In the opera of _Manon_, the curtain had just been lowered for the
second time. Prince Eduard stood in the entry to his box looking
quietly down on the disturbed ant-heap below. Yet he hardly saw the
people, for his heart was beating a wild response to the drama he had
been witnessing; indeed the spirit of adventure was singing within
him, in strains wilder by far than those he had just been hearing; a
phantasmagoria of freedom and destiny passed to and fro before his
mind as it had so often done before; a high tide of emotion, in
conspicuous contrast to the habitual state of his feelings, now
flooded his being. Ever since boyhood, music had been able to
transport him to a brighter world; and when adventure beckoned him,
even his hypercritical senses were laid to rest, so that he became
nothing more than an eager and simple-hearted auditor. A girl's
voice, grave beyond her years, broke in on his meditations:
"But why does Manon give up the poet whom she loves, and why does she
let him be arrested by the officer?"
She put the question to her cousin with disingenuous emphasis, for
she fancied that, since he invariably gave foolish answers, he must
know a very great deal and say much less than he knew.
Eduard, thus suddenly dragged from the world of his fancy into that
of his family, was furious at the interruption. The two spheres were
such absolutely separate entities that he went from one into the
other as through a trap-door. A certain amount of commotion
invariably followed. He looked down at the eager face of his cousin,
rose slightly on his toes, and said harshly:
"Officer versus poet, cara Matilda? Just imagine the composer of
this tragi-comedy as your lover. Then along comes Herbert, in
full-dress uniform, death's head on shako, stupendous boots, and all
the rest of it--for whom would your heart flutter, eh?"
"Must it be so?" he thought, as he swept his opera glasses round the
house. Then he laid them aside. Strange idea, to give a whole
evening, once every week, to this naïve cousin of his.... Why did he
do it? ... One ought to strike out more for oneself....
Berlin seemed crabbed and confined after his experience among
intriguing diplomats in foreign parts. At least they did come within
hailing distance of adventure.... But here? ... How constantly his
thoughts were travelling to that Balkan world tonight! ... What
things were possible down there; what a part women could play in
affairs.... Old-time customs, old-time outlooks, had persisted, amid
modern refinements and daring ventures; a strange medley of west and
east struggling for supremacy in that disintegrated world....
"Do you think she goes to live with her officer?" The voice bored
itself into his ears.
"Après minuit," he growled.
She turned away from him in a huff.
Again he was immersed in the tangle of his thoughts. "That will
teach her not to ask such silly questions. She's blushed right down
her neck and farther, to her utterly uninteresting body beneath her
clothes. She's actually gasping for breath! And that's what our
race is bred from.... Young cow! ... Ah, me, how was it such an
anarchical creature as myself found its way into the lying-in chamber
of a princely house?..."
His companion had discovered some friends; she was nodding to them,
and insisted that he should bow to them likewise. Now she was happy.
"To find reflections of oneself, always oneself ... that's the idea,"
he thought, pursing up his lips and whistling his scorn inaudibly
down the wind. But Manon--such women, who dance before the chariot
of liberty like that groom of old who used to run clearing the way in
front of Egyptian equipages.... Always ready to bestow themselves,
lavishing their gifts, thoughtless of themselves, unsteady,
undisciplined, carried away--redskins of the world of the
emotions.... Shafts of freedom shot from sparkling eyes ... where
else can one find them except on the stage? ... There was one woman
... yes, that morning.... Then the brown sail of her boat
disappeared in the waters near that southern capital ... it seemed to
get redder....
An insistent noise startled him from his reverie. It was the
call-bell summoning the people back to their seats. Eduard stepped
up behind the chair in which his cousin was sitting. He leaned very
lightly on the back of it with one hand while with the other he once
more swept the auditorium with his glasses before retreating to his
corner to listen.
Suddenly he gripped the glasses firmer, his lips twitched; he was
like a man who quite unexpectedly finds his dream coming true. He
saw some one he knew leaning over the railing of her box. She could
only just have come in, for her left foot was still upon the last of
the shallow steps leading down to the front of the box. A draught of
cold air must be coming through the door at her back, for she pulled
her silk wrap closer around her. Her dauntless and radiant profile
made her look for all the world like that carving of Nike which had
served as a figure-head so many hundred years ago. Even the short
hair gave an impression of wind and movement, for the curls trembled
above the sun-tanned neck like wavelets breaking against a barque.
She wore no gloves, and supported herself on the tips of her fingers
as she looked down at the crowd below. At this moment she seemed to
be the very embodiment of freedom and youth.
Yes, it was she, it was Diana, appearing thus before him in response
to the memories which Manon's voice and destiny had revived. He
stood, gazing his fill. He had found what he had not sought but had
yearned for, and his feeling gradually passed from surprise to
conviction as his dream took on flesh and blood before his very eyes.
His first impulse was to go and join her; he raged in his heart at
the social convention which decreed that he should stay where he was,
at his cousin's side.
Then the lights went out, the magic wand of the conductor was raised,
a fresh act began, and Eduard knew that for half an hour he would
have to peer through the opalescent twilight trying to discern her
box, wondering why she was alone, his brain in a turmoil, his ears
assailed by Manon's voice and passion.
He had known for some weeks now that she was in town, and he might
very well have looked her up. Yet he had hesitated even to find out
where she was living, had contented himself with the hope of meeting
her some day by chance in the street, in a concert hall, at the play.
Now Manon, behind the footlights, was laughing and loving, betraying
her friend in all innocence, weeping over her fault; and it seemed to
the young man that he, the third son of a reigning prince, was being
drawn into a magic circle wherein he himself, the adventuress on the
stage, and the woman over there in the box, were interconnected by
imponderable bonds....
In imagination he transferred the singer to the box and Diana to the
stage; instantly he felt the freedom and tempo, the love, passion,
and youth of Manon to be redoubled; it seemed to him that the
orchestra lagged behind the accelerated impetus of the singer....
The fanciful vision disappeared, to be replaced by memories....
Summer months enlivened with her laughter.... A morning when she had
wept the death of a friend.... Again he saw those same bronzed
features, blooming and fresh.... What strangers they were to one
another in spite of the many months of proximity ... not one moment
of intimacy during the whole time.... But he had thought of her a
great deal, and compared her, always compared her with other people
and other things....
The act was nearing its end. He crept noiselessly out of his box so
as not to make his cousin aware of his desertion, and when the lights
went up and the applause was at its height, he was already by Diana's
side.
She did not notice him for a second or two, and his delicacy forbade
his forcing himself upon her attention. Indeed, he was reluctant to
disturb the picture before him. Unheeding the commotion around her,
she sat leaning back in her chair, her elbow resting on the
upholstered ledge, her hand curved over ear and temple, her neck,
shoulders, and arm silhouetted against a background of lights. She
did not seem to belong to this time and to this modern opera house,
but must surely be some nymph of ancient days woefully astray!
The moment of ecstatic delight was over. She awoke from her trance,
turned round, and became aware of the prince's eyes upon her. Was he
intentionally assuming the same pose as on that morning when they had
bade farewell to one another? It seemed but yesterday. A shade
arose behind him, a shade belonging to the past, belonging to an
episode she had lived under his very eyes. With an effort, she
dismissed these ghosts of yesteryear, rose to greet him, and
stretched her long, virile hand towards him as he stood on the upper
step at the back of the box.
"Good evening, Your Highness," she said with formal simplicity.
The words fell on his ears like faraway strains of a violin; they
seemed the embodiment of a friendly reserve, of a chaste salutation,
as if he and she had certain rights and preferences in common. He
had taken her hand and was looking down at it as it lay in his;
following up the line of blue veins, his mind became a blank. He
forgot to kiss her hand as was the custom, and let it drop, while he
stammered somewhat incoherently:
"Thanks, thanks...."
Diana was puzzled. What had become of his habitual savoir-faire?
She had expected a witty phrase, a sparkling repartee. What on earth
was he thanking her for? She must rise to the occasion and help him
out of his embarrassment. Looking up at him with merry, challenging
eyes, she said softly:
"How would it be if you ventured the plunge? You are rather
high-perched up there!"
He smiled gratefully as he came down the shallow steps towards her.
"Not being successful in running you to earth anywhere else, I
thought I might draw the Manon covert!"
"How daintily you dish up your lies! You see, Scherer has told me
how long you've been in town."
"Still, for the moment it has the deliciously bitter-sweet flavour of
quince ice--or have I just invented the delicacy?"
"For Manon, Prince," she rejoined, taking her seat.
"The wish is there, but I have no hopes! Our worthy forefathers were
wont to go behind the scenes when their hearts were captured by the
fair. Elopement followed...."
"Mm," commented Diana, crossing her legs, and sticking her hand
behind her between the chair and her back in a very boyish attitude.
Her voice took on a cutting tone as of a fine whiplash. "She'd smell
of make-up, and would hurl a volley of abuse at the manager's head.
The stage is all very well for those who, having no courage in their
hearts, are willing to buy their dreams."
"And what about us?" asked Eduard incautiously. The words had hardly
passed his lips before he regretted having spoken so heedlessly.
Diana frowned, and drew her shawl round her shoulders. She appeared
to be withdrawing, isolating herself. That "us" seemed to her an
impertinence. Nevertheless, she would treat him indulgently because
he was obviously not himself tonight. So she retorted calmly:
"We? I have no idea how you live."
"Outwardly reasonable; inwardly a crusade," he growled.
"To Atlantis?" she queried mockingly.
"To the Holy Land, Mademoiselle."
Again she was nonplussed. Could this really be the man she had
known, the man who had always barricaded the approaches to his heart
with a thickset hedge of mockery? She opened her shawl a little at
the throat with a conciliatory gesture, and as she caught the look in
his eyes she suddenly realized what a terribly lonely man he was.
Then the thought flashed through her mind that perhaps her image had
been with him ever since the day they had parted, and that maybe all
he needed to give him back his customary self-possession was a
deliberate reference to the past, a thing she had so far avoided.
She made the plunge.
"I saw Countess Olivia recently."
"Is she in Berlin?"
"She has been here."
The mention of Olivia's name opened the sluices of memory for them
both. They relived those hours which they had experienced together.
It was as if some secret they had shared in common had been recalled,
sealing a friendship whose roots lay far back in wellnigh forgotten
events and tinting it with faintly erotic hues. Diana's thoughts
glanced over the twenty-five years of her life; the prince toyed with
notions which were a mixture of desire and irony.
Once more the house was filled with the shrill-voiced bell. Eduard
drew himself up as though he were a young officer, clapped his heels
smartly together, fixed his monocle into his left eye-socket, and
said with an affected twang:
"May I, with three compliments prolonged, as the son of a petty
caliph, ask you for your Mutabor, or, rather, your 'phone number, so
that I may make an appointment? And when may I have the pleasure...?"
"Always," she answered smartly.
But he felt that such a word falling from her lips was too vague; he
wanted her to be more precise.
"Always? Does that mean constantly?"
She laughed.
"Always means over and over again! But just now it means away with
you, for it will be dark in a minute and then you'll be a prisoner in
my cave, and here comes the magician already, knocking at the door."
Many years of training in the conventional civilities now all at once
had their way with the young man, and he remembered his obligations
to the lady awaiting him in the box opposite; the clockwork inside
him automatically set its pace to the tempo of his eighteenth-century
ancestors; and just as Diana, somewhat discomfited by his abrupt
change of manner, was expecting him to stay, he growled:
"My cousin is expecting me back; not safe for her to be alone in the
dark; some one might make advances from a neighbouring box, you
know...."
"Please go, then," she said airily, giving her attention to the stage.
He went without saying another word.
"The trees in the forest sing when they are swept by the wind,"
thought Diana. "When the prince play-acts he betrays himself, and he
is for ever play-acting. Then he is like those little negresses who
press their arms tightly over their breasts, for he is conscious of
the nakedness of his soul.... Why do we always try to hide the best
that is in us? ... Ah me, he should choose a little girl like that
cousin of his and lead her home to be his bride; it is such as she
should be mistress in the halls of his ancestors. That 'cello is
playing as if it were the voice of fate...."
The prince opposite was also dreaming.
"Freedom! And were she no more than the beautiful, gay, wise thing
she is, she'd be the very essence of freedom! ... Bronze, as if it
were still summer and we were in the south.... She is a lady of such
high breeding as might arouse the envy of my own folk who have taken
years to attain the miserable culture they possess.... Hold her!
Hold her, Eduard!"