While Dimitrius thus perplexed himself with a psychological question
for which he could find no satisfactory answer, Diana was happily free
from doubts and fears of any kind whatsoever. When she found herself
alone in her rooms she was conscious of a strange sense of sovereignty
and supremacy which, though it was in a manner new to her, yet did not
seem unnatural. She was not in the least conscious of having passed
four days, practically, in a state of suspended animation, no more,
perhaps, than is the Indian fakir who suffers himself to be buried in
the earth for a sufficient time to allow the corn to grow over him. She
looked about her, recognising certain familiar objects which were her
own, and others which belonged to the Dimitrius household,--she touched
the piano lightly as she passed it,--glanced through the open window
at the dusky, starlit skies, and then went into her bedroom, where,
turning on the electric burner, she confronted herself in the mirror
with a smile. Beauty smiled back at her in every line and curve, in
every movement; and she criticised her own appearance as she might have
criticised a picture, admiring the sheeny softness and sparkle of the
mysterious garment in which she was arrayed. But after a few moments of
this quiet self-contemplation, she recollected more mundane things, and
going to the wardrobe, took out the rose-pink wrap Sophy Lansing had
given her.
“I wonder,” she said, half laughing, “what Sophy would say to me now!
But, after all, what a far-away person Sophy seems!”
Standing before the mirror she deliberately let the shining “robe of
ordeal” slip from her body to the floor. Nude as a pearl, she remained
for a moment, gazing, as she knew, at the loveliest model of feminine
perfection ever seen since the sculptor of the Venus de Medici wrought
his marble divinity. Yet she was not surprised or elated; no touch of
vanity or self-complacency moved her. The astonishing part of the whole
matter was that it seemed quite natural to her to be thus beautiful;
beauty had become part of her existence, like the simple act of
breathing, and called for no special personal notice. She slipped on
a few garments, covering all with her rose-silk wrapper, and twisted
up her hair. And so she was clothed again as Diana May,--but what a
different Diana May! She heard Vasho moving in the sitting-room, and
looking, saw that he was setting out a dainty little table with game
and fruit and wine. He caught sight of her fair face watching him from
the half-open door which divided bedroom from sitting-room, and paused,
abashed--then made a sort of Eastern salutation, full of the most
abject humility.
“Poor Vasho!” she said, advancing. “How strange that you should be so
afraid of me! What do you take me for? You must not be afraid!”
No goddess, suddenly descending from the skies to earth, could have
looked more royally beneficent than she, and Vasho made rapid signs of
entire devotion to her service.
“No,” she said--“You are your master’s man. He will need your
help--when I am gone!”
The negro’s countenance expressed a sudden dismay--and she laughed.
“Yes--when I am gone!” she repeated, “and that will be very soon! I am
made for all the world now!”
His eyes rolled despairingly,--he made eloquent and beseeching signs of
appeal.
“You will be sorry?” she said. “Yes--I daresay you will! Now go
along,--they want you downstairs. It is foolish to be sorry for
anything.”
She smiled at him as he backed from her presence, looking utterly
miserable, and disappeared. Left alone, she touched a glass of wine
with her lips, but quickly set it down.
“What a curious taste!” she said. “I used to like it,--I don’t like it
at all now. I’m not thirsty and I’m not hungry. I want nothing. It’s
enough for me to breathe!”
She moved slowly up and down with an exquisite floating grace, a
perfect vision of imperial beauty, her rose-red “rest gown” with its
white fur lining trailing about her; and presently, sitting down by
the open window, she inhaled the warm summer air, and after a while
watched the moon rise through a foam of white cloud, which seemed to
have sprayed itself sheer down from the Alpine snows. Her thoughts were
clear; her consciousness particularly active,--and, with a kind of new
self-possession and intellectuality, she took herself, as it were,
mentally to pieces, and examined each section of herself as under a
psychological microscope.
“Let me be quite sure of my own identity,” she said, half aloud. “I am
Diana May--and yet I am not Diana May! I have lost the worn old shell
of my former personality, and I have found another personality which
is not my own, and yet somehow is the real Me!--the Me for whom I have
been searching and crying ever since I could search and cry!--the Me
I have dreamed of as rising in the shape of a Soul from my dead body!
I am clothed with a life vesture made of strange and imperishable
stuff,--I cannot begin to describe or understand it, except as an
organisation free from all pain and grossness--and what is more
positive still--free from all feeling!”
She paused here, interested in the puzzle of her thoughts. Raising her
eyes, she looked out at the divine beauty of the night.
“Yes,” she went on musing--“That is the strangest part of it!--I have
_no_ feeling. This is the work of science--therefore my condition
will be within reach of all who care to accept it. I look out at the
garden,--the moonlight,--but not as I used to look. _They_ have no
feeling, and seem just a natural part of myself. They do not move me to
any more sensation than the recognition that they live as I do, _with_
me and _for_ me. If I can get hold of myself at all surely, I think my
chief consciousness is that of power,--power, with no regard for its
exercise or result.”
She waited again, disentangling her mind from all clinging or vague
recollections.
“This man, Féodor Dimitrius, interested me at one time,” she said.
“His utter selfishness and callous absorption in his own studies moved
me almost to pain. Now he does not interest me at all. His mother is
kind,--very simple--very stupid and well-meaning--but I could not stay
with her for long. Who else must I remember?”
Suddenly she laughed.
“Pa and Ma!” she exclaimed--“I must not forget _them_! Those dear,
respectable parents of mine, who only cared for me as long as I was
an interesting object to _themselves_, and found me ‘in the way’
when their interest ceased! Flighty Pa! Wouldn’t he just love to be
rejuvenated and turned out as a sort of new Faustus, amorous and
reckless of everybody’s feelings--but his own! Oh, yes, I mustn’t
forget Pa! I’m young enough to wear white now!--I’ll go and see him as
soon as I get back to England--before Ma’s best mourning gown grows
rusty!” She laughed again, the most enchanting dimples lightening her
face as mirth radiated from her lips and eyes--then all at once she
became serious, almost stern, and stood up as though lifted erect by
some thought which impelled action. One hand clenched involuntarily.
“Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve!” she said, in slow tones
of emphatic scorn--“Especially the Honourable! I must not forget
_him_!--or his fat wife!--or his appallingly hideous and stupid
children! I must look at them all!--and not only must I look at
_them_--they must look at _me_!”
Her hand relaxed,--her eyes, limpid and lustrous, turned again towards
the open window and moonlit summer night.
“Yet--is vengeance worth while?” she mused--“Vengeance on a mote--a
worm--a low soul such as that of the man I once almost worshipped?
Yes!--the gods know it _is_ worth while to punish a liar and traitor!
When the world becomes unclean and full of falsehood a great war is
sent to purge its foulness,--when a man destroys a life’s happiness it
is just that his own happiness should also be destroyed.”
She had come to the conclusion of her meditations, and seeing the hour
was ten o’clock, she opened her door and put the untouched little
supper-table with all its delicacies outside in the entresol to be
cleared away; then locking herself in for the night, prepared to go
to bed. It was now that a sudden thrill of doubt quivered through her
beautiful “new” organisation,--the nervous idea that perhaps she would
not be able to pray! She took herself severely to task for this thought.
“All things are of God!” she said, aloud--“Whatever science has made of
me I can be nothing without His will. To Him belong the sun and air,
the light and fire!--to Him also _I_ belong, and to Him I may render
thanks without fear.”
She knelt down and uttered the familiar “Our Father” in slow, soft
tones of humility and devotion. To anyone who could have watched her
praying thus, she would have seemed
“A splendid angel newly drest
Save wings, for heaven!”
And when she laid her head on her pillow she fell asleep as sweetly as
a young child, her breathing as light, her dreamless unconsciousness as
perfect.
The morning found her refreshed by her slumber, stronger and more
self-possessed than before; and when clad in her ordinary little white
batiste gown she looked, as indeed she was bodily, if not mentally, a
mere slip of a girl,--a lovely girl, slender as a rod and fair as a
lily, radiating in every expression and movement with an altogether
extraordinary beauty. After the breakfast hour came Madame Dimitrius,
eager, curious, affectionate;--but at first sight of her, stood as
though rooted to the floor, and began to tremble so violently that
Diana put an arm about her to save her from falling. But, with a white,
scared face and repelling hand, the old woman pushed her aside.
“Do not touch me, please!” she said, in feeble, quavering tones--“I--I
did not expect this! I was prepared for much--but not this!--this
is devil’s work! Oh, my son, my son! He is possessed by the powers
of evil!--may God deliver him! No, no!”--this, as Diana, with her
beautiful smile of uplifted sweetness and tolerance, strove to
speak--“Nothing you can say will alter it! It is impossible that such a
thing could be done without rebellion against the laws of God! You--you
are not Diana May--you are some other creature, not made of flesh and
blood!”
Diana heard her with a gentle patience.
“Very possibly you are right,” she said, quietly. “But whatever I am
made of must be some of God’s own material, since there is nothing
existent without Him! Why, even if there is a devil, the devil himself
cannot exist apart from God!”
Madame Dimitrius uttered a pained cry, and then began to sob
hysterically.
“Oh, do not speak to me, do not speak to me!” she wailed. “My son,
my son! My Féodor! His soul is the prey of some evil spirit--and
it seems to me as if you are that spirit’s form and voice! You are
beautiful--but not with merely a woman’s beauty!--his science has
called some strange power to him--_you_ are that power!--you will be
his doom!” She wrung her hands nervously, and moaning, “Let me go!--let
me go!” turned to leave the room.
Diana stood apart, making no effort to detain her. A look of wondering
compassion filled her lovely eyes.
“Poor woman!” she breathed, softly. “Poor weak, worn soul!”
Then suddenly she spoke aloud in clear, sweet, decisive tones.
“Dear Madame,” she said--“you distress yourself without cause! You
need not be afraid of me,--I will do you no harm! As for your son,
his fate is in his own hands; he assumes to be master of it. I shall
not interfere with him or with you,--for now I shall leave you both
for ever! I have submitted myself to his orders,--I have been his
paid ‘subject,’ and he cannot complain of any want of obedience on my
part,--his experiment has succeeded. Nothing therefore now remains for
me to do here, and he has no further need of me. I promise you I will
go as quickly as I can!--and if, as you say, I am not human, why so
much the worse for humanity!”
She smiled, and her attitude and expression were royally triumphant.
Madame Dimitrius had reached the door of the apartment, and with her
hand leaning against it turned back to look at her in evident terror.
Then she essayed to speak again.
“I am sorry,” she faltered--“if I seem strange and harsh--but--but you
are not Diana May--not the woman I knew! She had grown younger and
prettier under my son’s treatment--but you!--you are a mere girl!--and
I feel--I know you are not, you cannot be human!”
A light of something like scorn flashed from Diana’s eyes.
“Is humanity so valuable!” she asked.
But this question was more than enough for Madame Dimitrius. With a
shuddering exclamation of something like utter despair, she hurriedly
opened the door, and stumbled blindly out into the corridor, there to
be caught in the arms of her son, who was coming to Diana’s rooms.
“Why, mother!” he ejaculated--“what is this?”
Diana stood at her half-open door, looking at them both like a young
angel at the gate of paradise.
“Your mother is frightened of me,” she explained gently. “She says I am
not human. I daresay that’s very likely! But do try and comfort her,
and tell her that I have no evil intentions towards her or you. And
that I am going away as soon as you will allow me to do so.”
His brows contracted.
“Mother,” he said reproachfully, “is this how you keep your promise
to me? I gave you my confidence--you see the full success of my great
experiment--and yet you reward me thus?”
She clung to him desperately.
“Féodor!--Féodor!” she cried--“My son,--my only child! You shall not
blame me,--me, your mother! I love you, Féodor!--and love teaches many
things! Oh, my son!--you have drawn from your science something that is
not of this world!--something that has no feeling--no emotion!--this
creature of your making is not Diana!”
As she spoke her face grew livid,--she beat the air with her feeble
old hands, as though she fought some invisible foe, and fell in a dead
faint.
Quickly Dimitrius lifted her in his arms, and laid her on the sofa in
Diana’s sitting-room. Diana came to his aid, and deftly and tenderly
bathed her forehead and hands with cool water. When she showed signs of
returning consciousness Diana said whisperingly:
“I will go now! She must not be frightened again--she must not see me
when she wakes. You understand? Poor, dear old lady! She imagines I am
not human, and she has told me I shall be your doom!” She smiled. “Do
you think I shall?”
Her loveliness shone upon him like a light too brilliant to endure.
His heart beat furiously, but he would not look at her,--he bent
his head over his mother’s passive figure, busying himself with
restoratives,--and answered nothing.
She waited a minute,--then added--“You will arrange for my leaving here
as soon as possible? After what she has said, it will be best for your
mother that I should go at once.”
Then, and then only, he lifted his dark eyes,--they were sad and
strained.
“I will arrange everything,” he said. “No doubt the sooner we part, the
better!”
She smiled again,--then moved swiftly away into her bedroom and locked
the door. Slowly Madame Dimitrius recovered and looked around her with
an alarmed expression.
“She has gone?”
“Yes,” her son replied, with a bitterness he could not restrain. “She
has gone!--and she will go! You have driven away the loveliest thing
ever seen on earth! _my_ creation! Through you she will leave me
altogether--and yet you say you love me!”
“I do! I do love you!” cried his mother, weeping. “Féodor, Féodor, I
love you as no other can or will! I love you, and by my love I claim
your soul! I claim it from the powers of evil!--I claim it for God!”