It was quite the end of the season at Davos before Dimitrius quitted
it and took his mother and Diana on to the Riviera. Here, in the warm
sunshine of the early Southern spring he began to study with keener and
closer interest the progress of his “subject,” whose manner towards him
and general bearing became more and more perplexing as time went on.
She was perfectly docile and amiable,--cheerful and full of thoughtful
care and attention for Madame Dimitrius,--and every fortnight took his
mysterious “potion” in his presence without hesitation or question, so
that he had nothing to complain of--but there was a new individuality
about her which held her aloof in a way that he was at a loss to
account for. Wherever she went she was admired,--men stared, talked and
sought introductions, and she received all the social attention of an
acknowledged “belle” without seeking or desiring it.
One evening at a hotel in Cannes she was somewhat perturbed by seeing
a portly elderly man whom she recognised as a club friend of her
father’s, and one who had been a frequent week-end visitor at Rose Lea.
She hoped he would not hear her name, but she was too much the observed
of all observers to escape notice, and it was with some trepidation
that she saw him coming towards her with the rolling gait suggestive of
life-long whisky-sodas--a “man-about-town” manner she knew and detested.
“Pardon me!” he said, with an openly admiring glance, “but I have just
been wondering whether you are any relation of some friends of mine in
England named May. Curiously enough, they had a daughter called Diana.”
“Really!” And Diana smiled--a little cold, haughty smile which was
becoming habitual with her. “I’m afraid I cannot claim the honour of
their acquaintance!”
She spoke in a purposely repellent manner, whereat the bold intruder
was rendered awkward and abashed.
“I know I should not address you without an introduction,” he said
stammeringly. “I hope you will excuse me! But my old friend Polly----”
“Your old friend--what?” drawled Diana, carelessly, unfurling a fan and
waving it idly to and fro.
“Polly--we call him Polly for fun,” he explained. “His full name
is James Polydore May. And his daughter, Diana, was drowned last
summer--drowned while bathing.”
“Dear me, how very sad!” and Diana concealed a slight yawn behind her
fan. “Poor girl!”
“Oh, she wasn’t a girl!” sniggered her informant. “She was quite an
old maid--over forty by a good way. But it was rather an unfortunate
affair.”
“Why?” asked Diana. “I don’t see it at all! Women over forty who have
failed to get married shouldn’t live! Don’t you agree?”
He sniggered again.
“Well,--perhaps I do!--perhaps I do! But we mustn’t be severe--we
mustn’t be severe! We shall get old ourselves some day!”
“We shall indeed!” Diana responded, ironically. “Even _you_ must have
passed your twentieth birthday!”
He got up a spasmodic laugh at this, but looked very foolish all the
same.
“Did you--in these psychic days--think I might be the drowned old maid
reincarnated?” she continued, lazily, still playing with her fan.
This time his laugh was unforced and genuine.
“_You!_ My dear young lady! The Miss May I knew might be your mother!
No,--it was only the curious coincidence of names that made me wonder
if you were any relative.”
“There are many people in the world of the same name,” remarked Diana.
“Quite so! You will excuse me, I’m sure, and accept my apologies!”
She bent her head carelessly and he moved away.
A few minutes later Dimitrius approached her.
“Come out on the terrace,” he said. “It’s quite warm and there’s a fine
moon. Come and tell me all about it!”
She looked at him in surprise.
“All about it? What do you mean?”
“All about the little podgy man who was talking to you! You’ve met him
before, haven’t you? Yes? Come along!--let’s hear the little tale of
woe!”
His manner was so gentle and playful that she hardly understood it--it
was something quite new. She obeyed his smiling gesture and throwing a
light scarf about her shoulders went out with him on the terrace which
dominated the smooth sloping lawn in front of the hotel, where palms
lifted their fringed heads to the almost violet sky and the scent of
mimosa filled every channel of the moonlit air.
“I heard all he said to you,” went on Dimitrius. “I was sitting behind
you, hidden by a big orange tree in a tub,--not purposely hidden, I
assure you! And so you are drowned!”
He laughed,--then, as he saw she was about to speak, held up his hand.
“Hush! I can guess it all! Not wanted at home, except as a household
drudge--unloved and alone in the world, you made an exit--not a _real_
exit--just a stage one!--and came to me! Excellently managed!--for
now, being drowned and dead, as the _old_ Diana, you can live in your
own way as the _young_ one! And you are quite safe! Your own father
wouldn’t know you!”
She was silent, looking gravely out to sea and the scarcely visible
line of the Esterel Mountains.
“You mustn’t resent my quickness in guessing!” he continued. “I can
always put two and two together and make four! Our podgy friend has
been unconsciously a very good test of the change in you.”
She turned her head and looked fixedly at him.
“Yes. Of the _outward_ change. But of the inward, even _you_ know
nothing!”
“Do I not? And will you not tell me?”
She smiled strangely.
“It will be difficult. But as your ‘subject’ I suppose I am bound to
tell----”
He made a slight, deprecatory gesture.
“Not unless you wish.”
“I have no wishes,” she replied. “The matter is, like everything else,
quite indifferent to me. You have guessed rightly as to the causes of
my coming to you--my father and mother were much disappointed at my
losing all my ‘chances’ as the world puts it, and failing to establish
myself in a respectable married position--I was a drag on their wheel,
though they are both quite old people,--so I relieved them of my
presence in the only way I could think of to make them sure they were
rid of me for ever. Then--on the faith of your advertisement I came to
you. You know all the rest--and you also know that the ‘experiment’
for which you wanted ‘a woman of mature years’ is--so far--successful.
But----”
“There are no buts,” interrupted Dimitrius. “It is more than fulfilling
my hopes and dreams!--and I foresee an ultimate triumph!--a discovery
which shall revivify and regenerate the human race! You too--surely you
must enjoy the sense of youth--the delight of seeing your own face in
the mirror----?”
Diana shrugged her shoulders.
“It leaves me cold!” she said. “It’s a pretty face--quite charming, in
fact!--but it seems to me to be the face of somebody else! I don’t feel
in myself that I possess it! And the ‘sense of youth’ you speak of has
the same impression--it is somebody else’s sense of youth!” Her eyes
glittered in the moonlight, and her voice, low and intensely musical,
had a curious appealing note in it. “Féodor Dimitrius, _it is not
human_!” He was vaguely startled by her look and manner.
“Not human?----” he repeated, wonderingly.
“No--not human! This beauty, this youth which you have recreated in
me, are not human! They are a portion of the air and the sunlight--of
the natural elements--they make my body buoyant, my spirit restless.
I long for some means to lift myself altogether from the gross earth,
away from heavy and cloddish humanity, for which I have not a remnant
of sympathy! I am not of it!--I am changed,--and it is you that have
changed me. Understand me well, if you can!--You have filled me
with a strange force which in its process of action is beyond your
knowledge,--and by its means I have risen so far above you that I
hardly know you!”
She uttered these strange words calmly and deliberately in an even tone
of perfect sweetness.
A sudden and uncontrollable impulse of anger seized him.
“That is not true!” he said, almost fiercely. “You know me for your
master!”
She bent her head, showing no offence.
“Possibly! For the present.” And again she looked lingeringly, gravely
out towards the sea. “Shall we go in now?”
“One moment!” he said, his voice vibrating with suppressed passion.
“What you feel, or imagine you feel, is no actual business of mine. I
have set myself to force a secret of Nature from the darkness in which
it has been concealed for ages--a secret only dimly guessed at by the
sect of the Rosicrucians--and I know myself to be on the brink of a
vast scientific discovery. If you fail me now, all is lost----”
“I shall not fail you,” she interposed quietly.
“You may--you may!” and he gave a gesture half of wrath, half of
appeal. “Who knows what you will do when the final ordeal comes! With
these strange ideas of yours--born of feminine hysteria, I suppose--who
can foretell the folly of your actions?--or the obedience? And yet you
promised--you promised----”
She turned to him with a smile.
“I promised--and I shall fulfil!” she said. “What a shaken spirit is
yours!--You cannot trust--you cannot believe! I have told you, and I
repeat it--that I place my life in your hands to do what you will with
it--to end it even, if so you decide. But if it continues to be a life
that _lives_, on its present line of change, it will be a life above
you and beyond you! That is what I wish you to understand.”
She drew her scarf about her and moved along the terrace to re-enter
the lounge of the hotel. The outline of her figure was the embodiment
of grace, and the ease of her step suggested an assured dignity.
He followed her,--perplexed, and in a manner ashamed at having shown
anger. Gently she bade him “good-night” and went at once to her room.
Madame Dimitrius had retired quite an hour previously.
Once alone, she sat down to consider herself and the position in which
she was placed. Before her was her mirror, and she saw reflected
therein a young face, and the lustre of young eyes darkly blue and
brilliant, which gave light to the features as the sun gives light
to the petals of a flower. She saw a dazzlingly clear skin as fair
as the cup of a lily, and she studied each point of perfection with
the critical care of an analyst or dissector. Every line of age or
worry had vanished,--and the bright hair of which she had always been
pardonably proud, had gained a deeper sheen, a richer hue, while it had
grown much more luxuriant and beautiful.
“And now,” she mused, “now,--how is it that when I can attract love,
I no longer want it? That I do not care if I never saw a human being
again? That human beings bore and disgust me? That something else fills
me,--desires to which I can give no name?”
She rose from her chair and went to the window. It opened out to a
small private balcony facing the Mediterranean, and she stood there
as in a dream, looking at the deep splendour of the southern sky. One
great star, bright as the moon itself, shone just opposite to her, like
a splendid jewel set on dark velvet. She drew a deep breath.
“To this I belong!” she said, softly--“To this--and only this!”
She made an exquisite picture, had she known it,--and had any one of
her numerous admirers been there to see her, he might have become as
ecstatic as Shakespeare’s Romeo. But for herself she had no thought, so
far as her appearance was concerned,--something weird and mystical had
entered into her being, and it was this new self of hers that occupied
all her thoughts and swayed all her emotions.
Just before they left Cannes to return to Geneva, Dimitrius asked her
to an interview with himself and his mother alone. They had serious
matters to discuss, he said, and important details to decide upon.
She found Madame Dimitrius pale and nervous, with trembling hands
and tearful eyes,--while Dimitrius himself had a hard, inflexible
bearing as of one who had a disagreeable duty to perform, but who,
nevertheless, was determined to see it through.
“Now, Miss May,” he said, “we have come to a point of action in which
it is necessary to explain a few things to you, so that there shall be
no misunderstanding or confusion. My mother is now, to a very great
extent, in my confidence, as her assistance and co-operation will be
necessary. It is nearing the end of April, and we propose to return to
the Château Fragonard immediately. We shall open the house and admit
our neighbours and acquaintances to visit us as usual, but--for reasons
which must be quite apparent to you--_you_ are not to be seen. It is to
be supposed that you have returned to England. You follow me?”
He spoke with a businesslike formality, and Diana, smiling, nodded
a cheerful acquiescence,--then seeing that Madame Dimitrius looked
troubled, went and sat down by her, taking her hand and holding it
affectionately in her own. “You will keep to your suite of apartments,”
Dimitrius continued, “and Vasho will be your sole attendant,--with the
exception of my mother and myself!” Here a sudden smile lightened his
rather stern expression. “I shall give myself the pleasure of taking
you out every day in the fresh air,--fortunately, from our gardens one
can see without being seen.”
Diana, still caressing Madame Dimitrius’s fragile old hand, sat
placidly silent.
“You are quite agreeable to this arrangement?” went on Dimitrius--“You
have nothing to suggest on your own behalf?”
“Nothing whatever!” she answered. “Only--how long is it to last?”
He raised his eyes and fixed them upon her with a strange expression.
“On the twenty-first of June,” he said, “I make my final test upon
you--the conclusion of my ‘experiment.’ After the twenty-fourth you
will be free. Free to go where you please--to do as you like. Like
Shakespeare’s ‘Prospero,’ I will give my ‘fine sprite’ her liberty!”
“Thank you!” and she laughed a little, bending her head towards Madame
Dimitrius. “Do you hear that, dear lady? Think of it! What good times
there are in store for me! If I can only ‘feel’ that they _are_
good!--or even bad!--it would be quite a sensation!” And she flashed
a bright look at Dimitrius as he stood watching her almost morosely.
“Well!” she said, addressing him, “after the twenty-fourth of June, if
I live, and if you permit it, I want to go back to England. Can that be
arranged?”
“Assuredly! I will find you a chaperone----”
“A chaperone!” Her eyes opened widely in surprise and amusement. “Oh,
no! I’m quite old enough to travel alone!”
“That will not be apparent to the world”--And he smiled again in his
dark, reluctant way--“But--we shall see. In any case, if you wish to go
to England, you shall be properly escorted.”
“And if you go, will you not come back to us?” asked Madame Dimitrius,
rather wistfully. “I do not want to part with you altogether!”
“You shall not, dear Madame! I will come back.” And she gently kissed
the hand she held. “Even Professor Chauvet may want to see me again!”
Dimitrius gave her a sharp glance.
“That old man is fond of you?” he said, tentatively.
“Of course he is!” And she laughed again. “Who would _not_ be fond
of me! Excellent Dr. Dimitrius! Few men are so impervious to woman as
yourself!”
“You think me impervious?”
“I think a rock by the sea or block of stone more impressionable!” she
replied, merrily. “But that is as it should be. Men of science _must_
be men without feeling,--they could not do their work if they ‘felt’
things.”
“I disagree,” said Dimitrius, quickly--“it is just because men of
science ‘feel’ the brevity and misery of human life so keenly that they
study to alleviate some of its pangs, and spare some of its waste. They
seek to prove the Why and the Wherefore of the apparent uselessness of
existence----”
“Nothing is useless, surely!” put in Diana--“Not even a grain of dust!”
“Where is the dust of Carthage?” he retorted--“Of Babylon? Of Nineveh?
With what elements has it commingled to make more men as wise, as
foolish, as sane, or as mad as the generations passed away? The
splendour, the riches, the conquests, the glories of these cities were
as great or greater than any that modern civilisation can boast of--and
yet--what remains? Dust? And is the dust necessary and valuable? Who
can tell! Who knows!”
“And with all the mystery and uncertainty, is it not better to trust
in God?” said Madame Dimitrius, gently. “Perhaps the little child who
says ‘Our Father’ is nearer to Divine Truth than all the science of the
world.”
“Sweetly thought and sweetly said, my Mother!” answered Dimitrius.
“But, believe me, I can say ‘Our Father’ with a more perfect and
exalted faith now than I did when I was a child at your knee. And
why? Because I know surely that there is ‘Our Father’ which is in
Heaven!--and because He permits us to use reason, judgment and a sane
comprehension of Nature, even so I seek to learn what I am confident
He wishes us to know!”
“At all risks?” his mother hinted, in a low tone.
“At all risks!” he answered. “A political government risks millions of
human lives to settle a temporary national dispute--I risk _one_ life
to make millions happier! And”--here he looked steadily at Diana with
a certain grave kindness in his eyes--“she is brave enough to take the
risk!”
Diana met his look with equal steadiness.
“I do not even think about it!” she said--“It does not seem worth
while!”