That evening Diana for the first time saw Dimitrius in a somewhat
irritable mood. He was sharp and peremptory of speech and impatient in
manner.
“Where have you been all the afternoon?” he demanded, at dinner, fixing
his eyes upon her with a piercing intensity.
“With Professor Chauvet,” she answered. “I wanted to see a famous
Assyrian jewel he has--it is called ‘The Eye of Rajuna.’”
Dimitrius shrugged his shoulders.
“And you are interested in that kind of thing?” he queried, with a
touch of disdain. “A stolen gem, and therefore an unlucky one--‘looted’
by a French officer from the forehead of a mutilated statue somewhere
in the East. It’s not a thing I should care to have.”
“Nor I,” agreed Diana, amicably. “But it’s worth seeing.”
“The Professor is a great authority on precious stones,” said Madame
Dimitrius. “You know, Féodor, you have always credited him with very
exceptional knowledge on the subject.”
“Of course!” he replied. “But I was not aware that Miss May had any
hankerings after jewels.”
Diana laughed. She was amused to see him more or less in a kind of
suppressed temper.
“I haven’t!” she declared, gaily. “It would be no use if I had!
Jewels are, and always have been, beyond my reach. But I like to know
positively from the Professor that they are living things, feeling heat
and cold just as we do, and that some of them shrink from diseased
persons and lose their lustre, and are brilliant and happy with healthy
ones. It is very fascinating!”
“The Professor is not!” remarked Dimitrius, ironically.
She raised her eyes, smilingly.
“No?”
“He’s a very worthy man,” put in Madame Dimitrius, gently. “And very
distinguished in his way. He’s certainly not handsome.”
“No men are, nowadays,” said Dimitrius. “The greed of money has written
itself all over human physiognomy. Beauty is at a discount,--there were
never so many downright ugly human beings as there are to-day. The Mark
of the Beast is on every forehead.”
“I don’t see it anywhere on yours!” said Diana, sweetly.
A reluctant half-smile brightened his features for a moment,--then he
gave a disdainful gesture.
“I dare say it’s there all the same!” he replied, shortly. “Or it may
be branded too deeply for you to see!” He paused--and with an abrupt
change of tone, said: “Mother, can you be ready to go to Davos this
week?”
She looked up, placidly smiling.
“Certainly! I shall be very glad to go. Diana will like it too, I’m
sure.”
“Good! Then we’ll start the day after to-morrow. I have engaged rooms.
There are one or two things I must settle before leaving--not very
important.” Here he rose from the table, dinner being concluded, and
addressed Diana. “I want you for a few moments,” he said, rather
peremptorily. “Join me, please, in the laboratory.”
He left the room. His mother and Diana looked at one another in smiling
perplexity. Diana laughed.
“He’s cross!” she declared. “_Chère Madame_, he’s cross! It is a
positive miracle! The cool scientist and calm philosopher is in a bit
of a temper!”
Madame Dimitrius gave a rather regretful and unwilling assent. Truth
to tell, the gentle old lady was more bewildered than satisfied with
certain things that were happening, and which perplexed and puzzled
her. As, for example, when Diana took her arm and affectionately
escorted her from the dining-room to the drawing-room, she could not
refrain from wondering at the singular grace and elegance of the once
plain and angular woman,--she might almost be another person, so
different was she to the one who had arrived at the Château Fragonard
in answer to her son’s advertisement. But she had promised to say
nothing, and she kept her word, though she thought none the less of
the “Flaming Sword” and the terrific problem her son had apparently
determined to solve. Meanwhile, Diana, having settled her cosily by
the fire with her knitting, ran quickly off to obey the command of
Dimitrius. She had never been asked to go near the laboratory since her
first visit there, and she hardly knew how to find the corridor leading
to it. She looked for the negro, Vasho, but though he had waited upon
them at dinner he was now nowhere to be seen. So, trusting to memory
and chance she groped her way down a long passage so dark that she had
to feel the walls on both sides to steady her steps as she went, and
she was beginning to think she had taken an entirely wrong direction,
when a dull, coppery glitter struck a shaft of light through the gloom
and she knew she was near her goal. A few more cautious steps, and
she stood opposite the great door, which glowed mysteriously red and
golden, as though secret fire were mixing living flame with its metal.
It was shut. How could she open it?--or make her presence outside it
known? Recollecting that Vasho had merely laid his hand upon it, she
presently ventured to do the same, and soon had the rather terrifying
satisfaction of seeing the huge portal swing upwards yawningly,
disclosing the interior of the vast dome and the monstrous Wheel. But
what a different scene was now presented to her eyes! When first she
had entered this mysterious “laboratory” it had been in broad daylight,
and the sun had poured its full glory through the over-arching roof
of crystal,--but now it was night and instead of sunshine there was a
cloud of fire! Or, rather, it might be described as a luminous mist
of the deep, rich hue of a damask rose. Through this vaporous veil
could be seen the revolving Wheel, which now had the appearance of a
rainbow circle. Every inch of space was full of the radiant rose haze,
and it was so dazzling and confusing to the sight that for a moment
Diana could not move. With a vague sense of terror she dimly felt that
the door had closed behind her,--but steadying her nerves she waited,
confident that Dimitrius would soon appear. And she was right. He
stepped suddenly out of the rosy mist with a casual air, as if there
were nothing unusual in the surroundings.
“Well!” he said.--“Courageous as ever?”
“Is there anything to be afraid of?” she asked. “To me it looks
wonderful!--beautiful!”
“Yes--it is the essence of all wonder and all beauty,” he answered. “It
is a form of condensed light,--the condensation which, when imprisoned
by natural forces within a mine under certain conditions, gives you
rubies, diamonds and other precious stones. And in the water beneath,
which you cannot see just now, owing to the vapour, there is sufficient
radium to make me ten times a millionaire.”
“And you will not part with any of it?”
“I do part with some of it when I find it useful to do so,” he said.
“But very seldom. I am gradually testing its real properties. The
scientists will perhaps be five hundred years at work discussing and
questioning what I may prove in a single day! But I do not wish to
enter upon these matters with you,--you are my ‘subject,’ as you know,
and I want to prepare you. The time has come when you must be ready for
anything----”
“I am!” she interrupted, quickly.
“You respond eagerly!”--and he fixed his eyes upon her with a strange,
piercing look. “But that is because you are strong and defiant of fate.
You are beginning to experience that saving vanity which deems itself
indestructible!”
She made no answer. She lifted her eyes to the highest point of the
slowly turning wheel, and its opaline flare falling through the rose
mist gave her face an unearthly lustre.
“We are going to Davos Platz,” he continued, “because it will not do
to remain here through the winter. I want the finest, clearest air,
rarefied and purified by the constant presence of ice and snow, to aid
me in my experiment,--moreover, certain changes in you will soon become
too apparent to escape notice, and people will talk. Already Baroness
Rousillon is beginning to ask questions----”
“About me?” asked Diana, amused.
“About you. Tell me, have you looked in your mirror lately?”
“Only just to do my hair,” she answered. “I avoid looking at my own
face as much as possible.”
“Why?”
She hesitated.
“Well! I don’t want to be deluded into imagining myself good-looking
when I’m not.”
He smiled.
“Resolute woman! Now listen! From this day forward I shall give you
one measure of what you call my ‘golden fire’ every fortnight. You
have experienced its first effect. What future effects it may have I
cannot tell you. But as the subject of my experiment you must submit
to the test. If you suffer bodily pain or mental confusion from its
action tell me at once, and I will do my best to spare you unnecessary
suffering. You understand?”
She had grown very pale, even to the lips,--but she answered, quietly:
“I understand! You have never asked me exactly what I did feel the
first time I took it. I may as well confess now that I thought I was
dying.”
“You will think so again and yet again,” he said, coolly. “And you
_may_ die! That’s all I have to say about it!”
She stood immovable, bathed, as it were, in the rosy radiance exhaled
by the slow and now almost solemn movement of the great Wheel. She
thought of the kindliness of Professor Chauvet,--his plain and
unadorned proposal of marriage,--his simple admission that he had
“grown fond” of her,--his offer of his name and position united
to a house in Paris and ten thousand a year!--and contrasted all
this with the deliberate, calculating callousness of the man beside
her, lost to every consideration but the success or failure of his
“experiment,”--and a passionate resentment began to burn in her soul.
But she said nothing. She had rushed upon her own fate,--there was no
way out of it now.
He moved away from her to unlock the tiny fairy-like shrine, which
concealed the slow dropping of the precious liquid mysteriously
distilled by the unknown process which apparently involved so much
vast mechanism, and, placing a small phial under the delicate tube
from which the drops fell at long, slow intervals, waited till one,
glittering like a rare jewel, was imprisoned within it. She watched
him, with more disdain than fear,--and her eyes were brilliant and
almost scornful as he raised himself from his stooping position and
faced her. The pale blue dress she wore was transformed by the rosy
light around her into a rich purple, and as she stood fixedly regarding
him there was something so proud and regal in her aspect that he
paused, vaguely astonished.
“What is the matter with you?” he asked. “Are you angry?”
“Who am I that I should be angry?” she retorted. “I am only your slave!”
He frowned.
“Are you going to play the capricious woman at this late hour and show
temper?” he said, impatiently. “I am in no humour for reproaches. You
promised loyalty----”
“Have I broken my promise?” she demanded.
“No--not yet! But you look as if you might break it!”
She gave a slight, yet expressive gesture of contempt.
“What a poor thing you are as a man, after all!” she exclaimed. “Here,
in the presence of the vast forces you have bent to your use,--here,
with your ‘subject,’ a mere woman, entirely at your disposal, you
doubt!--you disbelieve in my sworn word, which is as strong as all your
science, perhaps stronger! Come!--you look like a conspirator who has
extracted poison from some mysterious substance, and who is longing to
try it on a victim! Do you want me to take it now?”
He gazed at her with a sudden sense of fear. Almost her courage
overmastered his will. There was something austere and angelic in
that slight figure with the rosy waves of vapour playing about it and
turning its azure draperies to royal purple, and for the first time he
wondered whether there was not something deliberately brutal in his
treatment of her. Rallying his self-possession he answered:
“When we are outside this place you can take it, if you will----”
“Why not inside?” she asked. “Here, where the vapours of your witches’
cauldron simmer and steam--where I can feel your melting fires pricking
every vein and nerve!” and she stretched out her arms towards the Wheel
of strange opalescent light which now revolved almost at a snail’s
pace. “Make short work of me, Dr. Dimitrius!--this is the place for it!”
On a sudden impulse he sprang to her side and seized her hand.
“Diana! You think me a pitiless murderer!”
She looked straight into his eyes.
“No, I don’t. I think you simply a man without any feeling except for
yourself and your own aims. There are thousands,--aye, millions of your
sex like you,--you are not extraordinary.”
“If I succeed you will have cause to thank me----”
“Possibly!” she answered, with a slight smile. “But you know gratitude
sometimes takes curious and unexpected forms! One of the commonest is
hatred of the person who has done you a kindness! Come, give me that
fire-drop,--it is restless in its prison! We are fighting a strange
duel, you and I--you are all for self, and your own ultimate triumph--I
am selfless, having nothing to lose or to win----”
“Nothing?” he repeated. “Foolish woman!--you cannot foresee--you cannot
project yourself into the future. Suppose I gave you youth?--suppose
with youth I gave you beauty?--Would you then call me selfish?”
“Why, yes, of course!” she answered, composedly. “You would not give
such gifts to me because you had any desire to make _me_ happy--nor
would you give them if you could secure them for yourself without
endangering your life! If you succeed in your attempts they would fall
to my lot naturally as part of your ‘experiment,’ and would prove your
triumph. But as far as my personality is concerned, you would not care
what became of me, though with youth and beauty I might turn the tables
on you!” She laughed,--then said again: “Give me my dose!”
“I told you before that it would be better to take it when we go
outside the laboratory,” he answered. “Suppose you became insensible! I
could not leave you here.”
“Why not?” she demanded, recklessly. “It would not matter to you.
Please give it to me!--Whether I live or die I like doing things
quickly!”
With a certain sense of mingled compassion, admiration and reluctance,
he handed her the phial. She looked with intent interest at the shining
drop pent within, which glowed like a fine topaz, now fiery orange, now
red, now pale amber, and moved up and down as rapidly and restlessly as
quicksilver.
“How pretty it is!” she said. “If it would only condense and harden
into a gem one would like to wear it in a ring! It would outshine all
Professor Chauvet’s jewels. Well, Dr. Dimitrius, good-night! If I fall
into your dark pool don’t trouble to fish me out!--but if not, don’t
leave me here till morning!”
And, smiling, she put the phial to her lips and swallowed its contents.
Dimitrius stood, silently watching. Would she swoon, as she almost
did the last time?--or would she be convulsed? No!--she remained
erect,--unswerving:--but, as if by some automatic movement, she lifted
her arms slowly and clasped her hands above her head in an attitude of
prayer. Her eyes closed--her breathing was scarcely perceptible--and
so she remained as though frozen into stone. Moved beyond his usual
calm by wonderment at this unexpected transformation of a living woman
into a statue, he called her,--but she gave no answer. And then another
remarkable thing happened. An aureole of white light began to form
round her figure, beginning from the head and falling in brilliant rays
to the feet,--her dress seemed a woven tissue of marvellous colours
such as one finds painted for the robes of saints in antique missals,
and her features, outlined against the roseate mist that filled the
laboratory, were pure and almost transparent as alabaster. Thrilled
with excitement, he could not speak--he dared not move,--he could only
look, look, as though all his forces were concentrated in his eyes. How
many minutes passed he could not determine, but he presently saw the
light begin to pale,--one ray after another disappeared, quite slowly
and as though each one were absorbed by some mysterious means into the
motionless figure which had seemingly projected them,--then, with equal
slowness, Diana’s upraised hands relaxed and her arms dropped to her
sides--her eyes opened, brilliant and inquiring.
He went to her side. “Diana!” he said, in carefully hushed tones.
“Diana----”
“Why did you wake me?” she asked plaintively, in a voice of melting
sweetness. “Why take me away from the garden I had found? It was all
mine!--and there were many friends--they said they had not seen me for
centuries! I should have liked to stay with them a little longer!”
He listened, in something of alarm. Had she lost her senses? He knew
it was possible that the potent force of his mysterious distillation
might so attack the centres of the brain as to reverse their normal
condition. He touched her hand,--it was warm and soft as velvet.
“Still dreaming, Diana?” he said, as gently as he could. “Will you not
come with me now?”
She turned her eyes upon him. There was no sign of brain trouble in
those clear orbs of vision--they were calm mirrors of sweet expression.
“Oh, it is you!” she said in more natural tones. “I really thought I
had gone away from you altogether! It was a delightful experience!”
He was a trifle vexed. He hardly cared to hear that going away from him
altogether was “a delightful experience.” She was rapidly recovering
from her trance-like condition, and swept back her hair from her brows
with a relieved, yet puzzled gesture.
“So it’s all over!” she said. “I’m here just the same as ever! I was
sure I had gone away!”
“Where?” he asked.
“Oh, ever so far!” she answered. “I was carried off by people I
couldn’t see--but they were kind and careful, and it was quite easy
going. And then I came to a garden--oh!--such an exquisite place, full
of the loveliest flowers--somebody said it was mine! I wish it were!”
“You were dreaming,” he said, impatiently. “There’s nothing in dreams!
The chief point to me is that you have not suffered any pain. You have
nothing to complain of?”
She thought a minute, trying to recall her sensations.
“No,” she answered, truthfully, “nothing.”
“Good! Then I can proceed without fear,” he said. “Enough for
to-night--we will go.”
Her eyes were fixed on the revolving Wheel.
“It goes slowly because the sunshine has gone, I suppose?” she asked.
“And all the light it produces now is from the interior stores it has
gathered up in the day?”
He was surprised at the quickness of her perception.
“Yes--that is so,” he said.
“Then it never stops absolutely dead?”
“Never.”
She smiled.
“Wonderful Dimitrius! You have built up a little mechanical universe
of your own and you are the god of it! You must be very pleased with
yourself!”
“I am equally pleased with _you_,” he said. “You surpass all my
expectations.”
“Thanks so much!” and she curtsied to him playfully. “May I say
good-night? Will not your mother wonder where we are?”
“My mother is too sensible a woman to question my movements,” he
replied. “Come! You are sure you feel strong and well?”
“Quite sure!” she said, then paused, surprised at the intense way he
looked at her.
“Have you ever heard these lines?” he asked, suddenly:
“O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night,
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear--
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!”
Diana smiled happily.
“Of course! Shakespeare’s utterance! Who else has ever written or could
write such lines?”
“I’m glad you know them!” he said, musingly. “They occurred to me just
now--when----”
He broke off abruptly.
“Come!” he repeated. “We shall not see this place again for a couple of
months--perhaps longer. And--the sooner we get away the better!”
“Why?” asked Diana, surprised.
“Why?” and a curious half-frowning expression darkened his brows. “You
must wait to know why! You will not have to wait long!”
He signed to her to keep close behind him; and together they moved
like phantom figures through the rosy mist that enveloped them, till,
at the touch of his wizard hand, the door swung upwards to give
them egress and descended again noiselessly as they passed out. The
corridor, previously dark, was now dimly lit, but it was more a matter
of groping than seeing, and Diana was glad when they reached the
pleasantly warm and well-illumined hall of the house. There he turned
and faced her.
“Now, not a word!” he said, with imperative sharpness. “Not a word of
what you have seen, or--dreamed--to my mother! Say good-night to her,
and go!”
She lifted her eyes to his in something of wonder and protest,--but
obeyed his gesture and went straight into the drawing-room where Madame
Dimitrius sat as usual, quietly knitting.
“I am to bid you good-night!” she said, smiling, as she knelt down for
a moment by the old lady’s chair. “Dear, your son is very cross!--and
I’m going to bed!”
Madame Dimitrius gazed upon her in utter amazement and something of
fear. The face uplifted to hers was so radiant and fair that for a
moment she was speechless, and the old hands that held the knitting
trembled. Remembering her son’s command in good time, she made a strong
effort to control herself, and forced a smile.
“That’s right, my dear!” she said. “Bed is the best place when you’re
tired. I don’t think Féodor means to be cross----”
“Oh, no!” agreed Diana, springing up from her kneeling attitude, and
kissing Madame’s pale cheek. “He doesn’t ‘mean’ to be anything--but
he _is_! Good-night, dearest lady! You are always kind and sweet to
me--and I’m grateful!”
With those words and an affectionate wave of her hand, she went,--and
the moment she had left the room Dimitrius entered it. His mother rose
from her chair, and made a gesture with her hands as though she were
afraid and sought to repel him. He took those nervous, wavering hands
and held them tenderly in his own.
“What’s the matter, mother mine?” he asked, playfully. “You have seen
her?”
“Féodor! Féodor! You are dealing with strange powers!--perhaps powers
of evil! Oh, my son! be careful, be careful what you do!” she implored,
almost tearfully. “You may not go too far!”
“Too far, too far!” he echoed, lightly. “There is no too far or
farthest where Nature and Science lead! The Flaming Sword!--it turns
every way to keep the Tree of Life!--but I see the blossom under the
blade!”
She looked up at his dark, strong face in mingled fondness and terror.
“You cannot re-create life, Féodor!” she said.
“Why not?” he demanded. “To-day our surgeons graft new flesh on old and
succeed in their design--why should not fresh cells of life be formed
through Nature’s own germinating processes to take the place of those
that perish? It is not an impossible theory,--I do not waste my time
on problems that can never be solved. Come, come, Mother! Put your
superstitious terrors aside--and if you have the faith in God that I
have, you will realise that there are no ‘powers of evil’ save man’s
own uncontrolled passions, which he inherits from the brute creation,
and which it is his business to master! No mere brute beast foraging
the world for prey can be an astronomer, a scientist, a thinker, or a
ruler of the powers of life,--but a MAN, with self-control, reason, and
devout faith with humility, _can_!--for is not the evolvement of his
being only ‘a little lower than the angels’?”
She sighed, half incredulous.
“But beauty----” she said. “Actual beauty----”
“Beauty is a thing of health, form and atmosphere,” he answered.
“Easy enough to attain with these forces suitably combined, and no
malign environment. Now, dearest mother, puzzle yourself no more over
my mysteries! You have seen Diana--and you can guess my reason for
wishing to get away to Davos Platz as soon as possible. People here
will talk and wonder,--at Davos no one has seen her--not as she was
when she first arrived here--and no questions are likely to be asked.
Besides,--the experiment is not half completed--it has only just begun.”
“When will it be finished?” his mother asked.
He smiled, and stooping, kissed her forehead.
“Not till the summer solstice,” he said. “When light and heat are at
their best and strongest, then I may reach my goal and win my victory!”
“And then?”
“And then?” he echoed, smiling. “Ah, who knows what then! Possibly a
happier world!--and yet--did not the Angel Uriel say to the Prophet
Esdras: ‘The Most High hath made this world for the many, but the world
to come for the few!’ _My_ secret is a part of the world to come!”