Genius takes a century or more to become recognised,--but Beauty
illumines this mortal scene as swiftly as a flash-light. Brief it
may be, but none the less brilliant and blinding; and men who are
for the most part themselves unintelligent and care next to nothing
for intellectuality, go down like beaten curs under the spell of
physical loveliness, when it is united to a dominating consciousness
of charm. Consciousness of charm is a powerful magnet. A woman may
be beautiful, but if she is of a nervous or retiring disposition and
sits awkwardly in the background twiddling her thumbs she is never a
success. She must know her own power, and, knowing it, must exercise
it. “Old” Diana May had failed to learn this lesson in the days of
her girlhood,--she had believed, with quite a touching filial faith,
in the pious and excessively hypocritical twaddle her father talked,
about the fascination of “modest, pretty girls, who were unconscious
of their beauty”--with the result that she had seen him, with other
men, avoid such “modest, pretty girls” altogether, and pay devoted
court to _im_modest, “loud” and impertinent women, who asserted their
“made-up” good looks with a frank boldness which “drew” the men on
like a shoal of herrings in a net, and left the “modest, pretty girls”
out in the cold. “Old” Diana had, by devotion to duty and constancy in
love, missed all her chances,--but the “young” Diana, albeit “of mature
years,” knew better now than to “miss” anything. She was mistress of
her own situation, so completely that the hackneyed expression of “all
London at her feet” for once proclaimed a literal truth. London is, on
the whole, very ready to have something to worship,--it is easily led
into a “craze.” It is a sort of Caliban among cities,--a monster that
capers in drink and curses in pain, having, as Shakespeare says of his
uncouth creation: “A forward voice to speak well of his friend,” and
a “backward voice to utter foul speeches and detract.” But for once
London was unanimous in giving its verdict for Diana May as the most
beautiful creature it had ever seen. Photographers, cinema-producers,
dressmakers, tailors, jewellers besieged her; she was like the lady
of the Breton legend, who lived at the top of a brazen tower, too
smooth and polished for anyone to climb it, or for any ladder to be
supported against it, and whose face at the window drove all beholders
mad with longing for the unattainable. One society versifier made
a spurt of fame for himself by describing her as “a maiden goddess
moulded from a dream,” whereat other society versifiers were jealous,
and made a little commotion in the press by way of advertisement. But
Diana herself, the centre of all the stir, showed no sign of either
knowing or appreciating the social excitement concerning her, and her
complete indifference only made her more desirable in the eyes of her
ever-increasing crowd of admirers.
Once established in her flat with her chaperone, Mrs. Beresford, she
lived the most curiously removed life from all the humanity that
surged and seethed around her. The few appearances she made at operas,
theatres, restaurants and the like were sufficient to lift her into
the sphere of the recognised and triumphant “beauty” of the day.
Coarse and vulgar seemed all the “faked” portraits of the half-nude
sirens of stage and music-hall in the pictorial press, compared with
the rare glimpses of the ethereal, almost divine loveliness which
was never permitted to be copied by any painter or photographer.
Once only did an eager camera-man press the button of his “snapshot”
machine face to face with Diana as she came out of a flower-show,--she
smiled kindly as she passed him and he thought himself in heaven. But
when he came to develop his negative it was “fogged,” as though it
had had the light in front of it instead of behind it, as photography
demands. This accident was a complete mystification, as he had been
more than usually careful to take up a correct position. However, other
photographers were just as unfortunate, and none were able to obtain
so much as a faint impression of the fair features which dazzled every
male beholder who gazed upon them. Artists, even the most renowned
R.A.’s, were equally disappointed,--she, the unapproachable, the cold,
yet enchanting “maiden goddess moulded from a dream” would not “sit”
to any one of them,--would not have anything to do with them at all,
in fact--and fled from them as though she were a Daphne pursued by
many Apollos. A very short time sufficed to surround her with a crowd
of adorers and would-be lovers, chief and most persistent among them
being Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve, and--that antique Adonis,
her father, James Polydore May. The worthy James had all his life been
in the habit of forming opinions which were diametrically opposed to
the opinions of everyone else,--and pursuing this course always to his
own satisfaction, he had come to the conclusion that this “Diana May”
who declared herself to be his daughter, was an artful _demi-mondaine_
and adventuress with a “craze.” He had frequently heard of people who
imagined themselves to be the reincarnated embodiments of the dead.
“Why, God bless my soul, I should think so!” he said to a man at the
Club who rallied him about his openly expressed admiration for the “new
beauty” who bore the same name as that of his “drowned” daughter--“I
met a woman once who told me she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra!
Now this girl, just because she happens to have my name, sticks to her
idea, that she is _my_ Diana----”
“You’d like her to be, wouldn’t you?” chuckled his friend. “But if she
takes you for her father----”
“She does--poor child, she does!” and James Polydore May sighed. “You
would hardly believe it----”
“Why not?”--and the friend chuckled again--“You’re quite old enough!”
With this unkind shot from a bent bow of malice he went off, leaving
James Polydore in an angry fume. For he--James--was not “old”--he
assured himself--he was _not_ old,--he would not be old! His wife was
“old”--women age so quickly!--but he--why he was “in the prime of
life;” all men over sixty are--in their own opinion. The beautiful
Diana had ensnared him,--and his sensual soul being of gross quality,
was sufficiently stimulated by her physical charm to make him eager
to know all he could of her. She herself had not been in the least
surprised when he found out her address and came to visit her. The
presence of Mrs. Beresford rather disconcerted him,--that lady’s quiet
good sense, elegant manners and evident affection for the lovely “girl”
she chaperoned, were a little astonishing to him. Such a woman could
not be the keeper of a lunatic? Diana never entered into the matter of
her relationship with James Polydore to Mrs. Beresford,--it entertained
her more or less ironical humour to see her own father playing the
ardent admirer, and whenever Mr. May called, as he often did, she
always had some laughing remark to make about her “old relative,” who
was, she declared, “rather a bore.” Mrs. Beresford was discreet enough
to ask no questions, and so James Polydore came and went, getting no
“forrader” with the fair one, notwithstanding all his efforts to make
himself agreeable, and to dislodge from her mind the strange obsession
which possessed it.
One day he went to see Sophy Lansing--never a favourite of his--and
tried to find out what she thought of the “Diana May” whose name was
now almost one to conjure with. But Sophy had little patience to bestow
on him.
“An adventuress, of course!” she declared. “I am surprised you don’t
take the trouble to prosecute her for presuming to pass herself off as
your daughter! And I’ll tell you this much--Diana--_your_ Diana--never
was drowned!”
James Polydore’s mouth opened,--he stared, wondering if he had heard
aright.
“Never was drowned?” he echoed, feebly.
“No! Never was drowned!” repeated Sophy, firmly. “She ran away from
you--and no wonder! You were always a bore,--and she was always being
reproached as an ‘old maid’ and ‘in the way.’ She slaved for you and
her mother from morning till night and never had a kind word or a
thank-you. _I_ advised her to break away from the hum-drum life you
made her lead, and on that morning when you thought her drowned, she
came to _me_! Ah, you may stare! She did! She saw an advertisement in
a French paper of a scientist in Geneva wanting a lady assistant to
help him in his work, and she went there to try for the situation and
got it. I rigged her out and lent her some money. She’s paid it all
back, and for all I know she’s in Geneva still, though she’s under an
agreement not to write to anyone or give her address. She’s been gone a
year now.”
Mr. May’s dumpy form stiffened visibly.
“May I ask,” he said, pompously--“May I ask, Miss Lansing, why you have
not thought proper to communicate these--these strange circumstances to
me before?”
Sophy laughed.
“Because I promised Diana I wouldn’t,” she answered. “She knew and _I_
knew that you and Mrs. May would be perfectly happy without her. She
has taken her freedom, and I hope she’ll keep it!”
“Then--my daughter is--presumably--still alive?” he said. “And instead
of dying, she has--well!--deserted us?”
“Exactly!” replied Sophy. “I would give you the name of the scientist
for whom she is or was working, only I suppose you’d write and make
trouble. When I had, as I thought, a letter from her the other day,
saying she was returning to London, I got everything ready here to
receive her--but when this artful girl turned up----”
“Oh, the girl came to see you, did she?” Mr. May mumbled. “The--the
adventuress----?”
“Of course she did!--and actually brought me my watch-bracelet--one
I had lent to Diana--as a sort of proof of identity. But of course
nothing can make a woman of forty a girl of eighteen!”
Mr. May put his hand to his bewildered head.
“No--no--of course not!--I--I must tell Mrs. May our daughter is
alive--it will be a shock--of surprise----”
“No doubt!” said Sophy, sharply. “But she’s dead to _you_! Remember
that! If I didn’t fear to make trouble for her I’d wire to her employer
at Geneva about this pretender to her name--only it wouldn’t do any
good, and I’d rather not interfere. And I advise you not to go dangling
after the ‘new beauty,’ as she’s called--you really are too old for
that sort of thing!”
Mr. May winced. Then he drew himself up with an effort at dignity.
“I shall endeavour to trace my daughter,” he said. “And I regret I
cannot rely on your assistance, Miss Lansing! You have deceived us very
greatly----”
“Twaddle!” interrupted Miss Lansing, defiantly. “You made Diana
wretched--and she’d have gone on housekeeping for you till she had lost
all pleasure in living,--now she’s got a good salary and a situation
which is satisfactory, and I’ll never help you to drag her back to the
old jog-trot of attending to your food and comfort. So there! As for
this, ‘bogus’ Diana, the best thing you can do is to go and tell her
you know all about it, and that she can’t take you in any more.”
“She’s the most beautiful thing ever seen!” he said, suddenly and with
determination.
Sophy Lansing gave him an “all over” glance of utter contempt.
“What’s that to you if she is?” she demanded. “Will you _never_
recognise your age? She might be your daughter--almost your
granddaughter! And you want to make love to her? Bah!”
With a scornful sweep of her garments she left him, and he found his
way out of the house more like a man in a dream than in a reality.
He could hardly believe that what she had told him was true--that
Diana--his daughter Diana, was alive after all! He wondered what
effect the news would have on his wife? After so much “mourning” and
expressions of “terrible shock,”--the whole drowning business was
turned into something of a comedy!
“Miss Lansing ought to be ashamed of herself!” he thought, indignantly.
“A regular hypocrite! Why, she wrote a letter of sympathy and ‘deep
sorrow’ for the loss of her ‘darling Diana!’ Disgraceful! And if the
story is true and Diana has really run away from us, we should be
perfectly justified in disowning her!”
Full of mingled anger and bewilderment he decided to go and see the
“adventuress” known as Diana May and tell her all. She would not, he
thought, pretend any longer to be his daughter if she knew that his
daughter was living. He found her in the loveliest of “rest gowns,”
reclining on a sofa with a book in her hand,--she scarcely stirred from
her attitude of perfect ease as he entered, except to turn her head
round on her satin pillow and smile at him. Quite unnerved by that
smile, he sat down beside her and taking her hand raised it to his lips.
“What a gallant little Pa it is!” she observed, lazily. “I wonder what
‘Ma’ would say if she saw you!”
He put on an air of mild severity.
“My dear girl,” he said. “I wish you would stop all this nonsense and
be sensible! I have heard some news to-day which ought to put an end to
your pretending to be what you are not. My daughter--my real daughter
Diana--is alive.”
Diana laughed.
“Of course! Very much so! I should not be here if she were not. Do I
seem dead?”
He made a gesture of impatience.
“Tut, tut! If you _will_ persist----”
“Naturally I will persist!” she said, sitting up on the sofa, her
delicate laces falling about her like a cloud and her fair head
lifted like that of a pictured angel--“I _am_ Diana! I suppose you’ve
been seeing Sophy Lansing--she’s the only living being who knows my
story and even she doesn’t recognise me now. But I can’t help _her_
obstinacy, or _yours_! I _am_ Diana!”
“_My_ daughter,” said Mr. May, with emphasis--“is in Geneva----”
“_Was_,” interrupted Diana. “And _is_--here!”
Mr. May gave a groan of utter despair.
“No use--no use!” he said. “One might as well argue with the
wind as with one of these mentally obsessed persons! Perfectly
hopeless!--hopeless----!”
Diana sprang off her sofa and stood erect, confronting him.
“See here!” she said--“When I lived at home with you, sacrificing all
my time to you and my mother, and only thinking of my duty to you both,
you found me ‘in the way.’ Why? Merely because I was growing old.
You never thought there was any cruelty in despising me for a fault
which seems common to all nature. You never cared to consider that
you yourself were growing old!--no, for you still seek to play the
juvenile and the amorous! What you men consider legitimate in your own
sex, you judge ridiculous in ours. You look upon me as ‘young’--when
in very truth I am of the age of the same Diana whom as your daughter
you wearied of--but youth has been given to my ‘mature years’ in a way
which you in your ignorance of all science would never dream of. You,
like most men, judge by outward appearances only. The physical, which
is perishable, attracts you--and you have no belief in the spiritual,
which is imperishable. But the spiritual wins!”
Mr. May sat winking and blinking under this outburst, which was to him
entirely incomprehensible, though he was uncomfortably conscious of the
radiance of eyes that played their glances upon him like beams from
fiery stars.
“There, there!” he said at last, nervously,--resorting to his usual
soothing formula--“You are overwrought--a little hysterical--a sudden
access of this--this unfortunate mistaken identity trouble. I will come
back and talk to you another day----”
“Why should you come back?” she demanded. “What do you want of me?”
James Polydore was somewhat confused by this straight question. What
indeed did he want of her? He was too much of a moral coward to
formulate the answer, even to himself. She was beautiful, and he wanted
to caress her beauty,--old as he was, he would have liked to kiss
that exquisite mouth, curved like a rose-petal, and run his wrinkled
fingers through the warm and lavish gold of the hair that waved over
the white brow and small ears like rippling sunshine. He was afflicted
by the disease of senile amourousness for all women--but for this one
in particular he was ready and eager to go to all lengths of fatuous
foolishness possible to an old man in love, if he could only have been
sure she was not insane! While he stood hesitating, and twitching his
eyelids in the peculiar “manner” he affected when he had thoughts to
conceal, she answered her own question for him.
“You want to make love to me,” she said. “As I have told you before,
that can’t be done. I am your daughter,--deny it as you may to the
end, nothing can alter the fact. Do you remember the man I was engaged
to?--Captain Cleeve?--the ‘Honourable’ Reginald Cleeve?”
At this he was fairly startled and he gave a gasp of astonishment.
“I remember the man my daughter was engaged to,” he said. “His name was
Cleeve. But he is married----”
“Very much so!” and Diana smiled. “But that doesn’t prevent his making
love to me--and I let him do it! You see, _he’s_ no relation!--and
I don’t consider his fat wife any more than he considered me when
he married _her_ and threw _me_ over! But he’s like you--he doesn’t
believe I’m the old Diana!”
“Of course not!” and Mr. May expanded his chest with a long breath of
superior wisdom. “I should like to see him and talk to him about you
and your sad condition of mind----”
“No doubt you would, but you won’t,” said Diana calmly. “I have
forbidden him to go near you for the present. He dare not ask any
questions about me--till--till I have done with him!”
What a look there was in her eyes! James Polydore shrank under it as
though it blinded him.
“Dare not? Done with him?” he echoed stupidly.
She laughed, quite sweetly.
“There, poor Pa, do go home! Pay your attentions to my mother’s
companion, Miss Preston--if she really likes your endearments, why,
then, ‘crabbed age and youth’ _may_ live together! Poor mother! She
never found out _all_ your little ways!--some of them she discovered
by chance--but _I_ knew them all! What would you give to be as young
as I am at your age! ‘Too late, too late!--ye cannot enter now!’”
Her laughter rang out again,--then approaching him, she laid her
hands lightly on his shoulders and kissed him. “There, that’s a true
daughter’s kiss!--make the best of it, dear Pa! Go home and be a good,
nice, moral old man!--sit on one side of the fireplace with Ma on the
other, and settle down into Darby and Joan!--such a nice couple!--with
a dash of Miss Preston between to keep up your spirits! And don’t come
back here _ever_!--unless you accept the true position we occupy of
father and daughter--father growing old, and daughter growing young!”
Standing in the centre of the room, with the soft ivory chiffon and
lace of her “rest gown” trailing about her like the delicate _cirri_
floating across a summer sky, she appeared like a vision of something
altogether beyond mere woman, and as the little gross, sensual man
who _had been_ her father looked at her, a sudden unnameable terror
overcame him. His limbs shook--his brain reeled,--within himself a
frightened sense of something supernatural paralysed his will--and he
made for the door like a man groping in the dark. She threw it open for
him with a queenly gesture of dismissal.
“Tell my mother,” she said, “that her daughter is truly alive, and that
she has kissed you!--not as the ‘old’ but as the young Diana! Don’t
forget!”