Diana listened to the quiet, emphatic tones of his voice in fascinated
attention.
“Light is Life,” he repeated, slowly. “Light--and the twin portion
of Light,--Fire. The Rosicrucians have come nearer than any other
religious sect in the world to the comprehension of things divine.
Darkness is Chaos,--not death, for there is _no_ death--but confusion,
bewilderment and blindness which gropes for a glory instinctively felt
but unseen. In these latter days, science has discovered the beginning
of the wonders of Light,--they have always existed, but we have not
found them, ‘loving darkness rather than light.’ I say the ‘beginning
of wonders,’ for with all our advancement we have only become dimly
conscious of the first vibration of the Creator’s living presence.
Light!--which is ‘God walking in His garden,’--which is colour,
sound, heat, movement--all the Divine Power in eternal radiation and
luminance!--this is Life;--and in this _we_ live,--in this we _may_
live, and renew our lives,--ay, and in this we may retain youth beyond
age! If we only have courage!--courage and the will to learn!”
His brilliant dark eyes turned upon her with a searching steadfastness,
and her heart beat quickly, for there was something in his look which
suggested that it was from her he expected “courage and the will to
learn.” But she made no comment. Suddenly, and with an abrupt movement,
he pulled with both hands at a lever apparently made of steel,--like
one of the handles in a signal-box,--and with his action the level
floor beneath the great revolving wheel yawned asunder, showing a round
pool of water, black as ink and seemingly very deep. Diana recoiled
from it, startled. Dimitrius smiled.
“Suppose I asked you to jump in?” he said.
She thought a moment.
“Well,--I should want to take off my dress first,” she answered. “It’s
a new one.”
He laughed.
“And then?”
“Then?--Why, then I shouldn’t mind!” she said. “I can swim.”
“You would not be afraid?”
She met his eyes bravely.
“No--I should not be afraid!”
“Upon my word, I believe you! You’re a plucky woman! But then you’ve
nothing to lose by your daring, having lost all--so you told me. What
do you mean by having lost all?”
“I mean just what I say,” she replied quietly. “Father, mother, home,
lover, youth, beauty and hope! Isn’t that enough to lose?”
And, as she spoke, she gazed almost unseeingly at the wonderful Wheel
as it whirled round and round, glittering with a thousand colours which
were reflected in the dark mirror of the water below it. The sun was
sinking, and the light through the over-arching glass dome was softer,
and with each minute became more subdued,--and she noted with keen
interest that the revolution of the wheel was less rapid and dizzying
to the eye.
“Enough to lose--yes!” said Dimitrius. “But the loss is quite common.
Most of us, as we get on in life, lose father and mother, home, and
even lover!--but that we should lose youth, beauty and hope is quite
our own affair! We ought to know better!” She looked at him in surprise.
“How should we know better?” she asked. “Age must come,--and with age
the wrinkling and spoiling of all beautiful faces, to say nothing of
the aches and pains and ailments common to a general break-up of the
body-cells. We cannot defy the law of Nature.”
“That is precisely what we are always doing!” said Dimitrius. “And
that is why we make such trouble for ourselves. We not only defy the
law of Nature in a bodily sense by over-eating, over-drinking and
over-breeding, but we ignore it altogether in a spiritual sense.
We forget,--and wilfully forget, that the body is only the outward
manifestation of a Soul-creature, not the Soul-creature itself. So we
starve the Light and feed the Shadow, and then foolishly wonder that,
with the perishing Light, the Shadow is absorbed in darkness.”
He pulled at the steel lever again, and the mysterious pool of water
became swiftly and noiselessly covered as part of the apparently solid
ground.
“One more thing before we go,” he resumed, and, taking a key from his
pocket, he unlocked a tiny door no bigger than the door of a child’s
doll house. “Come and see!”
Diana obeyed, and bending down to peer into the small aperture
disclosed, saw therein a tube or pipe no thicker than a straw, from
which fell slowly drop by drop a glittering liquid into a hollow globe
of crystal. So brilliant and fiery was the colour of this fluid,
that it might have been an essence of the very sunlight. She looked
at Dimitrius in silent inquiry. He said nothing--and presently she
ventured to ask in a half whisper:
“What is it?”
His expression, as he turned and faced her, was so rapt and
transfigured as to be quite extraordinary.
“It is life,--or it is death!” he answered. “It is my Great Experiment
of which _you_ will be the practical test! Ah, now you look amazed
indeed!--your eyes are almost young in wonder!--and yet I see no fear!
That is well! Now think and understand! All this mechanism,--which is
far more complex than you can imagine,--this dome of crystal above
us,--this revolving wheel moved by Light alone,--the deep water beneath
us through which the condensed and vibrating Light rushes with electric
speed,--these million whirling atoms of fire,--all this, I say, is
merely--remember!--merely to produce these miniature drops, smaller
by many degrees than a drop of dew, and so slowly are they distilled,
that it has taken me ten years to draw from these restless and opposing
elements a sufficient quantity for my great purpose. Ten years!--and
after all, who knows? All my thought and labour may be wasted!--I may
have taken the wrong road! The fiery sword turns every way, and even
now I may fail!”
His face darkened,--the hope and radiance died out of it and left it
grey and drawn--almost old. Diana laid her hand on his arm with a soft,
consoling touch.
“Why should you fail?” she asked, gently. “You yourself know the
object of your quest and the problem you seek to solve,--and I am sure
you have missed no point that could avail to lead you in the right
direction. And if, as I now imagine, you need a human life to risk
itself in the ultimate triumph of your work, you have mine entirely
at your service. As I have told you several times already, I am not
afraid!”
He took the hand that lay upon his arm and kissed it with grave
courtesy.
“I thank you!” he said. “I feel that you are perfectly sincere--and
honesty always breeds courage. Understand, my mother has never seen
this workshop of mine--she would be terrified. The dome was built for
me by my French architect, ostensibly for astronomical purposes--the
rest of the mechanism, bit by bit, was sent to me from different parts
of the world and I put it up myself assisted only by Vasho, my negro
servant, who is dumb. So my secret is, as far as possible, well kept.”
“I shall not betray it,” said Diana, simply.
He smiled.
“I know you will not,” he answered.
With almost a miser’s care he locked the tiny door which concealed
the mystery of the fiery-golden liquid dropping so slowly, almost
reluctantly, into its crystal receptacle. The sun had sunk below the
horizon, and shadows began to creep over the clearness of the dome
above them, while the great Wheel turned at a slower pace--and ever
more slowly as the light grew dim.
“We will go now,” he said. “One or two ordinary people are coming to
dine--and your luggage will have arrived. I want you to live happily
here, and healthfully--your health is a most important consideration
with me. You look thin and delicate----”
“I am thin--to positive scragginess,” interrupted Diana, “but I am not
delicate.”
“Well, that may be; but you must keep strong. You will need all your
strength in the days to come.”
They were at the closed door of the laboratory, which by some unseen
contrivance, evidently controlled by the pressure of the hand against a
particular panel, swung upwards in the same way as it had done before,
and when they passed out, slid downwards again behind them. They were
in the corridor now, dimly lit by one electric lamp.
“You are not intimidated by anything I have shown you?” said Dimitrius,
then. “After all, you are a woman and entitled to ‘nerves!’”
“Quite so,--nerves properly organised and well under control,” answered
Diana, quietly. “I am full of wonder at what I have seen, but I am not
intimidated.”
“Good!” And a sudden smile lit up his face, giving it a wonderful
charm. “Now run away and dress for dinner! And don’t puzzle yourself by
thinking about anything for the present. If you _must_ think, wait till
you are alone with night and the stars!”
He left her, and she went upstairs at once to her own rooms. Here
repose and beauty were expressed in all her surroundings and she looked
about her with a sigh of comfort and appreciation. Some careful hand
had set vases of exquisitely arranged flowers here and there,--and the
scent of roses, carnations and autumn violets made the already sweet
air sweeter. She found her modest luggage in her bedroom, and set to
work unpacking and arranging her clothes.
“He’s quite right,--I mustn’t think!” she said to herself. “It would
never do! That wheel grinding out golden fire!--that mysterious pool
of water in which one might easily be drowned and never heard of any
more!--and those precious drops, locked up in a tiny hole!--what can
all these things mean? There!--I’m thinking and I mustn’t think!
But--is he mad, I wonder? Surely not! No madman ever put up such a
piece of mechanism as that Wheel! I’m thinking again!--I mustn’t
think!--I mustn’t think!”
She soon had all her garments unpacked, shaken out, and arranged in
their different places, and, after some cogitation, decided to wear for
the evening one of the Parisian “rest” or “tea” gowns her friend Sophy
Lansing had chosen for her,--a marvellous admixture of palest rose
and lilac hues, with a touch or two of pearl glimmerings among lace
like moonlight on foam. She took some pains to dress her pretty hair
becomingly, twisting it up high on her small, well-shaped head, and
when her attire was complete she surveyed herself in the long mirror
with somewhat less dissatisfaction than she was accustomed to do.
“Not so bad!” she inwardly commented, approving the picturesque fall
and flow of the rose and lilac silk and chiffon which clung softly
round her slim figure. “You are not entirely repulsive yet, Diana!--not
yet! But you will be!--never fear! Just wait a little!--wait till your
cheeks sink in a couple of bony hollows and your throat looks like the
just-wrung neck of a scrawny fowl!” Here she laughed, with a quaint
amusement at the unpleasant picture she was making of herself in the
future. “Yes, my dear! Not all the clouds of rosy chiffon in the world
will hide your blemishes then!--and your hair!--oh, your hair will be
a sort of grizzled ginger and you’ll have to hide it! So you’d better
enjoy this little interval--it won’t last long!” Suddenly at this
point in her soliloquy some words uttered by Dimitrius rang back on
her memory: “That we should lose youth, beauty and hope is quite our
own affair. We ought to know better.” She repeated them slowly once or
twice. “Strange!--a very strange thing to say!” she mused. “I wonder
what he meant by it? I’m sure if it had been my ‘own affair’ to keep
youth, beauty and hope, I would never have lost them! Oddly enough I
seem to have got back a little scrap of one of the losses--hope! But
I’m thinking again--I mustn’t think!”
She curtsied playfully to her own reflection in the mirror, and seeing
by the warning “time dial” for meals that it was nearly the dinner
hour, she descended to the drawing-room. Three or four people were
assembled there, talking to Madame Dimitrius, who introduced Diana
as “Miss May, an English friend of ours who is staying with us for
the winter”--an announcement which Diana herself tacitly accepted as
being no doubt what Dr. Dimitrius wished. The persons to whom she was
thus presented were the Baroness Rousillon, a handsome Frenchwoman
of possibly fifty-six or sixty,--her husband, the Baron, a stout,
cheerful personage with a somewhat aggravating air of perpetual
_bonhomie_,--Professor Chauvet, a very thin little old gentleman with
an aquiline nose and drooping eyelids from which small, sparkling
dark eyes gleamed out occasionally like needle-points, and a certain
Marchese Luigi Farnese, a rather sinister-looking dark young man,
with a curiously watchful expression, as of one placed on guard over
some hidden secret treasure. They were all exceedingly amiable,
and asked Diana the usual polite questions,--whether she had had a
pleasant journey from England?--was the Channel rough?--was the weather
fine?--was she a good sailor?--and so on, all of which she answered
pleasantly in that sweet and musical voice which always attracted and
charmed her hearers.
“And you come from England!” said Professor Chauvet, blinking at her
through his eyelids. “Ah! it is a strange place!”
Diana smiled, but said nothing.
“It is a strange place!” reiterated the Professor, with more emphasis.
“It is a place of violent contrasts without any intermediate tones.
Stupidity and good sense, moral cowardice and physical courage, petty
grudging and large generosity, jostle each other in couples all through
English society, yet after, and with these drawbacks, it is very
attractive!”
“I’m so glad you like it,” said Diana, cheerfully. “I expect the same
faults can be found in all countries and with all nations. We English
are not the worst people in the world!”
“By no means!” conceded the Professor, inclining his head courteously.
“You might almost claim to be the best--if it were not for France,--and
Italy,--and Russia!”
The Baroness Rousillon smiled.
“How clever of you, Professor!” she said. “You are careful to include
all nationalities here present in your implied compliment, and so you
avoid argument!”
“Madame, I never argue with a lady!” he replied. “First, because it is
bad manners, and second, because it is always useless!”
They all laughed, with the gentle tolerance of persons who know an old
saying by heart. Just then Dr. Dimitrius entered and severally greeted
his guests. Despite her efforts to seem otherwise entertained, Diana
found herself watching his every movement and trying to hear every word
he said. Only very few men look well in evening dress, and he was one
of those few. A singular distinction marked his bearing and manner;
in any assemblage of notable people he would have been assuredly
selected as one of the most attractive and remarkable. Once he caught
her eyes steadfastly regarding him, and smiled encouragingly. Whereat
she coloured deeply and felt ashamed of her close observation of him.
He took the Baroness Rousillon in to dinner, the Baron following with
Madame Dimitrius, and Diana was left with a choice between two men as
her escort. She looked in smiling inquiry at both. Professor Chauvet
settled the point.
“Marchese, you had better take Miss May,” he said, addressing the dark
Italian. “I never allow myself to go in to dinner with any woman--it’s
my habit always to go alone.”
“How social and independent of you!” said Diana, gaily, accepting the
Marchese’s instantly proffered arm. “You like to be original?--or is it
only to attract attention to yourself?”
The Professor opened his eyes to their fullest extent under their
half-shut lids. Here was an Englishwoman daring to quiz him!--or, as
the English themselves would say, “chaff” him! He coughed, glared,
and tried to look dignified, but failed,--and was fain to trot, or
rather shuffle, in to the dining-room somewhat meekly at the trailing
end of Diana’s rose and lilac chiffon train. When they were all seated
at table, he looked at her with what was, for him, unusual curiosity,
realising that she was not quite an “ordinary” sort of woman. He began
to wonder about her, and where she came from,--it was all very well to
say “from England”--but up to now, all conversation had been carried on
in French, and her French had no trace whatever of the British accent.
She sat opposite to him, and he had good opportunity to observe her
attentively, though furtively. She was talking with much animation to
the Marchese Farnese,--her voice had the most enchanting modulation
of tone,--and, straining his ears to hear what she was saying, he
found she was speaking Italian. At this he was fairly nonplussed and
somewhat annoyed--he did not speak Italian himself. All his theories
respecting the British female were upset. _No_ British female--he said
this inwardly--_no_ single one of the species in his knowledge, talked
the French of France, or the Italian of Tuscany. He watched her with an
almost grudging interest. She was not young,--she was not old.
“Some man has had the making or the marring of her!” he thought,
crossly. “No woman ever turned _herself_ out with such _aplomb_ and
_savoir faire_!”
Meanwhile Diana was enjoying her dinner. She was cleverly “drawing out”
her partner at table, young Farnese, who proved to be passionately
keen on all scientific research, and particularly so on the mysterious
doings of Féodor Dimitrius. Happy to find himself next to a woman who
spoke his native tongue with charm and fluency, he “let himself go”
freely.
“I suppose you have known Dr. Dimitrius for some time?” he asked.
Diana thought for a second,--then replied promptly:
“Oh, yes!”
“He’s a wonderful man!” said Farnese. “Wonderful! I have myself
witnessed his cures of cases given up by all other doctors as hopeless.
I have asked him to accept me as a student under him, but he will
not. He has some mystery which he will allow no one but himself to
penetrate.”
“Really!” and Diana lifted her eyebrows in an arch of surprise. “He has
never given me that impression.”
“Ah, no!” and Farnese smiled rather darkly. “He would not appear in
that light to one of your sex. He does not care for women. His own
mother is not really aware of the nature of his studies or the object
of his work. Nobody has his confidence. As you are a friend of his you
must know this quite well?”
“Oh, yes!--yes, of course!” murmured Diana, absently. “But nobody
expects a very clever man to explain himself to his friends--or to the
public. He must always do his work more or less alone.”
“I agree!” said the Marchese. “And this is why I cannot understand the
action of Dimitrius in advertising for an assistant----”
“Oh, has he done so?” inquired Diana, indifferently.
“Yes,--for the last couple of months he has put a most eccentric
advertisement in many of the journals, seeking the services of an
elderly woman as assistant or secretary--I don’t know which. It’s some
odd new notion of his, and, I venture to think, rather a mistaken
one--for if he will not trust a man student, how much less can he rely
on an old woman!”
“Eccellenza, you are talking to a woman now,” said Diana, calmly. “But
never mind! Go on--and don’t apologise!”
Farnese’s dark olive skin flushed red.
“But I must!” he stammered, awkwardly. “I ask a thousand pardons!”
She glanced at him sideways with a laughing look.
“You are forgiven!” she said. “Women are quite hardened to the ironies
and satires of your sex upon us,--and if we have any cleverness at
all we are more amused by them than offended. For we know you cannot
do without us! But certainly it is very odd that Dr. Dimitrius should
advertise for an old woman! I never heard anything quite so funny!”
“He does not, I think, advertise for an actually old woman,” said
Farnese, relieved to find that she had taken his clumsy remark so
lightly. “The advertisement when I saw it mentioned a woman of mature
years.”
“Oh, well, that’s a polite way of saying an old woman, isn’t it?”
smiled Diana. “And--do tell me!--has he got her?”
“Why no!--not yet. Probably he will not get her at all. Even let us
suppose a woman offered herself who admitted that she was ‘of mature
years,’ that very fact would be sufficient proof of her incapacity.”
“Indeed!” and Diana lifted her eyebrows again. “Why?”
The Marchese smiled a superior smile.
“Perhaps I had better not explain!” he said. “But for a woman to
arrive at ‘mature years’ without any interests in life except to offer
her probably untrained services to a man she knows nothing of except
through the medium of an advertisement is plain evidence that any such
woman must be a fool!”
Diana laughed merrily--and her laughter was the prettiest ripple of
music.
“Oh, yes!--of course! I see your meaning!” she said. “You are quite
right! But after all perhaps the elderly female is only wanted to add
up accounts, or write down measurements or something of that kind--just
ordinary routine work. Some lonely old spinster with no claims upon her
might be glad of such a chance----”
“Are you discussing my advertisement?” interrupted Dimitrius suddenly,
sending a glance and smile at Diana from the head of the table. “I have
withdrawn it.”
“Have you really?” said the Marchese. “That is not to say you are
suited?”
“Suited? Oh, no! I shall never be suited! It was a foolish quest,--and
I ought to have known better!” His dark eyes sparkled mirthfully. “You
see I had rather forgotten the fact that no woman cares to admit she is
‘of mature years,’--I had also forgotten the well-known male formula
that ‘no woman can be trusted.’ However, I have only lost a few hundred
francs in my advertising--so I have nothing to regret except my own
folly.”
“Had you many applications?” inquired Professor Chauvet.
Dimitrius laughed.
“Only one!” he answered, gaily. “And she was a poor lone lady who had
lost all she thought worth living for. Of course she was--impossible!”
“Naturally!” and the Professor nodded sagaciously--“She would be!”
“What was she like?” asked Diana, with an amused look.
“Like no woman I have ever seen!” replied Dimitrius, smiling
quizzically at her. “Mature, and fully ripened in her opinions,--fairly
obstinate, and difficult to get rid of.”
“I congratulate you on having succeeded!” said Farnese.
“Succeeded? In what way?”
“In having got rid of her!”
“Oh, yes! But--I don’t think she wanted to go!”
“No woman ever wants to go if there’s a good-looking bachelor with whom
she has any chance to stay!” said the Baron Rousillon, expanding his
shirt front and smiling largely all round the table. “The ‘poor lone
lady’ must have taken your rejection of her services rather badly.”
“That’s the way most men would look at it,” replied Dimitrius. “But,
my dear Baron, I’m afraid we are rather narrow and primitive in our
ideas of the fair sex--not to say conceited. It is quite our own notion
that _all_ women need us or find us desirable. Some women would much
rather not be bored with us at all. One of the prettiest women I ever
knew remained unmarried because, as she frankly said, she did not wish
to be a housekeeper to any man or be bored by his perpetual company.
There’s something in it, you know! Every man has his own particular
‘groove’ in which he elects to run--and in his ‘groove’ he’s apt to
become monotonous and tiresome. That is why, when I advertised, I asked
for a woman ‘of mature years,’--someone who had ‘settled down,’ and who
would not find it wearisome to trot tamely alongside of _my_ special
‘groove,’ but of course it was very absurd on my part to expect to find
a woman of that sort who was at the same time well-educated and clever.”
“You should marry, my dear Dimitrius!--you should marry!” said the
Baroness Rousillon, with a brilliant flash of her fine eyes and an
encouraging smile.
“Never, my dear Baroness!--never!” he replied, with emphasis. “I am
capable of many things, but not of that most arrant stupidity! Were I
to marry, my work would be ruined--I should become immersed in the
domesticities of the kitchen and the nursery, living my life at no
higher grade than the life of the farmyard or rabbit-warren. In my
opinion, marriage is a mistake,--but we must not argue such a point in
the presence of a happily married couple like yourself and the Baron.
Look at our excellent friend, Chauvet! He has never married.”
“Thank God!” ejaculated the Professor, devoutly,--while everybody
laughed. “Ah, you may laugh! But it is I who laugh last! When I see
the unfortunate husband going out for a slow walk with his wife and
three or four screaming, jumping children, who behave like savages,
not knowing what they want or where they wish to go, I bless my happy
fate that I can do my ten miles a day alone, revelling in the beauty of
the mountains and lakes, and enjoying my own thoughts in peace. Like
Amriel, I have not married because I am afraid of disillusion!”
“But have you thought of the possible woman in the case?” asked Diana,
sweetly and suddenly. “Might she not also suffer from ‘disillusion’ if
you were her husband?”
Laughter again rang round the table,--the Professor rose, glass of wine
in hand, and made Diana a solemn bow.
“Madame, I stand reproved!” he said. “And I drink to your health and
to England, your native country! And in reply to your question, I am
honest enough to say that I think any woman who had been so unfortunate
as to marry me, would have put herself out of her misery a month after
the wedding!”
Renewed merriment rewarded this _amende honorable_ on the part of
Chauvet, who sat down well pleased with himself--and well pleased, too,
with Diana, whom he considered quick-witted and clever, and whose
smile when he had made his little speech had quite won him over.
Madame Dimitrius, chiefly intent on the hospitable cares of the
table, had listened to all the conversation with an old lady’s placid
enjoyment, only putting in a word now and then, and smiling with
affectionate encouragement at Diana, and dessert being presently
served, and cigars and cigarettes handed round by the negro, Vasho, who
was the sole attendant, she gave the signal for the ladies to retire.
“You do not smoke?” said the Marchese Farnese, as Diana moved from her
place.
“No, indeed!”
“You dislike it?”
“For women,--yes.”
“Then you are old-fashioned!” he commented, playfully.
“Yes. And I am very glad of it!” she answered, quietly, and followed
Madame Dimitrius and the Baroness Rousillon out of the room. As she
passed Dimitrius, who held open the door for their exit, he said a few
low-toned words in Russian which owing to her own study of the language
she understood. They were:
“Excellent! You have kept your own counsel and mine, most admirably! I
thank you with all my heart!”