Diana read the Bombay agent's letter a second time, slowly,
thoughtfully, for the roundabout method of expression the writer had
chosen seemed to her most un-English. She wondered if he could be
concealing something. Was he trying to ingratiate himself with
Scherer, who had big schemes on hand and needed a trustworthy
correspondent on the spot, or did he mean by these references of his
to "competing plans" to get as much private information as possible
from headquarters at Berlin in order to use his knowledge against the
firm in the sequel? Such ambiguity in business affairs was not at
all to her liking. She must satisfy her mind as to what kind of
person this Englishman might be. Opening the index cabinet she
selected the man's previous correspondence and stood reading his
letters at the window.
Thus it was that Scherer found her, silhouetted against the pale
light reflected up from the snow, her face in profile, her dark
tailor-made gown contrasting with the white walls of the office. He,
too, held a sheet of paper in his hand, and, as he stood for a moment
on the threshold, he realized anew the amazing productivity of an
association such as theirs. They acted and reacted upon one another,
a genuine camaraderie in which the erotic element seemed to have been
entirely eliminated.
"Well," she said, not moving from her place. "Am I disturbing you?"
Neither seemed eager to broach the subject of their thoughts. It was
not in Scherer's nature to play the chief with his employee by
suddenly intruding with a question of his own into the realm of her
activity. She, too, was cautious enough not to endanger her position
by imparting needless details of information. So, this morning, as
was their custom in these daily encounters of theirs, they stood
looking at one another in silence, almost like two opponents. The
woman was the first to yield. She smiled, dropped the hand which
held the letter to her side, and looked at her employer with a
mischievous twinkle in her eye. The man always enjoyed these subtle
duels of the will, which were fought out in mid air. At last he drew
nearer, and, pointing to the paper in his hand, asked:
"Do you happen to remember a certain Said Bey, the timekeeper on the
Anatolian railway?"
"Of course. But first you must tell me whether this Henry S. Jackson
in Bombay..."
"Who on earth is he?"
"Your future information agent in India. Can one offer the man a
higher wage?"
"Why?"
"His references are good, and he seems to be coquetting with your
rivals."
"With our rivals?"
"Yes, with yours," she affirmed, for she was ever careful to make it
clear that she was no part of the firm, and would therefore never
acquiesce in the use of "our" and "we." Scherer was very well aware
of her sensitiveness in the matter, and, in order to change the
topic, said he would look into the case. He had not come here merely
for a talk, though he had used Said Bey as a stalking horse. His
respect for her time and intelligence forbade his interrupting her
work unnecessarily; but today he had something urgent to discuss, and
he was at a loss how to begin. Happily the telephone bell came to
the rescue.
"Yes," Diana was saying, "This is she speaking." He guessed at once
by her smile and the little exclamations she threw in here and there
that the call was a private one, and was making to retire when Diana
signed to him to stay. "All right, come Saturday," she cried,
hanging the receiver up. Then, turning to Scherer: "It was only
Prince Eduard!"
"Ah, I met him last night at Mühlwerth's," said he, going over to the
window. He wanted Diana to face the light so that he might see what
she was feeling. But she guessed what underlay the manœuvre, and
stayed quietly where she was with her back to the light.
"You meet him occasionally?"
"He's been back a couple of weeks."
"And as tall and lanky as ever! He suddenly appeared in my box at
the opera the other night--like Hamlet's ghost."
Scherer was none the wiser after this exchange, for Diana was
completely mistress of the situation and her words flowed smoothly
and easily. He knew that she had met the prince in the Balkans, and
it was no feeling of jealousy which prompted him. All he wanted was
to keep a friendly eye on her. She knew his motives, and, not
wishing to disturb her friend's quiet confidence in her, she indulged
this fancy of his. But he was never tired of putting her to the
test, of studying her reactions, so now he said:
"By the way there was a stranger in the company, who stood out from
among the other guests on account of his sunburn and his leanness. I
can't help fancying you would have taken to him, although he's a bit
grizzled. It was Franklin, the poet, consul, explorer."
"Is Franklin here?" she exclaimed with lively interest.
"Do you know him?"
"He's the man with the beautiful speaking voice with whom I studied
Phœnician glass as a girl in the British Museum, a pupil of my
father's. Didn't I ever tell you?"
At such moments he envied her the wealth of her experience, feeling
that his own eminently successful career had been too even, too
commonplace, too ordinary. Diana, on the contrary, realized how
solitary she was. Her employer belonged to a circle of society in
which he could meet the Franklins and Prince Eduards at parties and
receptions from which she was debarred. She had no social status, no
world at her back. True, she was free; but she had no roots
anywhere; today here, tomorrow somewhere else, in fresh climes, among
new strata of society. Little did either know that each was thus
occupied with much the same kind of thoughts.
"Your well is a deep one," he said at last. "Always some fresh
surprise is brought up in the bucket!"
She laughed:
"And there you sit on the window sill and imagine I'm going to allow
you to fish up whatever you please!"
"Have I ever pried into your affairs?"
"I have always found you the pink of propriety, Herr Scherer."
He thought: "The pity of it! There seems to be a wall between us, a
glass wall...."
While she was thinking: "A pity; he is so good, if I had a sister I
could not wish her to have a nicer lover. He's a queer fellow.
Never a woman in his life...."
She became aware that he was asking politely:
"Would you care to meet Herr Franklin again?"
"Very kind of you, but he'll probably come and look me up of his own
accord. How would you like to meet him at my house?"
She had put the question nonchalantly, but Scherer, who was beginning
to know her fairly well, detected an undertone of pride in the way
she had countered his civility, which placed her on a social level
with himself. These mute contests, wherein she sought to rob the man
of the world of the advantages he had over a free nature such as
hers, were always a delight to Scherer. They had precisely the
stimulating effect Diana wished them to have, for from the very first
day of their acquaintance she had realized how fruitful her influence
might be upon this well-balanced temperament and upon the whole tenor
of his purposeful life. Diana acted thus like a ferment upon all who
came in contact with her.
Meanwhile the question and counter-question remained unanswered.
Seeing Scherer once more cast his eyes on the paper he held, Diana
now stepped across to where he stood and said:
"This man, Said Bey, you were asking about, was time-keeper on the
railway when I was down there. He led a typically oriental life at
Konia, doing absolutely nothing. He was said to be a person of a
pious frame of mind, hatching conspiracies with the French consul
whose wife was a friend of his...." She was kneeling with one knee
on a chair as she spoke, and was see-sawing to and fro. He barely
heard what she was saying. His eyes and his thoughts were engrossed
in her, hovering between her delicate lips that spoke so calmly and
so precisely, and the finely chiselled framework of her body which
was brought into relief by the swaying movement of the chair.
An hour later Diana was making her way through the forsaken
Tiergarten. Hoar-frost was still upon the trees which spread their
boughs aloft in the bluish-white winter sky. Crystalline and airy,
motionless but not rigid, they seemed to be caressed by a spirit's
breath, a spirit that simultaneously liberated and bound captive;
they were sweet and fresh, delivered from the wintry blasts and from
their burden of snow, and looked like the product of an uncanny,
leafless spring sending forth countless white blossoms. Diana, light
of foot and of heart, as cheerful and cold as this enchanted woodland
under the pale midday sun, went on her way, smiling to herself. A
tiny breeze passed among the branches overhead, scattering a few of
the eerie blossoms. Her mood was such that she could not resist the
joy of running against the very next tree and shaking it so
vigorously that a shower of hoar-frost fell on her, covering her dark
clothes with a sprinkle of white. She looked up, like a child,
opened her mouth, and tried to catch some of the drops. Then, as she
was slapping her cap free, she became aware that she was not alone.
Three paces away, leaning on a stick, a man was quietly observing her.
"Oh--have you been here long? How d'you do--how d'you do, Wilhelm!"
A fair young man, long-limbed, and with large eyes that gazed
wonderingly on to the world, stood before her. He looked a trifle
gawky in his big ulster and wide hat, was evidently shy, had a sad
smile, and made no attempt to come nearer as he answered:
"Well, you see I thought perhaps you might be coming through the
Tiergarten, and we might meet one another, and so I just came on the
chance."
"Come along, we'd better keep on the move or we'll get cold," she
said crisply, setting out in quick-march style. "Come on, come on,"
she teased, beginning to run, "otherwise we'll start dreaming!"
"The wood is dreaming already. What can you do to prevent it?"
He, too, quickened his pace until he was near enough to slip the
crook of his walking stick into the belt of her coat and hold her
back. Now he became more active and while she pulled and he held
firm, he took her hand and pleaded:
"Nice, soft gloves. Do they fit so tight that...?"
"Frozen to my hands," she cried freeing both her hand from his grasp
and her belt from his stick. "Fancy giving way to such sentimental
wishes in the midst of sunshine and frost!--Well, what have you been
doing all this while?"
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing, as usual," he said, dropping into step
at her side. "But last night I saw the most beautiful lute I've ever
seen in my life, or, let us say, the second most beautiful, almost as
lovely as the one from Pieve di Cadore."
"Tell me all about it. Is it old?"
"Old? Did Luther not flourish somewhere about the seventeenth
century? Or was it Old Fritz? You know such a lot. Well, it's a
theorbo--about so big, like a bronze covered with patina, its belly
like--do you remember that three-cornered seed of some Indian fruit
you once showed me?--its belly is like that, and it has a full, rich
tone, that has nevertheless a tartness which reminds me of that
Burgundy I told you about, and..."
"Is it dear?"
"The price of a castle! Absolutely out of the question even for such
a person as yourself--perhaps, if he were very economical for a year,
a man in Scherer's position might be able to afford it...."
"Where may it be seen?"
"At my own pet curio-dealer's of course, in the Wilhelm Strasse,
where we found those blue Schumann cups, which you gave away after
all, and not even to me!"
"What amazing creatures these poets are, to be sure," thought Diana.
Last night, at the upper end of the Wilhelm Strasse, dear old
Franklin, evening dress and all complete, was one of a company at a
ministerial reception, taking a look at the new political world,
while at the lower end of the same street Wilhelm was nosing around
among dusty lutes--"and yet both are at one and the same time the
masters and the servants of their fantasies."
"I tell you what," she said after a pause, "I'll ask you to my house
one of these days to meet a man who's just home from Africa. He's a
poet, like yourself."
"He'll have some fine tales to tell! Where is he staying? I should
love to look him up. Camels! And nigger girls with small, firm
breasts! And the native dances! Oh, and, of course, elephants! I
should like to go. And what about you?"
"I'd like to harness the pair of you together, give you rein, and let
you gallop awhile through the world with me," she cried merrily,
shaking a young tree so that he was powdered with frost.
"Diana! You are shaking away their dreams," protested Wilhelm,
mopping the damp from his neck.
"I wish I could shake you too, so that one would rise higher and the
other fall lower. Don't you understand?"
She kicked the herbage impatiently with the point of her shoe, as he
cried half reproachfully:
"Do you mean in the world?"
"No, in the Wilhelm Strasse!"
Now both of them laughed.