The swiftness and silence of Diana’s departure from the Château
Fragonard was of an almost uncanny nature. There were no affectionate
leave-takings,--and she made no attempt to see Madame Dimitrius, who,
thoroughly unnerved and ill, remained in her bedroom,--nor would
she permit of any escort to the station, or “seeing off” by way of
farewell. She simply left the house, having packed and labelled her own
luggage to be sent after her,--and walked quietly with Dr. Dimitrius,
through the lovely gardens all in their summer beauty, to the private
gate opening out to the high road, from whence it was an easy ten
minutes to the station. He was very silent, and his usual composure had
entirely deserted him.
“I cannot part with you like this,” he said, in low, nervous tones, as
she gave him her hand in “good-bye.” “As soon as my mother recovers
from this strange breakdown of hers, I shall follow you. I must see you
again----”
She smiled.
“Must you?”
“Of course I must! I am deeply grateful to you,--do not think I can
forget your patience--your courage----” He paused, deeply moved. “I
hate the idea of your travelling all alone to London!”
“Why?” she asked, in an amused tone--“I came all alone!”
“Yes--but it was different----”
“You mean I looked ‘mature,’ then?” she laughed. “Oh, well! Nobody will
interfere with a girl returning home from school in Geneva!”
A pained smile crossed his face.
“Yes!--you can play that part very well!” he admitted. “But you cannot
live alone without someone to look after you!”
She gave a light gesture of indifference.
“No? Well, I will get some dear old lady ‘in reduced circumstances’
to do that. There are so many of them--all with excellent references.
Someone about my own age would do,--for after all, I’m over forty!”
He uttered an exclamation of impatience.
“Why will you say that?”
“Because it’s true!” she replied. “According to this planet’s time.
But”--here her eyes flashed with a strange and almost unearthly
lustre--“there are other planets--other countings! And by these, I
am--well!--what I am!”
He looked at her in mingled doubt and wonder.
“Diana!” he said, entreatingly--“Will you not trust me?”
“In what way?” she asked, with sudden coldness--“What trust do you
seek?”
“Listen!” he went on eagerly--“My science has worked its will upon
you, with the most amazing success--but there is something beyond my
science--something which baffles me,--which I cannot fathom! It is in
you, yourself--you have learned what I have failed to learn,--you know
what I do not know!”
A smile suddenly irradiated her lovely face,--so might an angel smile
in giving a benediction.
“I am glad you realise that!” she said, quietly--“For it is true! But
what I have learned--what I know--I cannot explain to myself or impart
to others.”
He stood amazed,--not so much at her words as at her manner of uttering
them. It was the unapproachable, ethereal dignity of her attitude and
expression that awed and held him in check.
“You would not understand or believe it possible,” she went on, “even
if I tried to put into words what is truly a wordless existence, apart
from you altogether,--apart not only from you, but from all merely
human things----”
“Ah!” he interrupted quickly--“That is just the point. You say ‘merely’
human, as if you had passed beyond humanity!”
She looked at him steadily.
“Humanity thinks too much of itself,” she said, slowly. “Its
petty ambitions,--its miserable wars,--its greed of gain and love
of cruelty!--what is it worth without the higher soul! In this
universe--even in this planet, humanity is not all! There are other
forces--other forms--but--as I have said, I cannot explain myself, and
it is time to say good-bye. I am glad I have been of use in helping you
to succeed in what you sought to do; and now I suppose you will make
millions of money by your ability to re-establish life and youth. And
will that make you happy, I wonder?”
His face grew stern and impassive.
“I do not seek happiness,” he said--“Not for myself. I hope to make
happiness for others. Yet truly I doubt whether happiness is possible
in this world, except for children and fools.”
“And sorrow?” she queried.
“Sorrow waits on us hand and foot,” he replied--“There is no condition
exempt from it.”
“Except mine!” she said, smiling. “I am relieved of both sorrow and
joy--I never seem to have known either! I am as indifferent to both as
a sunbeam! Good-bye!”
He held her hand, and his dark eyes searched her lovely face as though
looking for a gleam of sympathy.
“Good-bye!” he rejoined--“But not for long! Remember that! Those whom
you knew in England will not recognise you now,--you will have many
difficulties, and you may need a friend’s counsel--I shall follow you
very soon!”
“Why should you?” she asked, lightly. His grasp on her hand tightened
unconsciously.
“Because I must!” he answered, passionately. “Don’t you see? You draw
me like a magnet!--and I cannot resist following my own exquisite
creation!”
She released her hand with a decided movement.
“You mistake!” she said--“I am not your creation. You, of yourself,
can create nothing. I am only a result of your science which you never
dreamed of!--which you could not foresee!--and which you will never
master! Good-bye!”
She left him at once with this word, despite his last entreating call,
“Diana!” and passing through the private gate to the high road, so
disappeared. Like a man in a trance, he stood watching till the last
glimpse of her dress had vanished--then, with a mist of something like
tears in his eyes, he realised that a sudden blank loneliness had
fallen upon him like a cloud.
“Something I shall never master!” he repeated, as he went slowly
homeward. “If woman I shall!--but if not----”
And here he checked his thoughts, not daring to pursue them further.
So they parted,--he more bewildered and troubled by the “success” of
his experiment than satisfied,--while she, quite unconscious of any
particular regret or emotion, started on her journey to England. Never
had she received so much attention, and the eagerness displayed by
every man she met to wait upon her and assist her in some way or other,
amused her while it aroused a certain scorn.
“It is only looks that move them!” she said to herself. “The same old
tale!--Youth and beauty!--and never a care whether I am a good or an
evil thing! And yet one is asked to ‘respect’ men!”
She went on her way without trouble. The _chef de gare_ at Geneva
was full of gentle commiseration at the idea of so young and lovely
a creature travelling alone, and placed her tenderly, as though she
were a hot-house lily to be carried “with care,” in a first-class
compartment of “Dames Seules” where a couple of elderly ladies received
her graciously, with motherly smiles, and remarked that she was “very
young to travel alone.” She deprecated their attention with becoming
grace--but said very little. She looked at their wrinkles and baggy
throats, and wondered, whether, if they knew of Dr. Dimitrius and went
to him, he could ever make them young and beautiful again? It seemed
impossible,--they were too far gone! They were travelling to London,
however; and she cheerfully accepted their kindly proposal that she
should make the journey in their company. On the way through Paris she
wrote a brief letter to Sophy Lansing, saying that she would call and
see her as soon after arrival in London as possible, and adding as a
postscript: “I have changed very much in my appearance, but I hope you
will still know me as your friend, Diana.”
The two ladies with whom chance or fate had thrown her in company,
turned out to be of the “old” English aristocracy, and were very
simple, gently-mannered women who had for many years been intimate
friends. They were both widows; their children were grown up and
married, and many reverses of fortune, with loss of kindred, had
but drawn them more closely together. Every year they took little
inexpensive holidays abroad, and they were returning home now after
one of these spent at Aix-les-Bains. They were fascinated by the
extraordinary beauty of the girl they had volunteered to chaperon, and,
privately to one another, thought and said she ought to wear a veil.
For no man saw her without seeming suddenly “smitten all of a heap,”
as the saying is,--and, after one or two embarrassing experiences at
various stations _en route_, where certain of these “smitten” had not
scrupled to walk up and down the platform outside their compartment
just to look at the fair creature within, one of the worthy dames
suggested, albeit timidly, that perhaps--only perhaps!--a veil might
be advisable?--as they were soon going across the sea--and the rough
salt wind and spray were so bad for the complexion! Diana smiled. She
understood. And for the rest of the journey she tied up her beautiful
head and face in American fashion with an uncompromising dark blue
motor veil through which hardly the tip of her nose could be seen.
They crossed the Channel at night, and breakfasted together at Dover.
Once in the train bound for London, Diana’s companions sought tactfully
to find out who she was. Something quite indefinable and unusual about
her gave them both a touch of “nerves.” She seemed removed and aloof
from life’s ordinary things, though her manner was perfectly simple and
natural. She gave her name quite frankly and added that she was quite
alone in the world.
“I have one friend,--Miss Sophy Lansing,” she said--“You may have heard
of her. She is a leading Suffragette and a very clever writer. I am
going to her now.”
The ladies glanced at each other and smiled.
“Yes,--we have heard of her,” said one. “But I hope she will not make
_you_ a Suffragette! Life has much better fortune in store for you than
that!”
“You think so?”--and Diana shrugged her graceful shoulders
indifferently--“Anyway, I am not interested in political matters at
all. They are always small and quarrelsome,--like the buzzing of midges
on a warm day!”
One of her companions now took out her card-case.
“Do come and see me in town!” she said kindly--“I should be very glad
if you would. I live a very quiet hum-drum life and seldom see any
young people.”
Diana smiled as she accepted the card.
“Thank you so much!” she murmured,--seeing at a glance the name and
address “Lady Elswood, Chester Square,” and thinking how easy it was
for youth and beauty to find friends--“I will certainly come.”
“And don’t forget _me_!” said the other lady--“I live just round the
corner,--only a few steps from Lady Elswood’s house, so you can come
and see me also.”
Diana expressed her acknowledgment by a look, reading on the second
card now proffered: “Mrs. Gervase,” and the address indicated.
“I will!” she said, and yet in her own mind she felt that these two
good-natured women were the merest shadows to her consciousness, and
that she had not the remotest idea of going to visit them at any time.
London reached, they parted,--and Diana, taking a taxi-cab and
claiming her modest luggage from the Custom-house officials, was
driven straight to Sophy Lansing’s flat in Mayfair, which she had left
under such different circumstances close on a year ago. Miss Lansing
was in, said the servant who opened the door,--and Diana had hardly
waited in the drawing-room five minutes, when there was a rush of
garments and quick feet and Sophy herself appeared. But at the door she
stopped--transfixed.
“There’s some mistake,” she said at once--“You must have come to the
wrong flat. I expected a friend,--Miss May. You are not Miss May.”
Diana held out both hands.
“Sophy, don’t you know me?” she said, smiling--“_Won’t_ you know me?
Surely you recognise my voice? I told you in my letter from Paris that
I was changed--I thought you would understand----”
But Sophy stood mute and bewildered, her back against the door by
which she had just entered. For half a minute she felt she knew the
sweet thrill of the voice that was Diana’s special gift,--but when
she looked at the exquisite girlish beauty of the--the “person” who
had intruded upon her, as she thought, on false pretences, she was
unreasonably annoyed, her annoyance arising, though she would never
have admitted it, from a helpless consciousness of her own inferiority
in attractiveness.
“Nonsense!” she said, sharply. “Whoever you are, you can’t take _me_
in! _My_ friend is a middle-aged woman,--older than I am--you are a
mere girl! Do you think I don’t know the difference? Please leave my
house!”
At these words, a delightful peal of lilting laughter broke from
Diana’s lips. Sophy stared, indignant and speechless, while Diana
slipped off a watch bracelet from her slender wrist.
“Very well, dear!” she said. “If you don’t want to know me, you shan’t!
Here is the little watch you lent me when I went away last year--after
I was drowned, you remember?--in place of my own which I’m glad to see
you are wearing. You know I took up a position with the Dr. Féodor
Dimitrius whose advertisement you sent me,--he wanted me to help him
in a scientific experiment. Well!--I did,--and I am the result of his
work. I see you don’t believe me, so I’ll go. I told the taxi-man to
wait. I’m so sorry you won’t have me!”
Sophy Lansing listened amazed and utterly incredulous. That voice--that
sweet laughter--they had a familiar ring; but the youthful features,
the exquisite complexion of clear cream and rose--these were no part of
the Diana she had known, and she shook her head obstinately.
“You may have met my friend in Geneva,” she said, stiffly. “But how you
got my watch from her, I am at a loss to imagine--unless she lent it to
you to travel with. You look to me like a run-away schoolgirl playing a
practical joke. But whoever you are, you are not Diana May.”
Smilingly Diana laid the watch she had taken off down on the table.
“Very well, I will leave this here,” she said. “It is yours,--and
when I am gone it will help you to remember and think over all the
circumstances. You had my letter from Paris?”
“I had _a_ letter,” replied Sophy, coldly, “from my friend, Miss May.”
Diana laughed again.
“I wrote it,” she said. “How droll it seems that you should know
my handwriting and not know me! And I thought you would be so
pleased!--you, who said I was going to be ‘a wonderful creature,’ and
that ‘Cinderella should go to the Prince’s Ball!’ And now you won’t
recognise me!--it’s just as if you were ‘jealous because I’m pretty!’
I may as well explain before I go, that Dr. Dimitrius, for whom I’ve
been working all the year, is one of those scientific ‘cranks’ who
think they can restore lost youth, create beauty and prolong life--like
Faust, you know! He wanted a subject to practise upon,--and as I was no
earthly use to anyone, he took _me_! And he’s turned me out as you see
me--all new and fresh as the morning! And I believe I shall last a long
while!”
But here Sophy Lansing uttered a half suppressed scream.
“Go away!” she gasped--“You--you are a mad girl! You’ve escaped from
some asylum!--I’m sure you have!”
With swift dignity Diana drew herself up and gazed full and pitifully
at her quondam friend.
“Poor Sophy!” she said--“I’m sorry for you! I thought you had more
character--more self-control! I am not mad--I am far saner than you
are. I have told you the truth--and one more thing I can tell you--that
I have lost all power to be hurt or offended or disappointed, so you
need not think your failure to believe me or your loss of friendship
causes me the least pain! I have gone beyond all that. You are keeping
the door closed,--will you let me pass?”
Really frightened and trembling violently, Sophy Lansing moved
cautiously to one side, and as cautiously opened the door. Her scared
eyes followed every movement of the graceful, aerial girl-figure which
professed to be Diana’s, and she shrank away from the brilliant glance
of the heavenly dark blue eyes that rested upon her with such almost
angelic compassion. She heard a softly breathed “Good-bye!” and a
gentle sweep of garments, then--a pause, and Diana was gone. She rushed
to the window. Yes,--there was the taxi waiting,--another minute, and
she saw her girl visitor enter it. The vehicle soon disappeared, its
noisy grind and whir being rapidly lost in the roar of the general
traffic.
“It was not--it could not have been Diana!” almost sobbed Sophy to
herself. “I felt--oh, yes!--I felt it was something not quite human!”
Then, turning to the table where the watch-bracelet had been left, she
took it up. It was indubitably her bracelet, with her monogram in small
rubies and diamonds on the back of the watch. She had certainly lent
it--almost given it--to Diana, and she herself was wearing Diana’s own
watch which Mr. and Mrs. Polydore May had given her as “a souvenir of
our darling child!” It was all like a wild dream!--where had this girl
come from?
“She is frightfully beautiful!” exclaimed Sophy at last, in an outburst
of excited feeling--“Simply unearthly! Even if she _were_ Diana, I
could not have her here!--with _me_!--never--never! She would make
me look so old! So plain--so unattractive! But of course she is not
Diana!--no ‘beauty doctor’ could make a woman over forty look like a
girl of eighteen or less! She must be an adventuress of some sort! She
couldn’t be so beautiful unless she were. But she won’t palm herself
off on _me_! My poor old Diana! I wonder what has become of her!”
Meanwhile “poor old Diana,” somewhat perplexed by the failure of her
friend to accept her changed appearance on trust, was thinking out
the ways and means of her new life. She had plenty of money, for
Dimitrius had placed two thousand pounds to her credit in a London
bank,--a sum which she had no hesitation in accepting, as the price
of her life, risked in his service. The thought now struck her that
she would go to this bank, draw a small cheque, and explain that she
had arrived alone in London, and wished to be recommended to some
good hotel. This proved to be an excellent idea. The manager of the
bank received her in his private office, and, fairly dazzled by her
beauty, placed his friendliest services at her disposal, informing her
that he was a personal friend of Dimitrius, and that he held him in
the highest esteem and honour. To prove his sincerity he personally
escorted her to a quiet private hotel of the highest respectability,
chiefly patronised by “county” ladies “above suspicion.” Here, on his
recommendation, she took a small suite overlooking the Park. Becoming
more and more interested in her youth, loveliness and loneliness,
he listened sympathetically while she mentioned her wish to find
some middle-aged lady of good family who would reside with her as a
chaperone and companion for a suitable annual salary,--and he promised
to exert himself in active search for a person of quality who would be
fitted for the post. He was a good-looking man, and though married, was
susceptible to the charms of the fair sex, and it was with undisguised
reluctance that he at last took his leave of the most beautiful
creature he had ever seen, with many expressions of courtesy, and
commiserating her enforced temporary solitude.
“I wish I could stay with you!” he said, regardless of convention.
“I’m sure you do!” answered Diana, sweetly. “Thank you so much! You
have been most kind!”
A look from the lovely eyes accompanied these simple words which shot
like a quiver of lightning through the nerves of the usually curt,
self-possessed business man, and caused him to stammer confusedly and
move awkwardly as at last he left the room. When he was gone Diana
laughed.
“They are all alike!” she said--“All worshippers of outward show!
Suppose that good man knew I was over forty? Why, he wouldn’t look at
me!”
The manageress of the hotel just then entered, bringing the book in
which all hotel visitors registered their names. She was quite a
stately person, attired in black silk, and addressed Diana with a
motherly air, having been told by the bank manager, for whom she had
a great respect, to have good care of her. Diana wrote her name in a
dashing, free hand, putting herself down as a British subject, and
naming Geneva as her last place of residence, when her attention was
arrested by a name three or four lines above that on which she was
writing--and she paused, pen in hand.
“Are those people staying here?” she asked.
The manageress looked where she pointed.
“Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve, Mrs. Cleeve, two daughters and
maid,” she said. “Yes--they are here,--they always come here during a
part of the season.”
Diana finished writing her own inscription and laid down the pen. She
was smiling, and her eyes were so densely blue and brilliant that the
manageress was fairly startled.
“I will dine in my room this evening,” she said. “I have had a long
journey, and am rather tired. To-morrow, perhaps, I’ll come down to
dinner----”
“Don’t put yourself out at all about that,” said the manageress,
kindly. “It’s not comfortable for a girl to dine in a room full of
strangers--or perhaps you know Mrs. Cleeve and could sit at her
table----?”
“No--I do _not_ know Mrs. Cleeve,” said Diana, decidedly--“I’ve seen
her at a charity bazaar and I believe she’s very stout--but I claim no
acquaintance.”
“She _is_ stout,” agreed the manageress with a smile, as she left the
room.
Diana stood still, absorbed in thought. Her features were aglow
with some internal luminance,--her whole form was instinct with a
mysteriously radiant vitality.
“So Destiny plays my game!” she said, half aloud. “On the very first
day of my return to the scene of my poor earthly sorrows I lose an old
friend and find an old lover!”