carefully cut their American acquaintance for so many +years that they've created a kind of vacuum around themselves, out of +which the noise of their doings doesn't easily penetrate. They belong to +that class of American Parisians who pose for going only into French +society." + +"I know the kind." + +"Mrs. Grimston could tell you all about them, of course. Equally at home +as she is in the best French and American circles, she hears a great +many things she'd rather not hear." + +"She needn't listen to 'em." + +"Unfortunately a woman in her position, with a daughter like Marion, is +obliged to listen. But that's rather the end of the story--" + +"And I want the beginning, Grimston, if you don't mind. I want to know +why this Diane should be after me." + +"She's after money," Mr. Grimston declared, bluntly. "She's after money, +and you'd better let me manage her. It would save you the trouble of the +refusal you'll be obliged to make." + +"Well, tell me about her and I'll see." + +Mr. Grimston stiffened himself in his chair and cleared his throat. + +"Diane Eveleth," he stated, with slow, significant emphasis, "is an +extremely fascinating woman. She has probably turned more men round her +little finger than any other woman in Paris." + +"Is that to her credit or her discredit?" + +"I don't want to say anything against Mrs. Eveleth," Mr. Grimston +protested. "I wish she hadn't come near us at all. As it is, you must be +forewarned." + +"I'm not particular about that, if you'll give me the facts." + +"That's not so easy. Where facts are so deucedly disagreeable, a fellow +finds it hard to trot out any poor little woman in her weaknesses. I +must make it clear beforehand that I don't want to say anything against +her." + +"It's in confidence--privileged, as the lawyers say. I sha'n't think the +worse of her--that is, not much." + +"Poor Diane," Mr. Grimston began again, sententiously, "is one of the +bits of human wreckage that have drifted down to us from the +pre-revolutionary days of French society. Her grandfather, the old Comte +de la Ferronaise, belonged to that order of irreconcilable royalists who +persist in dashing themselves to pieces against the rising wall of +democracy. I remember him perfectly--a handsome old fellow, who had lost +an arm in the Crimea. He used to do business with us when I was with +Hargous in the rue de Provence. Having impoverished himself in a plot in +favor of the Comte de Chambord, somewhere about 1872, he came utterly to +grief in raising funds for the Boulanger craze, in the train of the +Duchesse d'Uzès. He died shortly afterward, one of the last to break his +heart over the hopeless Bourbon cause." + +"That, I understand you to say, was the grandfather of the young woman +who is after money. She's a Frenchwoman, then?" + +"She's half French. That was her grandfather. The father was of much the +same type, but a lighter weight. He married an Irish beauty, a Miss +O'Hara, as poor as himself. He died young, I believe, and I'd lost sight +of the lot, till this Mademoiselle Diane de la Ferronaise floated into +view, some five years ago, in the train of the Nohant family. Her +marriage to George Eveleth, which took place almost at once, was looked +upon as an excellent thing all round. It rid the Nohants of a poor +relation, and helped to establish the Eveleths in the heart of the old +aristocracy. Since then Diane has been going the pace." + +"What pace?" + +"The pace the Eveleth money couldn't keep up with; the pace that made +her the most-talked-of woman in a society where women are talked of more +than enough; the pace that led George Eveleth to put a bullet through +his head under pretence of fighting a duel." + +"Dear me! Dear me! A most unusual young woman! Do you tell me that her +husband actually put an end to himself?" + +"So I understand. The affair was a curious one; but Bienville swears he +fired into the air, and I believe him. Besides, George Eveleth was found +shot through the temple, and no one but himself could have inflicted a +wound like that. To make it conclusive, Melcourt and Vernois, who were +seconds, testify to having seen the act, without having the time to +prevent it. You can see that it is a relief to me to be able to take +this view of the case--on poor Marion's account." + +"Marion--your daughter! Was she mixed up in the affair?" + +"Mixed up is a little to much to say. I don't mind telling you in +confidence that there was something between her and Bienville. I don't +know where it mightn't have ended; but of course when all this happened, +and we got wind of Bienville's entanglement with Mrs. Eveleth, we had to +put a stop to the thing, and pack her off to America. She'll stay there +with her aunt, Mrs. Bayford, till it blows over." + +"And your friend Bienville? Hasn't he brought himself within the +clutches of the law?" + +"George Eveleth was officially declared a suicide. He had every reason +to be one--though I don't want to say anything against Mrs. Eveleth. +When Bienville refused to put an end to him, he evidently decided to do +it himself. His family know nothing about that, so please don't let it +slip out if you see Diane. With her notions, the husband fallen in her +cause has perished on the field of honor; and if that's any comfort to +her, let her keep it. As for Bienville, he's joined young Persigny, the +explorer, in South America. By the time he returns the affair will have +been forgotten. He's a nice young fellow, and it's a thousand pities he +should have fallen into the net of a woman like Mrs. Eveleth. I don't +want to say anything against her, you understand--" + +"Oh, quite!" + +"But--" + +Mr. Grimston pronounced the word with a hard-drawn breath, and presented +the appearance of a man who restrains himself. He was still endeavoring +to maintain this attitude of repression when a discreet tap on the door +called from Mr. van Tromp a gruff "Come in." A young man entered with a +card. + +"She's here," the banker grunted, reading the name. + +Mr. Grimston shot up again. + +"Better let me see her," he insisted, in a warning tone. + +"No, no. I'll have a look at her myself. Bring the lady in," he added, +to the young man in waiting. + +"Then I'll skip," said Mr. Grimston, suiting the action to the word by +disappearing in one direction as Diane entered from another. + +Mr. van Tromp rose heavily, and surveyed her as she crossed the floor +toward him. He had been expecting some such seductive French beauty as +he had occasionally seen on the stage on the rare occasions when he went +to a play; so that the trimness of this little figure in widow's dress, +with white bands and cuffs, after the English fashion, somewhat +disconcerted him. Unaccustomed to the ways of banks, Diane half offered +her hand, but, as he was on his guard against taking it, she stood still +before him. + +"Mrs. Eveleth, I believe," he said, when he had surveyed her well. "Have +the goodness to sit down, and tell me what I can do for you." + +Diane took the seat he indicated, which left a discreet space between +them. The heavy black satchel she carried she placed on the floor beside +her. When she raised her veil, Mr. van Tromp observed to himself that +the pale face, touching in expression, and the brown eyes, in which +there seemed to lurk a gentle reproach against the world for having +treated her so badly, were exactly what he would have expected in a +woman coming to borrow money. + +"I've come to you, Mr. van Tromp," Diane began, timidly, "because I +thought that perhaps--you might know--who I am." + +"I don't know anything at all about you," was the not encouraging +response. + +"Of course there's no reason why you should--" Diane hastened to say, +apologetically. + +"None whatever," he assured her. + +"Only that a good many people do know us--" + +"I dare say. I haven't the honor to be among the number." + +"And I thought that possibly--just possibly--you might be predisposed in +my favor." + +"A banker is never predisposed in favor of any one--not even his own +flesh and blood." + +"I didn't know that," Diane persisted, bravely, "otherwise I might just +as well have gone to anybody else." + +"Just as well." + +"Would you like me to go now?" + +The question took him by surprise, and before replying he looked at her +again with queer, bulgy eyes peering through big circular glasses, in a +way that made Diane think of an ogre in a fairy tale. + +"You're not here for what I like," he said at last, "but for what you +want yourself." + +"That's true," Diane admitted, ruefully, "but I might go away. I _will_ +go away, if you say so." + +"You'll please yourself. I didn't send for you, and I'll not tell you to +go. How old are you?" + +It was Diane's turn to be surprised, but she brought out her age +promptly. + +"Twenty-four." + +"You look older." + +"That's because I've had so much trouble, perhaps. It's because we're in +trouble that I've come to you, Mr. van Tromp." + +"I dare say. I didn't suppose you'd come to ask me to dinner. There are +not many days go by without some one expecting me to pull him out of the +scrape he would never have got into if it hadn't been for his own +fault." + +"I'm afraid that's very like my case." + +"It's like a good many cases. You're no exception to the rule." + +"And what do you do at such times, if I may ask?" + +"You may ask, but I'll not tell you. You're here on your own business, I +presume, and not on mine." + +"I thought that perhaps you'd be good enough to make mine yours. Though +we've never met, I have seen you at various times, and it always seemed +to me that you looked kind; and so--" + +"Stop right there, ma'am!" he cried, putting up a warning hand. "'Most +important business,' was what you said in your note, otherwise I +shouldn't have consented to see you. If you have any business, state it, +and I'll say yes or no, as it strikes me. But I'll tell you beforehand +that there isn't a chance in a thousand but what it'll be no." + +"I did come because I thought you looked kind," Diane declared, +indignantly, "and if you think it was for any other reason whatever, +you're absolutely mistaken." + +"Then we'll let it be. I can't help my looks, nor what you think about +them. The point is that you're here for something; so let's know what it +is." + +"You make it very hard for me," Diane said, almost tearfully, "but I'll +try. I must tell you, first of all, that we've lost a great deal of +money." + +"That's no new situation." + +"It is to me; and it's even more so to my poor mother-in-law. I should +think you must have heard of her at least. She is Mrs. Arthur Eveleth. +Her maiden name was Naomi de Ruyter, of New York." + +"Very likely." + +"Her husband was related, on his mother's side, to the Van Tromps--the +same family as your own." + +"That's more likely still. There are as many Van Tromps in New York as +there are shrimps on the Breton coast, and they're all related to me, +because I'm supposed to have a little money." + +"I sha'n't let you offend me," Diane said, stoutly, "because I want your +help." + +"That's a very good reason." + +"But since you take so little interest in us I will not attempt to +explain how it is that we've come to such misfortune." + +"I'll take that for granted." + +"The blow has fallen more heavily on my mother-in-law than on me. She +has lost everything she had in the world; while I have still my own +money--my _dot_--and a little over from the sale of my jewels." + +"Well?" + +"If you'd ever seen her, you would know how terrible, how impossible, +such a situation is for her. She's the sort of woman who ought to have +money--who _must_ have money. And so I thought if I came to you--" + +"I'd give her some." + +"No," Diane said, quickly, with a renewed touch of indignation, "but +that you'd help me to do it." + +He looked at her with an odd, upward glance under his shaggy, +overhanging brows, while the protruding lower lip went a shade further +out. + +"Help you to do it? How?" + +"By letting her have mine." + +Again he looked at her, almost suspiciously. + +"You've got plenty to give away, I suppose?" + +"On the contrary, I've pitifully little; but such as it is, I want her +to have it all. She could live on it--with economy; or at least she says +I could." + +"And can't you?" + +"I don't want to. As there isn't enough for two, I wish to settle it on +her. Isn't that the word?--settle?" + +"It'll do as well as another. And what do you propose to do yourself?" + +"Work." + +Diane forced the word in a little gasp of humiliation, but she got it +out. + +"And what'll you work at?" + +"I don't know yet, exactly. I shall have to see. My mother-in-law is +going to America; and when she does I'll join her." + +"Humph! My good woman, you wouldn't do more than just keep ahead of +starvation." + +"Oh, I shouldn't expect to do more. If I succeeded in that--I should +live." + +"How much money have you got?" + +"It's all here," she answered, picking up the black satchel and opening +it. "These are my securities, and I'm told they're very good." + +"And do you take them round with you every time you go shopping?" + +"No," Diane smiled, somewhat wanly. "They've been in the hands of the +Messrs. Hargous for a good many years past. They are entirely at my own +disposal--not in trust, they said; so that I had a right to take them +away. I thought I would just bring them to you." + +"What for?" + +"To keep them for my mother-in-law and pay her the interest, or whatever +it is." + +"Why didn't you leave them with Hargous?" + +"I was afraid, from some things he said, he would object to what I +wanted to do." + +"And what made you think I wouldn't object to it, too?" + +"Two or three reasons. First, Monsieur Hargous is not an American, and +you are; and I'd been told that Americans always like to help one +another--" + +"I don't know who could have put that notion into your head." + +"And, then, from the few glimpses I've had of you--I _will_ say it!--I +thought you looked kind." + +"Well, now that you've had a better look, you see I don't. How much +money have you got? You haven't told me that yet." + +"Here's the memorandum. They said they were mostly bonds, and very good +ones." + +[Illustration: DRAWN BY FRANK CRAIG +THE BANKER TOOK A LONGER TIME THAN WAS NECESSARY TO SCAN THE POOR LITTLE +LIST] + +With the slip of paper in his hand the banker leaned back in the chair, +and took a longer time than was necessary to scan the poor little list. +In reality he was turning over in his mind the unexpected features of +the case, venturing a peep at Diane as she sat meekly awaiting the end +of his perusal. + +"Hasn't it occurred to you," he asked, at last, "that you could leave +your affairs in Hargous' hands, and still turn over to your +mother-in-law whatever sums he paid you?" + +"Yes; but she wouldn't take the money unless she thought it was her very +own." + +"But it isn't her very own. It's yours." + +"I want to make it hers. I want to transfer it to her absolutely--so +that no one else, not even I, shall have a claim upon it. There must be +ways of doing that." + +"There are ways of doing that, but as far as she's concerned it comes to +the same thing. If she won't touch the income, she will refuse to accept +the principal." + +"I've thought of that, too; and it's among the reasons why I've come to +you. I hoped you'd help me--" + +"To tell a lie about it." + +"I should think it might be done without that. My mother-in-law is a +very simple woman in business affairs. She has been used all her life to +having money paid into her account, when she had only the vaguest idea +as to where it came from. If you should write to her now and say that +some small funds in her name were in your hands, and that you would pay +her the income at stated intervals, nothing would seem more natural to +her. She would probably attribute it to some act of foresight on her +son's part, and never think I had anything to do with it at all." + +For three or four minutes he sat in meditation, still glancing at her +furtively under his shaggy brows, while she waited for his decision. + +"I don't approve of it at all," he said, at last. + +"Don't say that," she pleaded. "I've hoped so much that you'd--" + +"At the same time I won't say that the thing isn't feasible. I'll just +verify these bonds and certificates, and--" + +He took them, one by one, from the bag, and, having compared them with +the list, replaced them. + +"And," he continued, "you can come and see me again at this time +to-morrow." + +"Oh, thank you!" + +"You can thank me when I've done something--not before. Very likely I +sha'n't do anything at all. But in the mean while you may leave your +satchel here, and not run the risk of being robbed in the street. If I +refuse you to-morrow--as is probable I shall--I'll send a man with you +to see you and your money safely back to Hargous." + +He touched a bell, and a young man entered. On directions from the +banker the clerk left the room, taking the bag with him; while Diane, +feeling that her errand had been largely accomplished, rose to leave. + +"You can't go without the receipt for your securities. How do you know +I'm not stealing them from you? What right would you have to claim them +when you came again? Sit down now and tell me something more about +yourself." + +Half smiling, half tearfully, Diane complied. Before the clerk returned +she had given a brief outline of her life, agreeing in all but the tone +of telling with much of what Mr. Grimston had stated half an hour +earlier. + +"It has been all my fault," she declared, as the young man re-entered. +"There's been nobody to blame but me." + +"I see that well enough," the old man agreed, and once more she prepared +to depart. + +"Look at your receipt. Compare it with the list there on the desk." +Diane obeyed, though her eyes swam so that she could not tell one word +from another. "Is it all right? Then so much the better. You'll find me +at the same time to-morrow--if you're not late." + +"Since you won't let me thank you, I must go without doing so," she +began, tremulously, "but I assure you--" + +"You needn't assure me of anything, but just come again to-morrow." + +She smiled through the mist over her eyes, and bowed. + +"I shall not be--late," was all she ventured to say, and turned to leave +him. + +She had reached the door, and half opened it, when she heard his voice +behind her. + +"Stay! Just a minute! I'd like to shake hands with you, young woman." + +Diane turned and allowed him to take her hand in a grip that hurt her. +She was so astounded by the suddenness of the act, as well as by the +rapidity with which he closed the door behind her, that her tears did +not actually fall until she found herself in the public department of +the bank, outside. + + + + +IV + + +On board the _Picardie_, steaming to New York, Mrs. Eveleth and Diane +were beginning to realize the gravity of the step they had taken. As +long as they remained in Paris, battling with the sordid details of +financial downfall, America had seemed the land of hope and +reconstruction, where the ruined would find to their hands the means +with which to begin again. The illusion had sustained them all through +the first months of living on little, and stood by them till the very +hour of departure. It faded just when they had most need of it--when the +last cliffs of France went suddenly out of sight in a thick fog-bank of +nothingness; and the cold, empty void, through which the steamer crept +cautiously, roaring from minute to minute like a leviathan in pain, +seemed all that the universe henceforth had to offer them. They would +have been astonished to know that, beyond the fog, Fate was getting the +New World ready for their reception, by creating among the rich those +misfortunes out of which not infrequently proceed the blessings of the +poor. + +When that excellent aged lady, Miss Regina van Tromp, sister to the +well-known Paris banker, was felled by a stroke of apoplexy, the +personal calamity might, by a mind taking all things into account, have +been considered balanced by the circumstance that it was affording +employment to some refined woman of reduced means, capable of taking +care of the invalid. It had the further advantage that, coming suddenly +as it did, it absorbed the attention of Miss Lucilla van Tromp, the sick +lady's companion and niece, who became unable henceforth to give to the +household of her cousin, Derek Pruyn, that general supervision which a +kindly old maid can exercise in the home of a young and prosperous +widower. Were Destiny on the lookout for still another opening, she +could have found it in the fact that Miss Dorothea Pruyn, whose father's +discipline came by fits and starts, while his indulgence was continuous, +had reached a point in motherless maidenhood where, according to Miss +Lucilla, "something ought to be done." There was thus unrest, and a +straining after new conditions, in that very family toward which Mrs. +Eveleth's imagination turned from this dreary, leaden sea as to a +possible haven. + +Since the wonderful morning when the banker had brought her the news of +her little inheritance her thoughts had dwelt much on Van Tromps and +Pruyns, as representatives of that old New York clan with which she +deigned to claim alliance; and she found no small comfort in going over, +again and again, the details of the interview which had brought her once +more into contact with her kin. James van Tromp, she informed Diane, as +they lay covered with rugs in their steamer-chairs, had been gruff in +manner, but kind in heart, like all the Van Tromps she had ever heard +of. He had not scrupled to dwell upon her past extravagance, but he had +tempered his remarks by commending her resolution to return to her old +home and friends. In the matter of friends, he assured her, she would +find herself with very few. She would be forgotten by some and ignored +by others; while those who still took an interest in her would resent +the fact that in the days of her prosperity she had neglected them. In +any case, she must have the meekness of the suppliant. As her means at +most would be small, she must be grateful if any of her relatives would +take her without wages, as a sort of superior lady's maid, and save her +the expense of board and lodging. + +"And so you see, dear," she finished, humbly, "it's going to be all +right. George thought of me; and far more than any money, I value that. +James van Tromp said that this sum had been placed in his hands some +time ago to be specially used for me, and I couldn't help understanding +what that meant. When my boy saw the disaster coming he did his best to +protect me; and it will be my part now to show that he did enough." + +If Diane listened to these familiar remarks, it was only to take a dull +satisfaction in the working of her scheme; but Mrs. Eveleth's next words +startled her into sudden attention. + +"Haven't I heard you say that you knew James van Tromp's nephew, Derek +Pruyn?" + +"I did know him," Diane answered, with a trace of hesitation. + +"You knew him well?" + +"Not exactly; it was different from--well." + +"Different? How? Did you meet him often?" + +"Never often; but when we did meet--" + +The possibilities implied in Diane's pause induced Mrs. Eveleth to turn +in her chair and look at her. + +"You've never told me about that." + +"There wasn't much to tell. Don't you know what it is to have met, just +a few times in your life, some one who leaves behind a memory out of +proportion to the degree of the acquaintance? It was something like that +with this Mr. Pruyn." + +"Where was it? In Paris?" + +"I met him first in Ireland. He was staying with some friends of ours +the last year mamma and I lived at Kilrowan. What I remember about him +was that he seemed so young to be a widower--scarcely more than a boy." + +"Is that all?" + +"It's very nearly all; but there _is_ something more. He said one day +when we were talking intimately--we always seemed to talk intimately +when we were together--that if ever I was in trouble, I was to remember +him." + +"How extraordinary!" + +"Yes, it was. I reminded him of it when we met again. That was the year +I was going out with Marie de Nohant, just before George and I were +married." + +"And what did he say then?" + +"That he repeated the request." + +"Extraordinary!" Mrs. Eveleth commented again. "Are you going to do +anything about it?" + +"I've thought of it," Diane admitted, "but I don't believe I can." + +"Wouldn't it be a pity to neglect so good an opportunity?" + +"It might rather be a pity to avail one's self of it. There are things +in life too pleasant to put to the test." + +"He might like you to do it. After all, he's a connection." + +Not caring to continue the subject, Diane murmured something about +feeling cold, and rose for a little exercise. Having advanced as far +forward as she could go, she turned her back upon her fellow-passengers, +stretched in mute misery in their chairs or huddled in cheerful groups +behind sheltering projections, and stood watching the dip and rise of +the steamer's bow as it drove onward into the mist. Whither was she +going, and to what? With a desperate sense of her ignorance and +impotence, she strained her eyes into the white, dimly translucent bank, +from which stray drops repeatedly lashed her face, as though its +vaporous wall alone stood between her and the knowledge of her future. + + * * * * * + +If she could have seen beyond the fog and carried her vision over the +intervening leagues of ocean, so as to look into a large, old-fashioned +New York house in Gramercy Park, she would have found Derek Pruyn and +Lucilla van Tromp discussing one of the cardinal points on which that +future was to turn. + +That it was not an amusing conversation would have been clear from the +agitation of Derek's manner as he strode up and down the room, as well +as from the rigidity with which his cousin, usually a limp person, held +herself erect, in the attitude of a woman who has no intention of +retiring from the stand she has taken. + +"You force me to speak more plainly than I like, Derek," she was saying, +"because you make yourself so obtuse. You seem to forget that years have +a way of passing, and that Dorothea is no longer a very little girl." + +"She's barely seventeen--no more than a child." + +"But a motherless child, and one who has been allowed a great deal of +liberty." + +"Is there any reason why a girl shouldn't be a free creature?" + +"Only the reason why a boy shouldn't be one." + +"That's different. A boy would be getting into mischief." + +"Even a girl isn't proof against that possibility. It mayn't be a boy's +kind of mischief, but it's a kind of her own." + +Unwilling to credit this statement, and yet unable to contradict it, +Pruyn continued his march for a minute or two in silence, while Miss +Lucilla waited nervously for him to speak again. It was one of the few +points in the round of daily existence on which she was prepared to give +him battle. It was part of the ridiculous irony of life that Derek, with +the domestic incompetency natural to a banker and a club-man, should +have a daughter to train, while she whose instinct was so passionately +maternal must be doomed to spinsterhood. She had never made any secret +of the fact that to watch Derek bringing up Dorothea made her as fidgety +as if she had seen him trimming hats, though she recognized the futility +of trying to snatch the task from his hands in order to do it properly. +The utmost she had been able to accomplish was to be allowed to plod +daily from Gramercy Park to Fifth Avenue, in the hope of keeping bad +from becoming worse; and even this insufficient oversight must be +discontinued now, since Aunt Regina would monopolize her care. If she +took the matter to heart, it was no more, she thought, than she had a +right to do, seeing that Derek was almost like a younger brother, and, +with the exception of Uncle James in Paris, and Aunt Regina in New York, +her nearest relative in the world. + +As she glanced up at him from time to time she reflected, with some +pride, that no one could have taken him for anything but what he was--a +rising young New York banker of some hereditary line. As in certain +English portraits there is an inborn aptitude for statesmanship, so in +Derek Pruyn there was that air, almost inseparable from the Van Tromp +kinship, of one accustomed to possess money, to make money, to spend +money, and to support moneyed responsibilities. The face, slightly stern +by nature, slightly grave by habit, and tanned by outdoor exercise, was +that of a man who wields his special kind of power with a due sense of +its importance, and yet wields it easily. Nature having endowed the Van +Tromps with every excellence but that of good looks, it was Miss +Lucilla's tendency to depreciate beauty; but she was too much a woman +not to be sensible of the charms of six feet two, with proportionate +width of shoulder, and a way of standing straight and looking straight, +incompatible with anything but "acting straight," that was full of a +fine dominance. That he should be carefully dressed was but a detail in +the exactitude which was the main element in his character; while his +daily custom of wearing in his button-hole a dark-red carnation, a token +of some never-explained memory of his dead wife, indicated a capacity +for sober romance which she did not find displeasing. + +"Then what would you do about it?" he asked, at last, pausing abruptly +in his walk and confronting her. + +"There isn't much choice, Derek. Human society is so constituted as to +leave us very little opportunity for striking into original paths. Aunt +Regina has told you many a time what was possible, and you didn't like +it; but I'll repeat it if you wish. You could send her to a good +boarding-school--" + +Never! + +"Or you could have a lady to chaperon her properly." + +"Rubbish!" + +"Well, there you are, Derek. You refuse the only means that could help +you in your situation; and so you leave Dorothea a prey to a woman like +Mrs. Wappinger. You'll excuse me for mentioning it; but--" + +"I'd excuse you for mentioning anything; but even Mrs. Wappinger ought +to have justice. You know as well as I do that Uncle James wanted to +marry her, and that it was only her own common-sense that saved us from +having her as an aunt. You may not admire her type, but you can't deny +that it's one which has a legitimate place in American civilization. +Ours isn't a society that can afford to exclude the self-made man, or +his widow." + +"That may be quite true, Derek; only in that case you have also to +reckon with--his son." + +Derek bounded away once more, making manifest efforts to control himself +before he spoke again. + +"You know this subject is most distasteful to me, Lucilla," he said, +severely. + +"I know it is; and it's equally so to me. But I see what's going on, and +you don't--there's the difference. What should a young man like you know +about bringing up a school-girl? To see you intrusted with her at all +makes me very nearly doubt the wisdom of the ends of Providence. She's a +good little girl by nature, but your indulgence would spoil an angel." + +"I don't indulge her. I've forbidden her to do lots of things." + +"Exactly; you come down on the poor thing when she's not doing any harm, +and you put no restrictions on the things in which she's wilful. If +there's a girl on earth who is being brought up backward, it's Dorothea +Pruyn." + +"She's my child. I presume I've got a right to do what I like with her." + +"You'll find that you've done what you don't like with her, when you've +allowed her to get into a ridiculous, unmaidenly flirtation with the +young man Wappinger." + +"I shouldn't let that distress me if I were you. As far as Dorothea is +concerned, your young man Wappinger doesn't exist." + +"That's as it may be," Miss Lucilla sniffed, now on the brink of tears. + +"That's as it is," he insisted, picking up his hat. + +"It's to be regretted," he added, with dignity, as he took his leave, +"that on this subject you and I cannot see alike; but I think you may +trust me not to endanger the happiness of my child." + + * * * * * + +Even if Diane could have transcended space to assist at this brief +interview, she would probably have missed its bearing on herself; but +had she transported her spirit at the same instant to still another +scene, the effect would have been more enlightening. While she still +stood watching the rise and dip of the steamer's bow, Mrs. Wappinger, in +a larger and more elaborate mansion than the old-fashioned house in +Gramercy Park, was reading to her son such portions of a letter from +James van Tromp as she considered it discreet for him to hear. A stout, +florid lady, in jovial middle age, her appearance as an agent in her +affairs would certainly have surprised Diane, had the vision been +vouchsafed to her. + +Passing over those sentences in which the old man admitted the wisdom of +her decision in rejecting his proposals, on the ground that he saw now +that the married state would not have suited him, Mrs. Wappinger came to +what was of common interest. + +"'... You will remember, my good friend,'" she read, with a strong +Western accent, "'that both at the time of, and since, your husband's +death I have been helpful to you in your business affairs, and laid you +under some obligation to me. I have, therefore, no scruple in asking you +to fulfil a few wishes of mine, in token of such gratitude as I conceive +you to feel. There will arrive in your city by the steamer _Picardie_, +on the twenty-eighth day of this month, two foolish women, answering to +the name of Eveleth--mother-in-law and daughter-in-law--both widows--and +presenting the sorry spectacle of Naomi and Ruth returning to the Land +of Promise, after a ruinous sojourn in a foreign country--with whose +history you are familiar from your reading of the Scriptures.'" + +"Is there a Bible in the house, mother?" Carli Wappinger asked, swinging +himself on the piano-stool. + +"I think there must be--somewhere. There used to be one. But, hush! Let +me go on. 'They will descend,'" she continued to read, "'at a modest +French hostelry in University Place, to which I have commended them, as +being within their means. I desire, first, that you will make their +acquaintance at your earliest possible convenience. I desire, next, that +you will invite them to your house on some occasion, presumably in the +afternoon, when you can also ask my nephew, Derek Pruyn, and Lucilla van +Tromp, my niece, to meet them. I desire, furthermore, that though you +may use my name to the Mesdames Eveleth, as a passport to their +presence, you will in no wise speak of me to my relatives in question, +or give them to understand that I have inspired the invitation you will +accord them....'" + +Mrs. Wappinger threw down the letter with the emphasis of gesture which +was one of her characteristics. + +"There!" she exclaimed, in a loud, hearty voice, not without a note of +triumph; "that's what I call a chance." + +"Chance for what, mother?" + +"Chance for a good many things--and first of all for bearding Lucilla +van Tromp right in her own den." + +"I don't see--" + +"No; but I do. We're on to a big thing. I've got to go right there; and +she's got to come right here. She's held off, and she's kept me off; but +now the ice'll be broken with a regular thaw." + +"Still, I don't see. It's one thing to invite her, to oblige old man Van +Tromp; but it's another thing to get her to come." + +"She'll come fast enough--this time; she'll come as if she was shot here +by a secret spring. There is a secret spring, you may take my word for +it. I don't know what it is, and I don't care; it's enough for me to +know that it's in good working order--which it is, if James van Tromp +has got his hand on it. James van Tromp may look like a fool and talk +like a fool, but he isn't a fool--No, sir!" + +It is commonly believed that a woman never thinks otherwise than gently +of the man who has wanted to marry her; and if this be the rule, Mrs. +Wappinger was no exception to it. As she sat on the sofa in her son's +room, the mere mention of the old man's name, attended by the kindly +opinion she had just expressed, sent her off into sudden reverie. While +it was quite true that, in her own phrase, she "would no more have +married him than she would have married a mole," it was none the less +flattering to have been desired. The onlooker, like Lucilla van Tromp or +Derek Pruyn, might wonder what were those hidden forces of affinity +which led a man to single Mrs. Wappinger out of all the women in the +world; but to Mrs. Wappinger herself the circumstance could not be +otherwise than pleasing. + +Seeing her pensive, Carli swung himself back to the keyboard again, +pounding out a few bars of the dance music in Strauss' _Salome_, of +which the score lay open before him. He was a good-looking young man of +twenty-two, of whom any mother, not too exacting, might be proud. Very +blond--with well-chiselled features and waving hair--not so tall as to +make his excessive slimness seem disproportionate--there was something +in the perfection with which he was "turned out" that gave him the air +of a "creation." Mrs. Wappinger's joy in him was the more satisfying +because of the fact that, relative to herself, he was in the line of +progress. He was the blossom of culture, travel, and sport, borne by her +own strenuous generation of successful material effort. To the things to +which he had attained she felt that in a certain sense she had attained +herself, on the principle of _facit per alium, facit per se._ In the +social position she had reached it was a pleasure to know that Harvard, +Europe, and money had given Carli a refinement that made up in some +measure for her own deficiencies. + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" he asked, breaking off in the +midst of the cruel ecstasy of the daughter of Herodias, and swinging +himself back, so as to confront her. + +"I'm going to give a little tea," Mrs. Wappinger answered, with +decision; "a _tay antime,_ as the French say. I shall have these two +Eveleths--or whatever their name is--Lucilla van Tromp, and Derek and +Dorothea Pruyn." + +"You may accomplish the first and the last. You'll find it difficult to +fill in the middle. To say nothing of the old girl, Derek Pruyn is too +busy for teas--_intime_, or otherwise." + +"I'm going to have him," she stated, with energy. + +"You go round and tell Dorothea she's got to bring him--she's just got +to, that's all. He'll come--I know he will. There are forces at work +here that you and I don't see, and if something doesn't happen, my name +isn't Clara Wappinger." + +With this mysterious saying she rose, to leave Carli to his music. + +"How very occult!" he laughed. + +"Nobody knows James van Tromp better than I do," she declared, with +pride, turning on the threshold, "and he doesn't write that way unless +he has a plan in mind. You tell Dorothea what I say. Let me see! To-day +is Tuesday; the _Picardie_ will get in on Saturday; you'll see Dorothea +on Sunday; and we'll have the tea on Thursday next." + +With her habitual air of triumphant decision Mrs. Wappinger departed, +and the incident closed. + + + + +V + + +It must be admitted that Diane Eveleth found her entry into the Land of +Promise rather disappointing. To outward things she paid comparatively +little heed. The general aspect of New York was what she had seen in +pictures and expected. That habits and customs should be strange to her +she took as a matter of course; and she was too eager for a welcome to +be critical. As a Frenchwoman, she was neither curious nor analytical +regarding that which lay outside her immediate sphere of interest, and +she instituted no comparisons between Broadway and the boulevards, or +any of the tall buildings and Notre Dame. It may be confessed that her +thoughts went scarcely beyond the human element, with its possible +bearing on her fortunes. + +In this respect she made the discovery that Mrs. Eveleth was not to be +taken as an authority. She had given Diane to understand that the return +of Naomi de Ruyter to New York would be a matter of civic interest, +"especially among the old families," and that they would scarcely have +landed before finding themselves amid people whom she knew. But forty +years had made a difference, and Mrs. Eveleth recognized no familiar +faces in the crowd congregated on the dock. When it became further +evident that not only was Naomi de Ruyter forgotten in the city of her +birth, but that the very landmarks she remembered had been swept away, +there was a moment of disillusion, not free from tears. + +To Diane the discovery meant only that, more than she had supposed, she +would have to depend upon herself. This, to her, was the appalling fact +that dwarfed all other considerations. To be alone, while the crowds +surged hurriedly by her, was one thing; to be obliged to press in among +them and make room for herself was another. As she walked aimlessly +about the streets during the few days following her arrival she had the +forlorn conviction that in these serried ranks there could be no place +for one so insignificant as she. The knowledge that she must make such a +place, or go without food and shelter, only served to paralyze her +energies and reduce her to a state of nerveless inefficiency. + +She had gone forth one day with the letters of introduction she hoped +would help her, only to find that none of the persons to whom they were +addressed had returned to town for the winter. Tired and discouraged, +she was endeavoring on her return to cheer Mrs. Eveleth with such bits +of forced humor as she could squeeze out of the commonplace happenings +of the day, when cards were brought in, bearing the unknown name of Mrs. +Wappinger. + +That in this huge, overwhelming town any one could desire to make their +acquaintance was in itself a surprise; but in the interview that +followed Diane felt as though she had been caught up in a whirlwind and +carried away. Mrs. Wappinger's autocratic breeziness was so novel in +character that she had no more thought of resisting it than of resisting +a summer storm. She could only let it blow over her and bear her whither +it listed. In the end she felt like some wayfarer in the _Arabian +Nights_, who has been wafted by kindly _jinn_ across unknown miles of +space, and set down again many leagues farther on in his career. + +Never in her life did Diane receive in the same amount of time so much +personal information as Mrs. Wappinger conveyed in the thirty minutes +her visit lasted. She began by explaining that she was a friend of James +van Tromp's--a very great friend. In fact, her husband had been at one +time a partner in the Van Tromp banking-house; but it was an old +business, and what they call conservative, while Mr. Wappinger was from +the West. The West was a long way ahead of New York, though Mrs. +Wappinger had "lived East" so long that she had dropped into walking +pace like the rest. She traced her rise from a comparatively obscure +position in Indiana to her present eminence, and gave details as to Mr. +Wappinger's courtship and the number of children she had lost. Left now +with one, she had spent a good deal of money on him, and was happy to +say that he showed it. While she preferred not to name names, she made +no secret of the fact that Carli was in love; though for her own part a +feeling of wounded pride induced her to hope that he would never enter a +family where he wasn't wanted. The transition of topic having thus +become easy, the invitation to tea was given, and its acceptance taken +as a matter of course. + +"It'll only be a _tay antime_," she declared, in answer to Diane's faint +protests, "so you needn't be afraid to come; and as I never do things by +halves, I shall send one of my automobiles for the old lady and you at a +little after four to-morrow." With these words and a hearty shake of the +hand, she bustled away as suddenly as she had come, leaving Diane with a +bewildering sense of having beheld an apparition. + + * * * * * + +It was not less surprising to Diane to find herself, on the following +afternoon, face to face with Derek Pruyn. Though she had expected, in so +far as she thought of him at all, that chance would one day throw them +together, she had not supposed that the event would occur so soon. The +lack of preparation, the change in her fortunes, and the necessity to +explain, combined to bring about one of those rare moments in which she +found herself at a loss. + +On his side, Pruyn had come to the house with a very special purpose. In +spite of the stoutness of his protest when young Wappinger's name was +coupled with his child's, he was not without some inward misgivings, +which he resolved to allay once and for all. He would dispel them by +seeing with his own eyes that they had no force, while he would convict +Miss Lucilla of groundless alarm by ocular demonstration. It would be +enough, he was sure, to watch the young people together to prove beyond +cavil that Dorothea was aware of the gulf between the son of Mrs. +Wappinger, worthy woman though she might be, and a daughter of the +Pruyns. He had, therefore, astonished every one not only by accepting +the invitation himself, but by insisting that Miss Lucilla should do the +same, forcing her thus to become a witness to the vindication of his +wisdom. + +Arrived on the spot, however, it vexed him to find that instead of being +a mere spectator, permitted to take notes at his ease, he was passed +from lady to lady--Mrs. Wappinger, Miss Lucilla, Mrs. Eveleth, in +turn--only to find himself settled down at last with a strange young +woman in widow's weeds, in a dim corner of the drawing-room. The meeting +was the more abrupt owing to the circumstance that Diane, unaware of his +arrival, had just emerged from the adjoining ball-room, which was +decorated for a dance. Mrs. Wappinger, coming forward at that minute +with a cup of tea for her, pronounced their names with hurried +indistinctness, and left them together. + +With her quick eye for small social indications, Diane saw that, owing +to the dimness of the room and the nature of her dress, he did not know +her, while he resented the necessity for talking to one person, when he +was obviously looking about for another. With her tea-cup in her hand +she slipped into a chair, so that he had no choice but to sit down +beside her. + +He was not what is called a lady's man, and in the most fluent of moods +his supply of easy conversation was small. On the present occasion he +felt the urgency of speech without inspiration to meet the need. With a +furtive flutter of the eyelids, while she sipped her tea, she took in +the salient changes the last five years had produced in him, noting in +particular that though slightly older he had improved in looks, and that +the dark-red carnation still held its place in his buttonhole. + +"Very unseasonable weather for the time of year," he managed to stammer, +at last. + +"Is it? I hadn't noticed." + +His manner took on a shade of dignity still more severe, as he wondered +whether this reply was a snub or a mere ineptitude. + +"You don't worry about such trifles as the weather," he struggled on. + +"Not often." + +"May I ask how you escape the necessity?" + +"By having more pressing things to think about." With the finality of +this reply the brief conversation dropped, though the perception on +Derek's part that it was not from her inability to carry it on stirred +him to an unusual feeling of pique. Most of the women he met were ready +to entertain him without putting him to any exertion whatever. They even +went so far as to manifest a disposition to be agreeable, before which +he often found it necessary to retire. Without being fatuous on the +point, he could not be unaware of the general conviction that a wealthy +widower, who could still call himself young, must be in want of a wife; +and as long as he was unconscious of the need himself, he judged it wise +to be as little as possible in feminine society. On the rare occasions +when he ventured therein he was not able to complain of a lack of +welcome; nor could he remember an instance in which his hesitating, +somewhat scornful, advances had not been cordially met, until to-day. +The immediate effect was to cause him to look at Diane with a closer, if +somewhat haughty, attention, their eyes meeting as he did so. Her voice, +with its blending of French and Irish elements, had already made its +appeal to his memory, so that the minute was one in which the +presentiment of recognition came before the recognition itself. In his +surprise he half arose from his chair, resuming his seat as he +exclaimed: + +"It's Mademoiselle de la Ferronaise!" + +His astonished tone and awe-struck manner called to Diane's lips a +little smile. + +"It used to be," she said, trying to speak naturally; "it's Mrs. Eveleth +now." + +"Yes," he responded, with the absent air of a man getting his wits +together; "I remember; that was the name." + +"You knew, then, that I'd been married?" + +"Yes; but I didn't know--" + +His glance at her dress finished the sentence, and she hastened to +reply. + +"No; of course not. My husband died at the beginning of last summer--six +months ago. I hoped some one would have told you before we met. But we +have not many common acquaintances, have we?" + +"I hope we may have more now--if you're making a visit to New York." + +"I'm making more than a visit; I expect to stay." + +"Oh! Do you think you'll like that?" + +"It isn't a question of liking; it's a question of living. I may as well +tell you at once that since my husband's death I have my own bread to +earn." + +To no Frenchwoman of her rank in life could this statement have been an +easy one, but by making it with a certain quiet outspokenness she hoped +to cover up her foolish sense of shame. The moment was not made less +difficult for her by the astonishment, mingled with embarrassment, with +which he took her remark. + +"You!" he cried. "You!" + +"It isn't anything very unusual, is it?" she smiled. + +"I'm not the first person in the world to make the attempt." + +"And may I ask if you're succeeding?" + +"I haven't begun yet. I only arrived a few days ago. + +"Oh, I see. You've come here--" + +"In the hope of finding employment--just like the rest of the +disinherited of the earth. I hope to give French lessons, and--" + +"There's always an opening to any one who can," he interrupted, +encouragingly. "I'm not without influence in one or two good schools +that my daughter has attended--" + +"Is that your daughter?" she asked, glad to escape from her subject, now +that it was stated plainly--"the very pretty girl in red?" + +The question gave Pruyn the excuse he wanted or looking about him. + +"I believe she's in red--but I don't see her." + +He searched the dimly lighted room, where Mrs. Wappinger sat, silent and +satisfied, behind her tea-table, while Mrs. Eveleth was conversing with +Lucilla on Knickerbocker genealogy; but neither of the young people was +to be seen. His look of anxiety did not escape Diane, who responded to +it with her usual straightforward promptness. + +"I fancy she's still in the ball-room with young Mr. Wappinger," she +explained. "We were all there a few minutes ago, looking at the +decorations for the dance Mrs. Wappinger is giving to-night. It was +before you came." + +The shadow that shot across his face was a thing to be noticed only by +one accustomed to read the most trivial signs in the social sky. In an +instant she took in the main points of the case as accurately as if Mrs. +Wappinger had named those names over which she had shown such laudable +reserve. + +"Wouldn't you like to see them?--the decorations? They're very pretty. +It's just in here." + +She rose as she spoke, with a gesture of the hand toward the ball-room. +He followed, because she led the way, but without seeing the meaning of +the move until they were actually on the polished dancing-floor. Owing +to the darkness of the December afternoon, the large empty room was lit +up as brilliantly as at night. For a minute they stood on the threshold, +looking absently at the palms grouped in the corners and the garlands +festooning the walls. It was only then that Pruyn saw the motive of her +coming; and for an instant he forgot his worry in the perception that +this woman had divined his thought. + +"There's no one here," he said, at last, in a tone of relief, which +betrayed him once more. + +"No," Diane replied, half turning round. "Perhaps we had better go back +to the drawing-room. My mother-in-law will be getting tired." + +"Wait," he said, imperiously. "Isn't that--?" + +He was again conscious of having admitted her into a sort of confidence; +but he had scarcely time to regret it before there was a flash of red +between the tall potted shrubs that screened an alcove. Dorothea +sauntered into view, with Carli Wappinger, bending slightly over her, +walking by her side. They were too deep in conversation to know +themselves observed; but the earnestness with which the young man spoke +became evident when he put out his hand and laid it gently on the muff +Dorothea held before her. In the act, from which Dorothea did not draw +back, there was nothing beyond the admission of a certain degree of +intimacy; but Diane felt, through all her highly trained subconscious +sensibilities, the shock it produced in Derek's mind. + +The situation belonged too entirely to the classic repertoire of life to +present any difficulties to a woman who knew that catastrophe is often +averted by keeping close to the commonplace. + +"Isn't she pretty!" she exclaimed, in a tone of polite enthusiasm. +"Mayn't I speak to her? I haven't met her yet." + +Before she had finished the concluding words, or Wappinger had withdrawn +his hand from Dorothea's muff, she had glided across the floor, and +disturbed the young people from their absorption in each other. + +"Mr. Wappinger," Derek heard her say, as he approached, "I want you to +introduce me to Miss Pruyn. I'm Mrs. Eveleth, Miss Pruyn," she +continued, without waiting for Carli's intermediary offices. "I couldn't +go away without saying just a word to you." + +If she supposed she was coming to Dorothea's rescue in a moment which +might be one of embarrassment, she found herself mistaken. No +experienced dowager could have been more amiable to a nice governess +than Dorothea Pruyn to a lady in reduced circumstances. A facility in +adapting herself to other people's manners enabled Diane to accept her +cue; and presently all four were on their way back to the drawing-room, +where farewells were spoken. + +[Illustration: DRAWN BY FRANK CRAIG +PRESENTLY ALL FOUR WERE ON THEIR WAY BACK TO THE DRAWING-ROOM] + +While Miss Lucilla was making Mrs. Eveleth renew her promise to come and +see her, and "bring young Mrs. Eveleth with her," Pruyn found an +opportunity for another word with Diane. + +"You must understand," he said, in a tone which he tried to make +one of explanation for her enlightenment rather than of apology for +Dorothea--"you must understand that girls have a good deal of liberty in +America." + +"They have everywhere," she rejoined. "Even in France, where they've +been kept so strictly, the old law of Purdah has been more or less +relaxed." + +"If you take up teaching as a work, you'll naturally be thrown among our +young people; and you may see things to which it will be difficult to +adjust your mind." + +"I've had a good deal of practice in adjusting my mind. It often seems +to me as movable as if it was on a pivot. I'm rather ashamed of it." + +"You needn't be. On the contrary, you'll find it especially useful in +this country, where foreigners are often eager to convert us to their +customs, while we are tenacious of our own." + +"Thank you," she said, in the spirit of meekness his didactic attitude +seemed to require. "I'll try to remember that, and not fall into the +mistake." + +"And if I can do anything for you," he went on, awkwardly, "in the way +of schools--or--or--recommendations--you know I promised long ago that +if you ever needed any one--" + +"Thank you once more," she said, hurriedly, before he had time to go on. +"I know I can count on your help; and if I require a good word, I shall +not hesitate to ask you for it." + +As she slipped away, Pruyn was left with the uncomfortable sense of +having appeared to a disadvantage. He had been stilted and patronizing, +when he had meant to be cordial and kind. On the other hand, he resented +the quickness with which she had read his thoughts, as well as her +perception that he had ground for uneasiness regarding his child. That +she should penetrate the inner shrine of reserve he kept closed against +those who stood nearest to him in the world gave him a sense of injury; +and he turned this feeling to account during the next few hours in +trying to deaden the echo of the French voice with the Irish intonation +that haunted his inner hearing, as well as to banish the memory of the +plaintive smile in which, as he feared, meekness was blended with +amusement at his expense. + + + + +VI + + +If the secret spring worked by James van Tromp had been an active agency +in bringing Diane and Derek Pruyn once more together, as well as in +creating the intimacy that sprang up during the next two months between +Miss Lucilla and the elder Mrs. Eveleth, it had certainly nothing to do +with the South American complications in the business of Van Tromp & +Co., which made Pruyn's departure for Rio de Janeiro a possibility of +the near future. He had long foreseen that he would be obliged to make +the journey sooner or later, but that he should have to do it just now +was particularly inconvenient. There was but one aspect in which the +expedition might prove a blessing in disguise--he might take Dorothea +with him. + +During the six or eight weeks following the afternoon at Mrs. +Wappinger's he had bestowed upon Dorothea no small measure of attention, +obtaining much the same result as a mastiff might gain from his +investigation of the ways of a bird of paradise. He informed himself as +to her diversions and her dancing-classes, making the discovery that +what other girls' mothers did for them, Dorothea was doing for herself. +As far as he could see, she was bringing herself up with the aid of a +chosen band of eligible, well-conducted young men, varying in age from +nineteen to twenty-two, whom she was training as a sort of body-guard +against the day of her "coming out." On the occasions when he had +opportunities for observation he noted the skill with which she managed +them, as well as the chivalry with which they treated her; and yet there +was in the situation an indefinable element that displeased him. It was +something of a shock to learn that the flower he thought he was +cultivating in secluded sweetness under glass had taken root of its own +accord in the midst of young New York's great, gay parterre. Aware of +the possibilities of this soil to produce over-stimulated growth, he +could think of nothing better than to pluck it up and, temporarily at +least, transplant it elsewhere. Having come to the decision overnight, +he made the proposition when they met at breakfast in the morning. + +A prettier object than Miss Dorothea Pruyn, at the head of her father's +table, it would have been difficult to find in the whole range of +"dainty rogues in porcelain." From the top of her bronze-colored hair to +the tip of her bronze-colored shoes she was as complete as taste could +make her. The flash of her eyes as she lifted them suddenly, and as +suddenly dropped them, over her task among the coffee-cups was like that +of summer waters; while the rapture of youth was in her smile, and a +becoming school-girl shyness in her fleeting blushes. In the floral +language of American society, she was "not a bud"; she was only that +small, hard, green thing out of which the bud is to unfold itself, but +which does not lack a beauty of promise specially its own. If any +criticism could be passed upon her, it was that which her father +made--that there was danger of the promise being anticipated by a rather +premature fulfilment, and the flower that needed time forced into a +hurried, hot-house bloom. + +"What! And leave my friends!" she exclaimed, when Derek, with some +hesitation, had asked her how she would like the journey. + +"They would keep." + +"That's just what they wouldn't do. When I came back I should find them +in all sorts of new combinations, out of which I should be dropped. +You've got to be on the spot to keep in your set, otherwise you're +lost." + +"Why should you be in a set? Why shouldn't you be independent?" + +"That just shows how much you understand, father," she said, pityingly. +"A girl who isn't in a set is as much an outsider as a Hindoo who isn't +in a caste. I must know people; and I must know the right people; and I +must know no one but the right people. It's perfectly simple." + +"Oh, perfectly. I can't help wondering, though, how you recognize the +right people when you see them." + +"By instinct. You couldn't make a mistake about that, any more than one +pigeon could make a mistake about another, or take it for a crow." + +"And is young Wappinger one of the right people?" + +It was with an effort that Derek made up his mind to broach this +subject, but Dorothea's self-possession was not disturbed. + +"Certainly," she replied, briefly, with perhaps a slight accentuation of +her maiden dignity. + +"I'm rather surprised at that." + +"Yes; you should be," she conceded; "but I couldn't make you understand +it, any more than you could make me understand banking." + +"I'm not convinced of the impossibility of either," he objected, +knocking the top off an egg. "Suppose you were to try." + +Dorothea shook her head. + +"It wouldn't be of any use. The fact is, I really don't understand it +myself. What's more, I don't suppose anybody else does. Carli Wappinger +belongs to the right people because the right people say he does; and +there is no more to be said about it." + +"I should think that Mrs. Wappinger might be a--drawback." + +"Not if the right people don't think so; and they don't. They've taken +her up, and they ask her everywhere; but they couldn't tell you why they +do it, any more than birds could tell you why they migrate. As a matter +of fact, they don't care. They just do it, and let it be." + +"That sort of election and predestination may be very convenient for +Mrs. Wappinger, but I should think you might have reasons for not caring +to indorse it." + +"I haven't. Why should I, more than anybody else." + +"You've so much social perspicacity that I hoped you would see without +my having to tell you. It's chiefly a question of antecedents." + +Dorothea looked thoughtful, her head tipped to one side, as she buttered +a bit of toast. + +"I know that's an important point," she admitted, "but it isn't +everything. You've got to look at things all round, and not mistake your +shadow for your bone." + +"I'm glad you see there is a shadow." + +"I see there is only a shadow." + +"A shadow on--what?" + +Pruyn meant this for a leading question, and as such Dorothea took it. +She gazed at him for a minute with the clear eyes and straightforward +expression that were so essential a part of her dainty, self-reliant +personality. If she was bracing herself for an effort, there was no +external sign of it. + +"I may as well tell you, father," she said, "that Carli Wappinger has +asked me to marry him." + +For a long minute Derek sat with body seemingly stunned, but with mind +busily searching for the wisest way in which to take this astounding bit +of information. At the end of many seconds of silence he exploded in +loud laughter, choosing this method of treating Dorothea's confidence in +order to impress her with the ludicrous aspect of the affair, as it must +appear to the grown-up mind. + +"Funny, isn't it?" she remarked, dryly, when he thought it advisable to +grow calmer. + +"It's not only funny; it's the drollest thing I ever heard in my life." + +"I thought it might strike you that way. That's why I told you." + +"And what did you tell him, if I may ask?" + +"I told him it was out of the question--for the present." + +"For the present! That's good. But why the reservation?" + +"I couldn't tell him it would be out of the question always, because I +didn't know. As long as he didn't ask me for a definite answer, I didn't +feel obliged to give him one." + +"I think you might have committed yourself as far as that." + +"I prefer not to commit myself at all. I'm very young and +inexperienced--" + +"I'm glad you see that." + +"Though neither so inexperienced nor so young as mamma was when she +married you. And you were only twenty-one yourself, father, while Carli +is nearly twenty-three." + +"I wouldn't compare the two instances if I were you." + +"I don't. I merely state the facts. I want to make it plain that, though +we're both very young, we're not so young as to make the case +exceptional." + +"But I understood you to say that there was no--case." + +"There is to this extent: that while I'm free, Carli considers himself +bound. That's the way we've left it." + +"That is to say, he's engaged, but you aren't." + +"That's what Carli thinks." + +"Then I refuse to consent to it." + +"But, father dear," Dorothea asked, arching her pretty eyebrows, "do you +have to consent to what Carli thinks about himself? Can't he do that +just as he likes?" + +"He can't become a hanger-on of my family without my permission." + +"He says he's not going to hang on, but to stand off. He's going to +allow me full liberty of action and fair play." + +"That's very kind of him." + +"Only, when I choose to come back to him I shall find him waiting." + +"I might suggest that you never go back to him at all, only that there's +a better way of meeting the situation. That is to put a stop to the +nonsense now; and I shall take steps to do it." + +Dorothea preserved her self-control, but two tiny hectic spots began to +burn in her cheeks, while she kept her eyes persistently lowered, as +though to veil the spirit of determination glowing there. + +"Hadn't you better leave that to me?" she asked, after a brief pause. + +"I will, if you promise to put it through." + +"You see," she answered, in a reasoning tone, "my whole object is not to +promise anything--yet. I should think the advantage of that would strike +you, if only from the point of view of business. It's like having the +refusal of a picture or a piece of property. You may never want them; +but it does no harm to know that nobody else can get them till you +decide." + +"Neither does it do any harm to let somebody else have a chance, when +you know that you can't take them." + +"Of course not; but I couldn't say that now. I quite realize that I'm +too young to know my own mind; and it's only reasonable to consider +things all round. Carli is rich and good-looking. He has a cultivated +mind and a kind heart. There are lots of men, to whom you'd have no +objection whatever, who wouldn't possess all those qualifications, or +perhaps any of them." + +"Nevertheless, I should imagine that the fact that I have objections +would have its weight with you." + +"Naturally; and yet you would neither force me into what I didn't like +to do, nor refuse me what I wanted." + +With this definition of his parental attitude Dorothea pushed back her +chair and moved sedately from the room. + +Physically, Derek was able to go on with his breakfast and finish it, +but mentally he was like a man, accustomed to action, who suddenly finds +himself paralyzed. To the best of his knowledge he had never before been +put in a position in which he had no idea whatever as to what to do. He +had been placed in some puzzling dilemmas in private life, and had +passed through some serious crises in financial affairs, but he had +always been able to take some course, even if it was a mistaken one. It +had been reserved for Dorothea to checkmate him in such a way that he +could not move at all. + + * * * * * + +That the feminine mind possessed resources which his own did not was a +claim Derek had made it a principle to deny. The theory on which he had +brought up Dorothea had been based on his belief in his own insight into +his daughter's character. Though he was far from abjuring that +confidence even yet, nevertheless, when the succeeding days brought no +enlightenment of counsel, and the long journey to South America became +more imminent, he was forced once more to turn his steps toward Gramercy +Park, and seek inspiration from the great, eternal mother-spirit of +mankind, as represented by his cousin. + +Miss Lucilla van Tromp passed among her friends as a sort of diffident +Minerva. Though deficient in outward charms, she was considered to +possess intellectual ability; and, having once been told that her +profile resembled George Eliot's, she made the pursuit of learning, +music, and Knickerbocker genealogy her special aims. Derek had, all his +life, felt for her a special tenderness; and having neither mother, +wife, nor sister, he was in the habit of coming to her with his cares. + +"You're a woman," he declared, now, in summing up his case. "You're a +woman. If you'd been married, you would probably have had children. You +ought to be able to tell me exactly what to do." + +Flushes of shy rapture illumined and softened her ill-assorted features +on being cited as the type of maternity and sex, so that when she +replied it was with an air of authority. + +"I can tell you what to do, Derek; but I've done it already, and you +wouldn't listen. You should send her to a good school--" + +"It's too late for that. She wouldn't go." + +"Then you should have some woman to live in your house who would be wise +enough to manage her." + +He jerked out the monosyllable, and began, according to his custom when +puzzled or annoyed, to stride up and down the library. + +"That is," Miss Lucilla went on, "you wouldn't like it. It would bore +you to see a stranger in the house." + +"Naturally." + +"And so you would sacrifice Dorothea to your personal convenience." + +"I wouldn't, if there was a woman competent to take the place; but there +isn't." + +"There is. There's Diane Eveleth." + +"Who?" + +The dark flush that swept into his face made it clear to Lucilla that +his question was not put for purposes of information. She had remarked +in Derek during the past few weeks a manner of fighting shy of Diane at +variance with his usual method with women. Safety in flight was the +course he commonly adopted; but since Diane appeared on the scene, +Lucilla had noticed that it was flight with a curious tendency to +looking backward. + +"I said Diane Eveleth," she replied, in tactful answer to his +superfluous question; "and I assure you she's fully equal to the duties +you would require of her. I suppose you've never noticed her +especially--?" + +"I used to know her a little," he said, in an offhand manner. "I've seen +her here. That's all." + +"If a woman could have been made on purpose for what you want, it's +she." + +"Dear me! You don't say so!" + +"It's no use trying to be sarcastic about it, Derek. She's not the one +to suffer by it; it's Dorothea. Though, when it comes to suffering, she +has her share, poor thing." + +"I suppose no decent woman who has just lost her husband is expected to +be absolutely hilarious over the event." + +"She hasn't _just_ lost him; it's getting on toward a year. And, +besides, it isn't only that. As a matter of fact, I don't believe she +ever loved him as she could love the man to whom she gave her heart. If +grief was her only trouble, I am sure the poor thing could bear it." + +"And can't she bear it as it is?" + +"The fact that she does bear it shows that she can; but it must be hard +for a woman, who has lived as she has, to be brought to want." + +"Want? Isn't that a strong word? One isn't in want unless one is without +food and shelter." + +"She has the shelter for the time being; I'm not sure that she always +has the food." + +"What? You don't know what you're saying." + +"I know exactly what I'm saying; and I mean exactly what I say. There +have been days when I've suspected that she's pinching in the essentials +of meat and drink." + +"But she has pupils." + +"She has two; but they must pay her very little. It's dreadful for +people who have as much as we to have to look on at the tragedy of +others going hungry--" + +"Good Lord! Don't pile it on." + +Striding to a window, he stood with his back to her, staring out. + +"I'm not piling it on, Derek. I wish I were." + +"Well, can't we do something? If it's as you say, they mustn't be left +like that." + +"It's a very delicate matter. The mother-in-law has money of her own; +but Diane has nothing. It's difficult to see what to do, except to find +her a situation." + +"Then find her one." + +"I have; but you won't take her." + +"In any case," he said, in the aggressive tone of a man putting forward +a weak final argument, "you couldn't leave the mother-in-law all alone." + +"I'd take her," Lucilla said, promptly. "You have no idea how much I +want her, in this big, empty house. It's getting to be more than I can +do to take care of Aunt Regina all alone." + +Minutes went by in silence; but when Derek turned from the window and +spoke, Lucilla shrank with constitutional fear from the responsibility +she had assumed. + +"Go and ring them up, and tell young Mrs. Eveleth I'm waiting to see her +here." + +"But, Derek, are you sure--?" + +"I'm quite sure. Please go and ring them up." + +"But, Derek, you're so startling. Have you reflected?" + +"It's quite decided. Please do as I say, and call them up." + +"But if anything were to go wrong in the future you'd think it was my--" + +"I shall think nothing of the kind. Don't say any more about it, but +please go and tell Diane I'm waiting." + +The use of this name being more convincing to Lucilla than pledges of +assurance, she sped away to do his bidding; but it was not till after +she had gone that Derek recognized the fact that the word had passed his +lips. + + + + +VII + + +During the half-hour before the arrival of Mrs. Eveleth and Diane, Miss +Lucilla's tact allowed Derek to have the library to himself. He was thus +enabled to co-ordinate his thoughts, and enact the laws which must +henceforth regulate his domestic life. It was easy to silence the voice +that for an instant accused him of taking this step in order to provide +Diane Eveleth with a home; for Dorothea's need of a strong hand over her +was imperative. He had reached the point where that circumstance could +no longer be ignored. The avowal that the child had passed beyond his +control would have had more bitterness in it, were it not for the fact +that her naïve self-sufficiency touched his sense of humor, while her +dainty beauty wakened his paternal pride. + +Nevertheless, it was patent that Dorothea had been too much her own +mistress. Without admitting that he had been wrong in his methods +hitherto, he confessed that the time had come when the duenna system +must be introduced, as a matter not only of propriety, but of prudence. +He assured himself of his regret that no American lady who could take +the position chanced to be on the spot, but allayed his sorrow on the +ground that any fairly well-mannered, virtuous woman could fulfil the +functions of so mechanical a task, just as any decent, able-bodied man +is good enough to be a policeman. + +It was somewhat annoying that the lady in question should be young and +pretty; for it was a sad proof of the crudity of human nature that the +mere residence of a free man and a free woman under the same roof could +not pass without comment among their friends. For himself it was a +matter of no importance; and as for her, a woman who has her living to +earn must often be placed in situations where she is exposed to remark. + +To anticipate all possibility of mistake, it would be necessary that his +attitude toward Mrs. Eveleth should be strictly that of the employer +toward the employed. He must ignore the circumstance of their earlier +acquaintance, with its touch of something memorable which neither of +them had ever been able to explain, and confine himself as far as +possible, both in her interests and his own, to such relations as he +held with his stenographers and his clerks. What friendliness she +required she must receive from other hands; and, doubtless, she would +find sufficient. + +Having intrenched himself behind his fortifications of reserve, he was +able to maintain just the right shade of dignity, when, in the +half-light of the midwinter afternoon, Diane glided into the big, +book-lined apartment, in which the comfortable air induced through long +occupancy by people of means did not banish a certain sombreness. She +entered with the subdued manner of one who has been sent for peremptorily, +but who acknowledges the right of summons. The perception of this called +an impulse to apologize to Derek's lips; but on reflection he repressed +it. It was best to assume that she would do his bidding from the first. +Standing by the fireplace, with his arm on the mantelpiece, he bowed +stiffly, without offering his hand. Diane bowed in return, keeping her +own hands securely in her small black muff. + +"Won't you sit down?" + +Without changing his position he indicated the large leathern chair on +the other side of the hearth. Diane sat down on the very edge--erect, +silent, submissive. If he had feared the intrusion of the personal +element into what must be strictly a business affair, it was plain that +this pale, pinched little woman had forestalled him. + +Yes; she was pale and pinched. Lucilla had been right about that. There +was something in Diane's appearance that suggested privation. Derek had +seen such a thing before among the disinherited of mankind, but never in +his own rank in life. With her air of proud gentleness, of gallant +acceptance of what fate had apportioned her, she made him think of some +plucky little citadel holding out against hunger. If there was no way of +showing the pity, the mingled pity and approbation, in his breast, it +was at least some consolation to know that in his house she would be +beyond the most terrible and elemental touch of want. + +"I've troubled you to come and see me," he began, with an effort to keep +the note of embarrassment out of his voice, "to ask if you would be +willing to accept a position in my family." + +Diane sat still and did not raise her eyes, but it seemed to him that he +could detect, beneath her veil, a light of relief in her face, like a +sudden gleam of sunshine. + +"I'm looking for a position," was all she said, "and if I could be of +service--" + +"I'm very much in need of some one," he explained; "though the duties of +the place would be peculiar, and, perhaps, not particularly grateful." + +"It would be for me to do them, without questioning as to whether I +liked them or not." + +"I'm glad you say that, as it will make it easier for us to come to an +understanding. You've already guessed, perhaps, that I am looking for a +lady to be with my daughter." + +"I thought it might be something of that kind." + +The difficult part of the interview was now to begin, and Pruyn +hesitated a minute, considering how best to present his case. Reflection +decided him in favor of frankness, for it was only by frankness on his +side that Diane would be able to carry out his wishes on hers. The +responsibility imposed upon him by his wife's death, he said, was one he +had never wished to shirk by leaving his child to the care of others. +Moreover, he had had his own ideas as to the manner in which she should +be brought up, and he had put them into practice. The results had been +good in most respects, and if in others there was something still to be +desired, it was not too late to make the necessary changes, whether in +the way of supplement or correction. Indeed, in his opinion, the +psychological moment for introducing a new line of conduct had only just +arrived. + +"It is often better not to force things," Diane murmured, vaguely, +"especially with the very young." + +To this he agreed, though he laid down the principle that not to take +strong measures when there was need for them would be the part of +weakness. Diane having no objection to offer to this bit of wisdom, it +was possible for him to go on to explain the emergency she would be +called on to meet. Briefly, it arose from his own error in allowing +Dorothea too much liberty of judgment. While he was in favor of a +reasonable freedom for all young people, it was evident that in +this case the pendulum had been suffered to swing so far in one +directionthat it would require no small amount of effort on his part +and Diane's--chiefly on Diane's--to bring it back. In the interest of +Dorothea's happiness it was essential that the proper balance should be +established with all possible speed, even though they raised some +rebellion on her part in doing it. + +He explained Dorothea's methods in creating her body-guard of young men, +as far as he understood them; he described the young people whose +society she frequented, and admitted that he was puzzled as to the +precise quality in them that shocked his views; coming to the affair +with Carli Wappinger, he spoke of it as "a bit of preposterous nonsense, +to which an immediate stop must be put." There were minor points in his +exposition; and at each one, as he made it, Diane nodded her head +gravely, to show that she followed him with understanding, and was in +sympathy with his opinion that it was "high time that some step should +be taken." + +Encouraged by this intelligent comprehension, Derek went on to define +the good offices he would expect from Diane. She should come to his +house not only as Dorothea's inseparable companion, but as a sort of +warder-in-chief, armed, by his authority, with all the powers of +command. There was no use in doing things by halves; and if Dorothea +needed discipline she had better get it thoroughly, and be done with it. +It was not a thing which he, Derek, would want to see last forever; but +while it did last it ought to be effective, and he would look to Diane +to make it so. As it was not becoming that a daughter of his should need +a bodyguard of youths, Diane would undertake the task of breaking up +Dorothea's circle. Young men might still be permitted "to call," but +under Diane's supervision, while Dorothea sat in the background, as a +maiden should. Diane would make it a point to know the lads personally, +so as to discriminate between them, and exclude those who for one reason +or another might not be desirable friends. As for Mr. Carli Wappinger, +the door was to be rigorously shut against him. Here the question was +not one of gradual elimination, but of abrupt termination to the +acquaintanceship. He must request Diane to see to it that, as far as +possible, Dorothea neither met the young man, nor held communication +with him, on any pretext whatever. He laid down no rule in the case of +Mrs. Wappinger, but it would follow as a natural consequence that the +mother should be dropped with the son. These might seem drastic measures +to Dorothea, to begin with; but she was an eminently reasonable child, +and would soon come to recognize their wisdom. After all, they were only +the conditions to which, as he had been given to understand, other young +girls were subjected, so that she would have nothing to complain of in +her lot. The probability of his own departure for South America, with an +absence lasting till the spring, would make it necessary for Diane to +use to the full the powers with which he commissioned her. He trusted +that he made himself clear. + +For some minutes after he ceased speaking Diane sat looking meditatively +at the fire. When she spoke her voice was low, but the ring of decision +in it was not to be mistaken. + +"I'm afraid I couldn't accept the position, Mr. Pruyn." + +Derek's start of astonishment was that of a man who sees intentions he +meant to be benevolent thrown back in his face. + +"You couldn't--? But surely--?" + +"I mean, I couldn't do that kind of work." + +"But I thought you were looking for it--or something of the sort." + +"Yes; something of the sort, but not precisely that." + +"And it's precisely that that I wish to have done," he said, in a tone +that betrayed some irritation; "so I suppose there is no more to be +said." + +"No; I suppose not. In any case," she added, rising, "I must thank you +for being so good as to think of me; and if I feel obliged to decline +your proposition, I must ask you to believe that my motives are not +petty ones. Now I will say good-afternoon." + +Keeping her hands rigidly within her muff, and with a slight, dignified +inclination of the head, she turned from him. + +She was half-way to the door before Derek recovered himself sufficiently +to speak. + +"May I ask," he inquired, "what your objections are?" + +She turned where she stood, but did not come back toward him. + +"I have only one. The position you suggest would be intolerable to your +daughter and odious to me." + +"But," he asked, with a perplexed contraction of the brows, "isn't it +what companions to young ladies are generally engaged for?" + +"I was never engaged as a companion before, so I'm not qualified to say. +I only know--" + +She stopped, as if weighing her words. + +"Yes?" he insisted; "you only know--what?" + +"That no girl with spirit--and Miss Pruyn _is_ a girl with spirit--would +submit to that kind of tyranny." + +"It wouldn't be tyranny in this case; it would be authority." + +"She would consider it tyranny--especially after the freedom you've +allowed her." + +"But you admit that it's freedom that ought to be curbed?" + +"Quite so; but aren't there methods of restriction other than those of +compulsion?" + +"Such as--what?" + +"Such as special circumstances may suggest." + +"And in these particular circumstances--?" + +"I'm not prepared to say. I'm not sufficiently familiar with them." + +"Precisely; but I am." + +"You're familiar with them from a man's point of view," she smiled; "but +it's one of those instances in which a man's point of view counts for +very little." + +"Admitting that, what would be your advice?" + +"I have none to give." + +"None?" + +She shook her head. Leaving his fortified position by the mantelpiece, +he took a step or two toward her. + +"And yet when I began to speak you seemed favorably inclined to the +offer I was making you. You must have had ideas on the subject, then." + +"Only vague ones. I made the mistake of supposing that yours would be +equally so." + +"And with your vague ideas, your intention was--?" + +"To adapt myself to circumstances; I couldn't tell beforehand what they +would be. I imagined that what you wanted for your daughter was the +society of an experienced woman of the world; and I am that, whatever +else I may not be." + +"You're very young to make the claim." + +"There are other ways of gaining experience than by years; and," she +added, with the intention to divert the conversation from herself, "the +small store I happen to possess I was willing to share with your +daughter, in whatever way she might have need of it." + +"But not in my way." + +"Not in your way, perhaps, but for the furthering of your purposes." + +"How could you further my purposes when you wouldn't do what I wanted?" + +"By getting her to do it of her own accord." + +"Could you promise me she would?" + +"I couldn't promise you anything at all. I could only do my best, and +see how she would respond to it." + +"She's a very good little girl," he hastened to declare. + +"I'm sure of that. Though I don't know her well, I've seen her often +enough to understand that whatever mistakes she may make, they are those +of youth and independence. She is only a motherless girl who has been +allowed--who, in a certain way, has been obliged--to look after herself. +I've noticed that underneath her self-reliant manner she's very much a +child." + +"That's true." + +"But I should never treat her as a child, except--except in one way." + +"Which would be--?" + +"To give her plenty of affection." + +"She's always had that." + +"Yes, yours; she hasn't had her mother's. Don't think me cruel in saying +it, but no girl can grow up nourished only by her father's love, and not +miss something that the good God intended her to have. The reason women +are so essential to babies and men is chiefly because of their faculty +for understanding the inarticulate. With all your daughter has had, +there is one great thing that she hasn't had; and if you had placed me +near her, my idea, which I call vague, would have been--as far as any +one could do it now--to supply her with some of that." + +Derek retreated again to the fireside, alarmed by a language +suspiciously like that he had heard on other occasions concerning the +motherless condition of his child. Was it going to turn out that all +women were alike? There had been minutes during the last half-hour when, +as he looked into Diane's face, it seemed to him that here at last was +one as honest as air and as straightforward as light. But no experienced +woman of the world, as she declared herself to be, could forget that +this was a ludicrously delicate topic with a widower. She must either +avoid it altogether, or expose herself to misinterpretation in pursuing +it. It took him a few minutes to perceive that Diane had chosen the +latter course, and had done it with a fine disdain of anything he might +choose to think. She was not of the order of women who hesitate for +petty considerations, or who stoop to small manoeuvrings. + +"I'm afraid I must go now," she said, when he had stood some time +without speaking. + +"Don't go yet. Sit down." + +His tone was still one of command, but not of the same quality of +command as that which he had used on her entry. He brought her a chair, +and she seated herself again. + +"You said just now," he began, resuming his former attitude, with his +arm on the mantelpiece, "that you didn't expect me to be so definite. +Suppose I had been indefinite; then what would you have done?" + +"I should have been indefinite, too." + +"That's all very well; but, you see, I have to look at things from the +point of view of business." + +"And is there never anything indefinite in business?" + +"Not if we can help it." + +"And what happens when you can't help it?" + +"Then we have to look for some one to whose discretion we can trust." + +"Exactly; and, if you'll allow me to say it, Miss Pruyn is at an age and +in a position where she needs a friend armed with discretion rather than +authority." + +"Well, suppose we were agreed about everything--the discretion and +all--what would you begin by doing?" + +"I shouldn't begin by doing anything. I should try to win your +daughter's confidence; and if I couldn't do that I should go away." + +"So that in the end it might happen that nothing would be accomplished." + +"It might happen so. I shouldn't expect it. Good hearts are generally +sensitive to good influences; and beneath her shell of manner Miss Pruyn +strikes me as neither more nor less than a dear little girl." + +Again he was suspicious of a bid for favor; but again Diane's air of +almost haughty honesty negatived the thought. + +"I'm glad you see that," was the only comment he made. "But," he added, +once more taking a step or two toward her, "when you had won her +confidence, then you would do things that I suggested, wouldn't you?" + +"I shouldn't have to. She would probably do them herself, and a great +deal better than you or I." + +"I don't see how you can be sure of that. If you don't make her--" + +"When you've watered your plant and kept it in the sunshine you don't +have to make it bloom. It will do that of itself." + +"But all these young men?--and this young Wappinger--?" + +"I should let them alone." + +"Not young Wappinger!" + +"What harm is he doing? I admit that the present situation has its +foolish aspects from your point of view and mine; but I can think of +things a great deal worse. At least you know there is nothing +clandestine going on; and young people who have the virtue of being open +have the very first quality of all. If you let them alone--or leave them +to sympathetic management--you will probably find that they will outgrow +the whole thing, as children outgrow an inordinate love of sweets." + +There was a brief pause, during which he stood looking down at her, a +smile something like that of amusement hovering about his lips. + +"So that, in your judgment," he began again, "the whole thing resolves +itself into a matter of discretion. But now--if you'll pardon me for +asking anything so blunt--how am I to know that you would be discreet?" + +For an instant she lifted her eyes to his, as if begging to be spared +the reply. + +"If it's not a fair question--" he began. + +"It _is_ a fair question," she admitted; "only it's one I find difficult +to answer. If it wasn't important--urgently important--that I should +obtain work, I should prefer not to answer it at all. I must tell you +that I haven't always been discreet. I've had to learn discretion--by +bitter lessons." + +"I'm not asking about the past," he broke in, hastily, "but about the +future." + +"About the future one cannot say; one can only try." + +"Then suppose we try it?" + +His own words took him by surprise, for he had meant to be more +cautious; but now that they were uttered he was ready to stand by them. +Once more, as it seemed to him, he could detect the light of relief +steal into her expression, but she made no response. + +"Suppose we try it?" he said again. + +"It's for you to decide," she answered, quietly. "My position places me +entirely at the disposal of any one who is willing to employ me." + +"So that this is better than nothing," he said, in some disappointment +at her lack of enthusiasm. + +"I shouldn't put it in that way," she smiled; "but then I shouldn't put +it in any way, until I saw whether or not I gave you satisfaction. You +must remember you're engaging an untried person; and, as I've told you, +I have nothing in the way of recommendations." + +"We will assume that you don't need them." + +"It's a good deal to assume; but since you're good enough to do it, I +can't help being grateful. Is there any particular time when you would +like me to begin?" + +"Perhaps," he suggested, drawing up a small chair and seating himself +nearer her, "it would be best to settle the business part of our +arrangement first. You must tell me frankly if there is anything in what +I propose that you don't find satisfactory." + +"I'm sure there won't be," Diane murmured, faintly, with a feeling akin +to shame that any one should be offering to pay for such feeble services +as hers. She was thankful that the winter dusk, creeping into the room, +hid the surging of the hot color in her face, as Derek talked of sums of +money and dates of payment. She did her best to pretend to give him her +attention, but she gathered nothing from what he said. If she had any +coherent thought at all, it was of the greatness, the force, the +authority, of one who could control her future, and dictate her acts, +and prescribe her duties, with something like the power of a god. In +times past she would have tried to weave her spell around this strong +man, in sheer wantonness of conquest, as Vivian threw her enchantments +over Merlin; now she was conscious only of a strange willingness to +submit to him, to take his yoke, and bow down under it, serving him as +master. + +She was glad when he ended, leaving her free to rise and say his +arrangements suited her exactly. She had promised to join Miss Lucilla +van Tromp and Mrs. Eveleth at tea, and perhaps he would come with her. + +"No, I'll run away now," he said, accompanying her to the door, "if +you'll be good enough to make my excuses to Lucilla. But one word more! +You asked me when you had better begin. I should say as soon as you can. +As I may leave for Rio de Janeiro at any time, it would be well for +things to be in working order before I go." + +So it was settled, and as she departed he opened the door for her and +held out his hand. But once more the little black muff came into play, +and Diane walked out as she had come in, with no other salutation than a +dignified inclination of the head. + +Derek closed the door behind her and stood with his hand on the knob. He +took the gentle rebuke like a man. + +"I'm a cad," he said to himself. "I'm a cad." + +Returning to his former place on the hearth, he remained long, gazing +into the dying embers, and rehearsing the points of the interview in his +mind. The gloaming closed around him, and he took pleasure in the fancy +that she was still sitting there--silent, patient, erect, with that +pinched look of privation so gallantly borne. + +"By Jove! she's a brave one!" he murmured, under his breath. "She's a +brick. She's a soldier. She's a lady. She's the one woman in the world +to whom I could intrust my child." + +Then, as his head sank in meditation, he shook himself as though to wake +up from sleep into actual day. + +"I've been dreaming," he said--"I've been dreaming. I must get away. I +must go back to the office. I must get to work." + +But instead of going he threw himself into one of the deep arm-chairs. +Dropping off into a reverie, he conjured up the scene which had long +been the fairest in his memory. + +It was the summer. It was the country. It was a garden. In the long bed +the carnations of many colors were bending their beauty-drunken heads, +while over them a girl was stooping. She picked one here, one there, in +search of that which would suit him best. When she had found it--deep +red, with shades in the inner petals nearly black--she turned to offer +it. But when she looked at him, he saw it was--Diane. + + + + +VIII + + +It had apparently been decreed that Derek Pruyn was not to go to South +America that year. On more than one occasion he had been delayed on the +eve of sailing. From February the voyage was postponed to May, and from +May to September. In September it had ceased for the moment to be +urgent, while remaining a possibility. It was the February of a year +later before it became a definite necessity no longer to be put off. + +In the mean while, under the beneficent processes of time, sunshine, and +Diane Eveleth's cultivation, Miss Dorothea Pruyn had become a "bud." The +small, hard, green thing had unfolded petals whose delicacy, purity, and +fragrance were a new contribution to the joy of living. Society in +general showed its appreciation, and Derek Pruyn was proud. + +He was more than proud; he was grateful. The development that had +changed Dorothea from a forward little girl into a charming maiden, and +which might have been the mere consequence of growth, was to him the +evident fruit of Diane's influence. The subtle differences whereby his +own dwelling was transformed from a handsome, more or less empty, shell +into an abode of the domestic amenities sprang, in his opinion, from a +presence shedding grace. All the more strange was it, therefore, that +both presence and influence remained as remote from his own personal +grasp as music on the waves of sound or odors in the air. Of the many +impressions produced by a year of Diane's residence beneath his roof, +none perplexed him more than her detachment. Moreover, it was a +detachment as difficult to comprehend in quality as to define in words. +There was in her attitude nothing of the retreating nymph or of the +self-effacing sufferer. She took her place equally without obtrusiveness +and without affectation. Such effects as she brought about came without +noise, without effort, and without laboriousness of good intention. +Simple and straightforward in all her ways, she nevertheless contrived +to throw into her relations with himself an element as impersonal as +sunshine. + +In the first days of her coming it was he who, in pursuance of his +method of reserve, had held aloof. He had been frequently absent from +New York, and, even when there, had lived much at one or another of his +clubs. Weeks had already passed when the perception stole on him that +his goings and comings meant little more to her than to the trees waving +in the great Park before his door. + +The discovery that he had been taking such pains to abstract himself +from eyes which scarcely noticed whether he was there or not brought +with it a little bitter raillery at his own expense. He was piqued at +once in his self-love and in his masculine instinct for domination. It +seemed to be out of the natural order of things that his thoughts should +dwell so much on a woman to whom he was only a detail in the scheme of +her surroundings--superior to the butler, and more animate than the +pictures on the wall, but as little in her consciousness as either. It +was certainly an easy opportunity in which to display that +self-restraint which he had undertaken to make his portion; but when the +heroic nature finds no obstacles to overcome, it has a tendency to +create them. + +Without obtruding himself upon Diane, Derek began to dine more +frequently at his own house. On those occasions when Dorothea went out +alone it was impossible for the two who remained at home to avoid a kind +of conversation, which, with the topics incidental to the management of +a common household, often verged upon the intimate. When Diane +accompanied his daughter to the opera, he adopted the habit of dropping +into the box, and perhaps taking them, with some of Dorothea's friends, +to a restaurant for supper. He planned the little parties and excursions +for which Dorothea's "budding" offered an excuse; and, while he +recognized the subterfuge, he made his probable journey, with the long +absence it would involve, serve as a palliation. Since, too, there was +no danger to Diane, there could be the less reason for stinting himself +in the pleasure of her presence, so long as he was prepared to pay for +it afterward in full. + +Thus the first winter had gone by, until with the shifting of the +environment in summer a certain change entered into the situation. The +greater freedom of country life on the Hudson made it requisite that +Diane should be more consciously circumspect. In her detachment Derek +noticed first of all a new element of intention; but since it was the +first sign she had given of distinguishing between him and the dumb +creation, it did not displease him. While he could not affirm that she +avoided him, he saw less of her than when in town. During those +difficult moments when they had no guests and Dorothea was making visits +among her friends, Diane found pretexts for slipping away to New York, +on what she declared to be business of her own--availing herself of the +seclusion of the little French hostelry that had first given her +shelter. + +It was at times such as these that Derek began to perceive what she had +become to him. As long as she was near him he could keep his feelings +within the limitations he had set for them; but in her absence he was +restless and despondent till she returned. The brutality of life, which +made him master of the beauty of the country and the coolness of the +hills, while it drove her to stifle in the town, stirred him with +alternate waves of indignation and compassion. + +There was a torrid afternoon in August when the sight of her, trudging +along the dusty highway to the station, almost led him to betray himself +by his curses upon fate. Dorothea having left for Newport in the +morning, Diane was, as usual, seeking the privacy of University Place +for the two weeks the girl's visit was to last. Understanding her desire +not to be alone with him for even a few hours when there was no third +person in the house, Derek had taken the opportunity to motor for lunch +to a friend's house some miles away. With the intention of not returning +till after she had gone, he had ordered a carriage to be in readiness to +drive her to her train; but his luncheon was scarcely ended when the +thought occurred to him that, by hurrying back, he might catch a last +glimpse of her before she started. + +He had already half smothered her in dust when he perceived that the +little woman in black, under a black parasol, was actually Diane. To his +indignant queries as to why she should be plodding her way on foot, with +this scorching sun overhead, her replies were cheerful and +uncomplaining. A series of small accidents in the stable--such had +constantly happened at her own little château in the Oise--having made +it inadvisable to take the horses out, one of the men had conveyed her +luggage to the station, while she herself preferred to walk. She was +used to the exigencies of country life, in both France and Ireland; and +as for the heat, it was a detail to be scorned. Dust, too, was only +matter out of place, and a necessary concomitant of summer. Would he not +drive on, without troubling himself any more about her? + +No; decidedly he would not. She must get in and let him take her to the +station. There he could work off his wrath only by buying her ticket and +seeing to her luggage; while his charge to the negro porter to look to +her comfort was of such a nature that during the whole of the journey +she was pelted with magazine literature and tormented with glasses of +ice-water. + +That night he found himself impelled by his sense of honor as a +gentleman to write a letter of apology for the indignity she had been +exposed to while in his house. When it had gone he considered it +insufficient, and only the reflection that he ought to have business in +town next day kept him from following it up with a second note. + +Arrived in New York, where the city was burning as if under a sun-glass, +he found his chief subject for consideration to be the choice of a club +at which to lunch. There, in the solitude of the deserted smoking-room, +where the heat was tempered, the glare shut out, and the very footfall +subdued, he thought of the little hotel in University Place. Because +human society had mysterious unwritten laws, the woman he loved was +forced to steal away from the freshness and peace of green fields and +sweeping river, to take refuge amid the noisome ugliness from which, in +spite of her courage, her exquisite nature must shrink. He, whose needs +were simple, as his tastes were comparatively coarse, could command the +sybaritic luxury of a Roman patrician, while she, who could not lift her +hand without betraying the habits of inborn refinement, was exposed not +only to vulgar contact, but to a squalor of discomfort as odious as +vice. The thought was a humiliation. Even if he had not loved her, it +would have seemed almost the duty of a man of honor to step in between +her and the cruel pathos of her lot. + +It was a curious reflection that it was the very fact that he did love +her which held him back. Could he have turned toward Paradise and said +to the sweet soul waiting for him there, "This woman has need of me, but +you alone reign in my heart," he would have felt more free to act. But +the time when that would have been possible had gone by. Anything he +might do now would be less for her need than his own; and his own he +could endure if loyalty to his past demanded it. None the less was it +necessary to find a way in which to come to Diane's immediate relief; +and by the time he had finished his cigar he thought he had discovered +it. + +"Having been obliged to run up to town," he explained, when she had +received him in the little hotel parlor, "I've dropped in to tell you +that I'm going away for a few weeks into Canada." + +"Isn't it rather hot weather for travelling?" she asked, with that +clear, smiling gaze which showed him at once that she had seen through +his pretext for coming. + +"It won't be hot where I'm going--up into the valley of the Metapedia." + +"It's rather a sudden decision, isn't it?" + +"N--no. I generally try to get a little sport some time during the +year." + +"Naturally you know your own intentions best. I only happen to remember +that you said, yesterday morning, you hoped not to leave Rhinefields +till the middle of next month." + +"Did I say that? I must have been dreaming?" + +"Very likely you were. Or perhaps you're dreaming now." + +"Not at all; in fact, I'm particularly wide awake. I see things so +clearly that I've looked in to tell you some of them. You must get out +of this stifling hole and go back to Rhinefields at once." + +"I don't like that way of speaking of a place I've become attached to. +It isn't a stifling hole; it's a clean little inn, where the service is +the very law of kindness. The art may be of a period somewhat earlier +than the primitive," she laughed, looking round at the highly colored +chromos of lake and mountain scenery hanging on the walls, "and the +furniture may not be strictly in the style of Louis Quinze, but the host +and hostess treat me as a daughter, and every garçon is my slave." + +"I can quite understand that; but all the same it's no fit place for +you." + +"I suppose the fittest place for any one is the place in which he feels +at home." + +"Don't say that," he begged, with sudden emotion in his voice. + +"I think I ought to say it," she insisted, "first of all because it's +true; and then because you would feel more at ease about me if you knew +just how it's true." + +"You know that I'm not at ease about you." + +"I know you think I must be discontented with my lot, when--in a certain +sense--I'm not at all so. I don't pretend that I prefer working for a +living to having money of my own; but I've found this"--she hesitated, +as if thinking out her phrase--"I've found that life grows richer as it +goes on, in whatever way one has to live it. It's as if the streams that +fed it became more numerous the farther one descended from the height." + +"I'm glad you're able to say that--" + +"I can say it very sincerely; and I lay stress upon it, because I know +you're kind enough to be worried about me. I wish I could make you +understand how little reason there is for it, though you mustn't think +that I'm not touched by it, or that I mistake its motive. I've come to +see that what I've often heard, and used scarcely to believe, is quite +true, that American men have an attitude toward women entirely different +from that of our men. Our men probably think more about women than any +other men in the world; but they think of them as objects of prey--with +joys and sorrows not to be taken seriously. You, on the contrary, are +willing to put yourself to great inconvenience for me, merely because I +am a woman." + +"Not merely because of that," Derek permitted himself to say. + +"We needn't weigh motives as if they were golddust. When we have their +general trend we have enough. I only want you to see that I understand +you, while I must ask you not to be hurt if I still persist in not +availing myself of your courtesy. I wish you wouldn't question me any +more about it, because there are situations in which one cheapens things +by the very effort to put them into words. If you were a woman, you'd +comprehend my feeling--" + +"Let us assume that I do, as it is. I have still another suggestion to +make. Admitting that I stay at Rhinefields, why can't you ask your +mother-in-law to come and make you a couple of weeks' visit there?" + +For a moment Diane forgot the restraint she made it a habit to impose +upon herself in the new conditions of her life, and slipped back into +the spontaneous manner of the past. + +"How tiresome you are! I never knew any one but a child twist himself in +so many directions to get his own way." + +"You see, I'm accustomed to having my own way. You ought not to think of +resisting me." + +"I'm not resisting you; I'm only eluding your grasp. There's one great +obstacle to what you've just been good enough to propose: my +mother-in-law couldn't come. Miss Lucilla van Tromp couldn't spare her. +As a matter of fact, she--Miss Lucilla--asked me to go to Newport and stay +with her all the time Dorothea is with the Prouds; but I declined the +invitation. You see now that I don't lack cool and comfortable quarters +because I couldn't get them." + +"I see," he nodded. "You evidently prefer--this." + +"I'll tell you what I prefer: I prefer a breathing-space in which to +commune with my own soul." + +"You could commune with your own soul at Rhinefields." + +"No, I couldn't. It's an exercise that requires not only solitude and +seclusion, but a certain withdrawal from the world. If I were in France, +I should go and spend a fortnight in my old convent at Auteuil; but in +this country the nearest approach I can make to that is to be here where +I am. After all that has happened in the last year and more, I am trying +to find myself again, so to speak--I'm trying to re-establish my +identity with the Diane de la Ferronaise, who seems to me to have faded +back into the distant twilight of time. Won't you let me do it in my own +way, and ask me no more questions? Yes; I see by your face that you +will; and we can be friends again. Now," she added, briskly, springing +up and touching a bell, "you're going to have some of my iced coffee. +I've taught them to make it, just as I used to have it at the +Mauconduit--that was our little place near Compiègne--and I know you'll +find it refreshing." + +It was half an hour later, while he was taking leave of her, that a +thought occurred to him which promised to be fruitful of new resources. + +"Very well," he declared, as they were parting, "if you persist in +staying here, I, too, shall persist in looking in whenever I come to +town--which will have to be pretty often just now--to see that you're +not down with some sort of fever." + +"But," she laughed, "I thought you were going away--to Canada?" + +"I'm not obliged to; and you've rather succeeded in dissuading me." + +"Then let me succeed in dissuading you from everything. Don't come here +again--please don't." + +"I certainly shall." + +"I'm generally out." + +"In that case I shall stay till you come in." + +"Of course I can't keep you from doing that. I will only say that the +American man I've had in mind for the past few months--wouldn't." + +The fact that he did not go back to University Place, either on this or +any subsequent occasion when she thought it well to withdraw there, +emphasized his helplessness to aid her. By the time autumn returned, and +the household was once more settled in town, he had grown aware that +between Diane and himself there was an impalpable wall of separation, +which he could no more pass than he could transcend the veil between +material existence and the Unseen World. He began to perceive that what +he had called detachment of manner, more or less purposely maintained, +was in reality an element in the situation which from the beginning had +precluded friendship. Diane and he could not be friends in any of the +ordinary senses of the word. As employer and employed their necessary +dealings might be friendly; but to anything more personal, under the +present arrangement, there was attached the impossible condition of +stepping off from terra firma into space. + +The obvious method of putting their mutual relationship on a basis +richer in future potentialities Derek still felt himself unable to adopt +of his own initiative act. The vow which bound him to his dead wife was +one from which circumstances--and not merely his own fiat--must absolve +him; but as winter advanced it seemed to him that life had begun to +speak on the subject with a voice of imperative command. + +It was the middle of January, when a small, accidental happening drew +all his growing but still debatable intentions into one sharp point of +resolution. It was such an afternoon as comes rarely, even in the +exhilarating winter of New York--an afternoon when the unfathomable blue +of the sky overhead runs through all the gamut of tones from lavender to +indigo; when the air has the living keenness of that which the Spirit +first breathed into the nostrils of man; when the rapture of the heart +is that of neither passion, wine, nor nervous excitement, but comes +nearer the exaltation of deathless youth in a deathless world than +anything else in a temporary earth. It was a day on which even the jaded +heart is in the mood to begin all over again, in renewed pursuit of the +happiness which up to now has been elusive. To Derek, whose heart was by +no means jaded, it was a day on which the instinctive hope of youth, +which he supposed he had outlived, proved itself of one essence with the +conscious passion of maturity. + +When, as he walked homeward along Fifth Avenue, he overtook Diane, also +making her way homeward, the happy occurrence seemed but part of the +general radiance permeating life. The chance meeting on the neutral +ground of out-of-doors took Diane by surprise; and before she had time +to put up her guards of reserve she had betrayed her youth in a shy +heightening of color. Under the protection of the cheerful, slowly +moving crowd she felt at liberty to drop for a minute the subdued air of +his daughter's paid companion, and in her replies to what he said she +spoke with some of her old gayety of verve. It was an unfortunate moment +in which to yield to this temptation, for it was, perhaps, the only +occasion since her coming to New York on which she was closely observed. + +Engrossed as they were, the one with the other, they had insensibly +relaxed their pace, becoming mere strollers on the outside edge of the +throng. The sense of being watched came to both of them at once, and, +looking up at the same moment, they saw, approaching at a snail's pace, +an open Victoria, in which were two ladies, to whom they were objects of +plainly expressed interest. The elder was an insignificant little woman, +who looked as though she were being taken out by her costly furs, while +the younger was a girl of some two or three and twenty, of a type of +beauty that would have been too imperious had it not been toned down by +that air which to the unintelligent means boredom, though the wise know +it to spring from something gone amiss in life. Both ladies kept their +eyes fixed so exclusively on Diane that they had almost passed before +remembering to salute Derek with a nod. + +"I've seen those ladies somewhere," Diane observed, when they had gone +by. + +"I dare say. They've probably seen you, too. The elder is Mrs. Bayford, +sister of Mr. Grimston, my uncle's partner in Paris. The girl is Marion +Grimston, his daughter." + +"I remember perfectly now. They used to come to our charity sales, +and--and--anything of that kind." + +Pruyn laughed. + +"Anything, you mean, that was open to all comers. Mrs. Grimston would be +flattered." + +"I didn't mean to speak slightingly," she hastened to say. "There were +plenty of nice people in Paris whom I didn't know." + +"And plenty, I imagine, who thought you ought to have known them. Mrs. +Grimston, and Mrs. Bayford, too, would have been among that number." + +"Well, you see I do know them--by sight. I recall Miss Grimston +especially. She's so handsome." + +"I shall tell her that to-night." + +"To-night?" + +"Yes; it's with them that Dorothea and I are dining. The name conveying +nothing to you, you probably didn't remember it. The fact is that, as +Mrs. Bayford is the sister of my uncle's partner--my partner, too--I +make it a point to be very civil to her twice a year--once when I dine +with her, and once when she dines with me. The annual festivals have +been delayed this season because she has only just returned from a long +visit to Japan and India, with Marion in her wake." + +There had been so much to say which, in the glamour of that glorious +afternoon, was more important that no further time was spent on the +topic. Derek forgot the meeting till Mrs. Bayford recalled it to him as +he sat beside her in the evening. She was one of those small, ill-shapen +women whose infirmities are thrown into more conspicuous relief by dress +and jewels and _décolletage_. Seated at the head of her table, she +produced the impression of a Goddess of Discord at a feast of +well-meaning, hapless mortals. + +"I want a word with you," she said, parenthetically, to Derek, on her +left, before turning her attention to the more important neighbor on her +right. + +"One is scant measure," he laughed, in reply, "but I must be grateful +even for that." + +It was the middle of dinner before she took notice of him again, but +when she did she plunged into her subject boldly. + +"I suppose you didn't think I knew who you were walking with this +afternoon?" + +"Yes, I did, because the lady recognized you. She said you and Mrs. +Grimston were among the nice people in Paris whom she hadn't met--but +whom she knew very well by sight." + +If Derek thought this reply calculated to appease an angry deity, he +discovered his mistake. + +"Did she have the indecency to say she hadn't met me?" + +"I think she did; but she probably didn't know that the word indecency +could apply to anything connected with you." + +"Why, I was introduced to her four times in one season!" + +"I suppose she hasn't as good a memory as yours." + +"Oh, as for that, it wasn't a matter of memory. Nobody was permitted to +forget her--she was quite notorious." + +"I've always heard that in Paris the mere possession of beauty is enough +to keep any one in the public eye." + +"It wasn't beauty alone--if she _has_ beauty; though for my part I can't +see it." + +"It _is_ of rather an elusive quality." + +"It must be. But if it exists at all, I can tell you that it's of a +dangerous quality." + +"Hasn't that always been the peculiarity of beauty ever since the days +of Helen of Troy?" + +"I'm sure I can't say. I've always tried to steer clear of that sort of +thing--" + +"That must be an excellent plan; only it deprives one of the power of +speaking as an authority, doesn't it?" + +"I don't pretend to speak as an authority. If I say anything at all, +it's what everybody knows." + +"What everybody knows is generally--scandal." + +"This was certainly scandal; but it wasn't the fact that everybody knew +it that made it so." + +"Then I'm sure you wouldn't wish to repeat it." + +"I don't see why you should be sure of anything of the kind. I consider +it my duty to repeat it." + +"Then you won't be surprised if I consider it mine to contradict it." + +"Certainly not. I shouldn't be surprised at anything you could do, +Derek, after what I've heard since I came home." + +"I won't ask you what that is--" + +"No; your own conscience must tell you. No one can go on as you've been +doing, and not know he must be talked about." + +"I've always understood that that was more flattering than to be +ignored." + +"It depends. There's such a thing as receiving that sort of flattery +first, only to be ignored in the sequel. I speak as your friend, Derek--" + +"I thoroughly understand that; but may I ask if it's in the way of +warning or of threat?" + +"It's in the way of both. You must see that, whatever risks I may be +prepared to run myself, as long as I have Marion with me I can't expose +her to--" + +"To what?" + +Notwithstanding his efforts to keep the conversation to a tone of +banter, acrimonious though it had to be, Derek was unable to pronounce +the two brief syllables without betraying some degree of anger. Glancing +up at him as she shrank under her weight of jewels, Mrs. Bayford found +him very big and menacing; but she was a brave woman, and if she +shrivelled, it was only as a cat shrivels before springing at a mastiff. + +"I can't expose her to the chance of meeting--" + +She paused, not from hesitation, but with the rhetorical intention of +making the end of her phrase more telling. + +"My future wife," he whispered, before she had time to go on. "It's only +fair to tell you that." + +"Good heavens! You're not going to marry the creature!" + +Mrs. Bayford brought out the words with the dramatic action and +intensity they deserved. In the hum of talk around and across the table +it was doubtful whether or not they were heard, and yet more than one of +the guests glanced up with a look of interrogation. Dorothea caught her +father's eyes in a gaze which he had some difficulty in returning with +the proper amount of steadiness; but Mrs. Berrington Jones came to the +rescue of the company by asking Mrs. Bayford to tell the amusing story +of how her bath had been managed in Japan. + +So the incident passed by, leaving a sense of mystery in the air; though +for Derek, all sense of annoyance disappeared in the knowledge that he +was Diane's champion. + +He was thinking over the incident in the luxurious semi-darkness of the +electric brougham as they were going homeward, when the clear voice of +Dorothea broke in on his meditation. + +"Are you going to be married, father?" + +The question could not be a surprise to him after the occurrence at the +table, but he was not prepared to give an affirmative answer on the spur +of the moment. + +"What makes you ask?" he inquired, after a second's reflection. + +"I heard what Mrs. Bayford said." + +"And how should you feel if I were?" + +"It would depend." + +"On what?" + +"On whether or not it was any one I liked." + +"That's fair. And if it was some one whom you did like?" + +"Then it would depend on whether or not it was--Diane." + +"And if it was Diane?" + +"I should be very glad." + +"Why?" + +She slipped her arm through his and snuggled up to him. + +"Oh, for a lot of reasons. First, because I've always supposed you'd be +getting married one day; and I've been terribly afraid you'd pick out +some one I couldn't get along with." + +"Have I ever shown any symptom to justify that alarm?" + +"N--no; but you never can tell--with a man." + +"Can you be any surer with a woman?" + +"No; and that's one of my other reasons. I'm not very sure about +myself." + +"You don't mean that it's to be young Wap--?" he began, uneasily. + +"I suppose it will have to be he--or some one else. They keep at me." + +"And you don't know how long you may be able to hold out." + +"I'm holding out as well as I can," she laughed, "but it can't go on +forever. And then--if I do--" + +"Well--what?" + +"You'd be left all alone, and, of course, I should be worried about +that--unless you--you--" + +"Unless I married some one." + +"No; not some one; no one--but Diane." + +They were now at their own door, but before she sprang out she drew down +his face to hers and kissed him. + + + + +IX + + +During the succeeding week Derek Pruyn, having practically announced an +engagement which did not exist, found himself in a somewhat ludicrous +situation. Too proud to extort a promise of secrecy from Mrs. Bayford, +he knew the value of his indiscretion--if indiscretion it were--to any +purveyor of tea-table gossip; and while Diane and he remained in the +same relative positions he was sure it was being bruited about, with his +own authority, that they were to become man and wife. It did not +diminish the absurdity of the situation that he was debarred from +proposing and settling the affair at once by the grotesque fact that he +actually had not time. + +There was certainly little opportunity for lovemaking in those hurried +days of preparing for his long absence in South America. He was often +obliged to leave home by eight in the morning, rarely returning except +to go wearily to bed. Though nothing had been said to him, he had more +than one reason for suspecting that Mrs. Bayford was at work; and, at +the odd minutes when he saw Diane, it seemed to him as if her clearness +of look was extinguished by an expression of perplexity. + +He would have reproached himself more keenly for his lack of energy in +overcoming obstacles had it not been for the fact that, owing to their +peculiar position as members of one household, and that household his, +he was planning to ask Diane to become his wife on that occasion when he +would also be bidding her adieu. She would thus be spared the +difficulties of a trying situation, while she would have the season of +his absence in which to adjust her mind to the revolution in her life. +He resolved to adhere to this intention, the more especially as a small +family dinner at Gramercy Park, from which he was to go directly to his +steamer, would give him the exact combination of circumstances he +desired. + +When, after dinner, Miss Lucilla's engineering of the company allowed +him to find himself alone with Diane in the library, he made her sit +down by the fireside, while he stood, his arm resting on the +mantelpiece, as on the afternoon of their first serious interview, over +a year before. As on that other occasion, so, too, on this, she sat +erect, silent, expectant, waiting for him to speak. What was coming she +did not know; but she felt once more his commanding dominance, with its +power to ordain, prescribe, and regulate the conditions of her life. + +"Doesn't this make you think of--our first long talk together?" + +"I often think of it," Diane said, faintly, trying to assume that they +were entering on an ordinary conversation. "As you didn't agree with +me--" + +"I do now," he said, quickly. "I see you were right, in everything. I +want to thank you for what you've done for Dorothea--and for me. I +didn't dream, a year ago, that the change in both of us could be so +great." + +"Dorothea was a sweet little girl, to begin with--" + +"Yes; but I don't want to talk about that now. She will express her own +sense of gratitude; but in the mean while I want to tell you mine. You +will understand something of its extent when I say that I ask you to be +my wife." + +Diane neither spoke nor looked at him. The only sign she gave of having +heard him was a slight bowing of the head, as of one who accepts a +decree. The first few instants' stillness had the ineffable quality +which might spring from the abolition of time when bliss becomes +eternity. There was a space, not to be reckoned by any terrestrial +counting, during which each heart was caught up into wonderful spheres +of emotion--on his side the relief of having spoken, on hers the joy of +having heard; and though it passed swiftly it was long enough to give to +both the vision of a new heaven and a new earth. It was a vision that +never faded again from the inward sight of either, though the mists of +mortal error began creeping over it at once. + +"If I take you by surprise--" he began, as he felt the clouds of reality +closing round him. + +"No," she broke in, still without looking up at him; "I heard you +intended to ask me." + +Though he made a little uneasy movement, he knew that this was precisely +what she might have been expected to say. + +"I thought you had possibly heard that," he said, in her own tone of +quiet frankness, "and I want to explain to you that what happened was an +accident." + +"So I imagined." + +"If I spoke of you as my future wife, I must ask you to believe that it +was in the way of neither ill-timed jest nor foolish boast." + +"You needn't assure me of that, because I could never have thought so. +If I want assurance at all it's on other points." + +"If I can explain them--" + +"I can almost explain them myself. What I require is rather in the way +of corroboration. Wasn't it much as the knight of old threw the mantle +of his protection over the shoulders of a distressed damsel?" + +"I know what you mean; but I don't admit the justice of the simile." + +"But if you did admit it, wouldn't it be something like what actually +occurred?" + +"You're putting questions to me," he said, smiling down at her; "but you +haven't answered mine." + +"I must beg leave to point out," she smiled, in return, "that you +haven't asked me one. You've only stated a fact--or what I presume to be +a fact. But before we can discuss it I ought to be possessed of certain +information; and you've put me in a position where I have a right to +demand it." + +After brief reflection Derek admitted that. As nearly as he could recall +the incident at Mrs. Bayford's dinner-party, he recounted it. + +"You see," he explained, in summing up, "that, as a snobbish person, she +could hardly be expected to forgive you for forgetting her, when she had +been introduced to you four times in a season. She not unnaturally +fancied you forgot her on purpose, so to speak--" + +"I suppose I did," she murmured, penitently. + +"What?" he asked, with sudden curiosity. "Would you--" + +"I wouldn't now. I used to then. Everybody did it, when people were +introduced to us whom we didn't want to know. I've done it when it +wasn't necessary even from that point of view--out of a kind of sport, a +kind of wantonness. I've really forgotten about Mrs. Bayford now-- +everything except her face--but I dare say I remembered perfectly well, +at the time. It would have been nothing unusual if I had." + +"In that case," he said, slowly, "you can't be surprised--" + +"I'm not," she hastened to say. "If Mrs. Bayford retaliates, now that +she has the power, she's within her right--a right which scarcely any +woman would forego. It was perfectly natural for Mrs. Bayford to speak +ill of me; and it was equally natural for you to spring to my defence. +You'd have sprung to the defence of any one--" + +"No, no," he interjected, hurriedly. + +"Of any one whom you--respected, as I hope you respect me. You've +offered me," she went on, her eyes filling with sudden tears--"you've +offered me the utmost protection a man can give a woman. To tell you how +deeply I'm touched, how sincerely I'm grateful, is beyond my power; but +you must see that I can't avail myself of your kindness. Your very +willingness to repeat at leisure what you said in haste makes it the +more necessary that I shouldn't take advantage of your chivalry." + +"Would that be your only reason for hesitating to become my wife?" + +The deep, vibrant note that came into his voice sent a tremor through +her frame, and she looked about her for support. He himself offered it +by taking both her hands in his. She allowed him to hold them for a +second before withdrawing behind the intrenched position afforded by the +huge chair from which she had risen, and on the back of which she now +leaned. + +"It's the reason that looms largest," she replied--"so large as to put +all other reasons out of consideration." + +"Then you're entirely mistaken," he declared, coming forward in such a +way that only the chair stood between them. "It's true that at Mrs. +Bayford's provocation I spoke in haste, but it was only to utter the +resolution I had taken plenty of time to form. If I were to tell you how +much time, you'd be inclined to scorn me for my delay. But the truth is +I'm no longer a very young man; in comparison with you I'm not young at +all. You yourself, as a woman of the world, must readily understand that +at my age, and in my position, prudence is as honorable an element in +the offer I am making you as romance would be in a boy's. I make no +apology for being prudent. I state the fact that I've been so only that +you may know that I've tried to look at this question from every point +of view--Dorothea's as well as yours and mine. I took my time about it, +and long before I warned Mrs. Bayford that she was speaking of one who +was dear to me, my mind was made up. With such hopes as I had at heart +it would have been wrong to have allowed her to go on without a word of +warning." + +"I can see that it would have that aspect." + +"Then, if you can see that, you must see that I speak to you now in all +sincerity. My desire isn't new. I can truthfully say that, since the +first day I saw you, your eyes and voice have haunted me, and the +longing to be near you has never been absent from my heart. I'll be +quite frank with you and say that, before you came here, it was my +avowed intention not to marry again. Now I have no desire on earth--my +child apart--so strong as to win you for my wife. The year we've spent +under the same roof must have given you some idea of the man whom you'd +be marrying; and I think I can promise you that with your help he would +be a better man than in the past. Won't you say that I may hope for it?" + +With arms supported by the high back of the chair and cheek on her +clasped hands, she gazed away into the dimness of the room, as if +waiting for him to continue; but during the silence that ensued it +seemed to Derek as if a shadow crossed her features, while her bright +look died out in a kind of wistfulness. She had, perhaps, been hoping +for a word he had not spoken--a word whose absence he had only covered +up by phrases. + +"Well? Have you nothing to say to me?" he asked, when some minutes had +gone by. + +"I'm thinking." + +"Of what?" + +"Of what you say about prudence. I like it. It seems to me I ought to be +prudent, too." + +"Undoubtedly," he agreed, in the dry tone of one who assents to what he +finds slightly disagreeable. + +"I mean," she said, quickly, "that I ought to be prudent for you--for us +all. There are a great many things to be thought of, things which people +of our age ought not to let pass unconsidered. Men _think_ the way +through difficulties, while women _feel_ it. I'm afraid I must ask for +time to get my instincts into play." + +"Do you mean that you can't give me an answer to-night--before I go on +this long journey?" + +"I couldn't give you an affirmative one." + +"But you could say, No?" + +"If you pressed the matter--if you insisted--that's what I should have +to say." + +"Why?" + +"That would be--my secret." + +"Is it that you think you couldn't love me?" + +For the first time the color came to her cheek and surged up to her +temples, not suddenly or hotly, but with the semi-diaphanous lightness +of roseate vapor mounting into winter air. As he came nearer, rounding +the protective barrier of the arm-chair, she retreated. + +"I should have to solve some other questions before I could answer +that," she said, trying to meet his eyes with the necessary steadiness. + +"Couldn't I help you?" + +She shook her head. + +"Then couldn't you consider it first?" + +"A woman generally does consider it first, but she speaks about it +last." + +"But you could tell me the result of what you think, as far as you've +drawn conclusions?" + +"No; because whatever I should say you would find misleading. If you're +in earnest about what you say to-night, it would be better for us both +that you should give me time." + +"I'm willing to do that. But you speak as if you had a doubt of me." + +"I've no doubt of you; I've only a doubt about myself. The woman you've +known for the last twelve months isn't the woman other people have known +in the years before that. She isn't the Diane Eveleth of Paris any more +than she is the Diane de la Ferronaise of the hills of Connemara, or of +the convent at Auteuil. But I don't know which is the real woman, or +whether the one who now seems to me dead mightn't rise again." + +"I shouldn't be afraid of her." + +"But I should. You say that because you didn't know her; and I couldn't +let you marry me without telling you something of what she was." + +"Then tell me." + +"No, not now; not to-night. Go on your long journey, and come back. When +it's all over, I shall be sure--sure, that is, of myself--sure on the +point about which I'm so much in doubt, as to whether or not the other +woman could return." + +"I should be willing to run the risk," he said, with a short laugh, +"even if she did." + +"But I shouldn't be willing to let you. You forget she ruined one rich +man; she might easily ruin another." + +"That would depend very much upon the man." + +"No man can cope with a woman such as I was only a few years ago. You +can put fetters on a criminal, and you can quell a beast to submission, +but you can't bind the subtle, mischievous woman-spirit, bent on doing +harm. It's more ruthless than war; it's more fatal than disease. You, +with your large, generous nature, are the very man for it to fasten on, +and waste him, like a fever." + +She moved back from him, close to the bookshelves against the wall. The +eyes which Derek had always seen sad and lustreless glowed with a fire +like the amber's. + +"You must understand that I couldn't allow myself to do the same thing +twice," she hurried on, "and, if I married you, who knows but what I +might? I'm not a bad woman by nature, but I think I must need to be held +in repression. You'd be giving me again just those gifts of money, +position, and power which made me dangerous." + +"Suppose you were to let me guard against that?" he said. + +"You couldn't. It would be like fighting a poisonous vapor with the +sword. The woman's spell, whether for good or ill, is more subtle and +more potent than anything in the universe but the love of God." + +"I can believe that, and still be willing to trust myself to yours," he +answered, gravely. "I know you, and honor you as men rarely do the women +they marry, until the proof of the years has tried them. In your case +the trial has come first. I've watched you bear it--watched you more +closely than you've ever been aware of. I've stood by, and seen you +carry your burden, when it was harder than you imagine not to take my +part in it. I've looked on, and seen you suffer, when it was all I could +do to keep from saying some word of sympathy you might have resented. +But, Diane," he cried, his voice taking on a strange, peremptory +sharpness, "I can't do it any longer! My power of standing still, while +you go on with your single-handed fight, is at an end. If ever God sent +a man to a woman's aid, He has sent me to yours; and you must let me do +what I'm appointed for. You must come to me for comfort in your +loneliness. You must come to me for care in your necessity. I have both +care and comfort for you here; and you must come." + +Without moving toward her he stood with open arms. + +"Come!" he cried again, commandingly. + +The tears coursed down her cheeks, but she gave no sign of obeying him, +except to drag one hand from the protecting bookcase ledge, to which she +seemed to cling. + +"Come, Diane!" he repeated! "Come to me!" + +The other hand fell to her side, while she gazed at him piteously, as +though in reluctant submission to his will. + +"Come!" he said once more, in a tone of authority mingled with appeal. + +Drawn by a force she had no power to withstand, she took one slow, +hesitating step toward him. + +"I haven't yielded," she stammered. "I haven't consented. I can't +consent--yet." + +"No, dearest, no," he murmured, with arms yearning to her as she +approached him; "nevertheless--come!" + + + + +X + + +Notwithstanding the fact that she had wept in his arms--wept as women +weep who are brave in the hour of trial, only to break down in the +moment of relief--Diane would give Derek Pruyn no other answer. She +could not consent--yet. With this reply he was obliged to sail away, +getting what comfort he might from its implications. + +During the three months of his absence Diane took knowledge of herself, +appraising her strength and probing her weakness. She was too honest not +to own that there were desires in her nature which leaped into newness +of life at the thought that there might again be means to support them. +Diane de la Ferronaise was not dead, but sleeping. Her love of luxury +and pleasure--her joy in jewels, equipage, and dress--her woman's +elemental weaknesses, second only to the instinct for maternity--all +these, grown lethargic from hunger, were ready to awake again at the +mere possibility of food. She was forced to confront the fact that, with +the same opportunities, she had it in her to go back to the same life. +It was a humiliating fact, but it stared her in the face, that +experience had shown her a creature for a man to be afraid of. Derek +Pruyn had seen her subdued by circumstances, as the panther is subdued +by famine; but it was not yet proved that the savage, preying thing was +tamed. + +There was only one force that would tame her; but there _was_ that +force, and Diane knew that she had submitted to its domination. From +weeks of tortuous self-examination she emerged into this knowledge, as +one comes out of a labyrinthine cavern into sunshine. Even here in the +open, however, was a problem still to solve. Could she marry the man who +had never told her that he loved her, even though she herself loved him? +Had she the power to give herself without stint, while asking of him +only what he chose to offer her? Would she, who had made men serve her, +with little more than smiles for their reward, be content to serve in +her own turn, getting nothing but a half-loaf for her heart's +sustenance? She asked herself these questions, but put off answering +them--waiting for him to force decision on her. + +So the rest of the winter passed, and by the time Derek came back the +hyacinths were fading from the gardens and parks, and the tulips were +coming into bloom. To both Diane and Dorothea spring was bringing a new +motive for looking forward together with a new comprehension of the +human heart's capacity for joy. + +Perhaps no day of their patient waiting was so long in passing as that +on which it was announced to them that Derek Pruyn had landed that +afternoon. He had sent word that he could not come home at once, as +business required his immediate presence at the office. Having already +exhausted their ingenuity in adorning the house, and putting everything +he could possibly want in the place where he could most easily find it, +there was nothing to do but to sit through the long hours in an +impatience which even Diane found it difficult to disguise. The visits +of the postman were welcomed as affording the additional task of +arranging Derek's letters on the desk in the small, book-lined room +specially devoted to his use; and when, in the evening, a cablegram +arrived, Diane herself propped it in a conspicuous place, with a tiny +silver dagger, for opening the envelope, beside it. The act, with its +suggestion of intimate life, gave her a stealthy pleasure; and when +Dorothea glided in and caught her sitting in Derek's own chair at the +desk, she blushed like a school-girl detected in a crime. It was perhaps +this acknowledgment of weakness that enabled Dorothea to speak out, and +say what had been for some time on her mind. + +"Diane," she asked, dropping among the cushions of a divan, "are you +going to marry father?" + +[Illustration: DRAWN BY FRANK +CRAIG DIANE PROPPED THE CABLEGRAM IN A CONSPICUOUS PLACE] + +Diane felt the color receding from her face as suddenly as it had come, +while she gained time in which to collect her astonished wits by putting +the silver dagger down beside the telegram with needless exactitude +before attempting a response. + +"Do you remember what Sir Walter Scott said, in the days when the +authorship of _Waverley_ was still a secret, to the indiscreet people +who asked him if he had written it? 'No,' he answered; 'but if I had I +should give you the same reply.'" + +"That means, I suppose, that you don't want to tell me?" + +"It might be taken to imply something of the sort." + +"As a matter of fact, I suppose it would be more delicate on my part not +to ask you." + +"I won't attempt to contradict you there." + +"I shouldn't do it if I didn't wish you _were_ going to marry him. I've +wanted it a long time; but I want it more than ever now." + +"Why more than ever now?" + +"Because I expect to be married before very long myself." + +"May I venture to inquire to which of the many--" + +"To none of the many. There's never, really, been more than one." + +"And his name--?" + +"Is Carli Wappinger." + +"Oh, Dorothea!" + +"That's just it. That's why I want you to marry father. I want to put a +stop to the 'Oh, Dorotheas!' and you're the only person in the world who +can help me do it." + +"How?" + +"I don't have to tell you that. It's one of the reasons why I rely on +you so thoroughly that you always know exactly what to do without having +to receive suggestions. I put myself in your hands entirely." + +"You mean that you're going to marry a man to whom your father will be +bitterly opposed, and you expect me to win his joyful benediction." + +"That's about it," Dorothea sighed, from the depth of her cushions. + +"Of course, I must be grateful to you, dear, for this display of +confidence; but you won't be surprised if I find it rather +overwhelming." + +"I shall be very much surprised, indeed. I've never seen you find +anything overwhelming yet; and you've been put in some difficult +situations. You only have to _live_ things in order to make other people +take them for granted. You've never done anything to specially please +father, and yet he listens to you as if you were an oracle. It's the +same way with me. If any one had told me two years ago that I should +ever come to praying for a stepmother I should have thought them crazy; +and yet I have come to it, just because it's you." + +After that it was not unnatural that Diane should go and sit on the +divan beside Dorothea for any exchange of such confidences as could not +be conveniently made from a distance. If she admitted anything on her +own part, it was by implication rather than by direct assertion, and +though she did not promise in words to come to the aid of the youthful +lovers, she allowed the possibility that she would do so to be assumed. + +So, in soft, whispered, broken confessions the evening slipped away more +rapidly than the day had done, and by ten o'clock they knew he must be +near. The last touch of welcome came when they passed from room to room, +lighting up the big house in cheerful readiness for its lord's +inspection. When all was done Dorothea stationed herself at a window +near the street; while Diane, with a curious shrinking from what she had +to face, took her seat in the remotest and obscurest corner in the more +distant of the two drawingrooms. When the sound of wheels, followed by a +loud ring at the bell, told her that he was actually at the door, she +felt faint from the violence of her heart's beating. + +Dorothea danced into the hail, with a cry and a laugh which were stifled +in her father's embrace. Diane rose instinctively, waiting humbly and +silently where she stood. At their parting she had torn herself, weeping +and protesting, from his arms; but when he came in to find her now, he +would see that she had yielded. The door was half open through which he +was to pass--never again to leave her! + +"Diane is in there." + +It was Dorothea's voice that spoke, but the reply reached the far +drawing-room only as a murmur of deep, inarticulate bass. + +"What's the matter, father?" + +Dorothea's clear voice rose above the noise of servants moving articles +of luggage in the hall; but again Diane heard nothing beyond a confused +muttering in answer. She wondered that he did not come to her at once, +though she supposed there was some slight prosaic reason to prevent his +doing so. + +"Father"--Dorothea's voice came again, this time with a distinct note of +anxiety--"father, you don't look well. Your eyes are bloodshot." + +"I'm quite well, thank you," was the curt reply, this time perfectly +audible to Diane's ears. "Simmons, you fool, don't leave those steamer +rugs down here!" + +Diane had never heard him speak so to a servant, and she knew that +something had gone amiss. Perhaps he was annoyed that she had not come +to greet him. Perhaps it was one of the duties of her position to +receive him at the door. She had known him to give way occasionally to +bursts of anger, in which a word from herself had soothed him. Leaving +her place in the corner, she was hurrying to the hall, when again +Dorothea's voice arrested her. + +"Aren't you going in to see Diane?" + +"No." + +From where she stood, just within the door, Diane knew that he had flung +the word over his shoulder as he went up the hail toward the stairway. +He was going to his room without speaking to her. For an instant she +stood still from consternation, but it was in emergencies like this that +her spirit rose. Without further hesitation she passed out into the +hall, just as Derek Pruyn turned at the bend in the staircase, on his +way upward. For a brief second, as, standing below, she lifted her eyes +to his in questioning, their glances met; but, on his part, it was +without recognition. + + + + +XI + + +Half an hour after Derek's return Diane was summoned into his presence +in the little room where she had arranged his letters in the afternoon. +The door was standing open, and she went in slowly, her head high. She +was dressed as when she had parted from him; and the whiteness of her +neck and shoulders, free from jewels, collar, or chain, was the more +brilliant from contrast with the severe line of black. In her pale face +all expression was focussed into the pained inquiry of her eyes. + +She entered so silently that he did not hear her, or lift his head from +the hand on which it leaned wearily, as he rested his elbow on the desk. +Pausing in the middle of the room, she had time to notice that he had +opened a few of the letters lying before him, but had thrust them +impatiently from him, evidently unread. The cablegram she had laid where +his glance would immediately fall upon it was between his fingers, but +the envelope was unbroken. His attitude was so much that of a man tired +and dispirited that her heart went out to him. + +It was perhaps the involuntary sigh that broke from her lips that caused +him to look up. When he did so his eyes fixed themselves on her with a +dazed stare, as though he wondered whence and for what she had come. In +the eager attention with which she regarded him she noted subconsciously +that he was unshaven and ill-kempt, and that his eyes, as Dorothea had +said, were bloodshot. + +He dragged himself to his feet, and with forced courtesy asked her to +sit down. She allowed herself to sink mechanically to the edge of the +divan where, only an hour ago, Dorothea and she had exchanged happy +confidences. In the minutes of silence that followed, when he had +resumed his own seat, she felt as if she were in some queer nightmare, +where nothing could be explained. + +"Did you ever hear of a young French explorer named Persigny?" + +She nodded, without speaking. The irrelevancy of the question was in +keeping with the odd horror of the dream. + +"Did you know he was exploring in Brazil?" + +"I think I may have heard so." + +"He came up from Rio with me--on the same steamer." + +She listened, with eyes fixed fast upon him, wondering what he meant. + +"He wasn't alone," Derek went on, speaking in a lifeless monotone. +"There were others of his party with him. There was one, especially, +with whom I became on terms that were almost--intimate." + +For the first time it occurred to her that he was trying to see through +her thoughts; but in her bewilderment at his words, she met his gaze +steadily. + +"There was something about this young man that attracted me," he +continued, in the same dull voice, "and I listened to his troubles. In +particular he told me why he had fled from Paris to hide himself in the +forests of the Amazon. Shall I tell you the reason?" + +"If you like." + +"It was an old story; in some respects a vulgar story. He had got into +the toils of an unscrupulous woman." + +Her sudden perception of what he was leading up to forced her into a +little involuntary movement. + +"I see you understand," he said, quickly, with the glimmer of a smile. +"I thought you would; for, as a matter of fact, much of what he said +brought back our conversation on the night before I sailed. There was +not a little in it that was mystery to me at the time, which +he--illumined." + +She sat with lips parted and bosom heaving, her hands clasped tightly in +her lap. If she was conscious of any sensation, it was of terrible +curiosity to know how the tale was to be turned. + +"What you said to me then," he pursued, in the same cruel quietness of +tone--"what you said to me then, as to the influence of a bad woman in a +man's life, seemed to me--what shall I say?--not precisely exaggerated, +but somewhat overwrought. I didn't know it could be so true to the +actual facts of experience. My friend's words at times were almost an +echo of your own. He had been the lover of a woman--" + +Once more she started, raising her hand in silent protest against the +words. + +"He--had--been--the--lover--of--a--woman," he repeated, with slow +emphasis, "who, after having ruined her husband's life, was preparing to +ruin his. She would have ruined his as she had ruined the lives of other +men before him. When he endeavored to elude her, she set on her husband +to call him out. There was a duel--or the semblance of a duel. My friend +fired into the air. The poor devil of a husband shot himself. It appears +that he had every reason for doing so." + +"My husband didn't shoot himself." + +"Your husband?" he asked, with an ironical lifting of the eyebrows. +"What makes you think I've been speaking of him?" + +"The man whom you call your friend is the Marquis de Bienville--" + +"He didn't mention your name; but I see you're able to tell me his. It's +what I was afraid of. I've repeated only a very little of what he said; +but since you recognize its truth already, it isn't necessary to +continue." + +She passed her hand over her forehead, with the gesture of one trying +desperately to see aright. + +"I must ask you to tell me plainly: Was I the--the unscrupulous woman +into whose toils Monsieur de Bienville fell?" + +"He didn't say so." + +"Then why--why have you spoken of this to me?" + +"Because what I heard from him fitted in so exactly with what I had +heard from you that it made an entire story. It was like the two parts +of a puzzle. The one without the other is incomplete and perplexing; but +having both, you can see the perfect whole. I will be frank enough to +tell you that many of your sayings were dark to me until I had his to +lend them light." + +"Would it be of any use to say that what he told you wasn't true?" + +"I don't know that it would be of any use to say it, unless it could be +proved." + +"Did you ask him to give you proof?" + +"No; because you had already provided me with that. + +"How?" + +"Surely you must remember telling me that you had ruined one rich man, +and might ruin another: that no man could cope with a woman such as you +were two or three years ago. There were these things--there were other +things--many other things--" + +"And that's what you understood from them?" + +"I understood nothing whatever. If I thought of such words at all, it +was to attribute them to a morbid sensibility. It wasn't until I got +their interpretation that they came back to me. It wasn't until I had +met some one who knew you before I did, and better than I did--" + +"It wasn't till then that you thought of me what no man ever thinks of a +woman until he is ready to trample her in the mire, under his feet." + +Straightening himself up, as a man who defends his position, he took an +argumentative tone. + +"What motive would Bienville have for lying?--to a stranger?--and about +a stranger? There are moments when you know a man is telling you the +truth, as if he were in the confessional. He wasn't speaking of you, but +of himself. Not only were no names mentioned, but he had no reason to +think I had ever heard of the woman he talked to me about, nor has he +yet. If it hadn't been for your own half-hints, your own +half-confessions, I doubt if I should ever have had more than a suspicion +of--of--the truth." + +"I could have explained everything," she said, with a break in her +voice. "I've never concealed from you the fact that there was a time in +my life when I was very indiscreet. I lived like the women of fashion +around me. I was inconsiderate of other people. I did things that were +wrong. But before I knew you I had repented of them." + +"Quite so; but, unfortunately, what is conventionally known as a +repentant woman is not the sort of person I would have chosen to be near +my child." + +She rose, wearily, dragging herself toward the desk. "Now that I've +heard your opinion of me," she said, quietly, "I suppose you have no +reason for detaining me any longer." + +"Are you going away?" he asked, sharply. + +"What else is there for me to do?" + +"Have you nothing to say in your own defence?" + +"You haven't asked me to say anything. You've tried and condemned me +unheard. Since you adopt that method of justice I'm forced to abide by +it. I'm not like a person who has rights or who can claim protection +from any outside authority. You're not only judge and jury to me, but my +final court of appeal. I must take what you mete out to me--and bear +it." + +"I don't want to be hard on you," he groaned. + +"No; I can believe that. I dare say the situation is just as cruel for +you as for me. When circumstances become so entangled that you can't +explain them, everybody has to suffer." + +"I'm glad you can do me that justice. My life for the past week--ever +since Bienville began to talk to me--has been hell." + +"I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry to have brought it on you. I'm afraid, +too, that the future may be harder for you still; for no man can do a +woman such wrong as you're doing me, and not pay for it." + +"Wrong? Can you honestly say I'm doing you wrong, Diane? Isn't it +true--you'll pardon me if I put my questions bluntly, the circumstances +don't permit of sparing either your feelings or my own--isn't it true +that for two or three years before your husband's death your name in +Paris was nothing short of a byword?" + +"I'm not sure of what you mean by a byword. I acknowledge that I braved +public opinion, and that much ill was said of me--often, more than I +deserved." + +"Isn't it true that your name was connected with that of a man called +Lalanne, and that he was killed in a duel on your account?" + +"It's true that Monsieur Lalanne made love to me; it's also true that he +was killed in a duel; but it's not true that it was on my account. The +instance is an excellent illustration of the degree to which the true +and the false are mixed in Parisian gossip--perhaps in all gossip--and a +woman's reputation blasted. Unhappily for me, I felt myself young and +strong enough to be indifferent to reputation. I treated it with the +neglect one often bestows upon one's health--not thinking that there +would come a day of reckoning." + +"If there had been only one such case it might have been allowed to +pass; but what do you say of De Cretteville? what of De Melcourt? what +of Lord Wendover?" + +"I have nothing to say but this: that for such scandal I've a rule, from +which I have no intention of departing even now: I neither tell it, nor +listen to it, nor contradict it. If it pleases the Marquis de Bienville +to repeat it, and you to give it credence, I can't stoop to correct it, +even in my own defence." + +"God knows I'm not delving into scandal, Diane. If I bring up these +miserable names, it's only that you may have the opportunity to right +yourself." + +"It's an opportunity impossible for me to use. If I were to attempt to +unravel the strand of truth from the web of falsehood, it would end in +your condemning me the more. The canons of conduct in France are so +different from those in America that what is permissible in one country +is heinous in the other. In the same way that your young girls shock our +conceptions of propriety, our married women shock yours. It would be +useless to defend myself in your eyes, because I should be appealing to +a standard to which I was never taught to conform." + +"I thought I had taken that into consideration. I'm not entirely +ignorant of the conditions under which you've lived, and I meant to have +allowed for them. But isn't it true that you exceeded the very wide +latitude recognized by public opinion, even in a place like Paris?" + +"I didn't take public opinion into account. I was reckless of its +injustice, as I was careless of its applause. I see now, however, that +indifference to either brings its punishment." + +"Those are abstract ideas, and I'm trying to deal with concrete facts. +Isn't it true that George Eveleth was a rich man when you married him, +and that your extravagance ruined him?" + +"It helped to ruin him. I plead guilty to that. I had no knowledge of +the value of money; but I don't offer that as an excuse." + +"Isn't it true that the Marquis de Bienville was your lover, and that +you were thinking of deserting your husband to go with him?" + +"It's true that the Marquis de Bienville asked me to do so, and that I +was rash enough to turn him into ridicule. I shouldn't have done it if I +had known that there was a man in the world capable of taking such a +revenge upon a woman as he took on me." + +"What revenge?" + +"The revenge you're executing at this minute. He said--what very few +men, thank God, will say of a woman, even when it's true, and what it +takes a dastard to say when it's not true. Even in the case of the +fallen woman there's a chivalrous human pity that protects her; while +there's something more than that due to the most foolish of our sex who +has not fallen. I took it for granted that, at the worst, I could count +on that, until I met your friend. His cup of vengeance will be full when +he learns that he has given you the power to insult me." + +"I don't mean to insult you," he said, in a dogged voice, "but I mean, +if possible, to know the truth." + +"I'm not concealing it. I'm ready to tell you anything." + +"Then, tell me this: isn't it the case that when George Eveleth +discovered your relations with Bienville, he challenged him?" + +"It's the case that he challenged him, not because of what he +discovered, but of what Monsieur de Bienville said." + +"At their encounter, didn't Bienville fire into the air--?" + +"I've never heard so." + +"And didn't George Eveleth fall from a self-inflicted shot?" + +"No. He died at the hand of the Marquis de Bienville." + +"So you told me once before, though you didn't tell me the man's name. +But, Diane, aren't you convinced in your heart that George Eveleth knew +that which made his life no longer worth the living?" + +"Do you mean that he knew something--about me?" + +"Yes--about you." + +"That's the most cruel charge Monsieur de Bienville has invented yet." + +"Suppose he didn't invent it? Suppose it was a fact?" + +"Have you any purpose in subjecting me to this needless torture?" + +"I have a purpose, and I'm sorry if it involves torture; but I assure +you it isn't needless. I must get to the bottom of this thing. I've +asked you to marry me; and I must know if my future wife--" + +"But I'm not--your future wife." + +"That remains to be seen. I can come to no decision--" + +"But I can." + +"That must wait. The point before us is this: Did, or did not, George +Eveleth kill himself?" + +"He did not." + +"You must understand that it would prove nothing if he did." + +"It would prove, or go far to prove, what you said just now--that I had +made his life not worth the living." + +"His money troubles may have counted for something in that. What it +would do is this: it would help to corroborate Bienville's word +against--yours." + +"Fortunately there are means of proving that I'm right. I can't tell you +exactly what they are; but I know that, in France, when people die the +registers tell just what they died of." + +"I've already sent for the necessary information. I've done even more +than that. I couldn't wait for the slow process of the mails. I cabled +this morning to Grimston, one of my Paris partners, to wire me the cause +of George Eveleth's death, as officially registered. This is his reply." + +He held up the envelope Diane had placed on the desk earlier in the +evening. + +"Why don't you open it?" she asked, in a whisper of suspense. + +"I've been afraid to. I've been afraid that it would prove him right in +the one detail in which I'm able to put his word to the test. I've been +hoping against hope that you would clear yourself; but if this is in his +favor--" + +"Open it," she pleaded. + +With the silver dagger she had laid ready to his hand he ripped up the +envelope, and drew out the paper. + +"Read it," he said, passing it to her, without unfolding it. + +Though it contained but one word, Diane took a long time to decipher it. +For minutes she stared at it, as though the power of comprehension had +forsaken her. Again and again she lifted her eyes to his, in sheer +bewilderment, only to drop them then once more on the all but blank +sheet in her hand. At last it seemed as if her fingers had no more +strength to hold it, and she let it flutter to the floor. + +"He was right?" + +The question came in a hoarse undertone, but Diane had no voice in which +to reply. She could only nod her head in dumb assent. + +It grew late, and Derek Pruyn still sat in the position in which Diane +had left him. His hands rested clinched on the desk before him, while +his eyes stared vacantly at the cluster of electric lights overhead. He +was living through the conversations with Bienville on shipboard. He +began with the first time he had noticed the tall, brown-eyed, +black-bearded young Frenchman on the day when they sailed out of the +harbor of Rio de Janeiro. He passed on to their first interchange of +casual remarks, leaning together over the deck-rail, and watching the +lights of Para recede into the darkness. It was in the hot, still evenings +in the Caribbean Sea that, smoking in neighboring deck-chairs, they had +first drifted into intimate talk, and the young man had begun to unburden +himself. They had been distinctly interesting to Derek, these glimpses +of a joyous, idle, light-o'-love life, with a tragic element never very +far below its surface, so different from his own gray career of +business. They not only beguiled the tedious nights, but they opened up +vistas of romance to an imagination growing dull before its time, in the +seriousness of large practical affairs. In proportion as the young +Frenchman showed himself willing to narrate, Derek became a sympathetic +listener. As Bienville told of his pursuit, now of this fair face, and +now of that, Derek received the impression of a chase, in which the +hunted engages not of necessity, but, like Atalanta, in sheer glee of +excitement. Like Atalanta, too, she was apt to over-estimate her speed, +and to end in being caught. + +It was not till after he had recounted a number of _petites histoires_, +more or less amusing, that Bienville came to what he called "_l'affaire +la plus sérieuse de ma vie,_" while Derek drank in the tale with all the +avidity the jealous heart brings to the augmentation of its pain. To the +idealizing purity of his conception of Diane any earthly failing on her +part became the extremity of sin. He had placed her so high that when +she fell it was to no middle flight of guilt; as to the fallen angel, +there was no choice for her, in his estimation, between heaven and the +nether hell. + +Outwardly he was an ordinary passenger, smoking quietly in a deck-chair, +in order to pass the time between dinner and the hour for "turning in." +His voice, as he plied Bienville with questions, betrayed his emotions +no more than the darkened surface of the sea gave evidence of the raging +life within its depths. To Bienville himself, during these idle, balmy +nights, there was a threefold inspiration, which in no case called for +strict exactitude of detail. There was, first, the pleasure of talking +about himself; there was, next, the desire to give his career the +advantage of a romantic light; and there was, thirdly, the +story-teller's natural instinct to hold his hearer spellbound. The little +more or the little less could not matter to a man whom he didn't know, in +talking about a woman whose name he hadn't given; while, on the other +hand, there was the satisfaction, to which the Latin is so sensitive, of +showing himself a lion among ladies. + +Moreover, he had boasted of his achievements so often that he had come +to believe in them long before giving Derek the detailed account of his +victory on the gleaming Caribbean seas. On his part, Derek had found no +difficulty in crediting that which was related with apparent fidelity to +fact, and which filled up, in so remarkable a manner, the empty spaces +between the mysterious, broken hints Diane had at various times given +him of her own inner life. The one story helped to tell the other as +accurately as the fragments of an ancient stele, when put together, make +up the whole inscription. The very independence of the sources from +which he drew his knowledge negatived the possibility of doubt. There +was but one way in which Diane could have put herself right with him: +she could have swept the charge aside, with a serene contemptuousness of +denial. Had she done so, her assertion would have found his own +eagerness to believe in her ready to meet it half-way. As it was, alas! +her admissions had been damning. Where she acknowledged the smoke, there +surely must have been the fire! Where she owned to so much culpability, +there surely must have been the entire measure of guilt! + +For the time being, he forgot Bienville, in order to review the +conversation of the last half-hour. Diane had not carried herself like a +woman who had nothing with which to reproach herself; and that a woman +should be obliged to reproach herself at all was a humiliation to her +womanhood. In the midst of this gross world, where the man's soul +naturally became stained and coarsened, hers should retain the celestial +beauty with which it came forth from God. That, in his opinion, was her +duty; that was her instinct; that was the object with which she had been +placed on earth. A woman who was no better than a man was an error on +the part of nature; and Diane--oh, the pity of it!--had put herself down +on the man's level with a naiveté which showed her unconscious of ever +having been higher up. She had confessed to weaknesses, as though she +were of no finer clay than himself, and spoke of being penitent, when +the tragedy lay in the fact that a woman should have anything to repent +of. + +The minutes went by, but he sat rigid, with hands clinched before him, +and eyes fixed in a kind of hypnotic stare on the cluster of lights, +taking no account of time or place. Throughout the house there was the +stillness of midnight, broken only by the rumble of a carriage or the +clatter of a motor in the street. The silence was the more ghostly owing +to the circumstance that throughout the empty rooms lights were still +flaring uselessly, welcoming his return. Presently there came a +sound--faint, soft, swift, like the rustle of wings, or a weird spirit +footfall. Though it was scarcely audible, it was certain that something +was astir. + +With a start Derek came back from the contemplation of his intolerable +pain to the world of common happenings. He must see what could be moving +at this unaccustomed hour; but he had barely risen in his place when he +was disturbed by still another sound, this time louder and heavier, and +characterized by a certain brusque finality. It was the closing of a +door; it was the closing of the large, ponderous street-door. Some one +had left the house. + +In a dozen strides he was out in the hail and on the stairway. There, on +the landing, where an hour or two ago he had turned to look down upon +Diane, stood Dorothea in her night-dress--a little white figure, scared +and trembling. + +"Oh, father, Diane has gone away!" + +For some seconds he stared at her blankly, like a man who puzzles over +something in a strange language. When he spoke, at last, his voice came +with a forced harshness, from which the girl shrank back, more terrified +than before: + +"She was quite right to go. You run back to bed." + + + + +XII + + +From the shelter of the little French hostelry in University Place, +Diane wrote, on the following morning, to Miss Lucilla van Tromp, +telling her as briefly and discreetly as possible what had occurred. +While withholding names and suppressing the detail which dealt with the +manner of her husband's death, she spoke with her characteristic +frankness, stating her case plainly. Though she denied the main charge, +she repeated the admissions Derek had found so fatal, and accepted her +share of all responsibility. + +"Mr. Pruyn is not to blame," she wrote. "From many points of view he is +as much the victim of circumstances as I am. I have to acknowledge +myself in fault; and yet, if I were more so, my problem would be easier +to solve. There are conditions in which it is scarcely less difficult to +discern the false from the true than it is to separate the foul current +from the pure, after their streams have run together; and I cannot +reproach Mr. Pruyn if, looking only on the mingled tides, he does not +see that they flow from dissimilar sources. Though I left his house +abruptly, it was not because he drove me forth; it was rather because I +feel that, until I have regained some measure of his respect, I cannot +be worthy in his eyes--nor in my own--to be under one roof with his +daughter." + + * * * * * + +To Miss Lucilla, in her ignorance of the world, it seemed, as she read +on, as if the foundations of the great deep had been broken up and the +windows of heaven opened. That such things happened in romances, she had +read; that they were not unknown in real life, even in New York, she had +heard it whispered; but that they should crop up in her own immediate +circle was not less wonderful than if the night-blooming cereus had +suddenly burst into flower in her strip of garden. Miss Lucilla owned to +being shocked, to being grieved, to being puzzled, to being stunned; but +she could not deny the thrill of excitement at being caught up into the +whirl of a real love-affair. + +When the first of the morning's duties in the sickroom were over she +waylaid Mrs. Eveleth in a convenient spot and told her tale. She did not +read the letter aloud, finding its phraseology at times too blunt; but, +with those softening circumlocutions of which good women have the +secret, she conveyed the facts. There was but one short passage which +she quoted just as Diane had written it: + +"'I am sure my mother-in-law will stand by me, and bear me out. She +alone knows the sort of life I led with her son, and I am convinced that +she will see justice done me.'" + +Mrs. Eveleth listened silently, with the still look of pain that belongs +to those growing old in the expectation of misfortune. + +"I've been afraid something would happen," was her only comment. + +"But surely, dear Mrs. Eveleth, you don't think any of it can be true!" + +The elder woman began moving toward the door. + +"So many things have been true, dear, that I hoped were not!" + +This answer, given from the threshold, left Miss Lucilla not more aghast +than disappointed. It brought into the romance features which no single +woman can afford to contemplate. She would have entered into the affairs +of a wronged heroine with enthusiastic interest; but what was to be done +with those of a possibly guilty one? She was so ready for the unexpected +that as she stood at a back window, looking into the garden, it was +almost a surprise not to find the night-blooming cereus really lifting +its exotic head among the stout spring shoots of the peonies. With the +vague feeling that the Park might prove more fruitful ground for the +phenomenon, she moved to a front window, where she was not long +unrewarded. If it was not the night-blooming cereus that drove up in the +handsome, open automobile, turning into the Park, it was something +equally portentous; for Mrs. Bayford had already played a part in +Diane's drama, and was now, presumably, about to enter on the scene +again. Miss Lucilla drew back, so as to be out of sight, while keeping +her visitors in view. For a minute she hoped that Marion Grimston +herself might be minded to make her a call, for she liked the handsome +girl, whose outspoken protests against the shams of her life agreed with +her own more gentle horror of pretension. Marion, wreathed in veils, +was, however, at the steering-wheel, and, as she guided the huge machine +to the curbstone, showed no symptoms of wishing to alight. Beside her +was Reggie Bradford, a large, fat youth, whose big, good-natured laugh +almost called back echoes from the surrounding houses. As the car +stopped he lumbered down from his perch, and helped Mrs. Bayford to +descend. When he had clambered back to his place again the great vehicle +rolled on. It was plain now to Miss Lucilla that a new act of the piece +was about to begin, and she hurried back to the library in order to be +in her place before the rising of the curtain. For Miss Lucilla's +callers there was always an immediate subject of conversation which had +to be exhausted before any other topic could be touched upon; and Mrs. +Bayford tackled it at once, asking the questions and answering them +herself, so as to get it out of the way. + +"Well, how is Regina? Very much the same, of course. I don't suppose +you'll see any change in her now, until it's for the worse. Poor thing! +one could almost wish, in her own interests, that our Heavenly Father +would think fit to take her to Himself. Now, I want to talk to you about +something serious." + +Mrs. Bayford made herself comfortable in a deep, low chair, with her +feet on a footstool. + +"I suppose you've never guessed," she asked, at last, "why Marion has +been with me all this time?" + +"I did guess," Miss Lucilla admitted, with a faint blush, "but I don't +know that I guessed right." + +"I expect you did. No one could see as much of her as you've done +without knowing she had a love-affair." + +"That's what I thought." + +"It's been a great trial," Mrs. Bayford sighed, "and it isn't over yet. +In fact, I don't know but what it's only just beginning." + +"Wasn't he--desirable?" + +"Oh yes; very much so, and is so still. It wasn't that. He was all that +any one could wish--old family, position, title, good looks, +everything." + +"But if Marion liked him, and he liked her--?" + +"I could explain it to you better if you knew more about men." + +"I do know a--a little," Miss Lucilla ventured to assert, shyly. + +"There is a case in which a little is not enough. You've got to +understand a man's capacity for loving one woman and being fascinated by +another. I think they call it double consciousness." + +"I don't think it's very honorable," Miss Lucilla declared, in +disapproval. + +"A man doesn't stop to think of honor, my dear, when he's in a grand +passion. Bienville has honor written in his very countenance, but this +was an occasion when he couldn't get it into play. It was perfectly +tragic. He had already spoken to Robert Grimston in the manliest +way--told all about himself--found out how much Marion would have as +her _dot_--and got permission to pay her his addresses--when all came +to nothing because of another woman." + +With this as an introduction it was natural that Mrs. Bayford should go +on to repeat the oft-told tale in its entirety, lending it a light that +no one had given to it yet. With the information she already possessed +from Diane's letter it was impossible for Lucilla not to recognize all +the characters as readily as Derek Pruyn had done, while she had the +advantage over him of knowing Marion Grimston's place in the action. It +was a dreadful story, and if Miss Lucilla was not more profoundly +shocked it was because Mrs. Bayford, by overshooting the mark, rendered +it incredible. None the less she agreed with Mrs. Bayford on the main +point she had come to urge, that Diane, on one side, and Marion and +Bienville, on the other, should be kept, if possible, from meeting. + +"Not that I think," Mrs. Bayford went on, "that Raoul--that's his +name--would ever take up with her again. Still, you never can tell; +I've seen such cases. A fire will often blaze up when you think it's +out. And now that everything is going so smoothly it would be a +thousand pities to throw any obstacle in the way." + +"Everything is going smoothly, then? I'm glad of that, for Marion's +sake." + +"Yes; it's practically a settled thing. When it seemed likely that he +would return to France by way of New York, Robert Grimston wrote me to +say that if anything happened it would have his full consent. Things +move rapidly in Paris, and the whole episode is as much a part of the +past as last year's styles. Then, too, everybody there knows now that +Raoul didn't kill George Eveleth; and, of course, that removes a certain +unpleasant thought that some people might have about him." + +"Have you seen him yet?" + +"I heard from him this morning. He asked if he could call on Marion and +me this afternoon. You can guess what was my reply." + +The nature of this having been made clear, Mrs. Bayford went on to +express her fears as to the complications which might arise from the +chance meeting of Bienville and Derek on the steamer, of which the +former had given her information in his note. Nothing would be more +natural now than for Derek to invite Marion and Bienville to dinner; and +there would be Diane! + +"I think I can relieve your mind on that point," Miss Lucilla said, +trying to choose her words cautiously. "There would be no danger of +their meeting Mrs. Eveleth just now, as she has left Dorothea for the +present." + +There was so much satisfaction to Mrs. Bayford in knowing that, as far +as Diane was concerned, the coast was comparatively clear, that she +gathered up her skirts and departed. After she had gone, Miss Lucilla's +sense of being the pivot of a romantic plot was heightened by the +appearance of Diane. She came in with her usual air of confidence in her +ability to meet the world, and if her pale face showed traces of tears +and sleeplessness, its expression was, if anything, more courageous. Had +it not been for this brave show Miss Lucilla would have wanted to +embrace her and hold her hands, but, as it was, she could only retire +shyly into herself, as in the presence of one too strong to need the +support of friends. + +"No; don't call my mother-in-law yet," Diane pleaded, as Miss Lucilla +was about to touch a bell. "I want to talk to you first, and tell you +things I couldn't say in writing." + +Then the story was told again, and from still another point of view. +Once more Diane acknowledged the weaknesses of conduct she had confessed +already, but Miss Lucilla was a woman and understood her speech. + +"I knew you'd believe in me," Diane said, half sobbing, as she ended her +tale. "I knew you'd understand that one can be a foolish woman without +having been a wicked one. Mr. Pruyn would not have been so hard on me if +he had thought of that." + +"Shall I go and tell him?" + +"No; it's too late. The wrong that's been done needs a more radical +remedy than you or I could bring to it. Bienville has lied, and I must +force him to retract. Nothing else can help me." + +To poor Miss Lucilla this was a new and alarming feature in the +situation. If it was so, then Marion Grimston ought not to be allowed to +marry him. If Diane was right--and she must be right--Mrs. Bayford was +mistakenly urging on a match that would bring unhappiness to her niece. +This complication was almost more than Miss Lucilla's quietly working +intellect could seize, and she followed Diane's succeeding words with +but a wandering attention. She understood, however, that, next to being +justified by Bienville, Diane attached importance to the aid she +expected from Mrs. Eveleth. Hers was the only living voice that could +testify to the happy relations always existing between her son and his +wife. She could tell, and would tell, that George had fallen as the +champion of Diane's honor, and not as the victim of her baseness. If he +died it was because he believed in her, not because he was seeking the +readiest refuge from their common life. Diane would explain all to Mrs. +Eveleth, to whose loyalty she could trust, and on whose love she could +depend. + +"I'll go and find her," Miss Lucilla said, rising. "You'd like to see +her alone?" + +"No; I'd rather you were present. My troubles have got beyond the stage +of privacy. It's best that those who care for me should hear what can be +said in my defence." + +Miss Lucilla went, and returned. A few minutes later Mrs. Eveleth could +be heard coming slowly down the stairs. But before she had time to enter +the room Derek Pruyn, using the privilege of a relative, walked in +without announcement. + + + + +XIII + + +If the morning had brought surprises to Miss Lucilla van Tromp, it had +not denied them to the Marquis de Bienville. They were all the more +astonishing in that they came out of a sky that was relatively clear. As +he stood in his dressing-gown, with a cigarette between his fingers, at +one of the upper windows of his tall, towerlike hotel, he would have +said that his life at the moment resembled the blue dome above him, from +which, after a cloudy dawn and dull early morning, the last fleecy +drifts were being blown away. + +There were many circumstances that combined just now to make him glad of +being Raoul de Laval, Marquis de Bienville. The mere material comfort of +modern hotel luxury had a certain joyous novelty after nearly two years +spent amid the unprofitable splendors of the tropical forest. True, New +York was not Paris; but it was an excellent distributing centre for +Parisian commodities and news, and would do very well for the work he +had immediately in hand. So far, all promised hopefully. His valet had +joined him from France, with whatever he could wish in the way of +wardrobe; and Mrs. Bayford's reply to his note contained much +information beyond what was actually written down in words. Moreover, +the statement he had found awaiting him from the Crédit Lyonnais +revealed the fact that, owing to the two years in which he had little or +no need to spend money, he could now live with handsome extravagance +until after he married Miss Grimston. He might even pay the more +pressing of his debts, though that possibility presented itself in the +light of a work of supererogation, seeing that in so short a time he +should be able to pay them all. + +Then would begin a new era in his life. On that point he was quite +determined. At thirty-two years of age it was high time to think of +being something better in the world than a mere man-beauty. His +experience with Persigny had shown that he was capable of something +worthier than dalliance, as his fathers had been before him. + +He did not precisely blame himself for shortcomings in the past, since, +according to French ideas, he had not enough money on which to be +useful, while his social position precluded work. He could not serve his +country for fear of serving the republic, nor live on his estates, +because Bienville was too expensive to keep up. However well-meaning his +nature, there had been almost nothing open to him but the career of the +idle, handsome, high-born youth, with money enough to pay for the +luxuries of life, while his name secured credit for its necessities. + +With his looks and his address it would have been easy to find a wife +who, by meeting his financial need, would have facilitated his path in +virtue; but on this point he was fastidious. Rather, perhaps, he was +typical of that modern, transitional phase of the French social mind +which, while still acknowledging the supremacy of the family in +matrimonial affairs, insists on some freedom of personal selection. That +his future wife should have enough money to make her a worthy chatelaine +of Bienville, as well as to meet the subsidiary expenses the position +implied, was a foregone conclusion; but it was equally a matter beyond +dispute that she should be some one whom he could love. He had not found +this combination of essentials until he met Marion Grimston, and the +hand he was thereupon prepared to offer her was not wholly empty of his +heart. + +In her he saw for the first time in his life the intrepid maiden who +seems to dare a man to come and master her. That she should be the +daughter of Robert Grimston, with his commercial primness, and Mrs. +Grimston, with her pretentious snobbery, was a mystery he made no +attempt to solve. It was enough for him that this proud creature was in +the world, especially as her bearing toward him inspired the hope that +he might win her. It was a pity that he should have turned aside from +such high endeavor in a foolish dash to make himself the Hippomenes of +Diane Eveleth's Atalanta. Putting little heart into the latter contest, +he would have suffered little mortification from defeat, had it not been +that the high spirits of the pursued lady invited the world to come and +laugh with her at his expense. + +Then it was that the Marquis de Bienville, in an uncontrollable access +of wounded vanity, had thrown his traditions of honor to the winds, and +lied. It was not such a lie as could be told--and forgotten; for there +were too many people eager to believe and repeat it. Within twenty-four +hours he found himself famous, all the way from the Parc Monceau to the +rue de Varennes. After his conscience had given him a sleepless night he +got up to see that any modification of his statement meant retraction. +Retraction was out of the question, in that it involved the loss of his +reputation among men. He was caught in a trap. He must lie and maintain +his place, or he must confess and go out of society. It must not be +supposed that he took his predicament lightly, or that he made his +choice without pangs of self-pity at the cruel necessity. It was his +honor, or hers! and if only the one or the other could be saved, it must +be his. So he saved it--according to his lights. He saved it by being +very bold in his statements by day, and heaping ignominy on himself +during the black hours of sleeplessness. He found, however, that the +process paid; for boldness engendered a sort of fictitious belief which +paralyzed the tendency to self-upbraiding until it ceased. + +The special quality of his courage was shown on that gray dawn when he +stood up before George Eveleth in a corner of the Pré Catalan. He had +not the moral force to confess himself a perjurer in the sight of Paris, +but he could stand ready to take the bullets in his breast. In going to +the encounter he had no intention of doing otherwise. He would not atone +to an injured woman by setting her right in the eyes of men, but he +would make her the offering of his life. + +It was a satisfaction now to know, as he was assured by letters, that +the incident was practically forgotten, and that Diane Eveleth had +disappeared. He himself found it easier than it used to be to dismiss +the subject from his mind; and if he recalled it at times, it was +generally--as it had been on shipboard--when at the end of his store of +confidential anecdotes. He was thinking, however, of dropping the story +from his repertoire, for he had more than remarked that its effect was +slightly sinister upon himself. He noticed, too, that, during the first +twenty-four hours on the steamer, Derek Pruyn avoided him, while he on +his part had felt a curious impulse to slink out of sight, which could +only be explained by the supposition that, as often happens on long +voyages, they had seen too much of each other. + +Finding that he had let his cigarette go out, he threw it away, and +turned from the window to complete his toilet. As he did so his valet +entered with a card, stating that the gentleman who had sent it in was +waiting in the hail outside. + +"Ask him to come in," he said, briefly, when he had read the name. He +was scarcely surprised, for Pruyn had spoken more than once of showing +him some civilities when they reached New York, and putting him up at +one or two convenient dubs. + +"My dear sir," he cried, going forward with outstretched hand; but the +words died on his lips as Derek pushed his way in brusquely, without +greeting. + +Again the young man attempted the ceremonious by apologizing for the +informality of his surroundings and the state of his dress; but again he +faltered before the haggard glare in Derek's eyes. + +"I want to talk to you," Pruyn said, abruptly. Bienville made a gesture +of mingled politeness and astonishment. + +"Certainly; but shall we not sit down while we do it? Will you smoke? +Here are cigarettes, but you probably prefer a cigar." + +Educated in England, like many young Frenchmen of the upper classes, +Bienville spoke English fluently and with little accent. + +"I want to talk to you," Derek said again. He took no notice of the +proffered seat, and they remained standing, as they were, with the round +table, bestrewn with letters, between them. "You remember," Derek +continued, speaking with difficulty--"you remember the story you told me +on the voyage--about a woman?" + +Bienville nodded. He had a sudden presentiment of what was coming. + +"I must tell you that on the night before I sailed for South America, +three months ago, I asked that woman to be my wife." + +"In that case," Bienville said, promptly, and with a tranquillity he did +not feel, "I withdraw my statements." + +"Withdrawal isn't enough. You must tell me they were not true." + +Bienville remained silent for a minute. He was beginning to realize the +firmness of the ground he stood on. His instinct for self-preservation +was strong, and he had confidence in his dexterous use of the necessary +weapons. + +"You must give me time to reflect on that," he said, after a pause. + +"Why do you need time? If the thing isn't true, you've only got to say +so." + +"It's not quite so easy as that. You can't cut every difficulty with a +sword, as they did the Gordian knot. One may go far in defence of a +woman's honor, but there are boundaries which even a gallant man cannot +pass; and, before I speak, I must see where they lie." + +"I want the truth. I want no defence of a woman's honor--" + +"Ah, but I do. That's the difference." + +"Damn your difference! You didn't think much of a woman's honor when you +began your infernal tales." + +"Did you, when you let me go on?" + +"No. That's where I share your crime. That's all that keeps me from +striking you now." + +"I let that pass. I know how you feel. I know just how hard it is for +you. I've been in something like your situation myself. No man can have +much to do with a woman without being put there in one way if not +another. It's because I do understand you that I share your pain--and +support your insults." + +The tremor in his voice, coupled with the dignity of his bearing, +carried a certain degree of conviction, so that when Derek spoke again +it was less fiercely. + +"Then I understand you to confirm what you told me on board ship?" + +"On the contrary; you understand me to take it back. Why shouldn't that +be enough for you--without asking further questions?" + +"Because I'm not here to go through formalities, but to seek for facts." + +"Precisely; and yet, wouldn't it be wise, under the circumstances, not +to be too exacting? If I do my best for you--" + +"It isn't a question of doing your best, but of telling me the truth." + +"I can quite see that it might strike you in that way; but you'll pardon +me, I know, if I see it from another point of view. No man in my +situation would consider it a matter of telling you the truth, so much +as of coming to the aid of a lady whose good name he had unwittingly +imperilled. My supreme duty is there; and I'm willing to do it to the +utmost of my power. I am willing to withdraw everything I have ever +uttered that could tell against her. Can you ask me to do more?" + +"Yes; I can ask you to deny it." + +"Isn't that already a form of denial?" + +"No; it's a form of affirmation." + +"That's because you choose to take it so. It's because you prefer to go +behind my words, and ascribe to me motives which, for all you know, I do +not possess." + +"I've nothing to do with your motives; my aim is to get at the truth." + +"Since you have nothing to do with my motives," Bienville said, with a +slight lifting of the brows, "you'll permit me, I am sure, to be equally +indifferent to your aims. I tell you what I am prepared to do; but +what is it to me whether you are satisfied or not? I am sorry +to--to--inconvenience the lady; but as for you--!" + +With a snap of the fingers he turned and strolled to the window, where +he stood, looking out, with his back toward his guest. It was +significant of their tension of feeling and concentration of mind that +both gesture and attitude went unnoted by both. Derek remained silent +and motionless, his slower mind trying to catch up with the Frenchman's +nimble adroitness. He had not yet done so when Bienville turned and +spoke again. + +"Why should we quarrel? What should we gain by doing that? You and I are +two men of the world, to whom human nature is as an open book. What do +you expect me to do? What do you expect me to say? What more did you +think to call forth from me when you came here this morning? Do me +justice. Am I not going as far as a man can go when I say that I blot +out of my memory the cursed evenings you and I spent together in cursed +talk? That doesn't cover the ground, you think; but would any other form +of words cover it any better? Would you believe me the more, whatever +set of speeches I might adopt? Would you not always have in the back of +your mind your expressive English phrase, that I was lying like a +gentleman? You know best what you can do, as I know best what I can do; +but is it not true that we have arrived at a point where the less that +is spoken in words on either side, the better it will be for us all?" + +When he had finished, Bienville turned again toward the window, leaning +his head wearily against the frame. Derek stood a minute longer watching +him. Then, as if accepting the assertion that there was nothing more +that could be said, he went quietly, with bent head, from the room. + + * * * * * + +He was down in the street before he became fully conscious that, among +the confused, strangled cries of pain within him, that which was loudest +and most imploring was a wailing self-reproach. It was a self-reproach +with a strain of pleading in it, akin to that with which a mother blames +herself for the failings of her son, seizing on any one else's wrong to +palliate the guilt of the accused. He had injured Diane himself! He had +pried into her past, and laid bare her sins, and stripped her life of +that covering of secrecy which no human existence could do without, +least of all his own. + +He walked on with bowed head, his eyes blind to the May sunshine, his +ears deaf to the city's joyous, energetic uproar, his mind closed to the +fact that important business affairs were awaiting his attention. His +feet strayed toward Gramercy Park, directed not so much by volition as +by the primary man-instinct to be near some sweet, sympathetic woman in +the hour of pain. Lucilla and he had, grown up in one family as boy and +girl together, and there were moments when he found near her the peace +he could get nowhere else in the world. + +He pushed by the footman who admitted him and walked straight to the +room where Lucilla was generally to be found. Though he could scarcely +be surprised to see Diane sitting by her, he stopped on the threshold, +with signs of embarrassment, and made as though he would withdraw. +Overwhelmed by the responsibilities of such a moment, Miss Lucilla +looked appealingly at Diane, who rose. + +"Don't go, Mr. Pruyn," she said, forcing herself to show firmness. "You +arrive very opportunely. I have just asked my mother-in-law to come to +my aid in some of the things we discussed last night. Won't you do me +the justice to hear her?" + +She crossed the room to where Mrs. Eveleth appeared on the threshold, +and, taking her by the hand, led her to the chair which Pruyn placed for +her. + +"I'd better go, Diane dear," Miss Lucilla whispered, tremblingly. + +"Please don't," Diane insisted. "I'd much rather have you stay. I've no +secrets from Miss Lucilla," she added, speaking to Derek. "I need a +woman friend; and I've found one." + +"You couldn't find a better," Pruyn murmured, while Miss Lucilla slipped +her arm around Diane's waist, rather to steady herself than to support +her friend. + +"Miss Lucilla knows everything that you know, petite mère," Diane +continued, turning to where her mother-in-law sat, slightly bowed, her +extended hand resting on her cane, like some graceful Sibyl. "She knows +everything that you know, and she knows one thing more. She knows what +some cruel people say was the way in which--George died." + +Diane uttered the last two words in a kind of sob, and Mrs. Eveleth +looked up, startled. + +"George--died?" she questioned, slowly, with a look of wonder. + +Diane nodded, unable, for the minute, to speak. + +"But we know how--he died." + +"Mr. Pruyn tells me that we don't." + +"I beg you not to put it in that way," Derek said, hurriedly. "I +repeated only what was told me, and what was afterward verified. Do you +not think we can spare Mrs. Eveleth what must be so painful?" + +"There's no need to spare me, Mr. Pruyn. I think I've reached the point +to which old people often come--where they can't feel any more." + +"Oh, mother, don't say that," Diane wailed, with a curiously childlike +cry. She had never before called Mrs. Eveleth mother, and the word +sounded strangely in this room which had not heard it since Miss Lucilla +was a little girl. "My mother would rather know," she declared, almost +proudly, speaking again to Pruyn, "than be kept in ignorance of +something in which she could help me so much." + +"What is it?" Mrs. Eveleth asked, eagerly. + +Then Diane told her. It had been stated, so she said, that George had +not fallen in her defence, but by his own hand--to escape her; and +there was no one in the world but his own mother to give this monstrous +calumny the lie. During the recital Mrs. Eveleth sat with clasped hands, +but with head sinking lower at each word. Once she murmured something +which only Miss Lucilla was near enough to hear: + +"Then that's why they wouldn't let me look at him in his coffin." + +"He did love me, didn't he?" Diane cried. "He was happy with me, wasn't +he, mother dear? He understood me, and upheld me, and defended me, +whatever I did. He didn't want to leave me. He knew I should never have +cared for the loss of the money--that we could have faced that +together. Tell them so, mother; tell them." + +For the first time since he had known her Derek saw Diane forget her +reserve in eager pleading. She stepped forward from Miss Lucilla's +embrace, standing before Mrs. Eveleth with palms opened outward, in an +attitude of petition. The older woman did not raise her head nor speak. + +"He was happy with me," Diane insisted. "I made him happy. I wasn't the +best wife he could have had, but he was satisfied with me as I was, in +spite of my imperfections. He was worried sometimes, especially +toward--toward the last; but he wasn't worried about me, was he, mother +dear?" + +Still the mother did not speak nor raise her head. Diane took a step +nearer and began again. + +"I didn't know we were living beyond our means. I didn't know what was +going on around me. I reproach myself for that. A wiser woman _would_ +have known; but I was young, and foolish, and very, very happy. I didn't +know I was ruining George, though I'm ready to take all the +responsibility for it now. But he never blamed me, did he, mother? +never, by a word, never by a look. Oh, speak, and tell them!" + +Her voice came out with a sharp note of anxiety, in which there was an +inflection almost of fear; but when she ceased there was silence. + +"Petite mère," she cried, "aren't you going to say anything?" + +The bowed head remained bowed; the only sign came from the trembling of +the extended hand, resting on the top of the stick. + +"If you don't speak," Diane cried again, "they'll think it's because you +don't want to." + +If there was a response to this, it was when the head bent lower. + +"Mother," Diane cried, in alarm, "I've no one in the world to speak a +word for me but you. If you don't do it, they'll believe I drove George +to his death--they'll say I was such a woman that he killed himself +rather than live with me any longer." + +Suddenly Mrs. Eveleth raised her head and looked round upon them all. +Then she staggered to her feet. + +"Take me away!" she said, in a dead voice, to Lucilla van Tromp. "Help +me! Take me away! I can't bear any more!" Leaning on Miss Lucilla's arm, +she advanced a step and paused before Diane, who stood wide-eyed, and +awe-struck rather than amazed, at the magnitude of this desertion. "May +God forgive you, Diane," she said, quietly, passing on again. "I try to +do so; but it's hard." + +While Derek's eyes were riveted on Diane, she stood staring vacantly at +the empty doorway through which Mrs. Eveleth and Miss Lucilla had passed +on their way up-stairs. This abandonment was so far outside the range of +what she had considered possible that there seemed to be no avenues to +her intelligence through which the conviction of it could be brought +home. She gazed as though her own vision were at fault, as though her +powers of comprehension had failed her. + +[Illustration: DRAWN BY FRANK CRAIG +"I'VE NO ONE TO SPEAK A WORD FOR ME BUT YOU"] + +Derek, on his part, watched her, with the fascination with which we +watch a man performing some strange feat of skill--from whom first one +support, and then another, and then another, falls away, until he is +left with nothing to uphold him, perilously, frightfully alone. + +When at length the knowledge of what had occurred came over her, Diane +looked round the familiar room, as though to bring her senses back out +of the realm of the incredible. When her eyes rested on him it was +simply to include him among the common facts of earth after this +excursion into the impossible. She said nothing, and her face was blank; +but the little gesture of the hands--the little limp French gesture: the +sudden lift, the sudden drop, the soft, tired sound, as the arms fell +against the sides--implied fatality, finality, inexplicability, and an +infinite weariness of created things. + + + + +XIV + + +"Do you think he did--shoot himself?" + +They continued to stand staring into each other's eyes--the width of the +room between them. A red azalea on the long mahogany table, strewn with +books, separated them by its fierce splash of color. The apathy of +Diane's voice was not that of worn-out emotion, but of emotion which +finds no adequate tones. The very way in which her inquiry ignored all +other subjects between them had its poignancy. + +"What do _you_ think?" + +"Oh, I suppose he did. Every one says so; then why shouldn't it be true? +If it were, it would only be of a piece with all the rest." + +"I reminded you last night that he had other troubles besides--besides--" + +"Besides those I may have caused him." + +"If you like to put it so. He might have been driven to a desperate act +by loss of fortune." + +"Leaving me to face poverty alone. No; I can't think so ill of him as +that. If you suggest it by way of offering me consolation, you're making +a mistake. Of the two, I'd rather think of him as seeking death from +horror--horror of me--than from simple cowardice." + +"It would be no new thing in the history of money troubles; and it would +relieve you of the blame." + +"To fasten it on him. I see what you mean; but I prefer not to accept +that kind of absolution. If there's any consolation left to me, it's in +the pride of having been the wife of an honorable man. Don't take it +away from me as long as there's any other explanation possible. I see +you're puzzled; but you'd have to be a wife to understand me. Accuse me +of any crime you like; take it for granted that I've been guilty of it; +only don't say that he deserted me in that way. Let me keep at least the +comfort of his memory." + +"I want you to keep all the comfort you can get, Diane. God forbid that +I should take from you anything in which you find support. So far am I +from that, that I come to offer you--what I have to offer." + +There was a minute's silence before she replied: + +"I don't know what that is." + +"My name." + +There was another minute's silence, during which she looked at him +hardly. + +"What for?" + +"I should think you'd see." + +"I don't. Will you be good enough to explain?" + +"Is that necessary? Is this a minute in which to bandy words?" + +"It's a minute in which I may be permitted to ask the meaning of +your--generosity." + +"It isn't generosity. I'm saying nothing new. I've come only for an +answer to the question I asked you before going to South America, three +months ago." + +"Oh, but I thought that question had answered itself." + +"Then perhaps it has--in that, whatever reply you might have given me +under other conditions, now you must accept me." + +"You mean, I must accept--your name." + +"My name, and all that goes with it." + +"How could you expect me to do that, after what happened last night?" + +"What happened last night shall be--as though it had not happened." + +"Could you ever forget it?" + +"I didn't say I should forget it. I suppose I couldn't do that any more +than you. I said it should be as though it hadn't been." + +"And what about Dorothea?" + +"That must be as it may." + +"You mean that Dorothea would have to take her chance." + +"She needn't know anything about it--yet." + +"You couldn't keep it from her forever." + +"No. But she'll probably marry soon. After that she'll understand things +better." + +"That is, she'll understand the position in which you've been +placed--that you could hardly have acted otherwise." + +"I don't want to go into definitions. There are times in life when words +become as dangerous as explosives. Let us do what we see to be our +obvious duty, without saying too much about it." + +"Isn't it your first duty to protect your child?" + +"My first duty, as I see it now, is to protect you." + +"I don't see much to be gained by shielding one person when you expose +another. What happens to me is a small matter compared with the +consequences to her." + +"Your influence hasn't hurt her in the past; why should it do so now?" + +"You forget that there are other things besides my influence. Her whole +position, her whole life, would be changed, if she had for a mother--if +you had for a wife--a notorious woman like me." + +"There are situations where the child must follow the parent." + +"But there are none, as far as I know, in which the parent must +sacrifice the child." + +"I don't agree with you. There are moments in which we must act in a +certain definite manner, no matter what may be the outcome. Don't let us +talk of it any more, Diane. You must know as well as I that there is but +one thing for us to do." + +"You mean, of course, that I must marry you." + +"You must give me the right to take care of you." + +"Because it's a duty that no one else would assume. That's what it comes +to, isn't it?" + +"I repeat that I don't want to discuss it--" + +"You must let me point out that some amount of discussion is needed. If +we didn't have it before marriage, we should have it afterward, when it +would be worse. You won't think I'm boasting if I say that I think my +vision is a little keener than yours, and that I see what you'd be doing +more clearly than you do yourself. You know me--or you think you know +me--as a guilty woman, homeless, penniless, and without a friend in the +world. You don't want to leave me to my fate, and there's no way of +helping me but one. That way you're prepared to take, cost what it will. +I admire you for it; I thank you for it; I know you would do it like a +man. But it's just because you _would_ do it like a man--because you +_are_ doing it like a man--that your kindness is far more cruel than +scorn. No woman, not the weakest, not the worst, among us, would consent +to be taken as you're offering to take me. A man might bring himself to +accept that kind of pity; but a woman--never! You said just now that you +had come to offer me--what you had to offer; but surely I'm not fallen +so low as to have to take it." + +"I said I offered you my name and all that goes with it. I would try to +tell you what it is, only that I find something in our relative +positions transcending words. But since you need words--since apparently +you prefer plainness of speech--I'll tell you something: I saw Bienville +this morning." + +She looked up with a new expression, verging on that of curiosity. + +"And--?" + +"Since then," he continued, "I've become even more deeply conscious than +I was before of the ineradicable nature of what I feel for you." + +"Ah?" + +"I've come to see that, whatever may have happened, whatever you may be, +I want you as my wife." + +"Do you mean that you would overlook wrongdoing on my part, +and--and--care for me, just the same?" + +"I mean that life isn't a conceivable thing to me without you; I mean +that no considerations in the world have any force as against my desire +to get you. Whatever your life has been, I subscribe to it. Listen! When +I saw Bienville this morning he withdrew what he said on shipboard--as +nearly as possible, without giving himself the lie, he denied it--and +yet, Diane, and yet I knew his first story was--the truth. No, don't +shrink. Don't cry out. Let me go on. I swear to God that it makes no +difference. I see the whole thing from another point of view. I'll not +only take you as you are, but I want you as you are. I give you my +honor, which is dearer than my life--I give you my child, who is more +precious than my honor. Everything--everything is cheap, so long as I +can win you. Don't shrink from me, Diane. Don't look at me like that--" + +"How can I help shrinking from anything so base?" + +Her voice rose scarcely above a whisper, but it checked the movement +with which, after the minutes of almost motionless confrontation, he +came toward her with eager arms. + +"Base?" he echoed, offended. + +"Yes--base. That a man should care for a woman whom he thinks to be bad +is comprehensible; that he should wish to make her his wife is credible; +that he should hope to lift her out of her condition is admirable; but +that he should descend from his own high plane to stay on hers is +despicably weak; while to drag down with him a girl in the very flower +of her purity is a crime without a name." + +The dark flush showed how quickly his haughty spirit responded to the +flicker of the lash. + +"If you choose to put that interpretation of my words--" he began, +indignantly. + +"I don't; but it's the interpretation they deserve. There's almost no +indignity that can be uttered which you haven't heaped upon me; and of +them all this last is the hardest to be borne. I bear it; I forgive it; +because it convinces me of what I've been afraid of all along--that I'm +a woman who throws some sort of evil influence over men. Even you are +not exempt from it--even you! Oh, Derek, go away from me! If you won't +do it for your own sake, do it for Dorothea's. I won't do battle with +Bienville's accusations now. Perhaps I may never do battle with them at +all. What does it matter whether he tells the truth or lies? The +pressing thing just now is that you should be saved--" + +"Thank you; I can take care of myself. Let's have no more fine splitting +of moral hairs. Let us settle the thing, and be done with it. There's +one big fact before us, and only one. You can't do without me; I can't +do without you. It's a crisis at which we've the right to think only of +ourselves and thrust every one else outside." + +"Wait!" she cried, as he advanced once more upon her. "Wait! Let me tell +you something. You mustn't be hard on me for saying it. You asked just +now for my answer to your question of three months ago. My answer is--" + +"Diane!" he said, lifting his hand in warning. "Be careful. Don't speak +in a hurry. I'm not in a mood to plead or argue any longer. What you say +now will be--the irrevocable word." + +"I know it. It will not only be the irrevocable word, but the last word. +Derek, I see you as you are, a strong, simple, honest man. I admire you; +I esteem you; I honor you; I'm grateful to you as a woman is rarely +grateful to a man. And yet I'd rather be all you think me; I'd rather +earn my bread as desperate women do earn it than be your wife." + +They looked at each other long and steadily. When he spoke, his words +were those she had invited, but they made her gasp as one gasps at that +which suddenly takes one's breath. + +"As you will," he said, briefly. + + + + +XV + + +As the pivot of events, Miss Lucilla van Tromp was beginning to feel the +responsibilities of her position. Only a woman with an inexhaustible +heart could have met as she did the demands for sympathy, of various +shades, made by the chief participants in the drama; while there was one +phase of the action which called for a heroic display of conscience. + +It was impossible now to contemplate Marion Grimston's peril without a +grave sense of the duties imposed by friendship. Some people might stand +by and see a girl wreck her happiness by giving her heart to an unworthy +suitor, but Miss van Tromp was not among that number. It was, in fact, +one of those junctures at which all her good instincts prompted her to +say, "I ought to go and tell her." As a patriotic spinster, she held +decided views on the question of marriage between American heiresses and +impecunious foreign noblemen--and, in her eyes, all foreign noblemen +were impecunious--in any case; but to see Marion Grimston become the +victim of her parents' vulgar ambition gave to the subject a personal +bearing which made her duty urgent. If ever there was a moment when a +goddess in a machine could feel justified in descending, for active +intervention, it was now. She had the less hesitation in doing so, owing +to the fact that she had known Marion since her cradle; and between the +two there had always existed the subtle tie which not seldom binds the +widely diverse but essentially like-minded together. Accordingly, on a +bright May morning, within a few days of the last meeting between Derek +Pruyn and Diane Eveleth, she sallied forth to the fashionable quarter +where Mrs. Bayford dwelt, coming home, some two hours later, with a +considerably extended knowledge of the possibilities inherent in human +nature. + +The tale Miss Lucilla told was that which had already been many times +repeated, each narrator lending to it the color imparted by his own +views of life. As now set forth, it became the story of a girl sought in +marriage by a man who has inflicted mortal wrong upon an innocent young +woman. With unconscious art Miss Lucilla placed Marion Grimston herself +in the centre of the piece, making the subsidiary characters revolve +around her. This situation brought with it a double duty: the one +explicit in righting the oppressed, the other implicit--for Miss Lucilla +balked at putting it too plainly into words--in punishing a wicked +marquis. + +The girl sat with head slightly bowed and rich color deepening. If she +showed emotion at all, it was in her haughty stillness, as though she +voluntarily put all expression out of her face until the recital was +ended. The effect on Miss Lucilla, as they sat side by side on a sofa, +was slightly disconcerting, so that she came to her conclusion lamely. + +"Of course, my dear, I don't know his side of the story, or what he may +have to say in self-defence. I'm only telling you what I've heard, and +just as I heard it." + +"I dare say it's quite right." + +The brevity and suggested cynicism of this reply produced in Miss +Lucilla a little shock. + +"Oh! Then, you think--?" + +"There would be nothing surprising in it. It's the sort of thing that's +always happening in Paris. It's one of the peculiarities of that society +that you can never believe half the evil you hear of any one--not even +if it's told you by the man himself. I might go so far as to say that, +when it's told you by himself you're least of all inclined to credit +it." + +"But how dreadful!" + +"Things are dreadful or not, according to the degree in which you're +used to them. I've grown up in that atmosphere, and so I can endure it. +In fact, any other atmosphere seems to me to lack some of the necessary +ingredients of air; just as to some people--to Napoleon, for instance--a +woman who isn't rouged isn't wholly dressed." + +"I know that's only your way of talking, dear. Oh, you can't shock +_me_." + +"At any rate, the way of talking shows you what I mean. I can quite +understand how Monsieur de Bienville might have said that of Mrs. +Eveleth." + +Lucilla's look of pain induced Miss Grimston promptly to qualify her +statement. + +"I said I could understand it; I didn't say I respected it. It's only +what's been said of hundreds of thousands of women in Paris by hundreds +of thousands of men, and in the place where they've said it it's taken +with the traditional grain of salt. If all had gone as it was going at +the time--if the Eveleths hadn't lost their money--if Mr. Eveleth hadn't +shot himself--if Mrs. Eveleth had kept her place in French society--the +story wouldn't have done her any harm. People would have shrugged their +shoulders at it, and forgotten it. It's the transferring of the scene +here, among you, that makes it grave. All your ideas are so different +that what's bad becomes worse, by being carried out of its milieu. +Monsieur de Bienville must be made to understand that, and repair the +wrong." + +"You seem to think there's no question but that--there _is_ a wrong?" + +"Oh, I suppose there isn't. There are so many cases of the kind. Mrs. +Eveleth is probably neither more nor less than one of the many +Frenchwomen of her rank in life who like to skate out on the thin edge +of excitement without any intention of going through. There are always +women like my aunt Bayford to think the worst of people of that sort, +and to say it." + +"And yet I don't see how that justifies Monsieur de Bienville." + +"It doesn't justify; it only explains. Responsibility presses less +heavily on the individual when it's shared." + +"But wouldn't the person--you'll forgive me, dear, won't you, if I'm +going too far?--wouldn't the person who has to take his part in that +kind of responsibility be a doubtful keeper of one's happiness?" + +Miss Grimston, half lowering her eyes, looked at her visitor with +slumberous suspension of expression, and made no reply. + +"If a man isn't good--" Miss Lucilla began again, tremblingly. + +"No man is perfect." + +"True, dear; and yet are there not certain qualities which we ought to +consider as essentials--?" + +"Monsieur de Bienville has those qualities for me." + +"But surely, dear, you can't mean--?" + +"Yes, I do mean." + +The avowal was made quietly, with the still bearing of one who gives a +few drops of confession out of deep oceans of reserve. Miss Lucilla +gazed at her in astonishment. That her parents should sacrifice her was +not surprising; but that she should be willing to sacrifice herself went +beyond the limits of thought. The revelation that Marion could actually +love the man was so startling that it shocked her out of her timidity, +loosening the strings of her eloquence and unsealing the sources of her +maternal tenderness. There was nothing original in Miss Lucilla's +subsequent line of argument. It was the old, oft-uttered, futile appeal +to the head, when the heart has already spoken. It premised the +possibility of placing one's affections where one cannot give one's +respect, regardless of the fact that the thing is done a thousand times +a day. It reasoned, it predicted, it implored, with an effect no more +disintegrating on the girl's decision than moonbeams make upon a +mountain. Through it all, she sat and listened with the veiled eyes and +mysterious impassivity which gave to her personality a curiously +incalculable quality, as of a force presenting none of the ordinary +phenomena by which to measure or compute it. + +It was not till Miss Lucilla touched on the subject of honor that she +obtained any sign of the effect she was producing. It was no more, on +Marion's part, than an uneasy movement, but it betrayed its cause. Miss +Lucilla pressed her point with renewed insistence, and presently two big +tears hung on the long, black lashes and rolled down. + +"I should like to see Mrs. Eveleth." + +Like the hasty raising and dropping of a curtain on some jealously +guarded view, the words gave to Miss Lucilla but a fleeting glimpse of +what was passing in the obscure recesses of the girl's heart; but she +determined to make the most of it by fixing, there and then, the day and +hour when, without apparently forcing the event, the two might come face +to face on the neutral ground of Gramercy Park. + +It was a meeting that, when it took place, would have been attended with +embarrassment had not both young women been practised in the ways of +their little world. Progress in mutual understanding was made the easier +by the existence, on both sides, of the European view of life, with its +fusion of interests, its softness of outline, its give and take of +toleration, in contradistinction to the sharp, clear, insistent American +demands for a certain line of conduct and no other. Five minutes had not +gone by in talk before each found in the other's presence that sense of +repose which comes from similar habits of thought and a common native +idiom. Whatever grounds for difference they might find, they were, at +least, ranged on the same side in that battle which the two hemispheres +half unconsciously wage upon each other as to the main purposes of life. +Thus they were able to approach their subject without that first +preliminary shock which makes it difficult for races to agree; and thus, +too, Marion Grimston found herself, before she was aware of it, pouring +out to Diane Eveleth that heart which, in response to Miss Lucilla's +tender pleading, had been dumb. + +They sat in the big, sombre library where, only a few days before, Diane +had seen Derek Pruyn turn his back on her, without even a gesture of +farewell. On the long mahogany table the red azalea was in almost +passionate luxuriance of blossom; while through the open window faint +odors of lilac came from Miss Lucilla's bit of garden. + +"I don't want you to think him worse than you're obliged to," Marion +said, as though in defence of the stand her heart had taken. "I've been +told that very few men possess the two kinds of courage--the moral and +the physical. Savonarola had the one and Nelson had the other; but +neither of them had both. And of the two, for me, the physical is the +essential. I can't help it. If I had to choose between a soldier and a +saint, I'd take the soldier. When the worst is said of Monsieur de +Bienville, it must be admitted that he's brave." + +"I've always understood that he was a good rider and a good shot," Diane +admitted. "I've no doubt that in battle he would conduct himself like a +hero." + +The girl's head went up proudly, and from the languorous eyes there came +one splendid flash before the lids fell over them again. + +"I know he would; and when a man has that sort of courage he's worth +saving." + +"You admit, then, that he needs to be--saved?" Again the heavy lids were +lifted for one brief, search-light glance. + +"Yes; I admit that. I believe he has wronged you. I can't tell you how I +know it; but I do. It's to tell you so that I've asked you to come here. +I hoped to make you see, as I do, that he's capable of doing it without +appreciating the nature of his crime. If we could get him to see that--" + +"Then--what?" + +"He'd make you reparation." + +"Are you so sure?" + +"I'm very sure. If he didn't--" The consequences of that possibility +being difficult of expression, she hung upon her words. + +"I should be sorry to have you brought to so momentous a decision on my +account." + +"It wouldn't be on your account; it would be on my own. I understand +myself well enough to see that I could love a dishonorable man; but I +couldn't marry him." + +"You have, of course, your own idea as to what makes a man +dishonorable." + +"What makes a man dishonorable is to persist in dishonor after he has +become aware of it. Any one may speak thoughtlessly, or boastfully, or +foolishly, and be forgiven for it. But he can't be forgiven if he keeps +it up, especially when by his doing so a woman has to suffer." + +The movement with which Diane pushed back her chair and rose betrayed a +troubled rather than an impatient spirit. + +"Miss Grimston," she said, standing before the girl and looking down +upon her, "I should almost prefer not to have you take my affairs into +your consideration. I doubt if they're worth it. I can't deny that I +shrink from becoming a factor in your life, as well as from feeling that +you must make your decisions, or unmake them, with reference to me." + +"I'm not making my decisions, or unmaking them, with reference to you; +it's with reference to Monsieur de Bienville. He has my father's consent +to his asking me to be his wife. I understand that, according to the +formal French fashion, he's going to do it to-morrow. Before I give him +an answer I must know that he is such a man as I could marry." + +"You would have thought him so if you hadn't heard this about me." + +"Even so, it's better for me to have heard it. Any prudent person would +tell you that. What I'm going to ask you to do now will not be for your +sake; it will be for mine." + +"You're going to ask me to do something?" + +"Yes; to see Monsieur de Bienville." + +Diane recoiled with an expression of dismay. + +"I know it will be hard for you," Miss Grimston pursued, "and I wouldn't +ask you to do it if it were not the straightest way out of a perplexing +situation. I've confidence enough in him to believe that when he has +seen you and heard your story, he'll act according to the dictates of a +nature which I know to be essentially honorable, even if it's weak. You +can see what that will mean to us all. It will not only clear you and +rehabilitate him, but it will bring happiness to me." + +There was something in the way in which these brief statements were made +that gave them the nature of an appeal. The very difficulty of the +reserved heart in speaking out, the shame-flushed cheek--the subdued +voice--the halting breath--had on Diane a more potent effect than +eloquence. What was left of her own hope, too, at once put forth its +claim at the possibility of getting justice. It was a matter of taking +her courage in both hands, in one tremendous effort, but the fact that +this girl believed in her was a stimulus to making the attempt. Before +they parted--with stammering expressions of mutual sympathy--she had +given her word to do it. + + + + +XVI + + +In the degree to which masculine good looks and elegance are accessories +to impressing a maid's heart, the Marquis de Bienville had reason to be +sure of the effect he was producing, as he bent and kissed Miss Marion +Grimston's hand, in her aunt's drawing-room, on the following afternoon. +He was not surprised to detect the thrill that shot through her being at +his act of homage, and communicated itself back to him; for he was +tolerably certain of her love. That had been, to all intents and +purposes, confessed more than two years ago; while, during the +intervening time, he had not lacked signs that the gift once bestowed +had never been withdrawn. He had stood for a few seconds at the +threshold on entering the room, just to rejoice consciously at his great +good-fortune. She had risen, but not advanced, to meet him, her tall +figure, sheathed in some close-fitting, soft stuff, thrown into relief +by the dark-blue velvet portière behind her. He was not unaware of his +unworthiness in the presence of this superb young creature, and as he +crossed the room it was with the humility of a worshipper before a +shrine. + +"Mademoiselle," he said, simply, when he had raised himself, "I come to +tell you that I love you." + +The glance, slightly oblique, of suspended expression with which she +received the words encouraged him to continue. + +"I know how far what I have to give is beneath the honor of your +acceptance; and yet when men love they are impelled to offer all the +little that they have. My one hope lies in the fact that a woman like +you doesn't love a man for what he is--but for what she can make him." + +The words were admirably chosen, reaching her heart with a force greater +than he knew. + +"A woman," she answered, with a certain stately uplifting of the head, +"can only make a man that which he has already the power to become. She +may be able to point out the way; but it's for him to follow it." + +"I don't think you'd see me hesitate at that." + +"I'm glad you say so; because the road I should have to ask you to take +would be a hard one." + +"The harder the better, if it's anything by which I can prove my love." + +"It is; but it's not only that; it's something by which you could prove +mine." + +His face brightened. + +"In that case, Mademoiselle--speak." + +She took an instant to assemble her forces, standing before him with a +calmness she did not feel. + +"You must forgive me," she said, trying to keep her voice steady, "if I +take the initiative, as no girl is often called upon to do. Perhaps I +should hesitate more if you hadn't told me, two years ago, what I know +you've come to repeat to-day. The fact that I've waited those two years +to hear you say it gives me a right that otherwise I shouldn't claim." + +He bowed. + +"There are no rights that a woman can have over a man which you, +Mademoiselle, do not possess over me." + +"Before telling me again," she continued, speaking with difficulty, +"what you've told me already, I want to say that I can only listen to it +on one condition." + +"Which is--?" + +"That your own conscience is at peace with itself." + +There was a sudden startled toss of the head, but he answered, bravely: + +"Is one's conscience ever at peace with itself? A woman's, perhaps; but +a man's--!" + +He shook his head with that wistful smile of contrition which is already +a plea for pardon. + +"I'm not speaking of life in general, but of something in particular. I +want you to understand, before you ask me--what you've come to ask, that +you couldn't make one woman happy while you're doing another a great +wrong." + +He was sure now of what was in store for him, and braced himself for his +part. He was one of those men who need but to see peril to see also the +way of meeting it. He stood for a minute, very straight and erect, like +a soldier before a court-martial--a culprit whose guilt is half excused +by his very manliness. + +"I have wronged women. They've wronged me, too. All I can do to show I'm +sorry for it is--not to give them the same sort of offence again." + +"I'm thinking of one woman--one woman in particular." + +He threw back his head with fine confidence. + +"I don't know her." + +"It's Diane Eveleth. She says--" + +"I can imagine what she says. If I were you, I wouldn't pay it more +attention than it deserves." + +"It deserves a good deal--if it's true." + +"Not from you, Mademoiselle. It belongs to a region into which your +thought shouldn't enter." + +"My thought does enter it, I'm afraid. In fact, I think of it so much +that I've invited Mrs. Eveleth to come here this afternoon. I hope you +don't mind meeting her?" + +"Certainly not. Why should I?" he demanded, with an air of conscious +rectitude. + +Miss Grimston touched a bell. + +"Ask Mrs. Eveleth to come in," she said to the footman who answered it. + +As Diane entered she greeted Bienville with a slight inclination of the +head, which he returned, bowing ceremoniously. + +"I've begged Mrs. Eveleth to meet us," Marion hastened to explain, "for +a very special reason." + +"Then perhaps she will be good enough to tell me what it is," Bienville +said, with a look of courteous inquiry. + +"Miss Grimston thought--you might be able--to help me." + +There was a catch in Diane's voice as she spoke, but she mastered it, +keeping her eyes on his, in the effort to be courageous. + +"If there's anything I can do--" he began, allowing the rest of his +sentence to be inferred. + +He concealed his nervousness by placing a small gilded chair for Diane +to sit on. He himself took a chair a few feet away, seating himself +sidewise, with his elbow supported on the back, in an easy attitude of +attention. Marion Grimston withdrew to the more distant part of the +room, where, with her hands behind her, she stood leaning against the +grand piano, with the bearing of one only indirectly, and yet intensely, +concerned. Bienville left the task of beginning to Diane. In spite of +his determination to be self-possessed, a trace of compunction was +visible in his face as he contrasted the subdued little woman before him +with the sparkling, insouciant creature to whom, two or three years ago, +he had paid his inglorious court. + +"I shall have to speak to you quite simply and frankly," Diane began, +with some hesitation, still keeping her eyes on his, "otherwise you +wouldn't understand me." + +"Quite so," Bienville assented, politely. + +"You may not have heard that since--my--my husband's death, I have my +own living to earn?" + +"Yes; I did hear something of the kind." + +"I've had what people in my position call a good situation; but I have +lost it." + +"Ah? I'm sorry." + +"I thought you would be. That's why Miss Grimston asked me to tell you +the reason. She was sure you wouldn't injure me--knowingly." + +"Naturally. I'm very much surprised that any one should think I've +injured you at all. To the best of my knowledge your name has not passed +my lips for two years, at the least. If it had it would only have been +spoken--with respect." + +"I'm sure of that. I'm not pretending when I say that I'm absolutely +convinced you're a man of sensitive honor. If you weren't you couldn't +be a Frenchman and a Bienville. I want you to understand that I've never +attributed--the--things that have happened--to anything but folly and +imprudence--for which I want to take my full share of the blame." + +"I've never ventured to express to you my own regret," Bienville said, +in a tone not free from emotion, "but I assure you it's very deep." + +"I know. All our life was so wrong! It's because I feel sure you must +see that as well as I do that I hoped you'd help me now." + +He said nothing in reply, letting some seconds pass in silence, waiting +for her to come to her point. + +"On the way up from South America," she began again, with visible +difficulty, "you were on the same ship with my--my--employer. From +certain things you said then--" + +"But I've withdrawn them," he interrupted, quickly. "He should have told +you that. Mademoiselle," he added, rising, and turning toward Marion +Grimston, "wouldn't it spare you if we continued this conversation +alone?" + +"No; I'd rather stay," Miss Grimston said, with an inflection of +request. "Please sit down again." + +"He should have told you that," Bienville repeated, taking his seat once +more, and speaking with some animation. "I did my best to straighten +things out for him." + +"Then he didn't understand you. He told me you had taken back what you +had said, but only in a way that reaffirmed it." + +"That's nothing but a tortuous construction put on straightforward +words." + +"Quite so; but for that very reason I thought that perhaps you'd go to +him again and explain what you meant more clearly." + +He took a minute to consider this before speaking. + +"I don't see how I can," he said, slowly. "I've already used the +plainest words of which I have command." + +"Words aren't everything. It's the way they're spoken that often counts +most. I'm sure you could convince him if you went the right way to work +about it." + +"I doubt that. I'm afraid I don't know how to force conviction on any +one against his will." + +"You mean--?" + +"I mean--you'll excuse me; I speak quite bluntly--I mean that he seemed +very willing to believe anything that could tell against you, but less +eager to credit what was said in your defence." + +"You think so because you don't understand him. As a matter of fact--" + +"Oh, I dare say. I don't pretend to understand the gentleman in +question. But for that very reason it would be useless for me to try to +enlighten him further. It would only make matters worse." + +"It wouldn't if you'd put things before him just as they happened. I +don't want any excuses made for me. My best defence would be--the +truth." + +There was a perceptible pause, during which his eyes shifted uneasily +toward Marion Grimston. + +"I should think you could tell him that yourself," he suggested, at +last. + +"It wouldn't be the same thing. You're the only person who could speak +with authority. He'd accept your word, if you gave it--in a certain +way." + +"I'm afraid I don't know what that way is." + +"Oh yes, you do, Bienville!" she exclaimed, pleadingly, leaning forward +slightly, with her hands clasped in her lap. "Don't force me to speak +more plainly than I need. You must know what I refer to." + +He shook his head slowly, with a look of mystification. + +"What you may not know," she continued, "is all it means to me. I won't +put the matter on any ground but that of my need for earning money. +Because Mr. Pruyn has--misunderstood you, I've had to give up +my--my--place"--she forced the last word with a little difficulty--"and +until something like a good name is restored to me I shall find it hard +to get another. You can have no idea of what that means. I had none, +until I had to face it. There's only one kind of work I'm fitted +for--the kind I've been doing; but it's just the kind I can't have +without the--the reputation you could give back to me." + +That this appeal was not without its effect was evident from the way in +which his expressive brown eyes clouded, while he stroked his black +beard nervously. The fact that his pity was largely for himself--that +with instincts naturally chivalrous he should be driven to these +miserable verbal shifts--being unknown to Diane, she was encouraged to +proceed. + +"You see," she went on, eagerly, "it wouldn't only bring me happiness, +but it would add to your own. You're at the beginning of a new life, +just like me--or, rather, just as I could be if you'd give me the +chance. Think what it would be for you to enter on it, I won't say with +a clear conscience, but with the knowledge that in rising yourself you +had helped an unhappy woman up, instead of thrusting her further down! +It isn't as if it would be so hard for you, Bienville. I'd make it easy +for you. Miss Grimston would help me. Wouldn't you?" she added, turning +toward Marion. "It could all be done quite simply and confidentially +between ourselves--and Mr. Pruyn." + +"Oh no, it couldn't," he said, coldly. "If I were to admit what you +imply, secrecy wouldn't be of any use to me." + +"Does that mean," she asked, fixing her earnest eyes upon him, "that you +don't admit it?" + +"It means," he said, rising quietly and standing behind his chair, "that +this conversation is extremely painful to me, and I must ask to be +excused from taking any further part in it. I know only vaguely what you +mean, Madame; and if I don't inquire more in detail, it's because I want +to spare you distressing explanations. I think you must agree with me, +Mademoiselle," he continued, looking toward Miss Grimston, "that we +should all be well advised in letting the subject drop." + +Marion came slowly forward, advancing to the side of Diane, over whose +shoulder, as she remained seated, she allowed her hand to fall, in a +pose suggestive of protection. + +"Of course, Monsieur," she agreed, "we must let the subject drop, if you +have nothing more to say." + +He stood silent a minute, looking at her steadily. "I'm afraid I +haven't," he said, then. + +"Nor I," Miss Grimston returned, significantly. + +Again there was a minute or two of silence, during which Bienville +seemed to probe for the meaning of the two laconic words. If anything +could be read from his countenance, it was doubt as to whether to +relinquish the prize with dignity or to pay its price in humiliation. +There was an instant in which he appeared to be bracing himself to do +the latter; but when he spoke his interrogation threw the responsibility +for decision on Miss Grimston. + +"Have I received--my answer?" + +She waited, finding it hard to give him his reply. It was as if forced +to it against her will that her head bent slowly in assent. + +"Then," he said, in a tone of dignified regret, "there's nothing for me +but to wish Mademoiselle good-by." + +He bowed separately to Miss Grimston and to Diane, and, with the +self-possession of a man accustomed to the various turns of drawing-room +drama, he left the room. + + + + +XVII + + +During the summer that followed these events Derek Pruyn set himself the +task of stamping the memory and influence of Diane Eveleth out of his +life. His sense of duty combined with his feelings of self-respect in +making the attempt. In reflecting on his last interview with her, he saw +the weakness of the stand he had taken in it, recoiling from so unworthy +a position with natural reaction. To have been in love at all at his age +struck him as humiliation enough; but to have been in love with that +sort of woman came very near mental malady. He said "that sort of +woman," because the vagueness of the term gave scope to the bitterness +of resentment with which he tried to overwhelm her. It enabled him to +create some such paradise of pain as that into which the souls of +Othello and Desdemona might have gone together. Had he been a Moor of +Venice he would doubtless have smothered her with a pillow; but being a +New York banker he could only try to slay the image, whose eyes and +voice had never haunted him so persistently as now. In his rage of +suffering he was as little able to take a reasoned view of the situation +as the maddened bull in the arena to appraise the skill of his +tormentors. + +When in the middle of May he had retired to Rhinefields it was with the +intention of laying waste all that Diane had left behind in the course +of her brief passage through his life. The process being easier in the +exterior phases of existence than in those more secret and remote, he +determined to work from the outside inward. Wherever anything reminded +him of her, he erased, destroyed, or removed it. All that she had +changed within the house he put back into the state in which it was +before she came. Where he had followed her suggestions about the grounds +and gardens he reversed the orders. Taken as outward and visible signs +of the inward and spiritual change he was trying to create within +himself, these childish acts gave him a passionate satisfaction. In a +short time, he boasted to himself, he would have obliterated all trace +of her presence. + +And so he came, in time, to giving his attention to Dorothea. She, too, +bore the impress of Diane; and as she bore it more markedly than the +inanimate things around, it caused him the greater pain. He could forbid +her to hold intercourse with Diane, and to speak of her; but he could +not control the blending of French and Irish intonations her voice had +caught, or the gestures into which she slipped through youth's mimetic +instinct. In happier days he had been amused to note the degree to which +Dorothea had become the unconscious copy of Diane; but now this constant +reproduction of her ways was torture. Telling himself that it was not +the child's fault, he bore it at first with what self-restraint he +could; but as solitude encouraged brooding thoughts, he found, as the +summer wore on, that his stock of patience was running low. There were +times when some chance sentence or imitated bit of mannerism on +Dorothea's part almost drew from him that which in tragedy would be a +cry, but which in our smaller life becomes the hasty or exasperated +word. + +In these circumstances the explosion was bound to come; and one day it +produced itself unexpectedly, and about nothing. Thinking of it +afterward Derek was unable to say why it should have taken place then +more than at any other time. He was standing on the lawn, noting with +savage complacency that the bit by which he had enlarged it, at Diane's +prompting, had grown up again, in luxuriant grass, when Dorothea +descended the steps of the Georgian brick house, behind him. + +"Would you be afther wantin' me to-day?" she called out, using the Irish +expression Diane affected in moments of fun. + +"Dorothea," he cried, sharply, wheeling round on her, "drop that idiotic +way of speaking. If you think it's amusing, you're mistaken. You can't +even do it properly." + +The words were no sooner out than he regretted them, but it was too late +to take them back. Moreover, when a man, nervously suffering, has once +wounded the feelings of one he loves, it is not infrequently his +instinct to go on and wound them again. + +"We have enough of that sort of language from the servants and the +stable-boys. Be good enough in future to use your mother-tongue." + +Standing where his words had stopped her, a few yards away, she looked +up at him with the clear gaze of astonishment; but the slight shrug of +the shoulders before she spoke was also a trick caught from Diane, and +not calculated to allay his annoyance. + +"Very well, father," she answered, with a quietness indicating judgment +held in reserve, "I won't do it again. I only meant to ask you if you +want me for anything in particular to-day; otherwise I shall go over and +lunch at the Thoroughgoods'." + +"The Thoroughgoods' again? Can't you get through a day without going +there?" + +"I suppose I could if it was necessary; but it isn't." + +"I think it is. You'll do well not to wear out your welcome anywhere." + +"I'm not afraid of that." + +"Then I am; so you'd better stay at home." + +He wheeled from her as sharply as he had turned to confront her, +striding off toward a wild border, where he tried to conceal the extent +to which he was ashamed of his ill temper by pretending to be engrossed +in the efforts of a bee to work its way into a blue cowl of monk's-hood. +When he looked around again she was still standing where he had left +her, her eyes clouded by an expression of wondering pain that smote him +to the heart. + +Had he possessed sufficient mastery of himself he would have gone back +and begged her pardon, and sent her away to enjoy herself. It was what +he wanted to do; but the tension of his nerves seemed to get relief from +the innocent thing's suffering. The very fact that her pretty little +face was set with his own obstinacy of self-will, while behind it her +spirit was rising against this capricious tyranny, goaded him into +persistence. He remembered how often Diane had told him that Dorothea +could be neither led nor driven; she could only be "managed"; but he +would show Diane, he would show himself, that she could be both driven +and led, and that "management" should go the way of the wall-fruit and +the roses. + +As, recrossing the lawn, he made as though he would pass her without +further words, he was an excellent illustration of the degree to which +the adult man of the world, capable of taking an important part among +his fellow-men, can be, at times, nothing but an overgrown infant. It +was not surprising, however, that Dorothea should not see this aspect of +his personality, or look upon his commands as other than those of an +unreasonable despotism. + +"Father," she said, "I can't go on living like this." + +"Living like what?" + +"Living as we've lived all this summer." + +"What's the matter with the summer? It's like any other summer, isn't +it?" + +"The summer may be like any other summer; but you're not like yourself. +I do everything I can to please you, but--" + +"You needn't do anything to please me but what you're told." + +"I always do what I'm told--when you tell me; but you only tell me by +fits and starts." + +"Then, I tell you now: you're not to go to the Thoroughgoods'." + +"But they expect me. I said I'd go to lunch. They'll think it very +strange if I don't." + +"They'll think what they please. It's enough for you to know what I +think." + +"But that's just what I don't know. Ever since Diane went away--" + +"Stop that! I've forbidden you to speak--" + +"But you can't forbid me to think; and I think till I'm utterly +bewildered. You don't explain anything to me. You haven't even told me +why she went away. If I ask a question you won't answer it." + +"What's necessary for you to know, you can depend on me to tell you. +Anything I don't explain to you, you may dismiss from your mind." + +"But that's not reasonable, father; it's not possible. If you want me to +obey you, I must know what I'm doing. Because I don't know what I'm +doing, I haven't--" + +"You haven't obeyed me?" he asked, quickly. + +"Not entirely. I've meant to tell you when an occasion offered, so I +might as well do it now. I've written to Diane." + +"You've--!" + +He strode up to her and caught her by the arm. It was not strange that +she should take the curious light in his face for that of anger; but a +more experienced observer would have seen that two distinct emotions +crowded on each other. + +"I've written to her twice," Dorothea repeated, defiantly, as he held +her arm. "She didn't reply to me--but I wrote." + +"What for?" + +"To tell her that I loved her--that no trouble should keep me from +loving her--no matter what it was." + +He released her arm, stepping back from her again, surveying her with an +admiration he tried to conceal under a scowling brow. The rigidity of +her attitude, the lift of her head, the set of her lips, the directness +of her glance, suggested not merely rebellion against his will, but the +assertion of her own. It occurred to him then that he could break her +little body to pieces before he could force her to yield; and in his +pride in this temperament, so like his own, he almost uttered the cry of +"Brava!" that hung on his lips. He might have done so if Dorothea had +not found it a convenient moment at which to make all her confessions at +once and have them off her mind. It was best to do it, she thought, now +that her courage was up. + +"And, father," she went on, "it may be a good opportunity to tell you +something else. I've decided to marry Mr. Wappinger." + +During the brief silence that followed this announcement he had time to +throw the blame for it upon Diane, using the fact as one more argument +against her. Had she taken his suggestions at the beginning, and +suppressed the Wappinger acquaintance, this distressing folly would have +received a definite check: As it was, the odium of putting a stop to it, +which must now fall on him, was but an additional part of the penalty he +had to pay for ever having known her. So be it! He would make good the +uttermost farthing! In doing it he had the same sort of frenzied +satisfaction as in defacing Diane's image in his heart. + +"You shall not," he said, at last. + +"I don't understand how you're going to stop me." + +"I must ask you to be patient--and see. You can make a beginning to-day, +by staying at home from the Thoroughgoods'. That will be enough for the +minute." + +Fearing to look any longer into her indignant eyes, he passed on toward +the stables. For some minutes she stood still where he left her, while +the collie gazed up at her, with twitching tail and questioning regard, +as though to ask the meaning of this futile hesitation; but when, at +last, she turned slowly and re-entered the house, one would have said +that the "dainty rogue in porcelain" had been transformed into an +intensely modern little creature made of steel. + +She did not go to the Thoroughgoods' that day, nor was any further +reference made to the discussion of the morning. Compunction having +succeeded irritation, with the rapidity not uncommon to men of his +character, Derek was already seeking some way of reaching his end by +gentler means, when a new move on Dorothea's part exasperated him still +further. As he was about to sit down to his luncheon on the following +day, the butler made the announcement that Miss Pruyn had asked him to +inform her father that she had driven over in the pony-cart to Mrs. +Throughgood's, and would not be home till late in the afternoon. + +He was not in the house when she returned, and at dinner he refrained +from conversation till the servants had left the room. + +"So it's--war," he said, then, speaking in a casual tone, and toying +with his wine-glass. + +"I hope not, father," she answered, promptly, making no pretence not to +understand him. "It takes two to make a quarrel, and--" + +"And you wouldn't be one?" + +"I was going to say that I hoped you wouldn't be." + +"But you yourself would fight?" + +"I should have to. I'm fighting for liberty, which is always an +honorable motive. You're fighting to take it away from me--" + +"Which is a dishonorable motive. Very well; I must accept that +imputation as best I may, and still go on." + +"Oh, then, it is war. You mean to make it so." + +"I mean to do my duty. You may call your rebellion against it what you +like." + +"I'm not accustomed to rebel," she said, with significant quietness. +"Only people who feel themselves weak do that." + +"And are you so strong?" + +"I'm very strong. I don't want to measure my strength against yours, +father; but if you insist on measuring yours against mine, I ought to +warn you." + +"Thank you. It's in the light of a warning that I view your action +to-day. You probably went to meet Mr. Wappinger." + +In saying this his bow was drawn so entirely at a venture that he was +astonished at the skill with which he hit the mark. + +"I did." + +He pushed back his chair; half rose; sat down again; poured out a glass +of Marsala; drank it thirstily; and looked at her a second or two in +helpless distress before finding words. + +"And you talk of honorable motives!" + +"My motive was entirely honorable. I went to explain to him that I +couldn't see him any more--just now." + +"While you were about it you might as well have said neither just +now--nor at any other time." + +She was silent. + +"Do you hear?" + +"Yes; I bear, father." + +"And you understand?" + +"I understand what you mean." + +"And you promise me that it shall be so?" + +"No, father." + +"You say that deliberately? Remember, I'm asking you an important +question, and you're giving me an equally important reply." + +"I recognize that; but I can't give you any other answer." + +"We'll see." He pushed back his chair again, and rose. He had already +crossed the room, when, a new thought occurring to him, he turned at the +door. "At least I presume I may count on you not to see this young man +again without telling me?" + +"Not without telling you--afterward. I couldn't undertake more than +that." + +"H'm!" he ejaculated, before passing out. "Then I must take active +measures." + +It was easier, however, to talk about active measures than to devise +them. While Dorothea was sobbing, with her elbows on the dining-room +table, and her face buried in her hands, he was pacing his room in +search of desperate remedies. It was a case in which his mind turned +instinctively to Diane for help; but in the very act of doing so he was +confronted by her theories as to Dorothea's need of diplomatic guidance. +For that, he told himself, the time was past. The event had proved how +impotent mere "management" was to control her, and justified his own +preference for force. + +Before she went to bed that night Dorothea was summoned to her father's +presence, to receive the commands which should regulate her conduct +toward "the young man Wappinger." They could have been summed up in the +statement that she must know him no more. She was not only never to see +him, or write to him, or communicate with him, by direct or indirect +means; as far as he could command it, she was not to think of him, or +remember his name. His measures grew more drastic in proportion as he +gave them utterance, until he himself become aware that they would be +difficult to fulfil. + +"I will not attempt to extract a promise from you," he was prudent +enough to say, in conclusion, "that you will carry out my wishes, +because I know you would never bring on me the unhappiness that would +spring from disobedience." + +"It's hardly fair, father, to say that," she replied, firmly. "In war, +no one should shrink from--the misfortunes of war." + +"That means, then, that you defy me?" + +She was calmer than he as she made her reply. + +"It doesn't mean that I defy you. I love you too much to put either you +or myself in such an odious position as that. But it does mean that one +day, sooner or later, I shall marry--Mr. Wappinger." + +He looked at her with a bitter smile. + +"I admire your frankness, Dorothea," he said, after a brief pause, "and +I shall do my best to imitate it. If it's to be war, we shall at least +fight in the open. I know what you intend to do, and you know that I +mean to circumvent you. The position on both sides being so pleasantly +clear, you may come and kiss me good-night." + +During the process of the stiff little embrace that followed it was as +difficult for her not to fling herself sobbing on his breast as for him +not to seize her in his arms; but each maintained the restraint inspired +by the justice of their respective causes. When she had closed the door +behind her, he stood for a long time, musing. That his thoughts were not +altogether tragic became manifest as his brow cleared, and the ghost of +a smile, this time without bitterness, hovered about his lips. Suddenly +he slapped his leg, like a man who has made a discovery. + +"By Gad!" he whispered, half aloud, "when all is said and done, she +knows how to play the game!" + + + + +XVIII + + +It was, perhaps, the knowledge that Dorothea could play the game that +enabled Derek, during the rest of the summer, to play it himself. This +he did without flinching, finding strength in the fact that, as time +went on, Dorothea seemed to enter into his plans and submit to his +judgment. The first few weeks of pallor and silence having passed, she +resumed her accustomed ways, and, as far as he could tell, grew +cheerful. Always having credited her with common-sense, he was pleased +now to see her make use of it in a way of which few girls of nineteen +would have been capable. She accepted his surveillance with so much +docility that, by the time they returned to town in the autumn he was +able to congratulate himself on his success. + +On her part, Dorothea carried out his instructions to the letter. +Notwithstanding the opening of the season and the renewal of the usual +gayeties, she lived quietly, accepting few invitations, and rarely going +into society at all, except under her father's wing. On those accidental +occasions when Carli Wappinger came within their range of vision, it was +only as a distant ship drifts into sight at sea--to drift silently away +again. If Dorothea perceived him, she gave no sign. It was clear to +Derek that her spurt of rebellion was over, and that her little +experience had done her no harm. The name of Wappinger being tacitly +ignored between them, he could only express his pleasure, in the results +he had achieved, by an extravagant increase of Dorothea's allowance, and +gifts of inappropriate jewels. It would have taken a more weatherwise +person than he to guess that behind this domestic calm the storm was +brewing. + +The first intuition of threatening events came to Mrs. Wappinger. + +"I've seen nothing and heard nothing," she declared, in her emphatic +way, to Diane, "but I know something is going on." + +That was in September. They sat in the shade of the cool flag-paved +pergola at Waterwild, Mrs. Wappinger's place on Long Island. The +tea-table stood between them, and they lounged in wicker chairs. Framed +by marble pillars, and festooned from above by vines drooping from the +roof, there was a view of terraced lawns descending toward the sea. +Between the slightly overcrowded urns and statues there were bright +dashes of color, here of dahlias in full bloom, there of reddening +garlands of ampelopsis or Virginia creeper. It was what Mrs. Wappinger +called an "off-day," otherwise she could not have had Diane at +Waterwild. In her loyalty toward the deserted woman she seized those +opportunities when Carli was away, and she was certain of having no +other guests, "to have the poor thing down for the day, and give her a +good meal." + +Not that people occupied themselves with Diane or her affairs! Her place +in the hurrying, scrambling social throng had been so unobtrusive that, +now that she no longer filled it, she was easily forgotten. Among the +few who paid her the tribute of recollection there was the generally +received impression that Derek Pruyn, having discovered her relations +with the Marquis de Bienville--relations which, so they said, had been +well known in Paris, in the days when she was still some one--had +dismissed her from her position in his household. That was natural +enough, and there was no further reason for remembering her. Having +disappeared into the limbo of the unfortunate, she was as far beyond the +mental range of those who retained their blessings as souls that have +passed are out of sight of men and women who still walk the earth. For +this very reason she called out in Mrs. Wappinger that motherly +good-nature which was only partially warped by the ambition for social +success. On more than one of her "off-days" she had lured Diane out of +her refuge in University Place, treating her with all the kindness she +could bestow without causing disparaging comment upon herself. On the +present occasion she was the more desirous of her company because of the +fact that, as she expressed it herself, she had "sniffed something going +on." + +[Illustration: DRAWN BY FRANK CRAIG +IT WAS WHAT MRS. WAPPINGER CALLED AN "OFF DAY"] + +"As I tell you," she repeated, "I've heard nothing, and seen nothing; +I've just sniffed it. If you were to ask me how, I couldn't explain it +to you any more than I can say how I get the scent of this climbing +heliotrope. But I do get it; and I do know something is in the wind, +more than what is told to you and I." + +"One can only hope that it will be nothing foolish," Diane murmured, +guardedly. + +"It _will_ be something foolish," Mrs. Wappinger declared, "and you may +take my word for it. Derek Pruyn can't arrogate to himself the powers of +the Lord above any more than we can. If he thinks he can stop young +blood from running he'll find out he's wrong." + +It was the first mention of his name that Diane had heard in many weeks, +and at the sound her hand trembled in such a way that she was obliged to +put down untasted the cup she had half raised to her lips. + +"He's not an unkind man," she found voice to say; "he's only a mistaken +one. He has one of those natures capable of dealing magnificently with +great affairs, but helpless in the trivial matters of every day. He's +like the people who see well at a distance, but become confused over the +objects right under their eyes." + +"Then the farther you keep away from that man the better the view he'll +take of you. It's what I'd say to Carli if he'd ask for my advice." + +"Does that mean," Diane ventured to inquire, "that you don't want him to +marry Dorothea?" + +"I certainly do not. If there were no other reason, she's the sort of +girl to make me put one foot into the grave, whether I want to or no; +and it stands to reason that I don't want to be squelched one hour +before my time." + +"Naturally; but I fancy you'd find her a sweeter girl than you might +suppose." + +"So she may be, dear; but I've spent too much money on Carli to wish to +see him force his way into a family where he isn't wanted." + +This was the text of Mrs. Wappinger's discourse, not only on the present +occasion, but on the subsequent "off-days," when Diane was induced to +visit Waterwild. + +"Whatever is going on, Reggie Bradford's in it," she confided to Diane +some few weeks later. + +"Is that the fat young man with the big laugh?" + +"Yes; and one of the greatest catches in New York. Carli tells me he's +wild about Marion Grimston, and I can see for myself that Mrs. Bayford +is playing him against that Frenchman. She'll get the title if she can, +but if not, she'll fall back on the money." + +"It's a pretty safe alternative," Diane smiled, making an effort to +speak without betraying her feelings. + +"Reggie is a good-natured boy," Mrs. Wappinger pursued, "but a regular +water-pipe. If you want to get anything out of him you've only got to +turn the faucet. It's just as well that he is; because whatever Carli is +up to Reggie knows, and what Reggie knows Marion Grimston knows. If ever +you see her--" + +"Oh, but I don't--not now." + +"That's a pity. If you did, you could pump her." + +"I'm afraid I'm not much good at that sort of thing." + +"Well, I am, when I get a chance. I'm bound to find out, somehow; and +there are more ways of killing a cat than by giving it poison." + +A few weeks later still Mrs. Wappinger informed Diane that Dorothea +Pruyn was not happy. + +"The Thoroughgoods told the Louds," she explained, "and the Louds told +me. Her father thinks she has given in to him; but she hasn't--not an +inch. He keeps her like a jailer; and she acts like a convict--always +with an eye open for some way of escape. That man no more understands +women than he does making pie." + +"I've always noticed that the really strong men rarely do. There's +almost invariably something petty about a man to whom a woman isn't a +puzzle and a mystery." + +"If it comes to a puzzle and a mystery, I don't know where you'd find a +greater one than Derek Pruyn himself. After the way he's acted--and +treated people--" + +Diane flushed, but kept her emotions sufficiently under control to be +able to follow her usual plan of straightforward speaking. + +"If you mean me, Mrs. Wappinger, I ought to say that Mr. Pruyn has done +nothing for which I can blame him. He was placed in a situation with +which only a very subtle intelligence could have dealt, and I respect +him the more for not having had it. It's generally the man who is most +competent in his own domain who is most likely to blunder when he gets +into the woman's; and I, for one, would rather have him do it. I've had +to suffer because of it, and so has Dorothea; and yet that doesn't make +me like it less." + +"No, I dare say not," Mrs. Wappinger responded, sympathetically. "Mr. +Wappinger himself was just such a man as that. He'd put through a deal +that would make Wall Street shiver; but he understood my woman's nature +just about as much as old Tiger there, wagging his tail on the grass, +follows the styles in bonnets. Only, I'll tell you what, Mrs. Eveleth: +it's for men like that that God created sensible, capable wives, like +you and me; and they ought to have 'em." + +This theme admitting of little discussion, Diane did not pursue it, but +she went away from Waterwild with a deepened sense of Derek's need of +her, as well as of Dorothea's. She could so easily have helped them both +that the enforced impotence was a new element in her pain. To walk the +town in search of work to which she was little suited, when that which +no one but herself could accomplish had to remain undone, became, during +the next few weeks, the most intolerable part of the irony of +circumstance. The wifely, the maternal qualities of her being, of which +she had never been strongly conscious till of late, awoke in response to +the need that drew them forth, only to be blighted by denial. + +The inactivity was the harder to endure because of the fact that, as +autumn passed into early winter, there came a period when all her little +world seemed to have dropped her out of sight. There were no more +"off-days" at Waterwild, and Miss Lucilla's occasional letters from +Newport ceased. Between her mother-in-law and herself, after a few painful +attempts at intercourse, there had fallen an equally painful silence. +Even her two or three pupils fell away. + +From the papers she learned that one or another of those for whom she +cared was back in town again. She walked in the chief thoroughfares in +the hope of meeting some of them, but chance refused to favor her. In +the dusk of the early descending November and December twilights she +passed their houses, watching the warm glow of the lights within, +against which, now and then, a shadow that she could almost recognize +would pass by. She could have entered at Miss Lucilla's door, or Mrs. +Wappinger's; but a strange shyness, the shyness of the unfortunate, had +taken hold of her, and she held back. In the mean time she was free to +watch, with sad eyes and sadder spirit, the great city, reversing the +processes of nature, awaken from the torpor of the genial months into +its winter life. + +No one knew better than herself that thrill of excited energy with which +those born with the city instinct return from the acquired taste for +mountain, seaside, and farm, to enter once more the maze of purely human +relationships. It was a moment with which her own active nature was in +sympathy. She liked to see the blinds being raised in the houses and the +barricading doors taken down. She liked to see the vehicles begin to +crowd one another in the streets and the pedestrians on the pavement +wear a brisker air. She liked to see the shop-windows brighten with +color and the great public gathering-spots let in and let out their +throngs. She responded to the quickened animation with the spontaneity +of one all ready to take her part, till the thought came that a part had +been refused her. It was with a curious sensation of being outside the +range of human activities that, during those days of timid, futile +looking for employment, she roamed the busy thoroughfares of New York. +As time passed she ceased to think much about her need of sympathetic +fellowship in her anxiety to get work. She wrote advertisements and +answered them; she applied at schools, and offices, and shops; she came +down to seeking any humble drudgery which would give her the chance to +live. + +It was not till one day in early December that the last flicker of her +hope went out. Chance had made her pass at midday along the pavement +opposite one of the great restaurants. Lifting her eyes instinctively +toward the group of well-dressed people on the steps, she saw that Mrs. +Bayford and Marion Grimston were going in, accompanied by Reggie +Bradford and the Marquis de Bienville. She had heard little or nothing +of them during the last four empty months; but it was plain now that the +lovers were agreed and her own cause abandoned. Up to this moment she +had not realized how tenaciously she had clung to the belief that the +proud, high-souled girl would yet see justice done her; and now she had +deserted her, like the rest! + +For the first time during her years of struggle she felt absolutely +beaten--beaten so thoroughly that it would be useless to renew the +fight. She had been on her way to see a lady who had advertised for a +nursery governess; but she had no strength left with which to face the +interview. In the winter-garden of the restaurant Mrs. Bayford was +purring to her guests, Reggie Bradford was whispering to Miss Grimston, +and the Marquis de Bienville was ordering the wines, while Diane was +wandering blindly back to the poor little room she called her home, +there to lie down and allow her heart to break. + +But hearts do not break at the command of those who own them, and when +she had moaned away the worst of her pain, she fell asleep. When she +awoke it was already growing dark, and the knocking at her door, which +roused her, was like a call from the peace of dreams to the desolation +of reality. When she had turned on the light she received from the hands +of the waiting servant that which had become a most rare visitant in the +blankness of her life--a note. + +The address was in a sprawling hand, which she recognized. What was +written within was more sprawling still: + + + "For Heaven's sake, come to me at once. The expected has happened, and + I don't know what to do. The motor will wait and bring you. + + CLARA WAPPINGER." + + +[Illustration: DRAWN BY FRANK CRAIG +MRS. BAYFORD WAS PURRING TO HER GUESTS] + + + + +XIX + + +As Diane entered, Mrs. Wappinger, dishevelled and distraught, was +standing in the hail, a slip of yellow paper in her hand. + +"Oh, my dear, I'm so glad you've come! I'm just about crazy! Read this!" + +Diane took the paper and read: + + "D. and I are to be married to-night. Be ready to receive us + to-morrow. + CARLI." + +"When did this come?" Diane asked, quickly. + +"About half an hour ago. I sent for you at once." + +"I see it's dated from Lakefield. Where's that?" + +Mrs. Wappinger explained that Lakefield was a small winter health resort +some two hours by train from New York. She and Carli had stayed there, +more than once, at the Bay Tree Inn. He would naturally go to the same +hotel, only, when she had telephoned to it, a few minutes ago, she could +find no one of the name in residence. Under the circumstances, Diane +suggested, he would probably not give his name at all. There followed a +few minutes of silent reflection, during which Mrs. Wappinger gazed at +Diane, in the half-tearful helplessness of one not used to coping with +unusual situations. + +"Won't you come in and sit down?" she asked, with a sudden realization +that they were still standing beneath the light in the hail. + +"No," Diane answered, with decision; "it isn't worth while. May I have +the motor for an hour or so?" + +"Why, certainly. But where are you going?" + +"I'm going first to Mr. Pruyn's, and afterward to Lakefield." + +"To Lakefield? Then I'll go with you. We could go in the car." + +Diane negatived both suggestions. The motor might break down, or the +chauffeur might lose his way; the train would be safer. If any one went +with her, it would have to be Mr. Pruyn. + +"But don't go to bed," she added, "or at least have some one to answer +the telephone, for I'll ring you up as soon as I have news for you." + +"God bless you, dear," Mrs. Wappinger murmured. "I know you'll do your +best for me, and them. Keep the auto as long as you like; and if you +decide to go down in it, just say so to Laporte." + +But Diane seemed to hesitate before going. A flush came into her cheek, +and she twisted her fingers in embarrassment. + +"I wonder", she faltered, "if--if--you could let me have a little money? +I shall need some, and--and I haven't--any." + +"Oh, my dear! my poor dear!" + +Mrs. Wappinger bustled away, crumpling the notes she found in her desk +into a little ball, which she forced into Diane's hand. To forestall +thanks she thrust her toward the door, accompanying her down the steps, +and kissing her as she entered the automobile. + +"Why, bless my 'eart, if it ain't the madam!" + +This outburst was a professional solecism on the part of Fulton, the +English butler, at Derek Pruyn's, but it was wrung from him in sheer joy +at Diane's unexpected appearance. + +"You'll excuse me, ma'am", he continued, recapturing his air of decorum, +"but I fair couldn't help it. We'll be awful pleased to see you, ma'am, +if I may make so bold as to say it--right down to the cat. It hasn't +been the same 'ouse since you went away, ma'am; and me and Mr. Simmons +has said so time and time again. You'll excuse me, ma'am, but--" + +"You're very kind, Fulton, and so is Simmons, but I'm in a great hurry +now. Is Mr. Pruyn at home?" + +"Why, no, he ain't, ma'am, and that's a fact. He's to dine out." + +"Where?" + +"I couldn't tell you that, ma'am; but perhaps Mr. Simmons would know. He +took Mr. Pruyn's evening clothes to the bank, and he was to change +there. If you'll wait a minute, ma'am, I'll ask him." + +But when Simmons came he could only give the information that his master +was going to a "sort o' business banquet" at one of the great +restaurants or hotels. Moreover, Miss Dorothea had gone out, saying that +she would not be home to dinner. + +"Then I must write a note," Diane said, with that air of natural +authority which had seemed almost lost from her manner. "Will you, +Fulton, be good enough to bring me a glass of wine and a few biscuits +while I write? I must ask you, Simmons, for a railway guide." + +In Derek's own room she sat down at the desk where, six months ago, she +had arranged his letters on the night when he had returned from South +America. She had no time to indulge in memories, but a tremor shot +through her frame as she took up the pen and wrote on a sheet of paper +which he had already headed with a date: + + "I have bad news for you, but I hope I may be in time to keep it from + being worse. I have reason to think that Dorothea has gone to + Lakefield to be married there to Carli Wappinger. Should there be any + mistake you will forgive me for disturbing you; but I think it well to + be prepared for extreme possibilities. I am, therefore, going to + Lakefield now--at once. A train at seven-fifteen will get there a + little after nine. There are other trains through the evening, the + latest being at five minutes after ten. Should this reach you in time + to enable you to take one of them, you will be wise to do so; but in + case it may be too late, you may count on me to do all that can be + done. Let some one be ready to answer the telephone all night. I shall + communicate with the house from the Bay Tree Inn. I must ask you again + to forgive me if I am interfering rashly in your affairs, but you can + understand that I have no time to take counsel or reflect. + + "DIANE EVELETH." + +[Illustration: DRAWN BY FRANK CRAIG +HAVING MADE A COPY OF THIS LETTER, SHE CALLED SIMMONS AND FULTON AND +GAVE THEM THEIR INSTRUCTIONS] + +Having made a copy of this letter, she called Simmons and Fulton and +gave them their instructions. There had been an accident, she said, of +which she had been able to get only imperfect information, but it seemed +possible that Miss Dorothea was involved in it. She herself was hurrying +to Lakefield, and it would be Simmons' task to find Mr. Pruyn in time +for him to catch the ten-five train, at latest. He was to pack two +valises with all that Mr. Pruyn could require for a change. He was to +take one of the two letters, and one of the two valises, and go from +place to place, until he tracked his master down. Fulton was to say +nothing to alarm the other servants, merely informing Miss Dorothea's +maid that the young lady was absent for the night and that Mrs. Eveleth +was with her. He would take charge of the second letter and the second +valise, in case Mr. Pruyn should return to the house before Simmons +could find him. The important charge of the telephone was also to be in +Fulton's trust, and he was to answer all calls through the night. In +concluding her directions Diane acknowledged her relief in having two +lieutenants on whose silence, energy, and tact she could so thoroughly +depend. She committed the matter to their hands not merely as to Mr. +Pruyn's butler and valet, but as to his trusted friends, and in that +capacity she was sure they would do their duty and hold their tongues. + +In a similar spirit, when she arrived, about half-past nine, at the Bay +Tree Inn, she asked for the manager, and took him into her confidence. A +runaway marriage, she informed him, had been planned to take place that +very night at Lakefield, and she had come there as the companion and +friend of a motherless girl, her object being to postpone the ceremony. + +The manager listened with sympathy, and promised his help. As a matter +of fact, a gentleman had arrived, driving his own motor, that very +afternoon. He had put the machine in the garage, and taken a room, but +had not registered. Their season having scarcely begun, and the hotel +being empty, they were somewhat careless about such formalities. He +could only say that the young man was tall, fair, and slender, and +seemed to be a person of means. He believed, too, that at this very +minute he was smoking on the terrace before the door. If Diane had not +come up by another way she must have met him. She could step out on the +terrace and see for herself whether it was the person she was looking +for or not. + +Being tolerably sure of that already, Diane preferred to complete her +arrangements first. She would ask for a room as near as possible to the +main door of the hotel, so that when the young lady arrived she could be +ushered directly into it. Fortunately the establishment was able to +offer her exactly what she required, one of the invalids' suites which +were a special feature of the house--a little sitting-room and bedroom +for the use of persons whose infirmities made a long walk between their +own apartments and the sun-parlor inadvisable. Having inspected and +accepted it, Diane bathed her face and smoothed her hair, after which +she stepped out to confront Mr. Wappinger. + + + + +XX + + +She saw him at the end of the terrace, peering through the moonlight, +down the driveway. She did not go forward to meet him, but waited until +he turned in her direction. She knew that at a distance, and especially +at night, her own figure might seem not unlike Dorothea's, and +calculated on that effect. She divined his start of astonishment on +catching sight of her by the abrupt jerk of his head and the way in +which he half threw up his hands. When he began coming forward, it was +with a slow, interrogative movement, as though he were asking how she +had come there, in disregard of their preconcerted signals. Some +exclamation was already on his lips, when, by the light streaming from +the windows of the hotel, he saw his mistake, and paused. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Wappinger. What an extraordinary meeting!" + +Priding himself on his worldly wisdom, Carli Wappinger never allowed +himself to be caught by any trick of feminine finesse. On the present +occasion he stood stock-still and silent, eying Diane as a bird eyes a +trap before hopping into it. Though he knew her as a friend to Dorothea +and himself, he knew her as a subtle friend, hiding under her sympathy +many of those kindly devices which experience keeps to foil the young. +He did not complain of her for that, finding it legitimate that she +should avail herself of what he called "the stock in trade of a +chaperon"; while it had often amused him to outwit her. But now it was a +matter of Greek meeting Greek, and she must be given to understand that +he was the stronger. How she had discovered their plans he did not stop +to think; but he must make it plain to her that he was not duped into +ascribing her presence at Lakefield to an accident. + +"Is it an extraordinary meeting, Mrs. Eveleth--for you?" + +"No, not for me," Diane replied, readily. "I only thought it might +be--for you." + +"Then I'll admit that it is." + +"But I hoped, too", she continued, moving a little nearer to him, "that +my coming might be in the way of a--pleasant surprise." + +"Oh yes; certainly; very pleasant--very pleasant indeed." + +"I'm a good deal relieved to hear you say that, Mr. Wappinger," she +said, "because there was a possibility that you mightn't like it." + +"Whether I like it or not", he said, warily, "will depend upon your +motive." + +"I don't think you'll find any fault with that. I came because I thought +I could help Dorothea. I hoped I might be able indirectly to help you, +too." + +"What makes you think we're in need of help?" + +She came near enough for him to see her smile. + +"Because, until after you're married, you'll both be in an embarrassing +position." + +"There are worse things in the world than that." + +"Not many. I can hardly imagine two people like Dorothea and yourself +more awkwardly placed than you'll be from the minute she arrives. +Remember, you're not Strephon and Chloe in a pastoral; you're two most +sophisticated members of a most sophisticated set, who scarcely know how +to walk about excepting according to the rules of a code of etiquette. +Neither of you was made for escapade, and I'm sure you don't like it any +more than she will." + +"And so you've come to relieve the situation?" + +"Exactly." + +"And for anything else?" + +"What else should I come for?" + +"You might have come for--two or three things." + +"One of which would be to interfere with your plans. Well, I haven't. If +I had wanted to do that, I could have done it long ago. I'll tell you +outright that Mr. Pruyn requested me more than once to put a stop to +your acquaintance with Dorothea, and I refused. I refused at first +because I didn't think it wise, and afterward because I liked you. I +kept on refusing because I came to see in the end that you were born to +marry Dorothea, and that no one else would ever suit her. I'm here this +evening because I believe that still, and I want you to be happy." + +"Did you think your coming would make us happier?" + +"In the long run--yes. You may not see it to-night, but you will +to-morrow. You can't imagine that I would run the risk of forcing +myself upon you unless I was sure there was something I could do." + +"Well, what is it?" + +"It isn't much, and yet it's a great deal. When you and Dorothea are +married I want to go with you. I want to be there. I don't want her to +go friendless. When she goes back to town to-morrow, and everything has +to be explained, I want her to be able to say that I was beside her. I +know that mine is not a name to carry much authority, but I'm a woman--a +woman who has head a position of responsibility, almost a mother's +place, toward Dorothea herself--and there are moments in life when any +kind of woman is better than none at all. You may not see it just now, +but--" + +"Oh yes, I do," he said, slowly; "only when you've gone in for an +unconventional thing you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb." + +"I don't agree with you. Nothing more than the unconventional requires a +nicely discriminating taste; and it's no use being more violent than you +can help. You and Dorothea are making a match that sets the rules of +your world at defiance, but you may as well avail yourselves of any +little mitigation that comes to hand. Life is going to be hard enough +for you as it is--" + +"Oh, I don't know about that. They can't do anything to us--" + +"Not to you, perhaps, because you're a man. But they can to Dorothea, +and they will. This is just one of those queer situations in which +you'll get the credit and she'll get the blame. You can always make a +poem on Young Lochinvar, when it's less easy to approve of the damsel +who springs to the pillion behind him. I don't pretend to account for +this idiosyncrasy of human nature; I merely state it as a fact. Society +will forget that you ran away with Dorothea, but it will never forget +that she ran away with you." + +"H'm!" + +"But I don't see that that need distress you. You wouldn't care; and as +for Dorothea, she's got the pluck of a soldier. Depend upon it, she sees +the whole situation already, and is prepared to face it. That's part of +the difference between a woman and a man. _You_ can go into a thing like +this without looking ahead, because you know that, whatever the +opposition, you can keep it down. A woman is too weak for that. She must +count every danger beforehand. Dorothea has done that. This isn't going +to be a leap in the dark for her; it wouldn't be for any girl of her +intelligence and social instincts. She knows what she's doing, and she's +doing it for you. She has made her sacrifice, and made it willingly, +before she consented to take this step at all. She crossed her Rubicon +without saying anything to you about it, and you needn't consider her +any more." + +"Well, I like that!" he said, in an injured tone, thrusting his hands +into his overcoat pockets and beginning to move along the terrace. + +"Yes; I thought you would," she agreed, walking by his side. "It shows +what she's willing to give up for you. It shows even more than that. It +shows how she loves you. Dorothea is not a girl who holds society +lightly, and if she renounces it--" + +"Oh, but, come now, Mrs. Eveleth! It isn't going to be as bad as that." + +"It isn't going to be as bad as anything. Bad is not the word. When I +speak of renouncing society, of course I only mean renouncing--the best. +There will always be some people to--Well, you remember Dumas' +comparison of the sixpenny and the six-shilling peaches. If you can't +have the latter, you will be able to afford the former." + +They walked on in silence to the end of the terrace, and it was not till +after they had turned that the young man spoke again. + +"I believe you're overdrawing it," he said, with some decision. + +"Isn't it you who are overdrawing what I mean? I'm simply trying to say +that while things won't be very pleasant for you, they won't be worse +than you can easily bear--especially when Dorothea has steeled herself +to them in advance. I repeat, too, that, poor as I am, my presence will +be taken as safeguarding some of the proprieties people expect one to +observe. I speak of my presence, but, after all, you may have provided +yourself with some one better. I didn't think of that." + +"No; there's no one." + +"Then Dorothea is coming all alone?" + +"Reggie Bradford is bringing her--if you want to know." + +"By the ten-five train?" + +"No; in his motor." + +"How very convenient these motors are! And has she no companion but Mr. +Bradford?" + +"She hasn't any companion at all. She doesn't even know that the man +driving the machine is Reggie. He thought that, going very slowly, as he +promised to do, to avoid all chances of accident, they might arrive by +eleven." + +"And Dorothea was to be alone here with you two men?" + +"Well, you see, we are to be married as soon as she arrives. We go +straight from here to the clergyman's house; he's waiting for us; in ten +minutes' time I shall be her husband; and then everything will be all +right." + +"How cleverly you've arranged it!" + +"I had to make my arrangements pretty close," Carli explained, in a tone +of pride. "There were a good many difficulties to overcome, but I did +it. Dorothea has had no trouble at all, and will have none; that is", he +added, with a sigh, at the recollection of what Diane had just said, "as +far as getting down here is concerned. She went to tea at the Belfords', +and on coming out she found a motor waiting for her at the door. She +walked into it without asking questions and sat down; and that's all. +She doesn't know whose motor it is, or where she's going, except that +she is being taken toward me. I provided her with everything. She's got +nothing to do but sit still till she gets here, when she will be married +almost before she knows she has arrived." + +"It's certainly most romantic; and if one has to do such things, they +couldn't be done better." + +"Well, one has to--sometimes." + +"Yes; so I see." + +"What do you suppose Derek Pruyn will say?" he asked, after a brief +pause. + +"I haven't the least idea what he'll say--in these circumstances. Of +course, I always knew--But there's no use speaking about that now." + +"Speaking about what now?" he asked, sharply. + +"Oh, nothing! One must be with Mr. Pruyn constantly--live in his +house--to understand him. You can always count on his being kinder than +he seems at first, or on the surface. During the last months I was with +Dorothea I could see plainly enough that in the end she would get her +way." + +He paused abruptly in his walk and confronted her. + +"Then, for Heaven's sake," he demanded, "why didn't you tell me that +before?" + +"You never asked me. I couldn't go around shouting it out for nothing. +Besides, it was only my opinion, in which, after all, I am quite likely +to be wrong." + +"But quite likely to be right." + +"I suppose so. Naturally, I should have told you," she went on, humbly, +"if I had thought that you wanted to hear; but how was I to know that? +One doesn't talk about other people's private affairs unless one is +invited. In any case, it doesn't matter now. A man who can cut the +Gordian knot as you can doesn't care to hear that there's a way by which +it might have been unravelled." + +"I'm not so sure about that. There are cases in which the longest way +round is the shortest way home, and if--" + +"But I didn't suppose you would consider so cautious a route as that." + +"I shouldn't for myself; but, you see, I have to think of Dorothea." + +"But I've already told you that there's no occasion for that. If +Dorothea has made her choice with her eyes open--" + +"Good Lord!" he cried, impatiently, "you talk as if all I wanted was to +get her into a noose." + +"Well, isn't it? Perhaps I'm stupid, but I thought the whole reason for +bringing her down here was because--" + +"Because we thought there was no other way," he finished, in a tone of +exasperation. "But if there _is_ another way--" + +"I'm not at all sure that there is," she retorted, with a touch of +asperity, to keep pace with his rising emotion. "Don't begin to think +that because I said Mr. Pruyn was coming round to it he's obliged to do +it." + +"No; but if there was a chance--" + +"Of course there's always that. But what then?" + +"Well, then--there'd be no particular reason for rushing the thing +to-night. But I don't know, though," he continued, with a sudden change of +tone; "we're here, and perhaps we might as well go through with it. All +I want is her happiness; and since she can't be happy in her own home--" + +Diane laughed softly, and he stopped once more in his walk to look down +at her. + +"There's one thing you ought to understand about Dorothea," she said, +with a little air of amusement. "You know how fond I am of her, and that +I wouldn't criticise her for the world. Now, don't be offended, and +don't glower at me like that, for I _must_ say it. Dorothea isn't +unhappy because she hasn't a good home, or because she has a stern +father, or because she can't marry you. She's unhappy because she isn't +getting her own way, and for no other reason whatever. She's the +dearest, sweetest, most loving little girl on earth, but she has a will +like steel. Whatever she sets her mind on, great or small, that she is +determined to do, and when it's done she doesn't care any more about it. +When I was with her, I never crossed her in anything. I let her do what +she was bent on doing, right up to the point where she saw, herself, +that she didn't want to. If her father would only treat her like that, +she--" + +"She wouldn't be coming down here to-night. That's what you mean, isn't +it?" + +"Oh no! How can you say so?" + +"I can say so, because I think there's a good deal of truth in it. I'm +not without some glimmering of insight into her character myself; and to +be quite frank, it was seeing her set her pretty white teeth and clinch +her fist and stamp her foot, to get her way over nothing at all, that +first made me fall in love with her." + +"Then I will say no more. I see you know her as well as I do." + +"Yes, I know her," he said, confidently, marching on again. "I don't +think there are many corners of her character into which I haven't +seen." + +Several remarks arose to Diane's lips, but she repressed them, and they +continued their walk in silence. During the three or four turns they +took, side by side, up and down the terrace, she divined the course his +thought was taking, and her speech was with his inner rather than his +outer man. Suddenly he stopped, with one of his jerky pauses, and when +he spoke his voice took on a boyish quality that made it appealing. + +"Mrs. Eveleth, do you know what I think? I think that you and I have +come down here on what looks like a fool's business. If it wasn't for +leaving Dorothea here with Reggie Bradford, I'd put you in the motor and +we'd travel back to New York as fast as tires could take us." + +"Upon my word," she confessed, "you make me almost wish we could do it. +But, of course, it isn't possible. There must be some one here to meet +Dorothea--and explain. I could do that if you liked." + +"Oh no!" he exclaimed, with a new change of mind; "I should look as if I +were showing the white feather." + +"On the contrary, you'd look as if you knew what it was to be a man." + +"And Derek Pruyn might hold out against me in the end." + +"It would be time enough, even then, to do--what you meant to do +to-night; and I'd help you." + +He hesitated still, till another thought occurred to him. + +"Oh, what's the good? It's too late to rectify anything now. They must +know at her house by this time that she has gone to meet me." + +"No; I've anticipated that. They understand that she's here, at the Bay +Tree Inn--with me." + +He moved away from her with a quick backward leap. + +"With you? You've done that? You've seen them? You've told them? You're +a wonderful woman, Mrs. Eveleth. I see now what you've been up to," he +added, with a shrill, nervous laugh. "You've been turning me round your +little finger, and I'm hanged if you haven't done it very cleverly. +You've failed in this one point, however, that you haven't done it quite +cleverly enough. I stay." + +"Very well; but you won't refuse to let me stay too--for the reasons +that I gave you at first." + +"You're wily, I must say! If you can't get best, you're willing to take +second best. Isn't that it?" + +"That's it exactly. I did hope that no marriage would take place between +Dorothea and you to-night. I hoped that, before you came to that, you'd +realize to what a degree you're taking advantage of her wilfulness and +her love for you--for it's a mixture of both--to put her in a false +position, from which she'll never wholly free herself as long as she +lives. I hoped you'd be man enough to go back and win her from her +father by open means. Failing all that, I hoped you'd let me blunt the +keenest edge of your folly by giving to your marriage the countenance +which my presence at it could bestow. Was there any harm in that? Was +there anything for you to resent, or for me to be ashamed of? Is a good +thing less good because I wish it, or a wise thought less wise because I +think it? You talk of turning you round my little finger, as though it +was something at which you had to take offence. My dear boy, that only +shows how young you are. Every good woman, if I may call myself one, +turns the men she cares for round her little finger, and it's the men +who are worth most in life who submit most readily to the process. When +you're a little older, when, perhaps, you have children of your own, +you'll understand better what I've done for you to-night; and you won't +use toward my memory the tone of semi-jocular disdain that has entered +into nearly every word you've addressed to me this evening. Now, if +you'll excuse me," she added, wearily, "I think I'll go in. I'm very +tired, and I'll rest till Dorothea comes. When she arrives you must +bring her to me directly; and she must stay with me till I take her +to--the wedding. My room is the first door on the left of the main +entrance." + +She was half-way across the terrace when he called out to her, the +boyish tremor in his voice more accentuated than before. + +"Wait a minute. There's lots of time." She came back a few paces toward +him. "Shouldn't I look very grotesque if I hooked it?" + +"Not half so grotesque as you'll look to-morrow morning when you have to +go back to town and tell every one you meet that you and Dorothea Pruyn +have run away and got married. That's when you'll look foolish and cut a +pathetic figure. As things are it could be kept between two or three of +us; but if you go on, you'll be in all the papers by to-morrow +afternoon. Of course your mother knows?" + +"I suppose so; I wired when I thought it was too late for her to spread +the alarm. But I don't mind about her. She'll be only too glad to have +me back at any price." + +"Then--I'd go." + +The light from the hotel was full on his face, and she could almost have +kissed him for his doleful, crestfallen expression. + +"Well--I will." + +There was no heroism in the way in which he said the words, and the +spring disappeared from his walk as he went back to the hotel to pay his +bill and order out his "machine." Diane smiled to herself to see how his +head drooped and his shoulders sagged, but her eyes blinked at the mist +that rose before them. After all, he was little more than a schoolboy, +and he and Dorothea were but two children at play. + +She did not continue her own way into the hotel. Now that the first part +of her purpose in coming had been accomplished, she was free to remember +what the comedy with Carli had almost excluded from her mind--that +within an hour or two Derek Pruyn and she might be face to face again. +The thought made her heart leap as with sudden fright. Fortunately, +Dorothea would have arrived by that time, and would stand between them, +otherwise the mere possibility would have been overwhelming. + +Yes; Dorothea ought to be coming soon. She looked at her watch, and +found it was nearly eleven. On the stillness of the night there came a +sound, a clatter, a whiz, a throb--the unmistakable noise of an +automobile. She hurried to the end of the terrace; but it was not +Dorothea coming; it was Carli going away. She breathed more freely, +standing to see him pass, and knowing that he was really gone. + +A minute later he went by in the moonlight, waving his hand to her as +she stood silhouetted on the terrace above him. Then, to her annoyance, +the motor stopped and he leaped out. For a moment her heart stood still +in alarm, for if he was coming back the work might be to do all over +again. He did come back, scrambling up the steps till he was at her +feet. But it was only to seize her hand and kiss it hastily, after +which, without a word, he was off again. Then once more the huge machine +clattered and whizzed and throbbed, rattling its way down the drive and +on into the dark, till all sound died away in the solemn winter silence. + + + + +XXI + + +During the next half-hour small practical tasks occupied Diane's mind +and kept the thought of Derek Pruyn's arrival from becoming more than a +subconscious dread. She informed the manager of her success with his +mysterious young guest, and arranged that Dorothea, when she came, +should spend the night with her. Then she put herself in telephonic +communication, first with Mrs. Wappinger, and then with Fulton. She gave +the former the intelligence that Carli had departed, and received from +the latter the information that Simmons had found his master, who had +been able to leave for Lakefield by the ten-five train. These steps +being taken, there was nothing to do but to sit down and wait for +Dorothea. Allowing thirty or forty minutes for possible delays, she +calculated that the girl ought to arrive a good half-hour before her +father. This would give her time to deal with each separately, clearing +up misunderstandings on both sides, and preparing the way for such a +meeting as would lead to mutual concessions and future peace. + +Physically tired, she took off her hat and threw herself on the couch in +her little sitting-room. By sheer force of will she continued to shut +out Derek from her thought, concentrating all her mental faculties on +the arguments and persuasions she should bring to bear on Dorothea. She +had no nervousness on this account. The naughty, headstrong child that +runs away from home does not get far without a realizing sense of its +happy shelter. She divined that the long ride through the dark, with an +unknown man, toward an unknown goal, would have already subdued +Dorothea's spirits to the point where she would be only too glad to find +herself dropping into familiar, feminine arms. + +At eleven o'clock she got up from her couch with a vague impulse to be +in a more direct attitude of welcome. At half-past eleven she went to +the office to inquire of the manager how long a motor going slowly +should take to reach Lakefield from New York, assuming that it had got +away from the city about six o'clock. Alarmed by his reply, she begged +him to keep a certain number of the servants up, and the hotel in +readiness to cope with any emergency or accident, promising liberal +remuneration for all unusual work. After that came another long hour of +waiting. It was about half-past twelve when there was a sound of a +carriage coming up the driveway. It was probably Derek; and yet there +was a possibility that, the automobile having broken down, Reggie and +Dorothea had been obliged to finish their journey in a humbler way than +that in which they had started. Diane hurried to the terrace. The moon +had disappeared, but the stars were out, and the night had grown colder. +The pines surrounding the hotel shot up weirdly against the midnight +sky, soughing with a low murmur, like the moan of primeval nature. Up +the ascent from the main road the carriage crept wearily, while Diane's +heart poured itself out in a sort of incoherent prayer that Dorothea +might have arrived before her father. The horses dragged themselves to +the steps, and Derek Pruyn sprang out. + +Instinctively Diane fell back. + +"Oh, it's you," she gasped, unable for the instant to say more. + +"Yes," he returned, quickly, peering down into her face. "What news?" + +"Dorothea hasn't come. The--the other person has gone." + +"Gone? How--gone?" + +"He went away of his own accord." + +"That is, you sent him." + +"Not exactly; he was willing to go. He saw he'd been doing wrong." + +A porter having come from the hotel and seized Derek's valise, it was +necessary for them to go in and attend to the small preliminaries of +arrival. When they were finished Derek returned to Diane, who had seated +herself in a wicker chair beside one of the numerous tea-tables to which +a large part of the hall was given up. Under the eye of the drowsy +clerk, who still kept his place at the office desk, she felt a certain +sense of protection, even though the width of the hotel lay between +them. + +"Now, tell me," Derek said, in his quick, commanding tones; "tell me +everything." + +The repressed intensity of his bearing had on Diane the effect of making +her more calmly mistress of herself. Quietly, and in a manner as +matter-of-fact as she could make it, she told her tale from the beginning. +She narrated her summons from Mrs. Wappinger, her visit to his own house, +her arrangements there, her journey to Lakefield, and her interview with +Carli Wappinger. Without making light of what he and Dorothea had +undertaken to do, she reduced their fault to a minimum, turning it into +indiscretion rather than anything more grave. She laid stress on the +excellence of the young man's character, as well as on the promptness +with which he had relinquished his part in the plan as soon as he saw +its true nature. In spite of himself Derek began to think of the lad as +of one who had sprung to his help in a moment of need, and to whom he +was indebted for a service. Not until Diane ceased speaking was he able +to brush this absurd impression away, in the knowledge that Dorothea, +who should have arrived nearly two hours ago, was still out in the dark. +That, for the moment, was the one fact to which everything else was +subordinate. + +"I can't understand it," he said, nervously. "If they left New York by +six, or even seven, they should have been here by eleven at the latest. +That would have given them time for slow going or taking a circuitous +route." + +He rose nervously from his seat, interviewed the clerk at the desk, went +out on the terrace, listened in the silence, walked restlessly up and +down, and, returning to Diane, enumerated the different possibilities +that would reasonably account for the delay. Glad of this preoccupation, +since it diverted thought from their more personal relations, she +pointed out the wisdom of accepting whatever explanation was least grave +until they knew the certainty. When he had gone out several times more, +to listen on the terrace, he came back, and, resuming his seat, said, +brusquely: + +"You look tired. You ought to get some rest." + +The tone of intimate care reached Diane's heart more directly than words +of greater import. + +"I would," she said, simply--"that is, I'd go to my room if I thought +you'd be kind to Dorothea when she came." + +"And _don't_ you think so?" + +"I think you'd want to be," she smiled, "if you knew how." + +"But I shouldn't know how?" + +"You see, it's a situation that calls directly for a woman; and you're +so essentially a man. When Dorothea arrives, she won't be a headstrong, +runaway girl; she'll be a poor little terrified child, frightened to +death at what she has done, and wanting nothing so much as to creep +sobbing into her mother's arms and be comforted. If you could only--" + +"I'll do anything you tell me." + +"It's no use telling; you have to know. It's a case in which you must +act by instinct, and not by rule of thumb." + +In her eagerness to have something to say which would keep conversation +away from dangerous themes, she spoke exhaustively on the subject of +parental tact, holding well to the thread of her topic until she +perceived that he was not so much listening to what she said as thinking +of her. But she had gained her point, and led him to see that Dorothea +was to be treated leniently, which was sufficient for the moment. + +"Now," she finished, rising, "I think I'll take your advice, and go and +rest till she comes. That's my door, just opposite. I chose the room for +its convenience in receiving Dorothea. You'll be sure to call me, won't +you, the minute you hear the sound of wheels?" + +He had sat gazing up at her, but now he, too, rose. It was a minute at +which their common anxiety regarding Dorothea slipped temporarily into +the background, allowing the main question at issue between them to +assert itself; but it asserted itself silently. He had meant to speak, +but he could only look. She had meant to withdraw, but she remained to +return his look with the lingering, quiet, steady gaze which time and +place and circumstance seemed to make the most natural mode of +expression for the things that were vital between them. What passed thus +defied all analysis of thought, as well as all utterance in language, +but it was understood by each in his or her own way. To her it was the +greeting and farewell of souls in different spheres, who again pass one +another in space. For him it was the dumb, stifled cry of nature, the +claim of a heart demanding its rightful place in another heart, the +protest of love that has been debarred from its return by a cruel code +of morals, a preposterous convention, grown suddenly meaningless to a +woman like her and to a man like him. Something like this it would have +been a relief to him to cry out, had not the strong hand of custom been +upon him and forced him to say that which was far below the pressure of +his yearning. + +"This isn't the time to talk about what I owe you," he said, feeling the +insufficiency of his words; "it's too much to be disposed of in a few +phrases." + +"On the contrary, you owe me nothing at all." + +"We'll not dispute the point now." + +"No; but I'd rather not leave you under a misapprehension. If I've done +anything to-night--been of any use at all--it's been simply because I +loved Dorothea--and--and--it was right. When it was in my power, I +couldn't have refused to do it for any one--for any one, you +understand." + +"Oh yes, I understand perfectly; but _any one_, in the same +circumstances, would feel as I do. No, not as I do," he corrected, +quickly. "No one else in the world could feel--" + +"I'm really very tired," she said, hurriedly; "I'll go now; but I count +on you to call me." + +He watched her while she glided across the room; but it was only when +her door had closed and he had dropped into his seat that he was able to +state to himself the fact that the mere sight of her again had +demolished all the barricades he had been building in his heart against +her for the last six months. They had fallen more easily than the walls +of Jericho at the blast of the sacred horn. The inflection of her voice, +the look from her eyes, the gestures of her hands, had dispelled them +into nothingness, like ramparts of mist. But it was not that alone! He +was too much a man of affairs not to give credit to the practical +abilities she had shown that night. No graces of person or charms of +mind or resources of courage could have called forth his admiration more +effectively than this display of prosaic executive capacity. What had to +be done she had done more promptly, wisely, and easily than any man +could have accomplished it. She had foreseen possibilities and +forestalled accident with a thoroughness which he himself could not have +equalled. + +"My God!" he groaned, inwardly, "what a wife she would have made for any +man! How I could have loved her, if it hadn't been for--" + +He stopped abruptly and leaped to his feet, looking around dazed on the +great empty hail, at the end of which a porter slept in his chair, while +the clerk blinked drowsily behind his desk. + +"I do love her," he declared to himself. "All summer long I have uttered +blasphemies. I do love her. Whatever she may have been, she shall be my +wife." + +Out on the terrace the cold wind was grateful, and he stood for a minute +bareheaded, letting it blow over his fevered face and through his hair. +It had risen during the last hour, making the pines rock slowly in the +starlight and swelling their moan into deep sobs. + +As Derek Pruyn paced the terrace in strained expectation he was deceived +again and again into the thought that something was approaching. Now it +was the champing and stamping of horses toiling up the ascent; now it +was the bray and throb of the automobile; now it was the voices of men, +conversing or calling or breaking into laughter. Twenty times he +hastened to the steps at the end of the terrace, sure he could not have +been mistaken, only to hear the earth-forces sob and sough and shout +again, as if in derision of this puny, presumptuous mortal, with his +evanescent joy and pain. + +So another hour passed. His mind was not of the imaginative order which +invents disaster in moments of suspense, so that he was able to keep his +watch more patiently than many another might have done. Once he tried to +smoke; but the mere scent of tobacco seemed out of place in this curious +world, alive with odd psychical suggestions, and he threw the cigar away +into the darkness, where its light glowed reproachfully, like a dying +eye, till it went out. + +It was after three when a sudden sound from the driveway struck his ear; +but he had been deceived so often that he would pay it no attention. +Though it seemed like the unmistakable approach of an automobile, it had +seemed so before, and he would not even look round till he had reached +the distant end of the terrace. When he turned he could see through the +trees, and along the dark line of the avenue, the advance of the +heralding light. Dorothea had come at last. She was even close upon +them. In a few more seconds she would be alighting at the steps. + +He hurried inside to wake the porter and warn Diane. + +"She's here!" he called, rapping sharply at her door. "Please come! +Quick!" + +There was a response and a hurried movement from within, but he did not +wait for her to appear. When she came out of her room she could see from +the light thrown over the terrace that the motor had already stopped at +the steps. Some one was getting out, and she could hear men's voices. +Advancing to a spot midway between her room and the main entry, she +stood waiting for Derek to bring her his daughter. A moment later he +sprang into the light of the doorway with features white and alarmed. + +"Go back!" he cried to her, with a commanding gesture. "Go back!" + +"But what's the matter?" + +"Go back!" he ordered, more imperiously than before. + +"Oh, Derek, it's Dorothea! She's hurt. I must go to her. I will not go +back." + +She rushed toward the entry, but he caught her and pushed her back. + +"I tell you you must go back," he repeated. + +"It's Dorothea!" she cried. "She's hurt! She's killed! Let me go! She +needs me!" + +"It isn't Dorothea," he whispered, forcing her over the threshold of her +own room and trying to close the door upon her. + +"Then what is it?" she begged. "Tell me now. You're hurting me. Let me +go! You're killing me." + +"It's--" + +But there was no need to say more, for the main door swung open again +and the Marquis de Bienville entered, followed by a porter carrying his +valise. + +At his appearance Derek relinquished Diane's hands, and Diane herself +was so astonished that she stepped plainly into view. Not less +astonished than herself, Bienville stopped stock-still, looked at her, +looked into the room behind her, looked at Derek with a long, +half-amused, comprehending stare, lifted his hat gravely, and passed on. + +When he had gone there was a minute of dead silence. With parted lips +and awe-stricken eyes Diane gazed after him till he had spoken to the +clerk at the desk and passed on into the darker recesses of the hotel. +When she turned toward Derek he was smiling, with what she knew was an +effort to treat the situation lightly. + +"Well, this time we've given him something to talk about," he laughed, +bravely. + +She shrugged her shoulders and spread apart her hands with one of her +habitual, fatalistic gestures. + +"I don't mind. He can't do me more harm than he's done already. It's not +of him that I'm thinking, but of Dorothea. She hasn't come." + +"No, she hasn't come." + +The fact had grown alarming, so much so as to make the incident of +Bienville's appearance seem in comparison a matter of little moment. +Diane remained on the threshold of her room, and Derek in the hail +outside, while, for mutual encouragement, they rehearsed once more the +list of predicaments in which the young people might have found +themselves without serious danger. + +Diane was about to withdraw, when a man ran down the hall calling: + +"The telephone!--for the gentleman!" + +Derek started on a run, Diane following more slowly. When she reached +the office Derek had the receiver to his ear and was talking. + +"Yes, Fulton. Go on. I hear.... Who has rung you up?... I didn't +catch ... Miss--who? Oh, Miss Marion Grimston. Yes?... In Philadelphia, +at the Hotel Belleville.... Yes; I understand... and Miss Dorothea is +with her.... Good!... Did she say how she got there?... Will explain +when we get back to New York to-morrow morning.... All right.... Yes, +to lunch.... She said Miss Dorothea was quite well, and satisfied with +her trip!... That's good.... Well, good-night, Fulton. Sorry to have +kept you up." + +He put up the receiver and turned to Diane. + +"Did you understand?" + +"Perfectly. I think I know what has happened. I can guess." + +"Then, I'll be hanged if I can. What is it?" + +"I'll let them tell you that themselves. I'm too tired to say anything +more to-night." + +She kept close to the office where the clerk was shutting books and +locking drawers preparatory to closing. + +"You must let me come and thank you--" he began. + +"You must thank Miss Marion Grimston," she interrupted, "for any real +service. All I've done for you, as you see, has been to bring you on an +unnecessary journey." + +"For me it has been a journey--into truth." + +"I'll say good-night now. I shall not see you in the morning. You'll not +forget to be very gentle with Dorothea, will you--and with him? +Good-night again--good-night." + +Smiling into his eyes, she ignored the hand he held out to her and +slipped away into the semi-darkness as the impatient clerk began turning +out the lights. + + + + +XXII + + +Derek Pruyn was guilty of an injustice to the Marquis de Bienville in +supposing he would make the incident at Lakefield a topic of +conversation among his friends. His sense of honor alone would have kept +him from betraying what might be looked upon as an involuntary +confidence, even if it had not better suited his purposes to intrust the +matter, in the form of an amusing anecdote, told under the seal of +secrecy, to Mrs. Bayford. In her hands it was like invested capital, +adding to itself, while he did nothing at all. Months of insinuation on +his part would have failed to achieve the result that she brought about +in a few days' time, with no more effort than a rose makes in shedding +perfume. + +Before Derek had been able to recover from the feeling of having passed +through a strange waking dream, before Dorothea and he had resumed the +ordinary tenor of their life together, before he had seen Diane again, +he was given to understand that the little scene on Bienville's arrival +at the Bay Tree Inn was familiar matter in the offices, banks, and clubs +he most frequented. The intelligence was conveyed by a score of trivial +signs, suggestive, satirical, or over-familiar, which he would not have +perceived in days gone by, but to which he had grown sensitive. It was +clear that the story gained piquancy from its contrast with the +staidness of his life; and his most intimate friends permitted +themselves a little covert "chaff" with him on the event. He was not of +a nature to resent this raillery on his own account; it was serious to +him only because it touched Diane. + +For her the matter was so grave that he exhausted his ingenuity in +devising means for her protection. He refrained from even seeing her +until he could go with some ultimatum before which she should be obliged +to yield. An unsuccessful appeal to her, he judged, would be worse than +none at all; and until he discovered arguments which she could not +controvert he decided to hold his peace. + +Action of some sort became imperative when he found that Miss Lucilla +Van Tromp had heard the story and drawn from it what seemed to her the +obvious conclusion. + +"I should never have believed it," she declared, tearfully, "if you +hadn't admitted it yourself. I told Mrs. Bayford that nothing but your +own words would convince me that any such scene had taken place." + +"Allowing that it did, isn't it conceivable that it might have had an +honorable motive?" + +"Then, what is it? If you could tell me that--" + +"I could tell you easily enough if there weren't other considerations +involved. I should think that in the circumstances you could trust me." + +"Nobody else does, Derek." + +"Whom do you mean by nobody else?--Mrs. Bayford?" + +"Oh, she's not the only one. If your men friends don't believe in you--" + +"They believe in me, all right; don't you worry about that." + +"They may believe in you as men believe in one another; but it isn't the +way I believe in people." + +"I know how you believe in people if ill-natured women would let you +alone. You wouldn't mistrust a thief if you saw him stealing your watch +from your pocket." + +"That's not true, Derek. I can be as suspicious as any one when I like." + +"But don't you see that your suspicion doesn't only light, on me? It +strikes Diane." + +"That's just it." + +"Lucilla! he cried, reproachfully. + +"Well, Derek, you know how loyal I've been to her. It's been harder, +too, than you've ever been aware of; for I haven't told you--I +_wouldn't_ tell you--one-half the things that people have hinted to me +during the past two years." + +"Yes; but who? A lot of jealous women--" + +"It's no use saying that, Derek; because your own actions contradict +you. Why did Diane leave your house, if it wasn't that you believed--?" + +"Don't." He raised his hand to his face, as if protecting himself from a +blow. + +"I wouldn't," she cried, "if you didn't make me. I say it only in +self-defence. After all, you can only accuse me of what you've done +yourself. Diane made me think at first that you had misjudged her; but I +see now that if she had been a good woman you wouldn't have sent her +away." + +"I didn't send her away. She went." + +"Yes, Derek; but why?" + +"That has nothing to do with the question under discussion." + +"On the contrary, it has everything to do with it. It all belongs +together. I've loved Diane, and defended her; but I've come to the point +where I can't do it any longer. After what's happened--" + +"But, I tell you, what's happened is nothing! If it was only right for +me to explain it to you, as I shall explain it to you some day, you'd +find you owed her a debt that you never could repay." + +"Very well! I won't dispute it. It still doesn't affect the main point +at issue. Can you yourself, Derek, honestly and truthfully affirm that +you look upon Diane as a good woman, in the sense that is usually +attached to the words?" + +"I can honestly and truthfully affirm that I look upon her as one of the +best women in the world." + +"That isn't the point. Louise de la Vallière became one of the best +women in the world; but there are some other things that might be said +of her. But I'll not argue; I'll not insist. Since you think I'm wrong, +I'll take your own word for it, Derek. Just tell me once, tell me +without quibble and on your honor as my cousin and a gentleman, that you +believe Diane to be--what I've supposed her to be hitherto, and what you +know very well I mean, and I'll not doubt it further." + +For a moment he stood speechless, trying to formulate the lie he could +utter most boldly, until he was struck with the double thought that to +defend Diane's honor with a falsehood would be to defame it further, +while a lie to this pure, trusting, virginal spirit would be a crime. + +"Tell me, Derek," she insisted; "tell me, and I'll believe you." + +He retreated a pace or two, as if trying to get out of her presence. + +"I'm listening, Derek; go on; I'm willing to take your word." + +"Then I repeat," he said, weakly, "that I believe her, I _know_ her, to +be one of the best women in the world." + +"Like Louise de la Vallière?" + +"Yes," he shouted, maddened to the retort, "like Louise de la Vallière! +And what then?" He stood as if demanding a reply. "Nothing. I have no +more to say." + +"Then I have; and I'll ask you to listen." He drew near to her again and +spoke slowly. "There were doubtless many good women in Jerusalem in the +time of Herod and Pilate and Christ; but not the least held in honor +among us to-day is--the Magdalen. That's one thing; and here's something +more. There is joy, so we are told, in the presence of the angels of +God--plenty of it, let us hope!--but it isn't over the ninety-and-nine +just persons who need no repentance, so much as over the one poor, +deserted, lonely sinner that repenteth--that repenteth, Lucilla, do you +hear?-and you know whom I mean." + +With this as his confession of faith he left her, to go in search of +Diane. He had formed the ultimatum before which, as he believed, she +should find herself obliged to surrender. + +It was a day on which Diane's mood was one of comparative peace. She was +engrossed in an occupation which at once soothed her spirits and +appealed to her taste. Madame Cauchat, the land-lady, bewailing the +continued illness of her lingère, Diane had begged to be allowed to take +charge of the linen-room of the hotel, not merely as a means of earning +a living, but because she delighted in such work. Methodical in her +habits and nimble with her needle, the neatness, smoothness, and purity +of piles of white damask stirred all those house-wifely, home-keeping +instincts which are so large a part of every Frenchwoman's nature. Her +fingers busy with the quiet, delicate task of mending, her mind could +dwell with the greater content on such subjects as she had for +satisfaction. + +They were more numerous than they had been for a long time past. The +meeting at Lakefield had changed her mental attitude toward Derek Pruyn, +taking a large part of the pain out of her thoughts of him, as well as +out of his thoughts of her. She had avoided seeing him after that one +night, and she had heard nothing from him since; but she knew it was +impossible for him to go on thinking of her altogether harshly. She had +been useful to him; she had saved Dorothea from a great mistake; she had +done it in such a way that no hint of the escapade was likely to become +known outside of the few who had taken part in it; she had put herself +in a relation toward him which, as a final one, was much to be preferred +to that which had existed before. She could therefore pass out of his +life more satisfied than she had dared hope to be with the effect that +she had had upon it. As she stitched she sighed to herself with a +certain comfort, when, glancing up, she saw him standing at the door. +The nature of her thoughts, coupled with his sudden appearance, drew to +her lips a quiet smile. + +"They shouldn't have shown you in here," she protested, gently, letting +her work fall to her lap, but not rising from her place. + +"I insisted," he explained, briefly, from the threshold. + +"You can come in," she smiled, as he continued to stand in the doorway. +"You can even sit down." She pointed to a chair, not far from her own, +going on again with her stitching, so as to avoid the necessity for +further greeting. "I suppose you wonder what I'm doing," she pursued, +when he had seated himself. + +"I'm not wondering at that so much as whether you ought to be doing it." + +"I can relieve your mind on that score. It's a case, too, in which duty +and pleasure jump together; for the delight of handling beautiful linen +is like nothing else in the world." + +"It seems to me like servants' work," he said, bluntly. + +"Possibly; but I can do servants' work at a pinch--especially when I +like it." + +"I don't," he declared. + +"But then you don't have to do it." + +"I mean that I don't like it for you." + +"Even so, you wouldn't forbid my doing it, would you?" + +"I wish I had the right to. I've come here this afternoon to ask you +again if you won't give it to me." + +For a few minutes she stitched in silence. When she spoke it was without +stopping her work or lifting her head. + +"I'm sorry that you should raise that question again. I thought it was +settled." + +"Supposing it was, it can be reopened--if there's a reason." + +"But there is none." + +"That's all you know about it. There's a very important reason." + +"Since--when?" + +"Since Lakefield." + +"Do you mean anything that Monsieur de Bienville may have said?" + +"I do." + +"That wouldn't be a reason--for me." + +"But you don't know--" + +"I can imagine. Monsieur de Bienville has already done me all the harm +he can. It's beyond his power to hurt me any more." + +"But, Diane, you don't know what you're saying. You don't know what he's +doing. He's--he's--I hardly know how to put it--He's destroying your +reputation." + +She glanced up with a smile, ceasing for an instant to sew. + +"You mean, he's destroying what's left of it. Well, he's welcome! There +was so little of it--" + +"For God's sake, Diane, don't say that; it breaks my heart. You must +consider the position that you put me in. After you've rendered me one +the greatest services one person can do another, do you think I can sit +quietly by while you are being robbed of the dearest thing in life, just +because you did it?" + +"I should be sorry to think the opinion other people hold of me to be +the dearest thing in life; but, even if it were, I'd willingly give it +up for--Dorothea." + +"It isn't for Dorothea; it's for me." + +"Well, wouldn't you let me do it--for you? I'm not of much use in the +world, but it would make me a little happier to think I could do any one +a good turn without being promised a reward." + +"A reward! Oh, Diane!" + +"It's what you're offering me, isn't it? If it hadn't been for--for--the +great service you speak about, you wouldn't he here, asking me again to +be your wife." + +"That's your way of putting it, but I'll put it in mine. If it hadn't +been for the magnitude of the sacrifice you're willing to make for me, I +shouldn't have dared to hope that you loved me. When all pretexts and +secondary causes have been considered and thrust aside, that's why I'm +here, and for no other reason whatever. If you love me," he continued, +"why should you hesitate any longer? If you love me, why seek for +reasons to justify the simple prompting of your heart? What have you and +I got to do with other people's opinions? When there's a plain, +straightforward course before us, why not go right on and follow it?" + +She raised her eyes for one brief glance. + +"You forget." + +The words were spoken quietly, but they startled him. + +"Yes, Diane; I do forget. Rather, there's nothing left for me to +remember. I know what you'd have me recall. I'll speak of it this once +more, to be silent on the subject forever. I want you to forgive me. I +want to tell you that I, too, have repented." + +"Repented of what?" + +"Of the wrong I've done you. I believe your soul to be as white as all +this whiteness around you." + +"Then," she continued, questioning gently, "you've changed your point of +view during the last six months?" + +"I have. You charged me then with being willing to come down to your +level; now I'm asking you to let me climb up to it. I see that I was a +self-righteous Pharisee, and that the true man is he who can smite his +breast and say, God be merciful to me a sinner!" + +"A sinner--like me." + +"I don't want to be led into further explanations," he said, suddenly on +his guard against her insinuations. "You and I have said too much to +each other not to be able to be frank. Now, I've been frank enough. +You've understood what I've felt at other times; you understand what I +feel to-day. Why draw me out, to make me speak more plainly?" + +"I am not drawing you out," she declared. "If I ask you a question or +two, it was to show you that not even the woman that you take me +for--not even the forgiven penitent--could be a good wife for you. I +can't marry you, Mr. Pruyn. I must beg you to let that answer be +decisive." + +There was decision in the way in which she folded her work and smoothed +the white brocaded surface in her lap. There was decision, too, in the +quickness with which he rose and stood looking down at her. For a second +she expected him to turn from her, as he had turned once before, and +leave her with no explanation beyond a few laconic words. She held her +breath while she awaited them. + +"Then that means," he said, at last, "that you put me in the position of +taking all, while you give all." + +"I don't put you in any position whatever. The circumstances are not of +my making. They are as much beyond my control as they are beyond yours." + +"They're not wholly beyond mine. If there are some things I can't do, +there are some I can prevent." + +"What things?" + +His tone alarmed her, and she struggled to her feet. + +"You're willing to make me a great sacrifice; but at least I can refuse +to accept it." + +"What do you mean?" She moved slightly back from him, behind the +protection of one of the tables piled breast-high with its white load. + +"You're willing to lose for me the last vestige of your good name--" + +"I don't care anything about that," she said, hurriedly. + +"But I do. I won't let you." + +"How can you stop me?" she asked, staring at him with large, frightened +eyes. + +"I shall tell Dorothea's part in the story." + +"You'd--?" she began, with a questioning cry. + +"All who care to hear it, shall. They shall know it from its beginning +to its end. They shall lose no detail of her folly or of your wisdom." + +"You would sacrifice your child like that?" + +"Yes, like that. Neither she nor I can remain so indebted to any one, as +you would have us be to you." + +"You--wouldn't--be--indebted--to--me?" + +"Not to so terrible an extent. If it's a choice between your good name +and hers--hers must go. She'd agree with me herself. She wouldn't +hesitate for one single fraction of an instant--if she knew. She'd be +grateful to you, as I am; but she couldn't profit by your magnanimity." + +"So that the alternative you offer me is this: I can protect myself by +sacrificing Dorothea, or I can marry you, and Dorothea will be saved." + +"I shouldn't express it in just those words, but it's something like +it." + +"Then I'll marry you. You give me a choice of evils, and I take the +least." + +"Oh! Then to marry me would be--an evil?" + +"What else do you make it? You'll admit that it's a little difficult to +keep pace with you. You come to me one day accusing me of sin, and on +another announcing my contrition, while on the third you may be in some +entirely different mood about me." + +"You can easily render me ridiculous. That's due to my awkwardness of +expression and not to anything wrong in the way I feel." + +"Oh, but isn't it out of the heart that the mouth speaketh? I think so. +You've advanced some excellent reasons why I should become your wife, +and I can see that you're quite capable of believing them. At one time +it was because I needed a home, at another because I needed protection, +while to-day, I understand, it is because I love you." + +"Is this fair?" + +"I dare say you think it isn't; but then you haven't been tried and +judged half a dozen times, unheard, as I've been. I'll confess that +you've shown the most wonderful ingenuity in trying to get me into a +position where I should be obliged to marry you, whether I would or not; +and now you've succeeded. Whether the game is worth the candle or not is +for you to judge; my part is limited to saying that you've won. I'm +ready to marry you as soon as you tell me when." + +"To save Dorothea?" + +"To save Dorothea." + +"And for no other reason?" + +"For no other reason." + +"Then, of course, I can't keep you to your word." + +"You can't release me from it except on one condition." + +"Which is--?" + +"That Dorothea's secret shall be kept." + +"I must use my own judgment about that." + +"On the contrary, you must use mine. You've made me a proposal which I'm +ready to accept. As a man of honor you must hold to it--or be silent." + +"Possibly," he admitted, on reflection. "I shall have to think it over. +But in that case we'd be just where we were--" + +"Yes; just where we were." + +"And you'd be without help or protection. That's the thought I can't +endure, Diane. Try to be just to me. If I make mistakes, if I flounder +about, if I say things that offend you, it's because I can't rest while +you're exposed to danger. Alone, as you are, in this great city, +surrounded by people who are not your friends, a prey to criticism and +misapprehension, when it is no worse, it's as if I saw you flung into +the arena among the beasts. Can you wonder that I want to stand by you? +Can you be surprised if I demand the privilege of clasping you in my +arms and saying to the world, This is my wife? When Christian women were +thrown to the lions there was once a heathen husband who leaped into the +ring, to die at his wife's side, because he could do no more. That's my +impulse--only I could save you from the lions. I couldn't protect you +against everything, perhaps, but I could against the worst. I know I'm +stupid; I know I'm dull. When I come near you, I'm like the clown who +touches some exquisite tissue, spun of azure; but I'm like the clown who +would fight for his treasure, and defend it from sacrilegious hands, and +spend his last drop of blood to keep it pure. It's to be put in a +position where I can't do that that I find hard. It's to see you so +defenceless--" + +"But I'm not defenceless." + +"Why not? Whom have you? Nobody--nobody in this world but me." + +"Oh yes, I have." + +"Who?" + +She smiled faintly at the fierceness of his brief question. + +"It's no one to whom you need feel any opposition, even though it's some +one who can do for me what you cannot." + +"What I cannot?" + +"What you cannot; what no man can. _Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor_. +Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Derek, He has +purged me with hyssop, even though it has not been in the way you think. +With the hyssop of what I've had to suffer He has purged me from so many +things that now I see I can safely commit my cause to Him." + +"So that you don't need me?" + +She looked at him in silence before she replied: + +"Not for defence." + +"Nor for anything else?" + +She tried to speak, but her voice failed her. + +"Nor for anything else?" he asked again. + +Her voice was faint, her head sank, her body trembled, but she forced +the one word, "No." + + + + +XXIII + + +"Mademoiselle has sent for me?" Bienville kissed the hand that Miss +Grimston, without rising from her comfortable chair before the fire, +lifted toward him. The hand-screen with which she shielded her face +protected her not only from the blaze, but from his scrutiny. In the +same way, the winter gloaming, with its uncertain light, nerved her +against her fear of self-betrayal, giving her that assurance of being +mistress of herself which she lacked when he was near. + +"I did send for you. I wanted to see you. Won't you sit down?" + +"I've been expecting the summons," he said, significantly, taking the +seat on the other side of the hearth. + +"Indeed? Why?" + +"I thought the day would come when you would be more just to me." + +"You thought I'd--hear things?" + +"Perhaps." + +"I have. That's why I asked you to come." + +During the brief silence before she spoke again he was able to +congratulate himself on his diplomacy. He had checked his first impulse +to come to her with his great news immediately on his return from +Lakefield. He had seen how relatively ineffective the information would +be were it to proceed bluntly from himself. He had even restrained Mrs. +Bayford's enthusiasm, in order to let the intelligence filter gently +through the neutral agencies of common gossip. In this way it would seem +to Miss Grimston a discovery of her own, and appeal to her as an +indirect corroboration of his word. He had the less scruple in taking +these precautions in that he believed Diane to have justified anything +he might have said of her. It was no small relief to a man of honor to +know he had not been guilty of a gratuitous slander, even though it was +only on a woman. He awaited Miss Grimston's next words with complacent +expectancy, but when they came they surprised him. + +"I wondered a little why you should have been at Lakefield." + +"I'm afraid you'll think it was for a very foolish reason," he laughed, +"but I'll tell you, if you want to know. I went because I thought you +were there." + +"I? At three o'clock in the morning?" + +"It was like this," he went on. "You'll pardon me if I say anything to +give you offence, but you'll understand the reason why. On the day when +we all lunched together at the Restaurant Blitz--you, Madame your aunt, +your friend Monsieur Reggie Bradford, and I--I was a little jealous of +some understanding between you two, in which I was not included. You +spoke together in whispers, and exchanged glances in such a way that all +my fears were aroused. Afterward you went away with him. That evening, +at the Stuyvesant Club, I heard a strange rumor. It was whispered from +one to another until it reached me. Your friend Monsieur Bradford is not +a silent person, and what he knows is sure to become common property. +The rumor--which I grant you was an absurd one--was to the effect that +he had persuaded you to run away and marry him; and that you had +actually been seen on the way to Lakefield in his car." + +"I was in his car. That's quite true." + +"Ah? Then there was some foundation for the report. Madame your aunt +will have told you how I hurried here, about eleven o'clock that night. +You had disappeared, leaving nothing behind but an enigmatic note saying +you would explain your absence in the morning. What was I to think, +Mademoiselle? I was afraid to think. I didn't stop to think. I +determined to follow you. It was too late for any train, so I took an +auto. I reached the Bay Tree Inn--and saw what I saw. _Voilà_!" + +A smile of amusement flickered over her grave features, but she made no +remark. + +"If I was guilty of an indiscretion in following you, Mademoiselle," he +pursued, "it was because of my great love for you. If you had chosen to +marry some one else, I couldn't have kept you from it; but at least I +was determined to try. Though I thought it incredible that you should +take a step like that, in secrecy and flight, yet I find so many strange +ways of marrying in America that I must be pardoned for my fear. As it +is, I cannot regret it, since, by a miracle, it gave me proof of that +which you have found it so difficult to believe. It has grieved me more +than I could ever make you understand to know that during all these +months you have doubted me." + +"I'm sure of that," she said, softly, gazing into the fire. "But haven't +you wondered where I was that night when you followed me to Lakefield?" + +"If I have, I shouldn't presume to inquire." + +"It's a secret; but I should like to tell it to you. I know you'll guard +it sacredly, because it concerns--a woman's honor." + +Though she did not look up, she felt the startled toss of the head, +characteristic of his moments of alarm. + +"If Mademoiselle is pleased to be satirical--" + +"No. There's no reason why I should be satirical. If, in spite of +everything, my confidence in you wasn't absolute, I shouldn't risk a +name I hold so dear as that of Dorothea Pruyn." + +"_Tiens!_" he exclaimed, under his breath. + +"Miss Pruyn is a charming girl, but she's been very foolish. What she +did was not quite so bad in American eyes as it would be in French ones, +but it was certainly very wilful. If you heard rumors of an elopement, +it was hers." + +"_Mon Dieu!_ With the big Monsieur Reggie?" + +"Not quite. I needn't tell you the young man's name; it will be enough +to say that the big Monsieur Reggie, as you call him, was in his +confidence. It was Reggie who undertook to convey Dorothea to Lakefield, +where she was to meet the bridegroom-elect and marry him." + +"And then?" + +"Then Reggie told me. It was silly of any one to intrust him with a +mission of the kind, for he couldn't possibly keep it to himself. He +told me while we were lunching at the Blitz. That's what he was +whispering. That's why I went away with him after lunch and left you +with my aunt. I saw you were annoyed, but I couldn't help it." + +"You wanted to dissuade him?" + +"I tried; but I saw it was too late for that. Reggie wouldn't desert his +friend at the last minute. The only concession I could wring from him +was that he should let me take his place in the motor." + +"You?" + +"I drive at least as well as Mr. Bradford. I made him see that in case +of accident it would make all the difference in the world to Miss +Pruyn's future life to be with a woman, rather than a man." + +"Did you make her see it, too?" + +"I didn't try. The arrangements these wise young people had made +rendered the substitution easy. Dorothea had apparently considered it +part of the romance not to know with whom she was going, or where she +was being taken. At the time and place appointed she found an +automobile, driven by a person in a big fur coat, a cap, and goggles. It +was agreed that she should enter and ask no questions." + +"And did she?" + +"She fulfilled her engagement to the letter. As soon as she was seated I +drove away; and for six hours I didn't hear a sound from her." + +"Six hours? Did it take you all that time to reach Lakefield?" + +"I didn't go to Lakefield. I took her to Philadelphia. My one object was +to keep her from meeting the young man that night; but perhaps that's +where I made my mistake." + +"But why? It was better for her that she shouldn't." + +"For her, perhaps; but not for every one else. You see, I lost my way +two or three times; though, as I had been over the ground twice already, +I was always able to right myself after a while. Near Trenton, Dorothea +got frightened, and when I peeped inside I could see she was crying. As +all danger was over then, I stopped and let her see who I was." + +"Was she angry?" + +"Quite the contrary! The poor child was terrified at her own rashness, +and very much relieved to find she had been kept from being as foolish +as she had intended. I got in beside her, and let her have her cry out +in comfort. After that we ate some sandwiches and took heart. It was +weird work, in the dead of night and along the lonely roads; but we +pushed on, and crept into Philadelphia between one and two in the +morning." + +"That was a very brave, act, Mademoiselle." Bienville's eyes glistened +and his face lighted up with an ardor that was not dampened by the +casual, almost listless, air with which she told her story. + +"It might have been better if I had let the whole thing alone." + +"Why so?" + +"You can rarely interfere in other people's affairs without doing more +harm than good. If I had let them go their own way, Diane Eveleth +wouldn't have been put in a false position." + +"Ah?" + +"That's the other part of the story. If I had known, I should have left +the matter in her hands. She would have managed it better than I. As it +was, she made my bit of help superfluous." + +"I should find it hard to credit that," he said, twisting his fingers +nervously. + +"You won't when I tell you." + +In the quiet, unaccentuated manner in which she had given her own share +in the action she gave Diane's. Shading her eyes with the hand-screen, +she was able to watch his play of feature, and note how the first forced +smile of bravado faded into an expression of crestfallen gravity. + +"You see," she concluded, "they were frantic at Dorothea's failure to +appear. When you arrived they naturally thought it was she; and if Derek +Pruyn hadn't lost his head when he saw you, he wouldn't have tried to +thrust her out of sight as though she were caught in a crime. It was so +like a man to do it; a woman would have had a dozen ways of disarming +your suspicion, while he did the very thing to arouse it. I don't blame +you for thinking what you did--not in the least. I don't even blame you +for telling it, since it would seem to bear out--what you said before. I +should only blame you--" + +"Yes, Mademoiselle? You would only blame me--?" + +"I should only blame you if--now that you know the truth--you didn't +correct the impression you have given." + +"Are you going to begin on that again?" he asked, in a tone of +disappointment. + +"I'm not beginning again, because I've never ceased. If I say anything +new on the subject, it is this--that it's time the final word was +spoken." + +"I agree with you there; it _is_ time for that word; but you must speak +it." + +There was a ring of energy in his voice which caused her to turn from +her contemplation of the fire and look at him. When she did he had taken +on a new air of resolution. + +"I think it's time we came to a definite understanding," he went on, +"and that you should see how the matter looks from my point of view. You +speak of doing right, Mademoiselle, as if it were an easy thing. You +don't realize that, for me, it would have to be the last act but one in +life." + +In spite of the shock, she ignored his implied confession, going on to +speak in the tone of ordinary conversation. + +"The last act but one? I don't understand you." + +"Really? I'm surprised at that. You're so good a sportsman that I should +think you'd see that if I do what you ask there will be only one more +thing left for me." + +For a few minutes she looked at him silently, with fixed gaze, taking in +the full measure of his meaning. + +"That's folly," she said at last. + +"Is it? Not for me. It might be for some people, but--not for me. You +must remember who I am. I'm a Frenchman. I'm an aristocrat. I'm a +Bienville. I'm a member of a class, of a clan, that lives and breathes +on--honor. I can do without almost everything in the world but that. I +can do without money, I can do without morals, I can do without most +kinds of common honesty, I can do without nearly all the Christian +virtues, and still keep my place among my friends; but I can't do +without that particular shade of conduct which they and I understand by +the word honor." + +"But aren't you doing without it as it is?" + +"No; because there again our code is special to ourselves. With us the +crime is not in suspicion or supposition; it isn't even in detection. +It's in admission. It's in confession. All sorts of things may be +thought of you, and said of you, and even known of you, and you can +bluff them out; but when you have acknowledged them--you're doomed." + +"Even so, isn't it better to acknowledge them--and _be_ doomed?" + +"That's the question. That's what I have to decide. That's where you +must help me decide. If you had allowed me, I should have made up my own +mind, on my own responsibility; but you won't let me. Now that the +incident at Lakefield is no good as evidence, I see that you will never +rest until we come to the plainest of plain speech. The problem I've had +to solve is this: Is Diane Eveleth to be happy, or am I? Is she to rise +while I go under, or shall I keep her down and stay on the surface? +Since it's her life or mine, which is it to be? The alternative may be a +brutal one, but there it is." + +"And you've decided in your own favor?" + +"So far. I've been actuated by the instinct of self-preservation." + +"And are you going to persist in it?" + +"That's for you to tell me. But I should like to remind you first of +this, that if I don't--I go." + +"And what if--if I went with you?" + +"You couldn't. The journey would be too long." + +"But you needn't go so far if I'm there." + +"I couldn't take you with me. You must understand that. I once knew an +American girl who married a man who cheated at cards, and buried herself +alive with him. I wouldn't let a woman do that for me." + +"But if she wanted to?" + +"In that case she ought to be protected from herself. There's no use in +ruining two lives where one will do." + +"There's such a thing as losing your life to find it." + +"If so, it's something for me to do--alone." + +"Isn't it a kind of moral cowardice to say that?" + +"I don't think so. To me it seems only looking things squarely in the +face. I'm not the sort of man for whom there's any possibility of +beginning life anew. A man like me can't live things down. When once, by +his own confession, he has lost his honor, there's no rehabilitation +that can make him a man again. Like Cain, he has got to go out from the +presence of the Lord; only, unlike Cain, there's no land of Nod waiting +to receive him. There's no place for him anywhere on earth. A few years +ago, when I was motoring in the Black Forest with the d'Aubignys, we +dropped into a little hole of an inn as nearly out of the world as +anything could be. As we approached the door a man got up from a bench +and shambled away. When he had got to what he considered a safe distance +he turned to look at us. I knew him. It was Jacques de la Tour de +Lorme." + +"Really?" + +"The poor wretch had hidden himself in that God-forsaken spot, where he +supposed no one would be able to track him down; but we had done it. +I've never forgotten his weary gait or the woe-begone look in his eyes. +It is what would come to me if I waited for it." + +"I don't see why. There's no similarity between the cases. Jacques de La +Tour de Lorme did wrong he never could put right. You'd be doing the +very thing he found impossible." He shook his head. "It wouldn't make +any difference in my world. Nobody there would think of the right or the +wrong; they'd only consider what I'd owned to. It's the confession that +would ruin me." + +"Surely you exaggerate. You could do it quietly. No one need +know--outside Derek Pruyn and two or three more of us." + +"I don't do +things in that way," he said, with an odd return of his old-time pride. +"If I put the woman right, it shall be in the eyes of the world. I don't +ask to have things made easy for me. If I do it at all, I shall do it +thoroughly. I'm not afraid of it or of anything it entails. It's a +curious thing that a man of my make-up is afraid of being ridiculed or +being given the cold shoulder, but he's not afraid to die." + +Though he was looking straight at her, he was too deeply engrossed in +his own thoughts to see how proudly her head went up, or to note the +flash of splendid light in which her glance enveloped him. + +"I was all ready to die," he pursued, in the same meditative tone, "that +morning in the Pré Catalan. George Eveleth could have had my life for +the asking. I'd never known him to miss his mark, and he wouldn't have +missed me--if he hadn't had another destination for his bullet. I've +regretted it more than once. I've had pretty nearly all that life could +give me--and I've made a mess of it." + +"You haven't had--love," she ventured. + +"Love?" he echoed, with a short laugh. "I've had every kind of love but +one; and that I'm not worthy of." + +"We get a good many things we're not worthy of; but they help us just +the same." + +"This wouldn't help me," he returned, speaking very slowly. "I shouldn't +know what to do with it. It would be as useless to me in my new +conditions as a chaplet of pearls to a slave in the galleys. So, what +would you do?" + +"I'd do right at any cost." + +She scarcely knew that the words were spoken, so intent was her thought +on the strange mixture of elements in his personality. It was not until +she had waited in vain for a response that she found the echo of her +speech still in her mental hearing and recognized its import. Her first +impulse was to cry out and take it back; but she restrained herself and +waited. It was an instant in which the love of daring, that was so +instinctive in her nature, blew, as it were, a trumpet-challenge to the +same passion in his own, while they sat staring at each other, wide-eyed +and speechless, in the dancing firelight. + + + + +XXIV + + +On the following day the Marquis de Bienville found the execution of any +intentions he might have had toward Derek Pruyn postponed by the +circumstance that Miss Regina van Tromp was dead. The helpless, +inarticulate life, which for three years had served as a bond to hold +more active existences together, had failed suddenly, leaving in the +little group a curious impression of collapse. It became perceptible +that the hushed sick-room, where Miss Lucilla and Mrs. Eveleth were the +only ministrants, had in reality been a centre for those who never +entered it. Now that the living presence was withdrawn, there came the +consciousness of dispersing interests, inseparable from the passing away +of the long established, which gives the spirit pause. The days before +the funeral became a period of suspended action, in which Life refrained +from too marked a manifestation of its energies, out of reverence for +Death. Even when the grave was filled in, and the will read, and the +family face to face with its new conditions, there was a respectful +absence of hurry in beginning the work of reconstruction. The lull +lasted, in fact, till James van Tromp arrived from Paris; and it was +broken then only by the banker's desire "to get things settled" with all +possible speed, so that he might return to the Rue Auber. + +The first sign of real disintegration came from Mrs. Eveleth. She had +waited for the arrival of the man whom she looked upon now as her +confidential adviser, to make the announcement that, since Miss Lucilla +would no longer need her, she meant to have a home of her own. The +economies she had been able to practise during the last two years, +together with a legacy from Miss van Tromp, would, when added to "her +own income," provide her with modest comfort for the rest of her days. +There was something triumphant in the way in which she proclaimed her +independence of the daughter-in-law who had been the author of so many +of her woes. It was the old banker himself who brought this intelligence +to Diane. + +During the fortnight he had been in New York he had formed an almost +daily habit of dropping in on her. She was the more surprised at his +doing so from the fact that her detachment from the rest of the circle +of which she had formed a part was now complete. She had gone to see +Miss Lucilla with words of sympathy, but her reception was such that she +came away with cheeks flaming. Miss Lucilla had said nothing; she had +only wept; but she had wept in a way to show that Diane herself, more +than the departed Miss Regina, was the motive of her grief. After that +Diane had remained shut up in her linen-room, finding in its occupied +seclusion something of the peace which the nun seeks in the cloister. + +There was no one but the old man to push his way into her sanctuary, and +for his visits she was grateful. They not only relieved the tedium of +her days, but they brought her news from that small world into which her +most vital interests had become absorbed. + +"So the old lady is set up for life on your money," he observed, as he +watched Diane hold a white table-cloth up to the light and search it for +imperfections. + +"It isn't my money now; and even if it were I'd rather she had the use +of it. She would have had much more than that if it hadn't been for me." + +"She might; and then again she mightn't. Who told _you_ what would have +happened--if everything had been different from what it is? There are +people who think they would have had plenty of money if it hadn't been +for me; but that doesn't prove they're right." + +"In any case I'm glad she has it." + +"That's because you're a very foolish little woman, as I told you when +you came to me three years ago. I said then that you'd be sorry for it +some day--" + +"But I'm not." + +"Tut! tut! Don't tell me! Can't I see with my own eyes? No woman could +lose her good looks as you've done and not know she's made a mistake. +How old are you now?" + +"I'm twenty-seven." + +"Dear me! dear me! You look forty." + +"I feel eighty." + +"Yes; I dare say you do. Any one who's got into so many scrapes as you +have must feel the burden of time. I don't think I ever saw a young +woman make such poor use of her opportunities. Why didn't you marry +Derek Pruyn?" + +Diane kept herself quite still, her needle arrested half-way through its +stitch. She took time to reflect that it was useless to feel annoyed at +anything he might say, and when she formed her answer it was in the +spirit of meeting him in his own vein. + +"What makes you think I ever had the chance?" + +"Because I gave it to you myself." + +"You, Mr. van Tromp?" + +"Yes; me. I did all that wire-pulling when you first came to New York; +and I did it just so that you might catch him." + +"Oh?" + +"I did," he declared, proudly. "And if you had been the woman I took you +for, you could have had him." + +"But suppose I--didn't want him?" + +"Oh, don't tell me that," he said, pityingly. "Why shouldn't you want +him?--just as much as he'd want you?" + +"Well, I'll put it that way if you like. Suppose he didn't want me?" + +"Then the more fool he. I picked you out for him on purpose." + +"May I ask why?" + +"Certainly. I saw he was getting on in life, and, as he'd been a good +many years a widower, I imagined he'd had some difficulty in getting any +one to have him. If he's good-looking, he's not what you'd call very +bright; and he's got a temper like--well, I won't say what. I'd pity the +woman who got him, that's all; and so--" + +"And so you thought you'd pity me." + +"I did pity you as it was. It seemed to me you couldn't be worse off, +not even if you married Derek Pruyn." + +"It was certainly good of you to give me the opportunity; and if I had +only known--" + +"You would have let it slip through your fingers just the same. You're +one of the young women who will always stand in their own light. I dare +say, now, that if I told you I was willing to marry you myself, you +wouldn't profit by the occasion." + +"I should never want to profit by your loss, Mr. van Tromp." + +"But suppose I could afford--to lose?" + +Unable to answer him there, she held her peace, though it was a relief +that, before he had time to speak again, a page-boy knocked at the door +and entered with a card. Diane took it hastily and read the name. + +"Tell the gentleman I can't see him," she said, with a visible effort to +speak steadily. + +"Wait!" the banker ordered, as the boy was about to turn. "Who is it?" +Without ceremony he drew the card from Diane's hand and looked at it. +"Heu!" he cried. "It's Bienville, is it? Of course you'll see him; of +course you will; of course! Here, boy, I'll go with you." + +Returning to Gramercy Park after this interview, the banker pottered +about his apartment until, on hearing the door-bell ring, he looked out +of the window and recognized Derek Pruyn's chauffeur. On the stairs, as +he went down, he heard Miss Lucilla's voice in the hall. + +"Oh, come in, Derek. Marion isn't here yet, but she won't be long. I +asked you to come punctually, because I gathered from her note that she +wanted to see you very particularly, and without Mrs. Bayford's +knowledge. She has evidently something on her mind that she wants to +tell you." + +"Hello, dears!" the old man interrupted suddenly, as, leaning heavily on +the baluster, he descended the stairs. "I've got good news for you." + +"Good news, Uncle James?" Miss Lucilla said, reproachfully. With her +long, grave face, and in her heavy crape, she looked as though she found +good news decidedly out of place. + +"The very best," the banker declared, reaching the hall and taking his +nephew and niece each by an arm. "Come into the library and I'll tell +you. There!" he went on, pushing Miss Lucilla into an arm-chair. "Sit +down, Derek, and make yourself comfortable. Now, listen, both of you. +Perhaps you're going to have a new aunt." + +"Oh, Uncle James!" Miss Lucilla cried, in the voice of a person about to +faint. + +"You're going to be married!" Derek roared, with the fury of a father +addressing a wayward son. + +"The young woman," the banker went on to explain, "is of French +extraction, but Irish on the mother's side." + +Derek grasped the arms of his chair and half rose, making an +inarticulate sound. + +"'Sh! 'Sh!" the old man went on, lifting a warning hand. "She'd had +reverses of fortune; but that wasn't the reason why she came to me. +Though her husband had just died, leaving nothing, she had her own +_dot_, on the income of which she could have lived. But that didn't suit +her. Her husband had left a mother, who had neither _dot_ nor anything +else in the world. At the age of sixty the old woman was a pauper. My +little lady came to see me in order to transfer all her own money +secretly to her mother-in-law, and face the world herself with empty +hands." + +"My God!" Derek breathed, just audibly. Miss Lucilla sat upright and +tense, hot tears starting to her eyes. + +"Plucky, wasn't it?" the uncle went on, complacently. "I didn't approve +of it at first, but I let her do it in the end, knowing that some good +fellow would make it up to her." + +"Don't joke, uncle," Derek cried, nervously. "It's too serious for +that." + +"I'm not joking. It's what I did think. And if the world wasn't full of +idiots who couldn't tell diamonds from glass, a little woman like that +would have been snapped up long ago." + +Derek sprang up and strode across the room. + +"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded, turning abruptly, "that she made +over all her money to Mrs. Eveleth--a woman who has deserted her, like +the rest of us?" + +"That's what she did; but there's this to be said for the old lady, that +she doesn't know it. She thinks it's the wreck of her own fortune, and +Diane wouldn't let me tell her the truth. Since you seem to be +interested in the little story," he added, with sarcasm, "you may hear +all about it." + +With tolerable accuracy he gave the details of his first interview with +Diane, three years previous. Long before he finished, Lucilla was +weeping silently, while Derek stood like a man turned to stone. Even the +banker's own face took on an expression of whimsical gravity as he said +in conclusion: + +"And so I've decided to give her a home--that is," he added, +significantly, "if no one else will." + +"Do you mean that for me?" Derek asked, in a tone too low for Lucilla to +hear it. + +"Oh no--not particularly. I mean it for--any one." + +"Because," Derek went on, "as for me--I'm not worthy to have her under +my roof." + +The banker made no comment, sitting in a hunched attitude and humming to +himself in a cracked voice while Derek stared down at him. + +They were still in this position when Marion Grimston was shown in. + + + + +XXV + + +Greetings having been exchanged, it was Miss Lucilla's policy to draw +her uncle away to some other room, leaving Marion free to have her +conference with Pruyn; but the old man settled himself in his chair +again, with no intention of quitting the field. Derek, too, entered on +the task of dislodging him, but without success. Nursing his knee, and +peering at Marion with bulgy, short-sighted eyes, the banker kept her +answering questions as to Mrs. Bayford's health, blind to her obvious +nervousness and distress. + +The cousins exchanged baffled, impatient glances, while Lucilla managed +to say in an undertone: "Take Marion to the drawing-room. We'll never +get him to go." + +Derek was about to comply with this suggestion, when the footman threw +open the library door again. For a moment no one appeared, though a +sound of smothered voices from the hall caused the four within the room +to sit in strangely aroused expectancy. + +"No, no; I can't go in," came a woman's whispered protest. "You can do +it without me." + +"You must!" was the man's response; and a second later Bienville was on +the threshold, standing aside as Diane Eveleth entered. + +Derek sprang to his feet, but, as if petrified by a sense of his own +impotence, stood still. Miss Lucilla, with the instincts of the hostess +awake, even in these strange conditions, went forward, with her hand +half outstretched and the words "Monsieur de Bienville" on her lips. The +old banker rose, and, taking Diane's hand, drew it within his arm in a +protecting way for which she was grateful, while she suffered him to +lead her some few steps apart. Marion Grimston alone, seated in a +distant corner, did not move. With her arm resting on a small table, she +watched the rapidly enacted scene with the detachment of a spectator +looking at a play. She had thrown back her black veil over her hat, and +against the dark background her face had the grave, marble whiteness of +classic features in stone. + +During the minute of interrogatory silence that ensued, Bienville, with +quick reversion to the habits of the drawing-room, was able to +re-establish his self-control. With his hat, his gloves, and his stick, +he had that air of the casual visitor which helped to give him back the +sensation of having his feet on accustomed ground. + +"I must beg your pardon, Miss van Tromp, for disturbing you," he said, +addressing himself to Miss Lucilla, who stood in the foreground. "I +shouldn't have done so if I hadn't something of great importance to +say." + +His voice was so calm that Miss Lucilla could not do otherwise than +reply in the same vein of commonplace formality. + +"I'm very glad to see you, Monsieur de Bienville. Won't you sit down? I +was just going to ring for tea." + +"Thank you," he said, with a wave of the hand that declined without +words the proffered entertainment. "Perhaps I had better say what I have +to say--and go." + +"Oh, if you think so--!" + +Having fulfilled her necessary duties as mistress of the house, she felt +at liberty to fall back, leaving Bienville isolated in the doorway. + +"Mr. Pruyn," he said, after further brief hesitation, "I come to make a +confession which can scarcely be a confession to any one in this +room--but you." + +Derek grew white to the lips, but remained motionless, while Bienville +went on. + +"On the way up from South America last spring I said certain things +about a certain lady which were not true. I said them first out of +thoughtless folly; but I maintained them afterward with deliberate +intent. When I pretended to take them back, I did so in a way which, as +I knew, must convince you further." + +"It did." + +As he brought out the two words, Derek tried to look at Diane, but she +was clinging to the arm of old James van Tromp, while her frightened +eyes were riveted on Bienville. + +"I'm telling you the truth to-day," Bienville continued, "partly because +circumstances have forced my hand, partly because some one whom I +greatly respect desires it, and partly because something within +myself--I might almost call it the manhood I've been fighting +against--has made it imperative. I've come to the point where my +punishment is greater than I can bear. I'm not so lost to honor as not +to know that life is no longer worth the living when honor is lost to +me." + +He spoke without a tremor, leaning easily on the cane he held against +his hip. + +"I must do myself the justice to say that the wrong of which I was +guilty had its origin, at the first, in a sort of inadvertence. I had no +intention of doing any one irreparable harm. I was taking part in a +game, but I meant to play it fairly. The lady of whom I speak would bear +me out when I say that the people among whom she and I were born--in +France--in Paris--engage in this game as a sort of sport, and we call +it--love. It isn't love in any of the senses in which you understand it +here. We give it a meaning of our own. It's a game that requires the +combination of many kinds of skill, and, if it doesn't call for a +conspicuous display of virtues, it lays all the greater emphasis on its +own few, stringent rules. Like all other sports, it demands a certain +kind of integrity, in which the moralist could easily pick holes, but +which nevertheless constitutes its saving grace. Well, in this game of +love I--cheated. I said, one day, that I had won, when I hadn't won. I +said it to people who welcomed my victory, not through friendship for +me, but from envy of--her." The perspiration began to stand in beads +upon Bienville's forehead, but he held himself erect and went on with +the same outward tranquillity. His eyes were fixed on Pruyn's, and +Pruyn's on his, in a gaze from which even the nearest objects were +excluded. "In the little group in which we lived her position was +peculiar. She was both within our gates and without them. While she was +one of us by birth, she was a stranger by education and by marriage. She +was admitted with a welcome, and at the same time with a question. She +was a mark for enmity from the very first. There was something about +her that challenged our institutions. In among our worn-out passions and +moribund ideals she brought a freshness we resented. She made our +prejudices seem absurd from contrast with her own sanity, and showed our +moral standards to be rotten by the light of the something clear and +virginal in her character. I can't tell you how this effect was brought +about, but there were few of us who weren't aware of it, as there were +few of us who didn't hate it. There was but one impulse among us--to +catch her in a fault, to make her no better than ourselves. The daring +of her innocence afforded us many opportunities; and we made use of +them. One man after another confessed himself defeated. Then came my +turn. I wasn't merely defeated; I was put to utter rout, with ridicule +and scorn. That was too much for me. I couldn't stand it; and--and--I +lied." + +"Oh, Bienville, that will do!" Diane cried out, in a pleading wail. +"Don't say any more!" + +"I'm not sure that there's any more I need to say. The rest can be +easily understood. Every one knows how a man who lies once is obliged to +lie again, and again, and yet again, unless he frees himself as I do. +When I began I thought I had it in me to go on heroically--but I hadn't. +I can't keep it up. I'm not one of the master villains, who command +respect from force of prowess. I'm a weakling in evil, as in good, fit +neither for God nor for the devil. But that's my affair. I needn't +trouble any one here with what only concerns myself. It's too +late for me to make everything right now; but I'll do what I can +before--before--I mean," he stammered on, "I'll write. I'll write to the +people--there were only a few of them--to whom I actually used the words +I did. I'll ask them to correct the impression I have given. I know +they'll do it, when they know--" + +He stopped helplessly. The lustre died out of his eyes, and his pallor +became sallowness. + +"But I've said enough," he began again, making a tremendous effort to +regain his self-mastery. "You can have no doubt as to my meaning; and +you will be able to fill in anything I may have left unspoken. Now," he +added, sweeping the room with a look--"now--I'd better--go." + +"No, by God! you infernal scoundrel," shouted Derek Pruyn, "you shall +not go." + +All the suffering of months shot out in the red gleam of his eyes, while +the muscular tension of his neck was like that of an infuriated mastiff. +In three strides he was across the room, with clinched fist uplifted. +Bienville had barely time in which to fold his arms and stand with feet +together and head erect, awaiting the blow. + +"Go on," he said, as Derek stood with hand poised above him. "Go on." + +There was a second of breathless stillness. Then slowly the clinched +fingers began to relax and the open hand descended, softly, gently, on +Bienville's shoulder. Between the two men there passed a look of things +unspeakable, till, with bent head and drooping figure, Derek wheeled +away. + +"I'll say good-by--now." + +Bienville's voice was husky, but he bowed with dignity to each member of +the company in turn and to Marion Grimston last. "Raoul!" The name +arrested him as he was about to go. He looked at her inquiringly. +"Raoul," she said again, without rising from her place, "I promised that +if you ever did what you've done to-day I would be your wife." + +"You did," he answered, "but I've already given you to understand that I +claim no such reward." + +"It isn't you who would be claiming the reward; it's I. I've suffered +much. I've earned it." + +"The very fact that you've suffered much would be my motive in not +allowing you to suffer more." + +"Raoul, no man knows the sources of a woman's joy and pain. How can you +tell from what to save me?" + +"There's one thing from which I _must_ save you: from uniting your +destiny with that of a man who has no future--from pouring the riches +of your heart into a bottomless pit, where they could do no one any +good. I thank you, Mademoiselle, with all my soul. I've asked you many +times for your love; and of the hard things I've had to do to-day, the +hardest is to give it back to you, now, when at last you offer it. Don't +add to my bitterness by urging it on me." + +"But, Raoul," she cried, raising herself up, "you don't understand. We +regard these things differently here from the way in which you do in +France. It may be true, as you say, that in losing your honor you've +lost all--in French eyes; but we don't feel like that. We never look on +any one as beyond redemption. We should consider that a man who has been +brave enough to do what you've done to-day has gone far to establish his +moral regeneration. We can honor him, in certain ways--in _certain_ +ways, Raoul--almost more than if he had never done wrong at all. +None of us would condemn him, or cast a stone at him--should we, +Lucilla?--should we, Mr. Pruyn?" + +"No, no," Miss Lucilla sobbed. "We'd pity him; we'd take him to our +hearts." + +"She's right, Bienville," Derek muttered, nodding toward Marion. "Better +do just as she says." + +"I'm a Frenchman. I'm a Bienville. I can't accept mercy." + +"But you can bestow it," the girl cried, passionately. "Any one would +tell you that, after all that has happened--after this--I should be +happier in sharing your life than in being shut out of it. I appeal to +you, Miss Lucilla! I appeal to you, Diane!--wouldn't any woman be proud +to be the wife of Raoul de Bienville after what he has done this +afternoon, no matter how the world turned against him?" + +"These ladies, in the goodness of their hearts, might say anything they +chose; but nothing would alter their conviction that for you to be my +wife would be only to add misery to mistake." + +"That's so," the old banker corroborated, smacking his lips, "but you +wouldn't be much worse when you'd done that than you are now; so why not +just let her have her way?" + +Bienville tried to speak again, but his dry lips refused to frame the +words. + +"Noble ... impossible ... drag you down," came incoherently from him, +when by a quick backward movement he stepped over the threshold into the +semi-obscurity of the hail. + +The act was so sudden that seconds had already elapsed before Marion +Grimston uttered the cry that rent her like the wail of some strong, +primordial creature without the power of tears. + +"Raoul, come back!" + +With rapid motion she glided across the room and was in the hail. + +"Raoul, come back!" + +She had descended the hail, and had almost reached him as he opened the +door to pass out. + +"Raoul, I love you!" + +But the door closed as, falling against it, she sank to the floor. +Before Miss Lucilla and James van Tromp could reach her she was already +losing consciousness. + + + + +XXVI + + +"No; stay where you are; I'll go." Derek spoke with the terse command of +subdued excitement, almost pushing Diane back, as she, too, attempted to +go to Marion's assistance. She sank obediently into one of the great +chairs, too dazed even for curiosity as to what was passing in the hail. +Derek closed the door behind him, and, though confused sounds of voices +and shuffling feet reached her, she gave them but a dulled attention. It +was not till he came back that her stunned intelligence revived +sufficiently to enable her to think. + +He closed the door again, throwing himself wearily into another of the +big leathern chairs. + +"They've taken her into Lucilla's room. She'll be all right now. It was +better that it should end like that." + +"I'm not so sure. I'm afraid for him." + +"Oh, he'll survive it." + +"You don't know our Frenchmen. They're not like you, nor any of your +men. With their sensitiveness to honor and their indifference to moral +right, it's difficult for you to understand them. I shouldn't be +surprised at anything he might do." + +"I'll go and see him to-morrow and try to knock a little reason into +him." + +"If it isn't too late." + +"Oh, I dare say it will be. Everything seems to be--too late." + +"It's better that some things should come too late rather than not at +all." + +"What things do you mean?" + +"I suppose I mean the same things as you do." He gave a long sigh that +was something of a groan, slipping down in his chair into an attitude, +not of informality, but of dejection. For the moment neither was equal +to facing the great subjects that must be met. + +"I wonder what Bienville will do to himself?" he asked, suddenly, +changing his position with nervous brusqueness, leaning forward now, +with his elbows on his knees. "I wish you'd go and see him to-night." +"Well, perhaps I will. I've a good deal of fellow-feeling with him. I +can't help thinking that he and I are in much the same box, and that he +has shown me the way Out." + +"Derek!" + +She sprang up with a cry of alarm, standing, with hands crossed on her +breast, in a sudden access of terror. + +"Oh, don't be afraid," he laughed, grimly, staring up at her. "I'm not +his sort. There are no heroics about me. Men of my stamp don't make +theatrical exits; we're too confoundedly sane. Whether we do well or +whether we do ill, we plod along on our treadmill round, from the house +to the office, and from the office to the grave, as if we never had +anything on the conscience. But if I had the spirit of Bienville, do you +know what I should do?" + +"No, no, no!" she burst out. "Don't say it! Don't say it!" + +"Then I won't. But if Bienville thought of it, why shouldn't I? What has +he done that is worse than what I've done? What has he done that's as +bad? For, after all, you were little or nothing to him, when you were +everything to me. I knew you as he didn't know you. I had lived in one +house with you, watched you, studied you, tried you, put you to tests +that you never knew anything about, and had seen you come through them +successfully. I had seen how you bore misfortune; I had seen how you +carried yourself in difficult situations; I had seen the skill with +which you ruled my house, and the wisdom with which you were more than a +mother to my child; I had seen you combine with all that is most womanly +the patience and fortitude of a man; and it wasn't enough for me--it +wasn't enough for me!" + +He threw himself back into his seat, with a desperate flinging out of +the hands, letting his arms drop heavily over the sides of his chair +till his fingers touched the floor. + +"My God! My God!" he groaned, ironically. "It wasn't enough for me! I +doubted her. I doubted her on the first idle word that came my way. I +did more than doubt her. I haled her into my court, and tried her, and +condemned her, and, as nearly as might be, put her to death. I, with my +ten hundred thousand sins--all of them as black as Erebus--found her not +pure enough for me! It ought to make one die of laughter. Diane," he +went on, in another tone--a tone of ghastly jocularity--"didn't it amuse +you, knowing yourself to be what you are--knowing what you had done for +Mrs. Eveleth--knowing the things Bienville has just said of you--didn't +it amuse you to see me sitting in judgment on you?" + +"It doesn't amuse me to see you sitting in judgment on yourself." + +"Doesn't it? I should think it would. It seems to me that if I saw a man +who had done me so much harm visited with such awful justice as I'm +getting now, it would make up to me for nearly everything I ever had to +suffer." + +"In my case it only adds to it. I wish you wouldn't say these things. If +you ever did me wrong, I always knew it was--by mistake." + +"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" He laughed outright, getting up from his chair and +dragging himself heavily across the room, where, with his hands in his +pockets and his back against the bookshelves, he stood facing her. "What +do you think of Bienville's attitude toward Marion Grimston?" he asked, +with an inflection that would have sounded casual if it had not been for +all that lay behind. + +"I can understand it; but I think he was wrong." + +"You think he ought to allow her to marry him?" + +"Weighing one thing with another--yes." + +"Would you marry a man who had shown himself such a hound?" + +"It would depend." + +"On what?" + +"Oh, on a good many things." + +"Such as--?" + +She hesitated a minute before deciding whether or not to walk into his +trap, but, as his eyes were on the ground and she felt stronger than a +minute or two ago, she decided to do it. + +"It would depend, for one thing, on whether or not I loved him." + +"And if you did love him?" + +Again she hesitated, before making up her mind to speak. + +"Then it would depend on whether or not he loved me." + +She had given him his chance. The word he had never uttered must come +now or never. For an instant he seemed about to seize his opportunity; +but when he actually spoke it was only to say: + +"Would _you_ marry _me_?" + +"No." She gave her answer firmly. + +"No?" + +"No." + +"Why?" + +She shrugged her shoulders and threw out her hands, but said nothing in +words. + +"Is it because I haven't expressed regret for all the things I have--to +regret?" + +She shook her head. + +"Because if it is," he went on, "I haven't done it only for the reason +that the utmost expression would be so inadequate as to become a +mockery. When a man has sinned against light, as I've done, no mere +cries of contrition are going to win him pardon. That must come as a +spontaneous act of grace, as it wells out of the heart of the Most +High--or it can't come at all." + +"That isn't the reason." + +"Then there's another one?" + +"Yes; another one." + +"One that's insurmountable?" + +"Yes, as things are--that's insurmountable." + +With a look of dumb, unresenting sadness, he turned away, and, leaning +on the mantelpiece, stood with his back toward her, and his face buried +in his hands. + +[Illustration: DRAWN BY FRANK CRAIG +"SINCE THE INNER SHRINE IS UNLOCKED--AT LAST--I'LL GO IN"] + +Minutes went by in silence. When he spoke it was over his shoulder, and, +as it were, parenthetically: + +"But, Diane, I love you." + +He stood as he was, listening, but as if without much expectation, for a +response. When none came, and he turned round inquiringly, he beheld in +her that radiant change which was visible to those who saw the martyred +Stephen's face as he gazed straight into heaven. + +For a long minute he stood spellbound and amazed. + +"Was it that?" he asked, in a whisper. + +She gave him no reply. + +"It was that," he declared, in the tone of a man making a discovery. "It +_was_ that." + +"Why didn't you tell me so before?" she found strength to say. + +"Tell you, Diane? What was the use of telling you--when you knew? My +life has been open, for you to look into as you would." + +"Yes, but not to go into. There's only one key that unlocks the inner +shrine of all--the word you've just spoken. A woman knows nothing till +she hears it." + +He looked at her with the puzzled air of a man getting strange +information. + +"Well," he said, after a long pause, "you've heard it. So what--now?" + +"Now I'm willing to say that I love you." + +"Oh, but I knew that already," he returned. "A man doesn't need to be +told what he can see. That isn't what I'm asking. What I want to learn +is, not what you feel, but what you'll--do." + +She smiled faintly. + +"I'm asking what you'll--do?" he repeated. + +"If you insist on my telling you that," she said glancing up at him +shyly, "I'll say that--since the inner shrine is unlocked--at last--I'll +go in." + +"Then, come, come." + +He stood with arms open, his tone of petition still blended with a +suggestion of command, as she crossed the room toward him. + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Inner Shrine, by Basil King + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14393 *** |