Diana

CHAPTER SEVEN

They had started early, for it would be impossible to do anything but lie off in the hours from eleven to three. In this part of the world, few persons made such excursions in July. One day was amply sufficient to reach the temple, and they wanted to enjoy the road and the vistas and viewpoints in the cool of the morning. The ride was, therefore, divided into two five-hour spells: one in the forenoon, the other in the evening hours. Gregor and Diana had taken the lead at first. But the guide persistently encroached upon their duologue, expatiating upon his splendid qualities in an amazing mishmash of languages. This disconcerted the pair, who by degrees allowed the others to overtake them while they dropped to the rear.

The party had swelled to become a veritable caravan, for since the tents and provisions for two days had been packed upon horses, the six westerners required twelve orientals to act as grooms, servants, and guides.

On the previous evening, Captain Kopp had arrived from Berlin to take up his duties as naval attaché, the post having been vacant for several weeks. He immediately presented himself to pay his respects to the ambassador and his wife and to report for duty. His hosts were equally nonplussed, and both cudgelled their brains for a means of ridding themselves of the unwelcome guest. The count felt he could not leave him with Eckersberg in charge at the embassy, for though as military and naval attachés they would naturally be antagonistic, their mutual distrust of "diplomats" would make them allies in this field. First impressions are so important.... If, on the other hand, Kopp came with the party to see the temple, an extra pair of observant eyes would be following every incident.... The countess was thinking: Here is a man who takes his work seriously; he'll plunge into his job without delay so that, after the manner of his kind, when his chief gets back he will be able to say: "I've quite got the hang of things, Your Excellency." They had once before had a man like that, who had often not left his office till late at night, and she was determined that this particular evening there should be no one about to spy upon her. Thus it was that, when the subject of the morrow's excursion came up for discussion, at the dinner table, she turned amiably to the newcomer, and said:

"Of course you will join the party, Captain Kopp? It will give you a chance at the outset of making acquaintance with the interior, and that is not always easy to manage in the height of summer."

"I should be delighted, if His Excellency will not mind my coming..."

Gregor, who had penetrated his wife's manœuvre, glanced at her now across the table. She looked the picture of innocence, but he knew this mood of assumed tranquillity just as well as all her other ruses. He felt obliged to say something:

"A pleasure I assure you, if you feel that so soon after your long journey... It is hard on those not accustomed to the climate...."

"If you have no objection, Sir, I'd like to come."

When their guest had gone, the count turned to his wife, asking indifferently:

"How do you propose spending the next two days?"

"I hardly know."

"Paying calls?"

"No!"

"Expecting any one?"

"Nobody particular. Perhaps I shall ask young Seeland to look in."

"Alone?"

She raised her heavy head. She had hitherto been attentive and watchful, trying to find out if he had any suspicions. Now, however, she said very calmly:

"Of course, if I invite him he'll come alone. You know how much I dislike having more than one guest at a time. Have you any objection?"

"Good-night, Olivia."

"Good-night."

The baroness had at the outset taken possession of Captain Kopp, and all had gone well until she tried to pump him for news of what was going on at the Admiralty. Then, without obvious discourtesy, he drew the Levantine guide into the conversation, plying him with questions which the man was only too eager to answer. This suited the captain, who had joined the party simply in order to learn.

The prince, who had a smattering of the language, liked to gossip with camel drivers, fruit venders, and dragomans. Today, likewise, he would have been better entertained in converse with the horse drivers, but he had first of all to devote himself to the baron, who wished to discuss international politics.

Gregor observed him from the rear and said to Diana:

"Just look at our long-legged prince. What a picture of misery he is on his little Anatolian mount. His feet almost touch the ground. From here he might well pass for Don Quixote—but then Linnartz would have to be promoted to the rôle of Sancho Panza!"

It was eight o'clock. There were two good hours of cool before they need stop; the sun was considerate and the dust not unbearable. The parched, grey steppe stretched away into endless distance, and the low range of hills where they planned to camp that night looked quite unattainable. Diana had discarded the skirt which she had donned to ride through the town, and was now in khaki breeches and jacket, with leggings to the knee. There was nothing to distinguish her as a woman save the soft white-silk collar which peeped above the loose coat. She looked like a boy of sixteen whose parents, in the fondness of their hearts, had not yet had the courage to clip his curls. As always when exploring an unknown countryside, Diana was silent for a while. Those camels on the sky-line looked like some primeval phantasmagoria emerging from the dust-laden air. Then, alert and observant, she plied her companion with questions. While answering her, the count dropped half a length behind, and it seemed to him as he looked at her that he was riding alongside his own son, eager to know. He dwelt for a moment very pleasantly in this vision.

The ironical words he had indulged in anent the prince and the baron were the first he had uttered of a personal nature. Even now she was loath to be distracted from her contemplation of the landscape, which, far from appearing monotonous, seemed filled with strange and wonderful things. It was, therefore, with an effort that she responded to his gayer mood.

"As far as misanthropical outlooks are concerned, our prince would fit the part well, but he is too strongly disillusioned to be a genuine Don Quixote. As for the baron, to turn him into a faithful servitor..."

"You dislike him even more than I, it would appear, and perhaps..."

"Perhaps my dislike for him is greater than his for me? I'll wager he's started intriguing against me already."

"Hardly. But I fancy he must have met you before."

Diana pulled up and forced the count to come alongside.

"Well?" she asked.

"Let me see—was it St. Petersburg he said?"

"He told you—he...?" Diana's tone was so strange that Gregor pricked up his ears.

"Has he any reason to—if I may ask...?"

"Baron Linnartz has dared to..." said Diana, suddenly imitating the shrill manner of an indignant dowager. But Gregor guessed that her merry parody hid real mortification, and he felt incensed against the man who had caused it by such preposterous warnings against her. When next he spoke there was a note of resolution in his voice.

"Would it be too much to ask you for an explanation?"

She evaded the issue by laughing gaily, and setting spurs to her mount.

The little Anatolian horse had been longing for a gallop over the steppe, and eagerly responded to her mood. With curls dancing in the breeze of her own going, she flew past the baroness and Kopp, flew past the prince, the guide, and her personal enemy. Abdul, electrified by this sudden departure, careered at her side, his black ears flapping, his white hindpaws seeming to be several seconds in advance of their dark brothers in front. He sped like a swarthy cloud over the arid plain. For a moment the suddenness of her flight took Gregor so much by surprise that he could only gaze after her, thinking that she looked like a wild creature gone mad with love, or an amazon raging to the attack. Then he, too, set spurs to his horse and galloped after her. The company grew uneasy.

"The count seems to be having a little private racing party on his own," said the baron, who was a poor horseman at the best of times.

"She has a fine seat," murmured the prince emphatically.

"Amazing," observed the captain.

"Yes, she rides well," added the baroness. "One might think one were in a circus. I mean..."

Diana sped onwards, with half-closed eyes, unconscious of everything except the swiftness of her flight and the hound at her side. When at last the count overtook her, she laughed back at him, crying through the dust and whirl raised by their movements, like some uncanny sprite of the wilderness:

"Hello, Count Münsterberg! Hic et ubique! Small horses, but full of fire! A whip! If only I had a whip!"

He tried to pass his to her, but she merely laughed and motioned it away:

"Not now. Then!"

Her horse leapt forward again, and she said no more, though from time to time Abdul's name dropped from her lips.

Gregor was a changed being. As he galloped he forgot the conversation which had immediately preceded the mad ride; and therefore the word "then" she flung at him about the whip was the more puzzling. No matter! His youth rose once more within him with all its madness. It was as if thirty years had fallen away, and he was once more pursuing that woman on horseback—were they not riding through an English park?—who had galloped before him, throwing him words of love over her shoulder. Then, the lady's habit had flapped against the horse's flank, and from under the brim of her stiff hat two grey eyes had peered out, the eyes of a mature and passionate woman. Memories crowded upon him, the wild career to the very door of the house, the dash up the stairs, the tearing off of her riding habit, ten minutes' frenzy, away again, somebody catching sight of him, the challenge, two shots, the husband wounded...

"Am I indeed younger? Has this young amazon, luring me on through the dust and over the steppe, has she gifts to give me such as those of that older woman? I would like to—I will..."

Suddenly Diana's horse shied; it reared, and for a moment things looked nasty. The count sprang to her side.

"Diana," he cried, seizing the rein and pacifying the little animal. As they continued on their way, jogging along at an easy trot, Gregor was a little perturbed at having unintentionally called her by name, and felt distinctly embarrassed as he said:

"What a splendid horsewoman you are! I believe—I do hope you'll forgive me—but you have such a lovely name. How do you like mine?"

"Gregor," whispered she, and he felt happy at the thought that perhaps her lips had already framed the syllables in secret. "Gregor," she repeated, crisply this time, with a glance in his direction. "Something untamed and yet serious—maybe it suits you well these days—— Forgive me my escapade, Count."

Like all men whose conquests have been easily achieved, Gregor was full of hopes. The fact that she had spoken his name was sufficient to confirm him in the belief that she had a liking for him. He pressed closer, so that the horses' flanks were actually in contact, and asked:

"Why don't you call me Gregor again—Diana?"

"Because we are no longer flying over the steppe."

"When shall we fly again?"

"Nikt nie wie."

"What does that mean?"

"It's Polish for: No one knows."

With the neat movement of a jockey, she turned in her saddle and called to the others, though they lagged too far behind to hear her words:

"Come on! Can't any of you ride? Is he the only one who can ride?"

Then she said abruptly, with a twinkle in her eyes:

"That reminds me. Baron Linnartz, St. Petersburg, Grand Hotel. I owe you an explanation. Well, here goes! Some one with an aggressively scrubby moustache keeps his eyes on me morning, noon, and night, for a whole fortnight. Tries every method of approach. Then one evening I come from the drawing-room, it's very late, I get into the lift—the baron! I'd noticed him doing sentry-go as it were for hours down below. He does not get out at his floor but at mine. Follows me along the passage to my room. I open the door, enter, and turn to close it again. Suddenly someone springs forward, comes right into the room, seizes hold of me, throws me on to the sofa. It takes me several seconds before I can get my teeth into his hand. A bite, he kisses, lets go. I am still lying under him, but I get one hand free, then the other. I grip him by the throat, so!—When his face was blue and he began to gasp, I released him. I had no whip. He slunk away.—Since then I never go about alone without this little fellow." She drew a small revolver from her pocket, then in a loud voice she exclaimed: "And that's the man, Count Münsterberg, who is doing his best to discredit you at headquarters!"

Gregor quickly surveyed the situation. It placed the baron in a new light, for the count never doubted the truth of the St. Petersburg incident. He was more deeply than ever intrigued by the many-sided personality of his companion. This was now the sixth time they had seen each other, and at each encounter she had presented herself in a different guise. How coolly she had related the unpleasant adventure! And those last words, the way she had referred to headquarters—only a person well versed in politics could have put all the implications she had into that brief assertion. She seemed disposed to be silent now, turned her horse about, and slowly rode back to rejoin the others.

"Who won?" cried the prince as they drew near. "Abdul seems to have doubled the parts of starter and judge!"

"Mademoiselle, of course; she won by I don't know how many lengths," said Gregor beaming at the prince. He was specially grateful that Diana's escapade should have been so deftly handled and its apparent hoydenishness masked by a well-turned joke.

They pitched their camp at noon beneath a cluster of tall eucalyptus trees which were distinguishable from the all-pervading grey of the surrounding vegetation only by their height and by the rustling of their long, thick leaves. Otherwise everything seemed to consist of sand and dust. The midday heat shimmered over the steppe; far away on the horizon, faint, undulating lines were dimly visible. Could they be hills? A few clay walls spoke of scattered villages nestling among sparse clumps of trees. Grey horses and drab camels browsed in countless numbers on the parched herbage, or stalked in long processions like ghosts across the waste.

The guide had hoped to find a spring at this spot, where he could water the horses. But there proved to be too little flow, and the beasts had to be taken farther afield. The human travellers, however, fared well, for they had brought every imaginable thing with them, not forgetting the most important item of all: ice. The cloth was spread in the marquee, and the food was appetizing. But the heat was too oppressive for much talk; indeed, at this moment they were all wishing they had not set forth on the excursion.

Diana had donned her skirt again, and was on her best behaviour, demure, and endeavouring in every way to fall in with the baroness's humour. Both Gregor and the prince were puzzled as to what she was thinking about. "I wonder whether the recalling of that incident has upset her," mused the count, "or whether the presence of the baron is making her reserved?" When the meal was over, each one sought relaxation, some in sleep, others in quiet talk. Kopp came over to Diana and sat beside her, puffing away at his cigarette.

"I say, I'd give anything to ride like that," he began.

She laughed, trying to turn the matter off.

"I expect you won a prize or two in Kiel?"

"Yes, a few. I bet you know how to sail a boat."

"I'm fond of the sea."

"Been far afield?"

"Fairly."

"Indian Ocean?"

"No. The Atlantic."

"Some day you must go sailing in the Indian Ocean. That's the finest of them all."

"Tell me about it."

Diana was a good listener as well as an eager questioner, so Kopp began to tell his story, haltingly at first, in fragmentary fashion, like others of the seafaring confraternity. And all the while she was listening, her thoughts travelled vaguely to and fro. "Here I lie in a tent on an eastern steppe, and this seafarer is telling me of shellfish and pearls, of sharks and torches, while over there sits the count discussing business matters with the baron, hate in his heart, hated in his turn by Linnartz, and thinking of me by name. Did he not call me by my name as if I were a friend of long standing, as if he wished to guard me, and yet with the pertness of a boy? Nikt nie wie!"

The count liked Captain Kopp. True, he had found the newcomer's bald bullet head rather comical at first, but it did not take the count long to detect the man's sterling worth. When they broke camp in the cool of the afternoon, he made a point of riding next his naval attaché.

"Have you had an opportunity for a talk with any of our people lately, Captain?" he asked. "Seen the foreign secretary, for instance?"

"About three weeks ago. Dinner together at the club. Hardly had a word with him."

"He's said to be very pessimistic, eh?"

"I fancy he is. Some one who had just been having a long talk with him said he saw everything through grey spectacles. Herr Scherer it was who made the remark."

"Ah, yes. I know."

"A most interesting man, that."

"I feel sure he is.—What does Herr Scherer think about the situation here?"

"Scherer has absolute confidence in what Your Excellency does."

As a rule the count disliked compliments; he knew too well their insincerity, especially when paid to a man in his position. But this captain with the bullet head was so simple and so obviously sincere; Münsterberg could only be interested.

"Did Scherer say that?" he asked.

"Yes, he did."

The three words were spoken with the deliberation of a man who knew how much worth his interlocutor would place upon them. Gregor was satisfied. He broke off his talk with the captain in order to rejoin Diana who was riding with the baroness. The younger woman had been making vain attempts to draw the lady out. As the count came alongside, he said:

"Have you ever made a study of archæology?"

"Oh no, I'm only an amateur."

"That's much the pleasantest way of getting to know things," commented the baroness with a note of hostility in her voice. "When one is free to travel about the world—to study the world..."

"Yes, travelling is a good master," interrupted Diana, controlling an impulse to retaliate, and speaking in quiet, conventional tones.

"But somewhat exhausting," said Gregor.

He and Diana trotted forward alone.

"So you have known Scherer some time," he said after a pause.

"Not long."

"Is he interested in artistic matters also?"

"He is a thinker."

Her answer disquieted Gregor. Somehow he felt she was making comparisons, and his pride forbade him to accept a subordinate place in the estimation of such a woman as Diana.

"How do you make that out...?"

She guessed that he was piqued, and answered soothingly:

"Surely his way of looking at the world is enough to prove it."

"Yes; but suppose some one has, by devoting his whole life, chary of words but prolific in deeds, by his decisions and his enterprise, supposing such a one, too, has built up a world...?"

"He'd just be a good business man," retaliated Diana, "and Herr Scherer is that in addition to all his other qualities."

Gregor was not satisfied. He rode on for a while rather moodily, and then resumed:

"Which sort do you prefer?"

"So much depends on the time and the place, upon the wind, and the stars...."

"Let us say: Today!"

"Today I am thinking of the better rider," laughed Diana.

The steppe had cooled down, and riding was pleasant now. At certain spots where water was abundant, the evergreen plants looked fresh, and their stunted forms peeped through the trees and the stones. There were tiny ilexes and myrtles; even a laurel here and there. The shadows of the trees were lengthening over the plain, and the hills seemed within a hopeful distance. Every one felt that the worst part of the journey was over, that the reward of their efforts was at hand, and that tomorrow's return to the town overlooking the water would be easy. Soon after six, when the sun was sinking and the plain was taking on a myriad new and glowing hues, when the fresh breeze came from the hills, the spirits of the company rose, and conversation flowed once more. They spoke sceptically of the prospects of sleep under canvas that night; they sentimentalized about the temple. Kopp said:

"I've been told that this place is red with poppies in April."

"But it is only at this time of the year that you find the place so exquisitely covered with dust that it looks one vast uniform mass," added the prince. "Only now! I could ride for weeks on end through this dusty steppe; heat and dust are such admirable adjuncts to muddy thinking."

"You are pleased to be paradoxical," protested the baroness. "Everything in this country is far more poetical in April."

"I am the enemy of all that smacks of poetry, Baroness; still more do I hate the romantic. I'm thinking of starting an insurance scheme to protect the world against falsification of nature by means of moonrises, stars, colours, and the like."

Diana laughed heartily; the baroness tried to giggle, but the dust had dried her throat and her effort was futile. Gregor was busily going this way and that in search of a good camping ground. Nor would he allow his three attachés to help him. Then he made them all turn back a little way, and finally gave them leave to dismount. There was a bustle of preparation, the horses were unsaddled and watered, the tents were pitched. The count was suddenly pensive. After a while he called out:

"There are four; that's fine!"

To which the baroness made reply:

"Yes, splendid. One for you, one for the prince, one for us two women, and the fourth will be shared by the captain and my husband."

"Pas du tout, Madame," the count was quick to interpose, for he had expected the baroness to suggest such an arrangement. "I could never forgive myself if two married folk like you and my dear Linnartz were divorced from one another's arms even for one night. You and your husband must have the large tent; the other big one must be shared by the prince and the captain—if they don't mind sleeping together? Otherwise, I shall be delighted to berth with one or the other."

"Of course, of course," chimed in the two men with one voice.

"Very well; and I'll have the little one to myself." He stopped abruptly, for he was loath to couple Diana's name with his own. But the prince, realizing what was in his chief's mind, added with a spice of malice:

"What about the fourth? Ah, yes, of course, I'm so sorry, of course that will be for Fräulein de Wassilko."

For an hour past Gregor had been making his plans, and had chosen a site that suited them admirably. It was a narrow strip of level, lying in a semicircle intersected by mounds which cut the camp up into sections. He contrived to have his tent pitched at the lower end, then the other small one. The horses were to be littered down next this, separating them from the two large tents at the other end of the passage. But when the work was done and they came to inspect it, he assumed a wrath he was far from feeling:

"What's this!" he exclaimed. "Those two little tents have been put up in the place where I had ordered the big tent to be pitched. We'll have to start over again. What a nuisance! Oh, well, perhaps we can manage after all. Or shall I get them changed?"

"Capital as they are," some one exclaimed.

They ate their supper on the slope of a hill, and watched the daylight fade while the moon rose. Diana was very quiet, almost one might say absent-minded. She ran her fingers through the herbage, picked the twigs from off her rug, whispered to the night-birds and the beasts that came shyly peering round the rocks, stroked the long velvety ears of the greyhound. They all sought their tents while the night was young, for they wished to be afoot before sunrise. Gregor called for a bowl of water, then sent the man away to sleep. He himself kept vigil. Should he venture? Was he really more than twenty-five? Was he his own son? He felt so young and could think of nothing but the moment when she had uttered his name as she flew over the steppe: "Gregor!"

Diana had closed her tent in order to discard her habit and slip into a cool, silk kimono. Now she flung back the flap and sat on the ground at the mouth of the tent in the crouching attitude of a gypsy. She slowly rolled back her wide sleeves, thinking the while: "How well this orange-coloured silk matches the tent and the steppe." As her gaze travelled to the sky and over the moon-shriven land, she had hardly a thought in her head. Then, suddenly, she was musing again: "How otherwise account for all these preparations? ... Can a woman ever truly know the man who desires her without first giving him what he wants? ... He has a finely turned leg, and there's a look of youth in his blue eyes, and he rides as well as I, better than any man I've known since Bogdanoff, the maddest of lovers.... Of one thing at least I am certain: grey locks make a stronger appeal to me this night than any fair head could...."

Gregor made a tour of the camp before turning in. He took mental note of where each tent stood. Then he secured Abdul to a tree at the farther end of the camp, bidding him lie down and be quiet. Slowly he returned to his tent. He waited. One by one the lights were extinguished, silence brooded over the land, only the horses, rubbing their heads together, made a soft, velvety sound. Diana's tent was dark. Was she sitting within, dreaming? Or was she waiting—for him? Had she not once spoken words of condemnation against women who were "prim and prudish"? Was she unaware of the effect such words would have upon a man of his temperament? There had been no preliminary skirmishes. Everything would depend on the success of one single move. He had to take a risk such as, owing to his position, he had not ventured for at least twenty years—or was it only fifteen since he had given chase to the beautiful Beata...?

This last memory stirred the fires of his imagination. He rose and stood for a while at the mouth of the tent, listening. As if the better to hear, he raised himself on the tips of his toes. Then he fastened his tent from without, and crept softly towards the spot where her tent reared its point into the night sky. Two resolute strides brought him to the entry. He seized the tapes and secured the flap behind him. He was inside.

CHAPTER EIGHT

At the very hour when Gregor entered Diana's moonlit tent, the countess sat at dinner with Andreas.

The small marble table at which they were dining was in a remote corner of the garden, and the old butler who served them shook his head patiently over this new whim of his mistress. Since the nook the countess had chosen was so small as not to admit of a sideboard of any kind, the man had to make the best of an ivy-clad stump whereon to place his dishes. In the end, he had contrived everything in so tasteful and charming a way, that when Olivia led her guest into the enclosure through an archway cut in the hedge, she smiled her gratitude and appreciation to her faithful servitor. In her own peculiar and anarchistic way she was always more courteous and considerate to her servants than it was customary for women in her station to be. Consequently she was, as a mistress, at once more respected and more often cheated than most. As soon as the dessert had been placed on the table, she made a sign to the butler, who promptly disappeared within doors. As soon as he had gone, she said:

"You are worried about something."

"Yes."

"What has happened?"

"Othello, I've lost him."

"What, the Great Dane you told me about and have always refused to bring to see me?"

"Today I did bring him. It's the first time for pretty well a fortnight that I've taken him for a walk through the town. I've usually let him out for a run in the hotel park. Well, we got here at eight. In the vestibule, Othello began snuffing around. I told him to lie down and wait while I went into the office to see if there were any letters for me—you know I'm having all my correspondence sent here because I can't stand the idea of every letter being mauled about and examined by my worthy Austrian compatriots. I'd hardly been absent three minutes, yet when I came back Othello was nowhere to be seen. In all the four years since we have lived together the dog has never given me the slip before."

"Have you any idea as to where he may have gone?"

Andreas did not answer, and she had a shrewd suspicion that he guessed the dog's whereabouts. She had all along been wondering why Andreas was so set against bringing Othello to see her, and guessed that the dog was associated in his mind with some poignant memory or other. Could it be that of another woman? She had been too immersed in her own dreams and yearnings to pursue the matter further. And now, tonight, when at last they were alone with the chance of enjoying one another's company undisturbed, was their evening to be spoilt because of the vagaries of a dog? Resolutely she set herself to win the man.

During the fifteen years of her married life Olivia had had very few evenings at her own free disposal. Gregor had been raised to ambassadorial rank ten years ago, and about the same time he had resumed his life of adventurous love affairs. This might have given her the freedom she needed, but she very seldom made use of her opportunities, far seldomer than her nature might have led one to suppose. She instinctively shunned the homage of men of aristocratic birth, people of rank and station. Her womanhood craved for a love whose impetuous and turbulent waters should flow from inexhaustible springs of passion. The moment Andreas stood before her, she knew that his was the poet nature she had been awaiting all these years.

He for his part had been enmeshed in the coils of desire ever since he had beheld the superb form of this Venetian beauty reclining on the divan, had seen the passionate curve of the lips and throat, the golden glory of her hair. He knew in a flash that he was for her and she for him.

In silence, now, the two sat dreaming, wandering along the highways and byways of their memories. As Olivia watched the poet's face emerging into the light of the overhanging lampions and retreating into the shadows again, she knew that the memories crowding into the mind of this young man were richer than her own, but that in the realm of dreams hers was the more abundant recollection.

Andreas gazed at her across the table, and as he gazed, the agitation which had filled him since Othello's disappearance was gradually tranquillized. He forgot his trouble. Slowly he stretched his arm towards her, the back of his hand resting on the marble slab. Slowly she raised her full round arm and laid her shapely hand in his. They had never before touched one another. They had studiously avoided any contact which might raise desires they had no possibility of assuaging, for both were keenly aware of their own passionate natures. Now their hearts were filled with fear and hope. For the first time Andreas felt her hand in his. It lay dry and cool upon his palm. Slowly he bent forward, and put his lips to her arm. He was dimly aware that this first kiss was a foretaste of all that was to follow, and while he, with closed eyes, sank his lips into her white flesh, she leaned back and gazed earnestly down upon the dark head of her lover. When, after a long interval, he raised his eyes to hers, she got up and led him through the green archway and down towards the river. A wild and overgrown path led them to a crag whence they could see immemorial cedars stretching columnar arms skyward out of the immensity of the waters. The undergrowth had never been cleared in this spot, huge clusters of ferns pushed up through the tangle, the broom had thickened into veritable bushes, and cherry laurels, tall and impenetrable, had gathered around the trunks of the cedar trees. From below came the everlasting lap of the waters upon the stones, and, amid all these sounds of a primeval world, could be heard the pulsating paddle of a tiny steamer, far away, its twinkling lights reflected in the water.

To the poet, as he followed the pale gleam of Olivia's ample garments, it seemed that he was being led to the gates of death and that his guide was holding the fateful scales that should seal his doom. On reaching the top of the rocky eminence Olivia moved slowly towards the huge trunk of one of the cedars and leaned her back against it, a smile on her lips such as he had never seen there before, an expression he could never have expected to behold on this face, a look half shy and half alluring. Throwing wide his arms he folded her to him, pressing her against the tree, and pressing the back of his hands against the rough bark, while with the palms he felt the soft contact of her body and her hair. When at last the long kiss came to an end, the name he had spoken at their first meeting rose to his mind, but the sweet and melancholy gains of this present hour left no other wish but to utter the word he had whispered so many times during the last fortnight:

"Olivia!"

All that was woman in her responded to the man in him. She left the support of the tree and flung herself against him, pulled him to her in a closer and closer embrace, and pressed her lips to his as she murmured:

"Andreas!"

Two hours later he was once again in her great blue room. She had given him the key of a private door into the park and told him how he might find his way in. Then she had led him back to the house, had bade him good-night from the top of the wide steps that led down from the hall, and had sent her household to bed. He had wandered the streets, savouring his two hours' waiting as only a poet knew how. Certainty, postponement, security, a strategic device, hours of joy without end, one final delay, a stream of mixed sensations, coursed through his blood and flooded his brain, driving him and elating him. The practical necessity of keeping his eye on his watch so as not to miss the appointed hour merely served to whet his appetite and to render his expectations more acute. At last he turned the key in the rusty lock and groped his way to her room. At the door he came to a halt. He wished to relish the idea that here, two weeks ago, he had been ushered in, a stranger, where now he was privileged to enter as a lover.

The room was unlighted, but in the soft radiance of the moon he could see Olivia's outline on the shore that lay beyond the blue sea of carpet. Tonight, in one second, he flew to his haven of love. Without saying a word she drew him to her, flooding him in the waves of her long golden tresses. He pushed aside the white cloak that covered her, his hungry lips devouring the breasts she lifted towards him.

When, many hours later, Andreas rose from the couch, he shivered with cold, for he was naked, and Olivia, lying motionless, bade him put on a robe she had brought from Damascus, and which she loved. The moon had not set, and in its pale light Andreas in his long gold-embroidered gown, his raven hair disordered by her loving fingers, looked like an Arab, dark, slender, and burned by the hot summer sun. Her head pillowed on her arm, she lay there inert, gazing up at him. Then he heard the lovely alto voice saying:

"Hafiz!"

"Venetian beauty," was his quick response.

And she: "If I am ever to be loved by a Moor, I would have you for my Othello."

His face twitched, and she remembered too late what that name must mean to him. She quickly rose and came towards him:

"Andreas!"

She drew him to the window the better to read his countenance. Like black lace, the delicate tracery of the trees swayed against the night sky. The mighty stream flowed on, dreaming its dreams, softly murmuring to itself, no longer enlivened with the twinkling lights, while in the blue-black distance the line of the hills on the farther side of the river rose and fell along the horizon.

"Speak to me, Andreas."

She clasped him, and he, while fondling her hair, looked over and beyond her to those distant hills where Diana tonight was sojourning. "What is she doing? Is she gazing forth from her tent over the wide steppe, oblivious of the man who is kneeling at her feet?"

Olivia's eyes, too, had travelled to those same hills. Like the sound of distant drums she heard her memories marching by, heard the mad wooing of the count in the days when he had been her lover, heard his cynically wanton words as he had, increasingly, become the husband and nothing more. She saw Diana's compact breasts as the girl had stood before her dressed in a simple linen frock, saw Diana standing at her side in this same window, murmuring: "You are beautiful."

Andreas, too, felt peculiarly lucid. His brain seemed lighted up as a great hall will be lighted for a festivity. His memories radiated before him, never had he seen so clearly before. There was the statue in its niche, the statue of a naked amazon which had so often lured him to the Vatican last winter. The vision took on life; Diana herself stepped down from the niche and stood before him, but as he put out his hand to touch her, the figure of the count came between, and carried her off, laughing....

CHAPTER NINE

At the selfsame hour, Diana awoke. She lay on a big rug, looked around her with sleep-laden eyes, and tried to remember what had happened. Gregor was asleep. She shivered in the chill morning air, and drew a blanket off her camp-bed which had not been used, covering both herself and the man at her side. As she did so, she glanced down at him and smiled to see how childlike was his slumber. Had she moved too suddenly, or was it merely the consciousness that her eyes were upon him? Who can tell? But at that moment he awoke, turned quickly as if danger threatened, looked around, saw Diana, remembered all, and smiled in his turn. He leaned over her, bending her face back to kiss her.

The hour of his conquest over her had been a light-hearted one, sportive and gay. Everything had lent enchantment to their union, the spirit of adventure fired their blood, the fact that each shared the same secret and that only the thin canvas wall of the tent screened them from inquisitive eyes, the grass of the steppe on which they lay, the memory of every word they had exchanged, the expectant waiting, the hopes that had filled their hearts, the delicious novelty of appealing to one another without the exchange of a single syllable, the sense of solitude, the enforced silence which caution constrained them to, all this and a hundred other influences of time and place had carried the pair onward on a mighty wave of rapturous daring, so that it was as if two beasts of the wilderness were playfully endeavouring to overcome one another. The reawakened yearning to recapture his lost youth, a yearning which had filled Gregor's whole being since he had met Diana, had gradually disappeared as day followed day which was to lead to this excursion, to this night of fulfilment.

Diana had not repelled him, for she was a woman who never closed the doors on nature's impulses; and when she felt his sensitive hands trembling within her own, the words he longed to hear fell simply from her lips. The man, for all his experience of love, had been shy as a boy in his attitude towards the enigma of this woman; he who was used to command had besought; his grey hairs notwithstanding, he had wooed her like a youth; all this had touched her, rather than carried her off her feet. He himself was unaware of the unusual emotional stress which once more after the lapse of decades, had transformed the connoisseur into a bashful wooer and the spoilt darling of so many female hearts into one who must use all his arts of cajolery to induce his love to bestow her gifts upon him. His tenderness, his supplicating desire, had made her conclude that a great change, a change he was blissfully unaware of, had taken place in the man at her side.

The physical intimacy was, however, no more than the sign that his whole nature was about to enter a new springtime, for Gregor Count of Münsterberg, despite his many love adventures, had during these last ten years been a very lonely man. In the days when Olivia was everything to him he had come implicitly to rely on her, giving her his all with a lavishness not unlike Andreas's spendthrift love—though in other respects the two men's dispositions were in such complete contrast.

"Diana, have you slept? Are you cold? Would you like a glass of water?"

He tucked her up, solicitous for her comfort; he slipped his arm under her and petted and caressed her as if he had done her an injury. He could not look upon the events of that night with the eyes of a conqueror; he felt somewhat ashamed of himself, for she had been so tender and, as it seemed to him, had yielded to him through complaisance, rather than from passion. He whispered:

"Are you angry? Do you forgive me? Sweet Diana!"

She smiled as she replied, equally softly:

"You are good."

"Won't you call me by my name?"

"Gregor!"

"Once again."

"Gregor!"

"Ah, that was boldly spoken, as you said it today—no, yesterday, when we were riding together."

"Tell me, why did you call out Diana then?"

"Because I was thinking of you like that, just at the moment when your horse shied. Had you never thought of me by name?"

"Yes, once."

"When?"

"As you left me that day we talked about the motto on your coat-of-arms."

"And then you thought of me as Gregor. Only that once? I always thought of you as Diana whenever you came into my mind."

"When was that, I pray?"

"Constantly."

"Oh, come."

"It's true. Constantly; at breakfast: Diana will be going for a sail. While at work: that's not clear, not very practical—Diana would have done it better. At dinner: Diana has a fine palate for wines. Out riding, engaged in conversation, even while dictating dispatches, always Diana is in my thoughts, for she grasps my meaning, knows what I want, understands, so much quicker than any one else."

She raised herself on her elbow and leaned over him, stroked his hair, and pushed the grey locks away from his brow.

"How white your forehead is, how beautifully shaped," she whispered. Then she hummed very softly to herself, a velvety sound like that made by the drowsy horses outside as they rubbed their heads one against the other. "It's a pity to keep it hidden under this mass of grey hair. Have you ever tried brushing it back?"

"A high forehead makes a man look older. Besides, my hair is whiter still underneath. The way one wears the hair is a fine art which even Peter, my man, is incapable of achieving. I am always my own hairdresser."

"Why?"

He suddenly seized her by the hair:

"I wish your chestnut locks could stay that colour for ever."

"I don't wish it at all. Or, perhaps to be quite truthful, the wish might cross my mind occasionally. Still, I know that when my time comes I shall not pull one grey hair out. We must not run counter to nature."

"You believe that?" he asked, pulling himself up into a sitting position. "Am I running counter to nature when I...?" He stole a look at her, and waited for her to complete his thought. But she played with the fringe of the rug and held her peace. He took her hand, and bent towards her so as to compel her to look him in the eyes. "You might easily be my daughter..."

She answered very slowly:

"Say, rather, that you might well be my son."

Hand in hand the two sat gazing at one another, Diana and Gregor, on the rug widespread among the dry herbage of the steppe, in the softly diffused moonlight which struggled through the thin canvas of the tent.

What did Diana see?

The vision of this man in his youthful prime, transparent, so that the story of his life stood revealed. Those blue eyes had never blenched at what life chose to offer him. They had flashed upon the world their searching fires. Now their look was turned inward, earnest, and inexpressibly lonesome. Those lips, once so firm, were now sunk between furrows telling of a disillusionment in strange contrast to the strength expressed in the straight, high-pitched nose and the salient chin, proclaiming as they did the resolution with which this man sought power and ever more power in compensation for the loss of his capacity for enjoyment.

And Gregor, what were his thoughts while he sat in the pale light filtering through the tent as the moon set?

He felt as if he were coming into closer contact with humanity as a whole, not merely with the twenty-five year old creature at his side. He saw as it were in timeless and ageless shape, before her and behind her as she sat, the form of a child and of a woman. Slowly, the meaning of her last words and of his became disentangled from the vision. How explain the mystery of sexual union? He brooded upon this, not in relation to what had happened this night, but as something remote and intangible. How not shudder in the placid morning light at the madness of venturing to penetrate into the life of another being, and yet hope neither to kill that being nor to suffer death at its hands? He was painfully aware of the weight of the years that lay upon him. Had he not hitherto always been as a god showering happiness on the woman of his choice? But now, what had he to bestow on this young thing whose hand lay so confidingly in his own?

From those delicate lips that had kissed him last night as if their owner were asleep, from those cheeks whose oval was so pure, which sun and wind had bronzed and made so firm a setting for the face, from those short, boyish curls which seemed wilfully to renounce all womanly lure, above all from the solemn fire of her brown eyes, he drew so powerful a sense of vital security, so mighty an assurance of youth's everlasting renewal, that he was overwhelmed with gratitude and could only bow his grey head, kiss her hand, and rest his forehead in her lap.

She loosed the flap of the tent and threw it back without disturbing him. Far away on the eastward margin of the steppe the sky was pale with the earliest flicker of dawn. The tiny breeze came cold and sharp upon her, so that she drew the folds of the silk cloak tighter around her. For a moment she thought of a morning on the island when she had likewise waked up to find herself in the open. But the head resting in her lap that day had dark hair.... Where was Andreas now? Alone?

Many minutes went by before the grizzled man raised his head again. The blue eyes were so earnest that one might have thought they had never been aglow with laughter all yesterday. Slowly Gregor pulled aside the silken folds that covered her, and laid her bosom bare. His movements were tender and delicate, as with an artist's appreciation he passed his sensitive fingers over the small bronzed breasts, while Diana sat spellbound, motionless....

CHAPTER TEN

It was not yet five o'clock, but the party was already under way. The track was steep and rough, for few shepherds or travellers ever came to these remote and savage parts. In single file, they pushed up the hill, the horses stumbling through the stunted vegetation. The company was silent, each member deep in thought, each suspecting but unwilling to give words to the suspicion—although the baron and his wife had exchanged a word or two before breaking camp. Upwards in zigzags went the path leading to the temple, and only at the top-most bend would they have their first, amazing view of the object of their pilgrimage.

Kopp was the one to break the spell. His seaman's eye, accustomed to read the signs on vast expanses of water, was quick to detect a moving particle in the plain they had left behind. The speck halted, went this way and that, resumed its onward course, stopped again—it must be an animal.

"Can that be a wild beast?" he asked at length.

"Where?"

"Over there," he said pointing to the speck in the distance.

They reined in, and all eyes travelled in the direction of his finger.

"What the dickens can it be?"

"It's following the trail we made yesterday."

"Yes, look, now it's reached our camping place."

"It's a dog!"

"Impossible! That's not a dog's shape."

"But it is! A Great Dane."

"Extraordinary creature! One would think it was on our scent."

"Whose in particular do you think?"

"Who can tell!"

Diana it was who had exclaimed: "It's a dog!" On the instant she had recognized Othello, and knew whom he was in search of.

On came the dog, faster and ever faster, following the curves of the narrow path. All the party awaited his coming with ill-concealed excitement. Now he had passed the grooms and the pack horses. He was sobbing for breath as he loped by. At last he came to a standstill at Diana's side, and looked up at her, whining gently. She stooped in the saddle to pat his head while he, his front paws resting on the horse's flank, endeavoured to reach her. The horse was already in a fidgety mood, and as the dog's paws touched him, he sprang aside. Diana saw the danger. The precipitous descent yawned beneath her. In a trice she had leapt out of the saddle and had landed safely on the path, with Othello upon her.

But Abdul, misunderstanding the gesture, and already indignant at the big fellow's intrusion, broke away from his master and, barking and growling, hurled himself upon Othello, attacking the great beast from the rear. Pandemonium broke loose. In and out among the legs of the unhappy horses the two dogs went, the mountain rising sheer above and the precipice falling away beneath. The greyhound barked and yapped its fury; the Great Dane, dignified even in combat, protested with deep bass growls. The greyhound swift and dexterous in his movements, the other heavy and strong in his defence. Abdul had been knocked out by a tap from Othello's great paw, but the plucky little fellow was up and attacking again in a trice. Then the big dog gripped his assailant by the leg with his teeth and with one smack with his front paw sent the little beast rolling in the dust.

Diana had till now watched the fight in speechless amazement and fear, for she knew Othello's strength and could only hope Gregor's greyhound would be spared the full taste of the Great Dane's muscles. As Othello hurled his assailant from him, Diana seized the opportunity to call him to her side. He responded immediately, and with docile obedience went towards her while the count secured his own little beast. Othello placed his two front paws on Diana's shoulders, his head towering over her. Then he nestled his head in her neck while she patted him and spoke to him soothing endearments.

The rest of the company could only gape in foolish amazement, for none knew who this huge beast could be, and his size alarmed the natives who had never before seen a dog of such large proportions.

Baroness Linnartz was the first to recover her composure. She giggled shrilly and said:

"How touching!" Then turning to her husband she whispered: "Enigmatical creature! Fancy travelling about with a dog of that size and not even to keep it properly locked up and under control. Had you any idea she possessed such an animal?"

"I wonder how he tracked her down? We've been on horseback all the time," muttered the baron perplexedly.

"Quite within the realm of possibility. I had something much the same happen to me once," said Gregor.

All were now speaking at once, each telling of their own or other people's experience; even the natives by their gestures made it plain that they, too, had seen such a thing before. At last the caravan set forward again, the prince observing reflectively:

"It's enough to put us to the blush, an animal like that, running ten or at least eight hours on end and then, at the last, when he reaches his master, rejoicing as if he had found a saviour."

Kopp, who had been more deeply impressed than the others, said rather sententiously:

"What a beautiful picture we had when the dog put his paws on the young woman's shoulders!"

The prince had thought the same, but felt that if he expressed it in words he would be guilty of sentimentality, so he turned the conversation from this dangerous ground, and cried:

"Invasion of northern imperialism into the peninsula in the person of a Bismarckian dog!"

Abdul was put on the lead and taken to the rear, but no one ventured to take Othello's liberty from him. Gregor had dismounted, and had handed the bridles of his and Diana's horses to one of the grooms.

Diana, preceded by Gregor and with Othello at her heels, silently continued up the hill on foot. After his first demonstration, the dog had not shown any further sign of affection save when from time to time he rubbed his great head against her thigh. The count felt instinctively that Othello was a rival, or at least a creature who had robbed him of a part of her affection. He felt vexed, for his whole mind was absorbed in the endeavour to win her completely for himself. After a while he asked:

"Have you been hiding that superb animal from me all this time? Where was he that day I called on you at your hotel?"

"He does not belong to me."

"Not yours?" questioned Gregor tentatively.

"He lived with me some months ago. Now he's found out where I am and has followed me."

"It's all so perplexing. Diana, do tell me..."

"To me, life is a game, Gregor. On the deck of the ship in which I am voyaging the reflection of lights will fall from time to time, lights from the lands or the islands I have visited in times gone past. They turn and twist about as they cross my path. Then the ship sails once more into the shadows. Othello is a messenger from one of those isles. Can you understand?"

Gregor loved her to speak like this, although he knew quite well that she chose her words deliberately so as not to betray her secrets. He was too used to the intrigues inseparable from political life to allow himself to be beguiled by her smile, but he felt it wiser to subdue his feeling of jealousy, and therefore said loud enough for all to hear:

"Yes, a capital dog. But we'll have to keep him and Abdul apart. They're likely to be sworn enemies."

Diana, who, according to her wont, had read an omen into the encounter between the two dogs, was disquieted by these words, though Gregor himself had no ulterior meaning in his mind. For him they were nothing more than a plain statement of fact. But Diana looked at him searchingly, trying to plumb his strength, his vital energy. As she looked, another figure took shape beside Gregor, that of Othello's master. She contemplated them as two rivals, just as the dogs were, antagonists, and in a flash it was borne in upon her that these two men symbolized the everlasting clash between youth and age, age and youth.

Gregor, wholly unconscious of her searching observation, pursued his way up the mountain, deep in thought as to who could be the link between this animal and Diana. Who, he asked himself, was there in their mutual circle of acquaintances who took an interest in dogs? He tried to recall which among the many callers at the embassy had ever bent towards the ground in order to pat Abdul and to speak to him like a friend. Suddenly the young poet came into his mind. Yes, Andreas had noticed Abdul every time he had come to the house. Other recollections crowded upon him. Olivia's intention to ask young Seeland to dine with her yesterday evening! A multitude of possibilities jigged and capered before his eyes. He began to look upon his escapade of this night with the eyes of an ordinary member of society, became conscious of infidelity, a reproach he had never felt before in all his other love episodes. Without turning round he asked with as casual a tone as he could muster: