Diana had gone straight home after her tableau. As she entered her
flat the maid told her that Doctor Franklin had been waiting to see
her for ten minutes or so.
The visit was not wholly welcome, for Diana had wished to be alone,
had wanted not to speak to anyone this evening. The tableau had had
for her a quasi-religious significance. For a moment, she had
embodied the semblance of the goddess whose name she bore, and she
had felt herself to be the handmaiden of her to whom she had
dedicated her life. She had hardly been conscious of all this until
that very morning when she had waked in her white bedroom and had
beheld the pale wintry sun shining through the window greeting her
like a herald from a southern clime. Then, in silence, she had
offered up a prayer to her namesake, as if in very truth the huntress
were a deity. While driving to the show, her mind had been wholly
concerned with practical affairs. She thought of the beautiful way
the draperies were to cling to her, of how she would hold Doreville
by the collar and constrain him to stillness; and on the homeward
journey she had been wondering if perhaps she had not lifted her
right heel a trifle too high.
"Are you hungry?" she asked Franklin, unable wholly to hide her
irritation. "Mary won't be long now. She is bringing Doreville
home."
"How splendidly he behaved."
"Could you see him breathing?"
"When I looked at the tableaux through my glasses it was easy to see
that all the figures were breathing, with one exception--you, my
child."
"I had lost the knack of holding my breath and have been practising
every day for the last week by holding my face under water in my
bath."
She took a cigarette from the box and threw herself just as she was,
in her dark walking dress, upon a low sofa. She looked pensive and
serious.
Franklin was in a mood of contemplation rather than of admiration,
and as he looked down on her reclining form he no longer saw her as
an individual but as a type. He followed in imagination the course
of the development of the eager girl she had been, to the beautiful
woman she was now; and, with the injustice habitual to mankind (which
is on the whole envious when it sees a beloved being on the way to a
fruitful expansion) he asked himself whether her experience of life
had not been bought too dear, whether the wandering and aimless
existence she led had not hindered the development of her inner self.
Only to his artist friends did he acknowledge the cleavage in his own
soul, torn as it was between the world of art and the world of
practical affairs; and, like all active idealists, he was inclined to
be intolerant when other idealists invaded his privacies.
"Is it really necessary," he said with a smile, "to learn diving if
one would be a goddess?"
She sat up. All that was combative in her nature was on the alert.
"Is it really necessary," she expostulated, "to visa passports in
order to be lord of the land of dreams?"
"One tries to keep the two things separate...."
Diana relaxed, and laid her head back among the cushions.
"For my part, my dear Franklin, I try to combine the two."
"You were very fine, Diana. Even the foot you were not putting your
weight on remained perfectly steady. Your breast and hair were in
keeping with works of the seventh or sixth century. You seemed to
belong to the classical world, for unfortunately you wear your hair
short."
"Yet the Sphinx is old. I think she is ages older," she retorted
pertly.
"Only the Sphinx happens to be a man, you know," he corrected, her
provocative manner have piqued him into assuming the rôle of teacher.
"You are awfully domineering tonight; whereas I feel..." She did not
finish her thoughts, but stretched her arms out sideways.
"A younger man's company would suit your mood better, I fancy."
She clasped her hands under her head and looked at him, a challenge
in her eyes.
"You seem to take me for an idiot or a cow...."
"Not at all; just a woman."
She became defiant.
"Mm, and yet, barely an hour ago, I was Diana immaculata striding
through the woods!"
"A statue which is very active on weekdays!"
"Like certain poets, Franklin."
"Precisely! Do you not realize that I am fighting against myself and
not against you, dear child?"
"My father is very different from you," she said, hoping to
discourage his paternal airs.
"Your father, like all mysteries, is a precious possession. For that
very reason he will never tell you genuine truths."
She did not stir, but put her next question squarely.
"What do you object to in my present way of living?"
He blew the smoke noisily through his lips and rejoined:
"I had hoped..."
At that moment the door opened and Countess Olivia entered,
accompanied by the dog.
Of all those who had been spectators at the entertainment and had
seen Diana's tableau, Olivia had been the most deeply stirred.
Filled with loving envy of Diana's youthful freedom, she had today
experienced an almost tragical intensity of delight which had urged
her to come and tell Diana of her affectionate gratitude for the
pleasure the tableau had given. So great had been her desire to
unburden herself that, contrary to her custom, she had hastened
hither instantly in spite of the late hour. She had met Mary and the
dog as she was waiting for her car and had offered to give them both
a lift. The faithful old soul had assured her she would find Diana
alone and had again as the car drew up before Diana's door, urgently
requested her to drop in for a moment. Now the countess stood
motionless and aghast on the threshold. Her hand loosed its hold on
the dog's collar, whereupon Doreville precipitated himself upon his
mistress, displaying so stormy a delight at finding her again as to
prevent her rising to receive her visitor.
Franklin, too, was taken aback by the countess's intrusion, and his
chilly aspect added to the lady's discomfiture. Diana's mood,
however, was considerably enlivened by the new turn of affairs. She
did not speak immediately, but while trying to calm the dog's
demonstrations of joy, lay thinking:
"How quickly people are made to suffer when they over-step the
conventions. The countess has to pay for it because she comes to
visit me at an unusual hour; and Franklin is punished for his
contrariety by the inopportune appearance of this blond beauty."
She smiled at Olivia, saying:
"I am so pleased that you should have brought him and not someone
else. He did splendidly, didn't he? He has earned his supper, and
we'll give him the bone I promised if he were good. Mary! Please
bring in tea for us all.--You must be perishing with cold; or did I
suffer alone because of my scanty raiment? Huntress goddesses must
wear furs here in Prussia if they are to enjoy the chase!--Do take
this yellow chair, it goes so well with your dress. That blue
reminds me of the southern seas."
"Your tableau was very beautiful," said Olivia gravely. Her velvety
voice made Diana think of the lap of the waters among the rocks at
the foot of the countess's Dalmatian home, away there in the
Adriatic, the ancestral castle of ancient story.
"Thank you," she answered no less gravely, looking affectionately at
Olivia. Then, in lighter voice: "You are the first among all those
who saw my tableau to tell me that. For the poet here has only had
time to criticize my way of wearing my hair. I like long hair in
others, but not for myself."
The tea-tray was now brought in. A bone for the dog too, and
Doreville was put through his paces before being given his reward for
his good behaviour. There were questions of sugar, of cream, of rum,
and all the other byplay relating to the comfort of her guests. Yet
the atmosphere remained charged, and not one of the three felt at
ease.
Diana's thoughts ran: "Why could they not have left me to myself? I
wonder whether she came on Sidney's account?"
Olivia mused: "She is more racy than Sidney. I wish I were a man so
that I could be her lover. What does that old bachelor want from me?"
Franklin was thinking: "Those two women are a living poem. There
they sit opposite one another and I am hard put to it, as I am with
Titian's picture, to decide which represents sacred love and which
profane."
They simultaneously broke the silence which had encompassed them, and
their voices seemed to them to come from infinite distance.
"Was the hall full?"
"Not a free seat to be seen."
"They must have done well for their charity."
But Diana as she spoke was thinking: "I wonder if Franklin is her
lover? Their voices go so well together."