Two or three days later the Château Fragonard was closed,--its windows
were shuttered and its gates locked. The servants were dismissed,
all save Vasho, who, with his black face, white teeth, rolling eyes
and dumb lips, remained as sole custodian. The usual callers called
in vain,--and even the Baroness Rousillon, a notable and persistent
inquirer into all matters of small social interest, could learn nothing
beyond the fact (written neatly on a card which Vasho handed to all
visitors) that “Dr. and Madame Dimitrius had left home for several
weeks.” Of Diana May no information was given. Among those who were
the most surprised and deeply chagrined at this turn of events was
the Marchese Farnese, who had himself been compelled to be away for
some time on business in Paris, but who had returned as soon as he
could to Geneva in the hope of improving his acquaintance with Diana
sufficiently to procure some sort of reliable information as to the
problems and projects of Dimitrius. His disappointment was keen and
bitter, for not only did he find her gone, but he could obtain no clue
as to her whereabouts. And even Professor Chauvet had been left very
much in the dark, for Diana had only written him the briefest note,
running thus:
“Dear Kind Friend!
“I’m going away for a little while with Madame Dimitrius, who needs
change of air and scene, but I will let you know directly I come back.
I shall think of you very often while absent!
“Affectionately yours,
“Diana.”
Chauvet put by these brief lines very preciously in the safe where
he kept his jewels,--“Affectionately yours” was a great consolation,
he thought!--they almost touched the verge of tenderness!--there was
surely hope for him! And he amused himself in his solitary hours with
the drawing of an exquisite design for a small coronal to be worn in
Diana’s hair, wherein he purposed having some of his rarest jewels set
in a fashion of his own.
Meanwhile the frozen stillness of an exceptionally dreary and bitter
winter enveloped the Château Fragonard and its beautiful gardens, and
no one was ever seen to go to it, or come from it, though there were
certain residents on the opposite side of the lake who could perceive
its roof and chimneys through the leafless trees and who declared that
its great glass dome was always more or less illumined as though a
light were constantly kept burning within. Rumour was busy at first
with all sorts of suggestions and contradictions, but as there appeared
to be no foundation for any one of them, the talk gradually wore itself
out, most people being always too much interested in themselves to keep
up any interest in others for long.
But, had Rumour a million eyes, as it is said to have a million
tongues, it might well have had occasion to use them all during the
full swing of that particular “season” at Davos Platz, where, in the
“winter sports” and gaieties of the time, Diana was an admired “belle”
and universal favourite. She, who only three or four months previously
had been distinctly “on the shelf” or “in the way,” was now flattered
and sought after by a whole train of male admirers, who apparently
could never have enough of her society. She conversed brilliantly,
danced exquisitely, and skated perfectly,--so perfectly indeed that one
fatuous elderly gentleman nicknamed her “the Ice Queen,” and another,
younger but not less enterprising, addressed her as “_Boule de
Neige_,” conceiving the title prettier in French than in rough English
as “Snowball.” She accepted the attentions lavished upon her with
amused indifference, which made her still more attractive to men whose
“sporting” tendencies are invariably sharpened by obstacles in the way
of securing their game, and, much to her own interest, found herself
the centre of all sorts of rivalries and jealousies.
“If they only knew my age!” she thought one day. “If they only knew!”
But they did not know. And it would have been quite impossible for them
to guess. Thus much Diana herself was now forced to concede. Every day
her mirror showed her a fair, unworn face, with the softly rounded
outline of youth, and the clear eyes which betoken the unconscious joy
of perfect health and vitality, and the change in her was so marked
and manifest that she no longer hesitated to speak to Madame Dimitrius
about it when they were alone together. At first the old lady was
very nervous of the subject, and fearful lest she should in some way
displease her masterful son,--but Diana reassured her, promising that
he should never know the nature or extent of their confidences. It
was a great relief to them both when they entered into closer mutual
relations and decided to talk to each other freely--especially to
Madame Dimitrius, who was anxious to be made certain that Diana was
not in any physical suffering or mental distress through the exercise
of Féodor’s extraordinary and, as she imagined, almost supernatural
powers. She was soon satisfied on that score, for Diana could assure
her, with truth, that she had never felt better or brighter.
“It’s like a new life,” she said, one day, as she sat at the window
of their private sitting-room in the hotel, which commanded a fine
view of the snowy mountain summits. “I feel as if I had somehow been
born again! All my past years seem rolled away like so much rubbish!
I’ve often thought of those words: ‘Except ye be born again ye shall
not enter into the Kingdom of God.’ They used to be a mystery to me,
but they’re not so mysterious now! And it is just like ‘entering the
Kingdom of God’ to look out on this glorious beauty of the mountains,
the snow and the pine trees, and to feel alive to it all, grateful for
it all, loving it all,--as I do!”
Madame Dimitrius regarded her earnestly.
“You do not think, then,” she suggested, “that my son is guilty of
any offence against the Almighty by his dealings with these strange,
unknown forces----”
“Dear Madame!” interrupted Diana, quickly--“do not for a moment
entertain such an idea! It belongs to those foolish times when the
Church was afraid to know the truth and tortured people for telling it!
What offence _can_ there be in exerting to the utmost, the intelligent
faculties God has given us, and in studying to find out the wonderful
advantages and benefits which may be possessed by those who cultivate
reason and knowledge! I think it is a far greater offence against God,
to wilfully remain in ignorance of His goodness to us all!”
“Perhaps!”--and the old lady sighed--then smiled. “I’m afraid I am
one of those who ‘darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge!’ But,
after all, the great thing for me is that I see you well and happy--and
greatest marvel of all--growing younger every day! You see that for
yourself, don’t you?--and you feel it?”
“Yes.” And, as she spoke, a strange, far-away look came into Diana’s
eyes. “But--there is one thing I wish I could explain, even to myself!
I feel well, happy, keenly alive to all I see and hear,--and yet--there
is an odd sensation back of it all!--a feeling that I have _no_
feeling!”
“My dear Diana!” And Madame Dimitrius’s pale blue eyes opened a little
wider. “What a strange thing to say! You are full of feeling!”
Diana shook her head decisively.
“No, I’m not! It’s all put on! It is, really! That is, so far as human
beings and human events are concerned. I feel nothing whatever about
them! The only ‘feeling’ I have is a sort of suppressed ecstasy of
delight in beauty--the beauty of the skies, the effects of sunlight on
the hills and plains, the loveliness of a flower or a bit of exquisite
natural scenery--but I have somehow lost the sense of all association
with humanity!”
“But--my dear girl!----” began Madame, in perplexity.
Diana laughed.
“Ah, now you call me a ‘girl,’ too!” she exclaimed, merrily. “Just as
they all do here in this hotel! I’m not a girl at all--I’m a woman of
‘mature years,’ but nobody would believe it! Even Dr. Féodor himself
is getting puzzled--for he addressed me as ‘dear child’ this very
morning!” She laughed again--her pretty laugh,--which was like a
musical cadence.
“Yes, dear Madame!--it’s a fact!--with my renewal of youth I’m
developing youth’s happy-go-lucky indifference to emotions!
People,--the creatures that walk about on two legs and eat
and talk--have absolutely no interest for me!--unless they do
something absurd which they imagine to be clever--and that makes me
laugh,--sometimes,--not always! Even your wonderful son, with his
amazing powers and his magnetic eyes which used to send a thrill right
down my spine, fails to move me now to any concern as to my ultimate
fate in his hands. I know that he is, so far, succeeding in his
experiment; but what the final result may be I don’t know--and--I don’t
care!”
“You don’t care!” echoed Madame, in bewilderment. “Really and truly?
You don’t care?”
“No, not a bit! That’s just the worst of it! See here, you dear, kind
woman!--here I am; a bought ‘subject’ for Dr. Féodor to try his skill
upon. He told me plainly enough on one occasion that it wouldn’t matter
and couldn’t be helped if I died under his treatment--and I quite
agreed with him. Up to the present I’m not dead and don’t feel like
dying--but I’m _hardening_! Yes! that’s it! Steadily, slowly hardening!
Not in my muscles--not in my arteries--no!--but in my sentiments and
emotions which are becoming positively _nil_!” Her merry laugh rang
out again, and her eyes sparkled with amusement. “But what a good
thing it is, after all! Men are so fond of telling one that they hate
‘emotions’--so it’s just as well to be without them! Now, for instance,
I’m having a splendid time here--I love all the exercise in the open
air, the skating, tobogganing, and dancing in the evening,--it’s all
great fun, but I don’t ‘feel’ that it _is_ as splendid as it _seems_!
Men flatter me every day,--they say ‘How well you skate!’ or ‘How well
you dance!’ ‘How well you play!’ or even ‘How charming you look!’ and
if such things had been said to me in England six months ago I should
have been so happy and at ease that I should never have been afraid and
awkward as I generally was in society--but now! Why now I simply don’t
care!--I only think what fools men are!”
“But you must remember,” said Madame Dimitrius gently--“you were very
different in appearance six months ago to what you are now----”
“Exactly! That’s just it!” And Diana gave an expressive gesture of
utter disdain. “That’s what I hate and despise! One is judged by looks
only. I’m just the same woman as ever--six months ago I danced as well,
skated as well, and played the piano as well as I do now--but no one
ever gave me the smallest encouragement! Now everything I do is made
the subject of exaggerated compliment, by the men of course!--not by
the women; _they_ always hate a successful rival of their own sex! Ah,
how petty and contemptible it all is! You see I’m growing young looks
with old experience!--rather a dangerous combination of forces, _I_
think!--however, if our souls become angels when we die, _they_ will
have a vast experience to look back upon, dating from the beginning of
creation!”
“And, looking back so far, they will understand all,” said Madame
Dimitrius. “As one of our great writers has said: ‘To know all is to
pardon all.’”
Diana shrugged her shoulders.
“Perhaps!” she carelessly conceded. “But that’s just where I should
fail as an angel! I cannot ‘pardon all.’ I hold a standing grudge
against injustice, callousness, cruelty and cowardice. I forgive
none of these things. I loathe a hypocrite--especially a pious one!
I should take pleasure in revenge of some sort on any such loathsome
creature. I would rather save a fly from drowning in the milk-jug than
a treacherous human being from the gallows!”
“Dear me!” and Madame smiled--“you speak very strongly, Diana!
Especially when you assure me that you cannot ‘feel!’”
“Oh, I can feel hatred!” said Diana. “_That_ sort of feeling seems
to have a good grip of me! But love, interest, sympathy for other
folks--no!--ten thousand times no! One might love a man with all
the ardour and passion of a lifetime, and yet he may be capable of
boasting of your ‘interest’ in him at his club and damaging your
reputation--(you know some clubs are like old washerwomen’s corners
where they meet to talk scandal)--and you may waste half your time in
interest and sympathy for other folks and they’ll only ask dubiously,
‘What is it all for?’ and ‘round’ on you at the first opportunity,
never crediting you with either honesty or unselfishness in your words
or actions. No, no! It’s best to ‘play’ the world’s puppets--never to
become one of them!”
“You are bitter, my dear!” commented Madame. “I think it is because you
have missed a man’s true love.”
Diana laughed and sprang up from her chair.
“Maybe!” she replied. “But--‘a man’s true love’--as I see it, seems
hardly worth the missing! You are a dear, sentimental darling!--you
have lived in the ‘early Victorian’ manner, finding an agreeable lover
who gave you his heart, after the fashion of an antique Valentine,
and whom you married in the proper and conventional style, and in
due course gave him a baby. That’s it! And oh, SUCH a baby! Féodor
Dimitrius!--doctor of sciences and master of innumerable secrets of
nature--yet, after all, only your ‘baby!’ It is a miracle! But I wonder
if it was worth while! Don’t mind my nonsense, dearest lady!--just
think of me as hardening and shining!--like bits of the glacier we
saw the other day which move only about an inch in a thousand years!
There’s a ‘sports’ ball on the ice to-night--a full moon too!--and your
wonderful son has agreed to skate with me--I wish you would come and
look at us!”
“I’m too old,” said Madame Dimitrius, with a slight sigh. “I wish
Féodor would make _me_ young as he is making _you_!”
“He’s afraid!” and Diana stood, looking at her for a moment. “He’s
afraid of killing you! But he’s not afraid of killing _me_!”
With that she went,--and Madame, laying down her work, folded her hands
and prayed silently that no evil might come to her beloved son through
the strange mysteries which he was seeking to solve, and which to her
simple and uninstructed mind appeared connected with the powers of
darkness rather than the powers of light.
That evening Diana scored a triumph as belle of the “sports” ball.
Attired in a becoming skating costume of black velvet trimmed with
white fur, with a charming little “toque” hat to match, set jauntily on
her bright hair, and a bunch of edelweiss at her throat, she figured as
an extremely pretty “girl,” and her admirers were many. When Dimitrius
came to claim his promised “glissade” by her side, she welcomed him
smilingly, yet with an indifference which piqued him.
“Are you tired?” he asked. “Would you rather not skate any more just
now?”
She gave him an amused look.
“I am never tired,” she said. “I could skate for ever, if it were not,
like all things, certain to become monotonous. And I’m sure it’s very
good of you to skate with a woman ‘of mature years’ when there are so
many nice girls about.”
“You are the prettiest ‘girl’ here,” he answered, with a smile.
“Everyone says so!”
“And what do you say to everyone?” she demanded.
“I agree. Naturally!”
He took her hand, and together they started skimming easily over the
ice, now shining like polished crystal in the radiance of the moon and
the light thrown from torches set round the expanse of the skating
ground by the hotel purveyors of pleasure for their visitors. Diana’s
lightness and grace of movement had from the first been the subject of
admiring comment in the little world of humanity, gathered for the
season on those Swiss mountain heights, but this evening she seemed
to surpass herself, and, with Dimitrius, executed wonderful steps and
“figures” at flying speed with the ease of a bird on the wing. Men
looked on in glum annoyance that Dimitrius should have so much of her
company, and women eyed her with scarcely concealed jealousy. But at
the end of an hour she said she had “had enough of it,” and pulling
off her skates she walked with a kind of sedate submissiveness beside
Dimitrius away from the gay scene on the ice back to the hotel. Their
way led through an avenue of pine trees, which, stiffly uplifting their
spear-like points to the frosty skies and bright moon, looked like
fantastic giant sentinels on guard for the night. Stopping abruptly in
the midst of the eerie winter stillness she said suddenly:
“Dr. Féodor, do you know I’ve had three proposals of marriage since
I’ve been here?”
He smiled indulgently.
“Ay, indeed! I’m not surprised! And you have refused them all?”
“Of course! What’s the good of them?”
His dark eyes glittered questioningly upon her through their veiling,
sleepy lids.
“The good of them? Well, really, that is for you to decide! If you want
a husband----”
“I don’t!” she said, emphatically, with a decisive little stamp of her
foot on the frozen ground. “I should hate him!”
“Unhappy wretch! Why?”
“Oh, because!”--she hesitated, then laughed--“because he would be
always about! He’d have the right to go with me everywhere--such a
bore!”
“Love----” began Dimitrius, sententiously.
“Love!” She flashed a look of utter scorn upon him. “You don’t believe
in it--neither do I! What have we to do with love?”
“Nothing!” he agreed, quietly. “But--you are really rewarding my
studies, Diana! You are growing very pretty!”
She turned from him with a gesture of offended impatience and walked
on. He caught up to her.
“You don’t like my telling you that?” he said.
“No. Because the ‘prettiness’ is your forced product. It’s not _my_
natural output.”
He seized her hand somewhat roughly and held it as in a vice.
“You talk foolishly!” he said, in a low, stern voice. “My ‘forced
product’ as you call it, is not mine, except in so far that I have
found and made use of the forces of regenerative life which are in
God’s life and air and which enter into the work of all creation. Your
‘prettiness’ is God’s work!--lift up your eyes to the Almighty Power
which ‘maketh all things new!’”
Awed and startled by the impassioned tone of his voice and his
impressive manner, she stood inert, her hand remaining passively in his
firm grasp.
“Men propose to you,” he went on, “because they find you attractive,
and because your face and figure excite their passions--there is no
real ‘love’ in the case, any more than there is in most proposals. The
magnetism of sex is the thing that ‘pulls’--but you--you, my ‘subject,’
have _no_ sex! That’s what nobody outside ourselves is likely to
understand. The ‘love’ which is purely physical,--the mating which
has for its object the breeding of children, is not for you any more
than it would be for an angel--you are removed from its material and
sensual contact. But the love which should touch your soul to immortal
issues, and which by its very character is expressed through youth
and beauty,--that _may_ come to you!--that may be yours in due time!
Meanwhile, beware how you talk of my ‘forced product’--for behind all
the powers I am permitted to use is the Greatest Power of all, to Whom
I am but the poorest of servants!”
A deep sigh broke from him and he released her hand as suddenly as he
had grasped it.
“You have felt no ill effects from the treatment?” he then asked, in a
matter-of-fact tone.
“No,” she answered. “None at all--except----”
“Except--what?”
“Oh, well!--no very great matter! Only that I seem to have lost
something out of myself--I have no interest in persons or events--no
sympathy with human kind. It’s curious, isn’t it? I feel that I belong
more to the atmosphere than to the earth, and that I love trees, grass,
flowers, birds and what is called the world of Nature more than the
world of men. Of course I always loved Nature,--but what was once a
preference has now become a passion--and perhaps, when you’ve done with
me, if I live, I shall go and be a sort of hermit in the woods, away
altogether from ‘people.’ I don’t like flesh and blood!--there’s a kind
of coarseness in it!” she concluded carelessly as she resumed her walk
towards the hotel.
He was puzzled and perplexed. He watched her as she moved, and noted,
as he had done several times that evening, the exquisite lightness of
her step.
“Well, at any rate, you are not, physically speaking, any the worse for
receiving my treatment once a fortnight?” he asked.
“Oh, no! I am very well indeed!” she replied at once. “I can truthfully
assure you I never felt better. Your strange ‘fire-drop’ never gives
me any uncanny ‘sensations’ now--I don’t mind it at all. It seems to
fill me with a sort of brightness and buoyancy. But I have no actual
‘feeling’ about it--neither pleasure nor pain. That’s rather odd, isn’t
it?”
They were at the entrance door of the hotel, and stood on the steps
before going in. The moonlight fell slantwise on Diana’s face and
showed it wonderfully fair and calm, like that of a sculptured angel in
some niche of a cathedral.
“Yes--perhaps it is odd,” he answered. “As I have already told you,
I am not cognisant of the possible action of the commingled elements
I have distilled,--I can only test them and watch their effect upon
_you_, in order to gain the necessary knowledge. But that you have no
‘feeling’ seems to me an exaggerated statement,--for instance, you must
have ‘felt’ a good deal of pleasure in your skating to-night?”
“Not the least in the world!” and the smile she gave him was as chill
as a moonbeam on snow. “I skated on the ice with the same volition
as a bubble floats along the air,--as unconscious as the bubble--and
as indifferent! The bubble does not care when it breaks--nor do I!
Good-night!”
She pushed open the swing door of the hotel and passed in.
He remained outside in the moonlight, vexed with himself and her,
though he could not have told why. He lit a cigar and strolled slowly
backwards and forwards in the front of the hotel, trying to soothe his
inward irritation by smoking, but the effect was rather futile.
“She is wonderfully pretty and attractive now,” he mused. “If all
succeeds she will be beautiful. And what then? I wonder! With every
process of age stopped and reversed, and with all the stimulating
forces of creative regeneration working in every cell of her body it
is impossible to tell how she may develop--and yet--her mentality
may remain the same! This is easily accounted for, because all one’s
experiences of life from childhood make permanent impressions on the
brain and stay there. Like the negatives stored in a photographer’s
dark room one cannot alter them. And the puzzle to me is, how will her
mentality ‘carry’ with her new personality? Will she know how to hold
the balance between them? I can see already that men are quite likely
to lose their heads about her--but what does that matter! It is not the
first time they have maddened themselves for women who are set beyond
the pale of mere sex.”
He looked up at the still sky,--the frostily sparkling stars,--the
snowy peaks of the mountains and the bright moon.
“Thank God I have never loved any woman save my mother!” he said. “For
so I have been spared both idleness and worry! To lose one’s time and
peace because a woman smiles or frowns is to prove one’s self a fool or
a madman!”
And going into the hotel, he finished his cigar in the lounge where
other men were smoking, all unaware that several of them detested
the sight of his handsome face and figure for no other reason than
that he seemed ostensibly to be the guardian, as his mother was the
chaperon, of the prettiest “girl” of that season at Davos, Diana May,
and therefore nothing was more likely than that she should fall in love
with him and he with her. It is always in this sort of fashion that
the goose-gabble of “society” arranges persons and events to its own
satisfaction, never realising that being only geese they cannot see
beyond the circle of their own restricted farmyard.