Diana

CHAPTER TEN

Andreas to Nikolai.

"On board the 'White Star.'

"Quiet days in the archipelago, but I cannot linger in this pleasant warmth. My whole being has to adapt itself to equatorial conditions, if you can grasp the meaning of such a daft kind of expression.

"For be it known to you, my friend, I am off to Zanzibar, not the isle of dreams peopled with cloves and palm trees, but to our consulate as attaché, where I shall have to apply myself to practical work. Is it really that the post 'happened to fall vacant' so that I, doctor of laws, could so conveniently slip into it? Or was it not, rather, that they wanted to get rid as quickly as possible of the man who had murdered the ambassador of a foreign power? I gather that I, whose poems no one in the home country has ever taken the slightest notice of, have suddenly become celebrated, and that people are interested enough in me to put themselves about in order to save me from detention in a fortress. The truth is that I am impatient to take up my job, that I am in love with my work, although the cause of my going and the place I am going to smack a little too much of the romantic.

"Meanwhile I am doing my best to keep a new work that has gripped me lately from intruding itself upon my conscious life. But it won't stay in the background all the time. It is taking shape in the form of a kind of rhapsodic trilogy, vaguely resembling certain things of Hector Berlioz's. I could give you an idea of it if you were here....

"It is horrible that my poems should have appeared just before the catastrophe; they have made a sensation and already run into several editions. Olivia has gone to the ancestral castle in Dalmatia; there was a picture of it in all the papers. Diana has disappeared without leaving a trace, spirited away from us all, and the cloak of mystery has once more fallen upon her strong young shoulders.

"The world which had always seemed to me a complicated but logical phenomenon, has become simpler, more understandable—because it is unlogical. Anyway, so far as I am concerned I cannot grasp how it happened that I should have slain that fine, able, and talented man, made Olivia a widow and Clemens an orphan, I who had no conception of bringing about all these disasters at the time I wooed and won....

"Othello has become very quiet these days. It is as if he knew all. I am a little anxious as to how he will stand the tropics. He will have to be my only muse now; no more women; no more poetry writing; only work.

"ANDREAS."

Linnartz to the Foreign Secretary.

"Sir,

"I beg to enclose a formal report on recent events. You will gather from its perusal that the catastrophe came as the logical consequence of the advent of that adventuress whose shameless flight has made it impossible for us, by delivering her over unconditionally to the local authorities, to counteract Sir Henry's and Le Chat's calumnious insinuations at the ministry here.

"Indeed, the Minister for Foreign Affairs is more incensed than ever against us because he firmly believes that we were instrumental in effecting her escape. You will see, Sir, from the report, that I did everything in my power to prevent her departure. Who is responsible for assisting this female spy to escape, neither I nor the local authorities have as yet been able to discover. The day it fell to my happy lot temporarily to take over control of affairs at the embassy, the most exemplary good order reigned in the house in spite of the very natural excitement caused by recent events. The gentlemen of the embassy were all at their posts, energetically dealing with the more pressing business, and making preparations, etc. I have treated as idle gossip the rumour that His Highness Prince Eduard ... went to see the spy at her villa early that morning; but at the same time I held it to be my duty to mention the rumour in my enclosed report.

"Putting things together, I would like to repeat, what you, Sir, will gather for yourself from my report, that Count von Münsterberg was the victim of a spy who used the so-called poet as her stalking-horse to get into the confidence of the countess (the strange behaviour of the Great Dane betrayed her machinations); that this same spy used her seductions to keep the count away from home, thereby isolating the countess and precipitating the catastrophe; and all this with a view to getting rid of the count and replacing him by a protégé of the newspaper magnate and financier Herr Scherer, whose interests make him wish to see Baron von Winterthur take over the ambassadorial post.

"Believe me, Sir, to be

"Your obedient servant,
        "LINNARTZ."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Lloyd steamer made its way into the harbour of Piræus twelve hours overdue. Scherer, who had left Berlin on the twenty-third, had thought to arrive in Athens on the last day of February. Now, as he put his foot on land this morning of March 1st, he asked himself whether the omen was a favourable one or otherwise. He had unwillingly to admit that he was superstitious, and would have done much to rid himself of this "sign of weakness," as he named it. In this he was successful for the most part, but the superstitious mood always reappeared when he had something important on hand.

And this day seemed to him an important one. Scherer's serious and thoroughgoing methods of negotiation, his ways of thinking and of feeling, had now depended upon the reports of this woman for something like nine months, a woman he had had under personal observation for no more than a couple of weeks and with whom he had talked intimately for one evening only. Her quick perceptions and her practical good sense had amazed him at the outset, and it was not until he had received proof of her capacity that the fact of her beauty began to penetrate his mind and senses. Just as his intellect built up the separate elements of the world of things, gradually, into a synthetic whole, so had he pieced together, bit by bit, the atoms which went into the composition of this strange young woman. On the evening when they had dined together, he had for the first time got a more or less coherent picture, but even then the splendid unity of form and content baffled him.

How could all this be encompassed within the framework of one woman, he had asked himself. The unusual tension of his nerves had informed him that it was, indeed, the woman in her which stirred him. When he sent her to see after his interests in the Near East, he hardly realized how much he had been influenced by the fear lest her presence near him might distract him from the work he had in hand. He wanted to have her at a distance; and yet, when she had gone, he found he missed her sorely.

The purely business nature of their correspondence (for never a word of personal news slipped into their letters from either side) removed her to an objective distance. But when rumour coupled her name with the count's, when gossip became rife in political circles, a feeling of envy began to stir in Scherer's heart. For just as Scherer was many other things besides being a clever thinker, and Count Münsterberg many things besides being a Don Juan, yet this fundamental contrast between the two men was bound in the end to lead to friction. They realized the possibility themselves. There was, indeed, a conflict in Scherer's mind. The more his own representative, by her intimacy with the representative of the country, was able to turn this friendship to Scherer's account, the more uneasy did he become; and yet the count's passion was welcome as the confirmation of Scherer's personal impression of the young woman.

The news of the tragedy had first reached the circles in which he moved with Linnartz's gloss on it, a gloss not only expressing the baron's personal pique, but likewise subservient to the design of advancing the writer in his career. To most people, therefore, the fatal shot was the symbol of time's revenges against a man of adventurous temperament; and no one thought that the countess's honour might be tarnished by such an interpretation, for every one considered her blameless. Meanwhile, those in the know had learned the true motives that lay at the back of the affair. A week after the first tidings had come to hand, the second version was all the rage, and was the more readily believed because of its piquant implications. Scherer had guessed the truth almost at once, and had pierced to the heart of Baron Linnartz's intrigue. It speedily became obvious that Linnartz was going to fight tooth and nail against Münsterberg's last wishes in the matter of a successor to the ambassadorial post. Scherer set about countering Linnartz's activities. Diana had not interrupted her correspondence with her employer. On the contrary, she furnished him with such a wealth of detail that he was able to confute page after page of Linnartz's first report to the foreign secretary.

Although as business man and as observer Scherer had felt the count's death keenly, yet at the same time this removal of a rival had made him easier in his mind, especially at first. As he paced up and down his library that night, he could not help exclaiming: "She is free!" Next day came her wire: "Compelled to leave. Wassilko." Nothing more. No reason given for her sudden departure, no mention of where she was going. The major had coded the message himself, so that it need not go through the office; and it was unlikely that its contents caused any curiosity at the capital seeing that every one's interests were otherwise engaged. So Scherer waited. He was confident of hearing from her as soon as she was in a position to communicate with him anew. As for seeing Diana in Berlin, he knew this was unlikely, for she would have to avoid the metropolis for a time. When, a week later, he received her first dispatch, it came from Athens. He thereupon made up his mind to leave town and seek her out.

He was fond of Athens from of old. As a young man he had been attracted to that place in preference to Rome, for he had been trained in the humanities and he loved to come into close contact with the relics of the most orderly and magnificent of civilizations. Again, fairly recently, on the return voyage from Ceylon, he had renewed his earlier impressions, and come nearer perhaps to understanding the secrets of Athens' attraction. But he was not the man to yield to a romantic lure, and to crown these early weeks of spring by an intrigue with a lovely woman. He had come here with a definite purpose, for he had resolved to ask Diana to marry him. His chances, he surmised, would be all the better if he tried his luck soon, while she was still stunned by her recent adventure, and when the security of a comfortable home such as he had to offer would make a specially strong appeal.

He sent his luggage on to the hotel where he had ordered a room. Ignoring even the light railway linking harbour to town, he set forth on foot for Diana's quarters. It was now ten o'clock; the morning was bright, and so warm that every one was sporting summer attire. He was informed that the lady had gone out early. Scherer took a seat on the terrace, turning his back on the sea he had been gazing at so many days, and facing the Acropolis. From no other point, it would appear, could so fine a view of the temple be obtained, for the west front lay fully exposed, and from this distance, the slight damages in the pediment were invisible. One therefore got the impression of a well-preserved building. Scherer knew the view of old, and enjoyed it once again in the morning radiance which seemed to filter through the very substance of the structure.

"I wonder how long she'll be?"

What with the dazzling light, and a certain restlessness that had come upon him, he got up and made for the marble hall which ran round the inner side of the terrace. Force of habit led him to the table where journals of all sorts lay; and since he had not seen his own newspaper since leaving Trieste he seized upon that one first. "It must have come by a faster boat," thought he, "by way of Venice most likely." His feelings were mixed as he scanned these familiar columns; for in part he contemplated them with the boredom of an expert weary of the stale tricks of journalism; and in part he was animated by a wish to detect some flaw which would after all prove his presence at the head of things to be indispensable.

He sat leaning back, his legs crossed. One saw light-grey trousers, a huge newspaper hiding most of the reader's body, and a face in profile to the entrance. It was thus Diana glimpsed him on her return. A whole minute she stood looking at him, unnoticed, motionless, after her first gesture of surprise. "Scherer!" At that instant she became acutely aware that she was a woman.

Scherer put down his paper, and saw Diana, who stood smiling at him from the doorway. He rose and went calmly up to her, while she moved towards him, her gait timed to a nicety so that it was a trifle slower than his.

"My word, she is beautiful," thought the man.

Diana, whom he had always before seen dressed in light colours, now stood before him clothed entirely in black. Her tightly clinging gown was almost too narrow in the skirt to be fashionable, and her wide-brimmed hat was not such as were being worn at the time. A long silver chain hung down to below the waist-line; gauntlet gloves of grey doeskin were pulled well up the forearm. A huge bunch of Greek violets was pinned into her bodice at the breast. Her face was tanned as he had always seen it; but she looked slimmer, and prouder of mien, than his memory of her had led him to expect. Though her lips were parted in a smile, they seemed to him more reticent than ever, and sad. She stretched out a hand in welcome:

"Good-morning. So you've come all the way to Phaleron to read your own paper! When did you arrive? How did you get here? You look the picture of health!"

Her voice rang out clear and steady. His voice, too, sounded like true metal as he answered:

"You are looking well, likewise; and since, as each new day dawns, Dame Rumour has it that tomorrow you will die, I thought I'd look you up so as to give her and all of them the lie." They laughed.

"Are you going to stay down here?" asked she.

"No, in the town."

"Got some decent rooms?"

"I hope so. I've not seen them yet, only just landed, came here straight from the boat."

"It's a shame to have kept you waiting! I usually go up to the hill of the gods in the morning."

Scherer thought: "Her questions are apt. Now she knows that I have come on her account, her use of the word 'waiting' makes the whole thing clear."

Diana thought: "So soon? He lets me know at once that he has come here only to see me. Probably he has a definite scheme in mind."

She proposed a walk along the sea-front, and while questioning him about everything and anything in which they were mutually interested (though naturally avoiding a reference to the duel and its consequences), her eyes travelled over the coastline, the hills, and the islands and, lest this semi-political conversation should dissipate itself in chatter about the landscape, she drew his attention to the works then in progress for the fortification of the shore, and to the new hangar for the seaplanes. Scherer showed a lively interest, and yet he was at pains to bring the talk back to personal topics. After a while he said with a smile:

"May I express a wish that even here, though you are on furlough, you will continue your work? ..."

She laughed, but more out of courtesy than because she was amused.

"There's twelve sounding. Shall we go in to lunch?"

As Scherer awaited her in the hall his mood underwent a change. Diana had stirred him to the depths. She seemed so alone; as she walked along by the blue sea, a forlorn little figure in black, mourning for the beloved, the scent of those wonderful violets around her, her form outlined through the folds of her tightly fitting dress, she had, all unawares, awakened the man in Scherer. He, who had left his artificially warmed office in the capital where the lords of winter still held sway, had paced the deck of a little steamship for days, his heart beating in anticipation, had hoped to find her shaken by her recent experiences. He had, besides, for many years voluntarily renounced all intimate friendship with women. Diana had always appealed to him; now it was the feminine in her that made a special impression; indeed, at this moment she affected him more than any woman had ever done before. So greatly were his senses stirred that he, usually so self-controlled, could not keep his thoughts off her, but needs must allow his errant fancy to follow her to her room and picture her as she slipped off her morning dress and put on an afternoon gown. He even went so far as to regret his tactfulness in taking rooms elsewhere, and wished he had put up at her hotel. But when she came back she was in the same black dress, and said as they passed into the dining-room together:

"I like wearing black just now, and anyway nobody knows me here...."

As luncheon was nearing an end, Scherer said:

"It is nine months since for the first and only time we sat at table together."

"So long, already?"

"To a day. It was on the first of June."

"How is your beautiful house?"

"My house is empty."

Her hand went to her bosom with a gesture as of defence. Then, to give herself countenance, she took the flowers from her bodice and asked the waiter for a glass of water into which she put the drooping violets.

"They are rather tired, poor things. But it's amazing how quickly they revive. I buy a big bunch every morning. My room is full of them. In no land I have ever visited have I come across such huge violets. Nor have I ever experienced such a spring. Yes, they come from Attica. So different from the small, modest violets of the north. Huge blossoms which seem to open melancholy eyes as if to express the language of passion."

She spoke very quietly, almost to herself; but her last words seemed to him a sign, or, at least, they seemed to give him permission to broach the subject of his thoughts.

"Are you vexed that I should have looked you up?"

"No, no; I am grateful to you for coming. I've been alone for three weeks with only Mary to talk to. She's my old servant, who came away with me in the little sailing boat."

"Did you have favourable winds?" This was the first he had heard of the method of her escape.

"One day it was a bit slack, but otherwise brisk, mainly from the north-east."

"It was good of you to think of wiring."

"I did not dare to be more explicit. The prince made himself responsible. Oh, no, it was the major who saw after it. And it was he who managed to smuggle me out of the port."

Scherer was glad that the major's name had come up. He seized his opportunity to say:

"... The major loves you."

Diana looked up quickly.

"Did he tell you that?"

"Very nearly."

Diana thought: "Felix is absolutely incorrigible. What can I do to distract Scherer's mind?"

"Do you know that you've just come in time for the carnival?" she said aloud. "The whole town is full of music and laughter. Nearly a week it lasts. Shall we go and have a look at it?"

They agreed to meet later at his hotel. He bade her good-bye for the time, and went to his rooms. Here he changed, read his correspondence, answered what was necessary. Then he stepped out on the balcony which looked on to the gardens adjoining the royal palace, and on to the big square. Every minute the number of masqueraders increased; they must form at least half of all those who are now promenading the streets, he thought. The bright colours swamped the sober greys and blacks of everyday fashion. As soon as he caught sight of Diana driving up, he went downstairs to meet her, and soon they were lost in the crowd of merry-makers.

In order not to be too conspicuous, she had put on a grey dress, and a violet-coloured veil almost covered her hat. As they reached the corner by his hotel, they stopped, and for a moment they were completely surrounded. Women and boys, addressing them in a medley of languages, were pressing their wares upon them: great branches of apple blossom, round and resplendent like buxom women; delicate pink almond sprays, willowy and tall; huge bundles of blue hyacinths; cascades of yellow tulips; and, conspicuous among them all, the huge bunches of violets whose dreamlike flowers seemed to resent the restricting string which bound them together.

"These people know me," said Diana, laughing. "I have to trundle the whole cart load off to Phaleron most days. Today..."

Suddenly, she had an idea. She separated one lad from his comrades, gave him a note, and told him to take the whole contents of his handcart to the hotel and ask the porter to put them in Herr Scherer's room. Scherer gathered from her gestures what she had in mind, and, turning to another vender, bought a bunch of violets for her to wear. He gave it to her, saying:

"So little, for so much."

His voice trembled slightly as he spoke. It was the first time she had known him to be deeply moved. "He is indeed poor, this man; for all his millions could not buy that barrow of flowers I (who tomorrow may be penniless) have just sent to his room!"

CHAPTER TWELVE

They spent the next few days wandering about on foot, driving to this place and that, taking a boat and sailing upon the waters of the Ægean Sea. Hitherto they had known each other only from afar; now they studied one another close at hand. How contrasted were their temperaments! Their lives had run along such different paths of experience, and yet their intellectual and instinctive sympathies bridged the gulf that might otherwise have yawned between them. Scherer had escaped from the northern winter and from his professional duties. Now the companionship of this young woman was to confirm his first impression of her. She interested him, she was prolific of ideas, she was productive in her work; and yet it seemed to him that the woman in her was again slipping through his fingers, and that all he had beside him was a trusty friend. Diana, whose doubts of him had been laid to rest as soon as he had resumed his ordinary poise, was eager to discover all she could of this man whose brain was a match for hers, and whose knowledge of the world was far superior.

When, four days later, they met by appointment in the museum to look at the Mycenean relics, he seemed pleasurably excited. Drawing a telegram from his pocket, he handed it to Diana, saying:

"Something to cheer you up!"

She read: "Winterthur to succeed Münsterberg. Linnartz to go. Foreign secretary probably retiring."

"A voice from the tomb," murmured Diana, as she gave the slip of paper back to him. "Maybe this is the modern equivalent of the old-fashioned ghost, the way to make your influence felt after death! These people of an age long past took gold with them into the grave, and we of a later generation stand looking at them as they lie in their glass cases. This cup with the running lions carved upon it speaks to us of the spirit of Agamemnon. And look at this one, and this, are they not perfect?"

They examined the treasures in the glass cases for a while; a dagger, a pot, a ring. Then, quite suddenly, Diana exclaimed:

"Linnartz to go!? They should have strung him up to the first lamp-post that came handy!"

Scherer smiled as he answered, mimicking Linnartz's voice and manner:

"Throughout he assumed an absolutely unprejudiced attitude, and deserves a good mark against his name in the State archives."

Diana resumed her study of the contents of the glass cases in silence. After a while they passed out of that room and into the one where the coffins are preserved. She had become very quiet, as if she were no longer aware of Scherer's presence. Then she noticed that his attention was concentrated upon one tomb in particular. He stood contemplating it for many minutes. A naked youth, life size, was depicted on it, in very low relief. Leaping towards him was a greyhound. Beneath, was carved the Greek word: Χαϊρε!—Scherer knew what was in Diana's thoughts.

That evening as they were dining at his hotel, the tumult from the streets came to them through the open windows. Carnival frolics were in full swing. The sound of flutes, rattles, mandolins, and drums, mixed with the patter of many feet, filled the wide square. There were calls and screams, snatches of music and laughter. Like fireflies on a summer evening in the north, little Japanese lanterns flickered and fluttered by in the gloaming. But away there beyond the noise and the bustle, rose the flat-topped hill crowned with the silent, stately pile of the Acropolis, still glowing faintly in the light of the western sky. The scent of the orange blossom was wafted to them from the royal gardens, to mingle with all the other springtime perfumes within the room and without.

Scherer's fancy endowed his companion with magic arts, and he felt as if bewitched with a circle of her making. She had a long Venetian shawl wrapped round her shoulders, a garment she dearly loved. The lamp shone softly down upon her bare head, and Scherer was struck with the difference in her looks tonight from what he remembered of her as she had sat that evening nine months ago on the terrace of his home in her pale lilac silk frock. He was amazed at her faculty for changing her appearance, of becoming, as it were, a different woman, adapted to different moods and circumstances. The barriers he had so carefully set up around him were being broken down one by one as his interest and curiosity were aroused. A tone of subdued excitement was in his voice as he spoke.

"On the way here, I kept on thinking that in this land at least you should adopt the Greek form of your name, and call yourself Artemis. Yet now it seems to me that Cassandra would be a more fitting appellation, and that I should be awaiting your oracle."

"Just listen to the way that merry throng is responding to your rhetoric," laughed Diana. "Little drum-taps such as the god will call for when he is in a good humour, and before he has lost his head. Lanterns swaying joyously over the heads of the merrymakers, who are laughing and singing as if Death were dead and everlasting life were the key to happiness!"

"Do you want to die?" asked Scherer, calmly.

She raised her arms slightly, so that the black folds of the shawl fell apart, disclosing the delicate tint of her bare neck.

"Why do you ask?" she said reservedly but without any coldness in her voice. "Had I wished to do so, should I not already have gone from this life, now, when a part of my very self has slipped from my hands and vanished into the night of darkness? Yes, I loved Count Münsterberg, and the baron's lies are in essence truths far greater than he can have any idea of, for it was on my account that Gregor died. I felt all along that the affair must come to a violent end. Only I did not know who the victim would be. In any case our friendship would have had to cease as soon as the poet or the countess decided to go away. It might very well have turned out that I was to be the victim. But fate struck him...."

She sighed, caught in the toils of pain renewed, her eyes lowered on to the table. Then she turned towards the square and looked at the medley of masqueraders below. Her voice was steady when she resumed:

"And we three go on living, all three of us, who mourn his death. I, who was the greatest loser, do I not sit here at dinner with you, feel the scent of flowers around me, wear a nosegay of violets at my breast, listen to the joyous calls of the Athenian youth, just as if nothing unusual had happened? We are enmeshed in the web of life; don't you feel it too? And since I am thus enmeshed I do not choose to die before I have experienced all there is to experience. To taste of everything just once—in order to be able to despise everything."

She flung the last words across the table to him, a note of challenge in her voice. But he had long since known that she despised possessions and wealth. Nevertheless he picked up the gauntlet she had thus thrown down, for he was resolved to make his request, now, fearlessly and without ambiguity. Yet when the moment came to put the question in cold blood, his heart failed him; his intellect took command, and all he was able to say was:

"So much striving after harmony and yet so great disquietude! Need one really experience everything in actual reality? You, who are a student of Plato, is it possible that you should not have recognized what I fully recognized when I decided to confine my activities in life to the narrow circle of my present occupations—narrow, for all the outer world may think to the contrary? You who have gained in a few years a knowledge of the world which others take many decades to acquire, can afford to break away from your present way of living. And I urge you: give it up now. Concentrate your activities, instead of scattering them to the four winds. Try to possess yourself of yourself. Make your life secure and safe; do this hand in hand with me, as mistress of my house, which you once were kind enough to praise. I came to Athens for no other purpose than to ask you to be my wife."

With a sudden inspiration, he took up the orange he had peeled, divided it in half, and handed one portion over the table to Diana. Moved by his impassioned speech, she reached towards the fruit, and as she did so she met his eyes fixed on her with an expression of infinite longing, most unusual in a man accustomed to command.

"I accept the half," she said, unflinchingly, as she kept her eyes on his, "for I feel that you are my friend.—You said well. Harmony. It might be thought a rather venturesome word to utter in this place and at this time. Yet over there, on the hill of the gods, which the night has now swallowed up so that I can no longer see it as background to your silhouette; over there, harmony watches over the present, harmony in its everlasting embodiment. But I am not a column, or a structure of stone, or, even, a tree. You have created for yourself a world of security wherein you may dwell in peace and harmony; I love life precisely because of its insecurity, and, because of this love of mine, I have no fear of death. You with your clear vision, have you not noticed that I have no roots? Did I not hear you say—I am so fond of your voice, it rings true—did I not hear you say my name that evening on the terrace of your home as if you understood all its implications? And again, when you were coming down here to see me, you thought of me as Artemis. I am for the chase, for a lifelong chase through the world. Even if I do strive after harmony, I must have freedom all around me. Would you ever grant freedom to your wife? Every freedom, even to the ultimate, the freest of freedoms?—Have I lost you now by my refusal? Please, please, do not deprive me of your confidence, you who came to recognize what I was, and what my worth. Please—shake hands...."

He set the half of the orange on the table and took her outstretched hand. He held it for a moment, but did not kiss it.

Towards midnight she prepared to go back to her hotel. He begged to be allowed to drive to Phaleron with her. The carriage could only move along at a foot's pace, so densely packed were the streets with revellers. Even now, the air was full of confetti, and flowers long since withered were thrown aloft with jubilant cries. As they neared the outskirts of the town, the crowd gradually thinned, and the going was better. The sweet air was blowing from the sea. They had both lapsed into a mood of quiet contemplation, and it was with a faraway smile that Scherer shook some confetti out of her shawl. He, as a northerner unused to southern exuberance, had been more bewildered by the noise and commotion than she, and the heavy southern wine flowed sluggishly through his veins. His mind was clouded, and in vain did he try to fill the great black void which her answer had dug in his very heart. The little act of flicking the confetti from the folds of her wrap was no more than a pretext; he wanted to be nearer to her, and yet was fearful lest by some rash move he might spoil his chances for ever.

With the knowledge of an experienced woman, Diana knew the struggle that was going on within him, and was cogitating as to the best way to meet him. Since Gregor's death her senses were benumbed. Never in her life had she been so free from all sensual desire, especially in the springtime of the year. Scherer took her hand in his, slowly unbuttoned her glove, and suddenly bowed his dark head over the back of the hand he held, covering it with kisses.

"I am lonely," he said disjointedly. "Won't you—join me—?"

Looking down at him, she murmured:

"You want a faithful and devoted wife, and children in your home. I need freedom."

His passionate desire grew as the conviction was forced upon him that he pleaded in vain. Instinct took possession, while intellect went to sleep in the warm and fragrant night. He seized her hand, her arm, and said:

"Diana! I would have given my life..."

She felt him pressing against her shoulder, and realized how shaken he was, how his whole spirit bent beneath the emotional stresses of this hour. Even more, she knew that now he was asking her to accept no more than what a hundred other women would have accepted on the terms, and she recalled the honourable proposals with which he had at first pressed his suit, in spite of the facts he knew about her previous life. Again she felt, as in days gone by, that there inevitably comes a moment when the platonic affection between man and woman breaks down before the onslaught of human instincts.

They had passed the sea-front, had driven along the quay, and were now coming to the lighted streets again, to houses, and at any minute might be crossing the path of other vehicles. She made him sit up and begged him to compose himself. As they drew near her hotel, she took him kindly by the hand.

"Try to—pull yourself together—go back and have a good sleep...."

They drew up. He sprang out and helped her to alight, hardly touching her in the process. Then he asked in as matter-of-fact tones as he could muster:

"And tomorrow?"

She stood pensive for a second, then said gaily:

"Tomorrow? Weren't we going to Salamis tomorrow?"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Evening was drawing on. On the topmost step of the Parthenon, her left elbow resting on her knee and her chin in the cup of her hand, sat Diana in her long black draperies, motionless as a statue, her gaze towards the sea. Only a veil streaming out from behind the pillar gave evidence that between the rigid column and the woman seated there, the wind, a living creature, was at work.

Scherer's tall figure was seen mounting the white steps towards the Propylæum. He liked to visit the great antiques, and to ignore the little ones which the moderns have interspersed here and there as if to give relief. His expression was typical of a man thoroughly enjoying his leisure; he looked lively and his face was lit up by a smile of perfect contentment. Muscular, perhaps a trifle too broad in the shoulders in spite of his height, he might have been taken for an Englishman; and yet his thoughtful cast of countenance showed him to be in reality a member of the German confraternity. He was, indeed, more akin to the massive, square-cut structure of the Propylæum, than to the temple itself, and during his sojourn in Athens had made frequent pilgrimages to study the portal. When he reached the platform and turned his steps westward, he became aware of Diana's dark shape away there in the corner.

"Is solitude after all the fundamental need of this woman?" he wondered as he advanced towards her. "Or is it just that she is seeking refuge from me? She behaves differently to others, I feel it in my bones; does not succumb to these long meditative pauses, which at times develop into actual flight. I wonder whether, having refused my offer of a secure life, she will one day give herself to me freely.... She will not grow old; suddenly, she'll die; but she'll leave no heirs behind, leave no sign of her passage...."

She had caught sight of him now, and they had nodded recognition without uttering a word. Diana looked up at him, thinking:

"Modern clothes usually look so ridiculous up here among these noble columns; but he looks well, he's so elastic in his gait, and how earnest is his expression. He's as healthy an animal as I, and he thinks he acts up to the same laws—and yet in reality how different are our outlooks! He is devoted to me—but he would fight me tooth and nail. His love stirs me, and I could give him all, everything—except my personal freedom. That I must safeguard...."

His clear voice broke in on her musings.

"I'm late. Business. One can't get away from it completely."

"The sun is setting over Corinth—it must be past six o'clock."

"... Ah, you've been reading them," he said, taking his place beside her on the step and picking up a little book she had let fall.

"Yes, but I should have done better to refrain. Andreas's poems, the ones he wrote to me, are more delightful to read in his own delicate script than here in cold print, on hand-made paper...."

Scherer turned over the pages as one who knew the book well, seeking for a special poem of his choice. Then in his clear, metallic voice, which he subdued to the spirit of the verses and the place where he was sitting, he read the poem he loved. As his lips shaped the words, Diana was transported back to the isle where they had first been written; she forgot his proximity for a while, but as with the concluding words he let the book sink, and she was brought back to the present, she marvelled that he had been able to read so unfalteringly—for did they not apply to his case with special poignancy? Now he was saying:

"And—what about those he wrote to Countess Olivia?"

But her thoughts were elsewhere as she answered:

"At first I was troubled by such passion. I asked myself where it would find a suitable outlet. I wondered what dreams would come to play havoc with this young soul. Then he found Olivia." She paused a moment, and Scherer knew she was thinking of many things in her life with Andreas, things that were for her alone. "And then," again she paused. When she resumed, her voice trembled slightly. "Then I asked myself whether these verses had not been paid too dear, whether they were beautiful enough to warrant such an expenditure, whether the gods had been right to sacrifice Gregor the man of the world to Andreas the poet?"

"Well," said Scherer reassuringly, "maybe they would have been wrong if Münsterberg's work had gone down with him, if his opponent Muthesius had replaced him instead of Winterthur...."

"Yes, Winterthur has come," she affirmed, looking at her companion with steady fearlessness. "And was not that his achievement, the last work of a dying man? It seems almost as if he had bequeathed his convictions to his follower, a spiritual heritage, so that his nation might be safeguarded from war; or, if war comes nevertheless, that his people shall find a treaty awaiting them in an emergency where they expected to find a foe."

Scherer smiled.

"Is the world spirit to be rehabilitated? Is Hegel to oust Plato in order that a northern friend may be pleased?"

His tone was comradely, as it had been ever since the night of the carnival. He had deliberately assumed it as armour against his own too passionate feelings. Even today she let him have his little joke, for she well knew he merely wished for a confirmation of his own statement. She could not help smiling in her turn when she reflected that at another time and in another mood she would have been swayed by passion to give a far different judgment from the one she had spoken with such wise audacity.

She, therefore, left his question unanswered, saying brightly:

"And what are the northern friend's plans?"

"He must soon be off."

"When?" she asked with a sigh.

"At the end of the week."

She smiled.

"And today is Friday—I know, because Mary told me this morning."

As if to anchor herself to this land, she grasped the lip of the marble step. He noticed her movement, noticed how eagerly she leaned forward drinking in the landscape and the sea. After a while he said:

"You'll stay on here, I suppose. Of course. Only I'm afraid that in summer the heat may..."

His mien was solicitous; but she laughed.

"I'm in your service, and four months' leave is more than even an operatic tenor would expect! Let me have—shall we say four, or five, weeks more. Then I'll come back to the office again. On the first of May, when I come knocking at your door, I should be grateful to find you at home...."

END OF VOLUME ONE

BOOK FOUR

CHAPTER ONE

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!"