Diana

CHAPTER THREE

Diana read the Bombay agent's letter a second time, slowly, thoughtfully, for the roundabout method of expression the writer had chosen seemed to her most un-English. She wondered if he could be concealing something. Was he trying to ingratiate himself with Scherer, who had big schemes on hand and needed a trustworthy correspondent on the spot, or did he mean by these references of his to "competing plans" to get as much private information as possible from headquarters at Berlin in order to use his knowledge against the firm in the sequel? Such ambiguity in business affairs was not at all to her liking. She must satisfy her mind as to what kind of person this Englishman might be. Opening the index cabinet she selected the man's previous correspondence and stood reading his letters at the window.

Thus it was that Scherer found her, silhouetted against the pale light reflected up from the snow, her face in profile, her dark tailor-made gown contrasting with the white walls of the office. He, too, held a sheet of paper in his hand, and, as he stood for a moment on the threshold, he realized anew the amazing productivity of an association such as theirs. They acted and reacted upon one another, a genuine camaraderie in which the erotic element seemed to have been entirely eliminated.

"Well," she said, not moving from her place. "Am I disturbing you?"

Neither seemed eager to broach the subject of their thoughts. It was not in Scherer's nature to play the chief with his employee by suddenly intruding with a question of his own into the realm of her activity. She, too, was cautious enough not to endanger her position by imparting needless details of information. So, this morning, as was their custom in these daily encounters of theirs, they stood looking at one another in silence, almost like two opponents. The woman was the first to yield. She smiled, dropped the hand which held the letter to her side, and looked at her employer with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. The man always enjoyed these subtle duels of the will, which were fought out in mid air. At last he drew nearer, and, pointing to the paper in his hand, asked:

"Do you happen to remember a certain Said Bey, the timekeeper on the Anatolian railway?"

"Of course. But first you must tell me whether this Henry S. Jackson in Bombay..."

"Who on earth is he?"

"Your future information agent in India. Can one offer the man a higher wage?"

"Why?"

"His references are good, and he seems to be coquetting with your rivals."

"With our rivals?"

"Yes, with yours," she affirmed, for she was ever careful to make it clear that she was no part of the firm, and would therefore never acquiesce in the use of "our" and "we." Scherer was very well aware of her sensitiveness in the matter, and, in order to change the topic, said he would look into the case. He had not come here merely for a talk, though he had used Said Bey as a stalking horse. His respect for her time and intelligence forbade his interrupting her work unnecessarily; but today he had something urgent to discuss, and he was at a loss how to begin. Happily the telephone bell came to the rescue.

"Yes," Diana was saying, "This is she speaking." He guessed at once by her smile and the little exclamations she threw in here and there that the call was a private one, and was making to retire when Diana signed to him to stay. "All right, come Saturday," she cried, hanging the receiver up. Then, turning to Scherer: "It was only Prince Eduard!"

"Ah, I met him last night at Mühlwerth's," said he, going over to the window. He wanted Diana to face the light so that he might see what she was feeling. But she guessed what underlay the manœuvre, and stayed quietly where she was with her back to the light.

"You meet him occasionally?"

"He's been back a couple of weeks."

"And as tall and lanky as ever! He suddenly appeared in my box at the opera the other night—like Hamlet's ghost."

Scherer was none the wiser after this exchange, for Diana was completely mistress of the situation and her words flowed smoothly and easily. He knew that she had met the prince in the Balkans, and it was no feeling of jealousy which prompted him. All he wanted was to keep a friendly eye on her. She knew his motives, and, not wishing to disturb her friend's quiet confidence in her, she indulged this fancy of his. But he was never tired of putting her to the test, of studying her reactions, so now he said:

"By the way there was a stranger in the company, who stood out from among the other guests on account of his sunburn and his leanness. I can't help fancying you would have taken to him, although he's a bit grizzled. It was Franklin, the poet, consul, explorer."

"Is Franklin here?" she exclaimed with lively interest.

"Do you know him?"

"He's the man with the beautiful speaking voice with whom I studied Phœnician glass as a girl in the British Museum, a pupil of my father's. Didn't I ever tell you?"

At such moments he envied her the wealth of her experience, feeling that his own eminently successful career had been too even, too commonplace, too ordinary. Diana, on the contrary, realized how solitary she was. Her employer belonged to a circle of society in which he could meet the Franklins and Prince Eduards at parties and receptions from which she was debarred. She had no social status, no world at her back. True, she was free; but she had no roots anywhere; today here, tomorrow somewhere else, in fresh climes, among new strata of society. Little did either know that each was thus occupied with much the same kind of thoughts.

"Your well is a deep one," he said at last. "Always some fresh surprise is brought up in the bucket!"

She laughed:

"And there you sit on the window sill and imagine I'm going to allow you to fish up whatever you please!"

"Have I ever pried into your affairs?"

"I have always found you the pink of propriety, Herr Scherer."

He thought: "The pity of it! There seems to be a wall between us, a glass wall...."

While she was thinking: "A pity; he is so good, if I had a sister I could not wish her to have a nicer lover. He's a queer fellow. Never a woman in his life...."

She became aware that he was asking politely:

"Would you care to meet Herr Franklin again?"

"Very kind of you, but he'll probably come and look me up of his own accord. How would you like to meet him at my house?"

She had put the question nonchalantly, but Scherer, who was beginning to know her fairly well, detected an undertone of pride in the way she had countered his civility, which placed her on a social level with himself. These mute contests, wherein she sought to rob the man of the world of the advantages he had over a free nature such as hers, were always a delight to Scherer. They had precisely the stimulating effect Diana wished them to have, for from the very first day of their acquaintance she had realized how fruitful her influence might be upon this well-balanced temperament and upon the whole tenor of his purposeful life. Diana acted thus like a ferment upon all who came in contact with her.

Meanwhile the question and counter-question remained unanswered. Seeing Scherer once more cast his eyes on the paper he held, Diana now stepped across to where he stood and said:

"This man, Said Bey, you were asking about, was time-keeper on the railway when I was down there. He led a typically oriental life at Konia, doing absolutely nothing. He was said to be a person of a pious frame of mind, hatching conspiracies with the French consul whose wife was a friend of his...." She was kneeling with one knee on a chair as she spoke, and was see-sawing to and fro. He barely heard what she was saying. His eyes and his thoughts were engrossed in her, hovering between her delicate lips that spoke so calmly and so precisely, and the finely chiselled framework of her body which was brought into relief by the swaying movement of the chair.

An hour later Diana was making her way through the forsaken Tiergarten. Hoar-frost was still upon the trees which spread their boughs aloft in the bluish-white winter sky. Crystalline and airy, motionless but not rigid, they seemed to be caressed by a spirit's breath, a spirit that simultaneously liberated and bound captive; they were sweet and fresh, delivered from the wintry blasts and from their burden of snow, and looked like the product of an uncanny, leafless spring sending forth countless white blossoms. Diana, light of foot and of heart, as cheerful and cold as this enchanted woodland under the pale midday sun, went on her way, smiling to herself. A tiny breeze passed among the branches overhead, scattering a few of the eerie blossoms. Her mood was such that she could not resist the joy of running against the very next tree and shaking it so vigorously that a shower of hoar-frost fell on her, covering her dark clothes with a sprinkle of white. She looked up, like a child, opened her mouth, and tried to catch some of the drops. Then, as she was slapping her cap free, she became aware that she was not alone. Three paces away, leaning on a stick, a man was quietly observing her.

"Oh—have you been here long? How d'you do—how d'you do, Wilhelm!"

A fair young man, long-limbed, and with large eyes that gazed wonderingly on to the world, stood before her. He looked a trifle gawky in his big ulster and wide hat, was evidently shy, had a sad smile, and made no attempt to come nearer as he answered:

"Well, you see I thought perhaps you might be coming through the Tiergarten, and we might meet one another, and so I just came on the chance."

"Come along, we'd better keep on the move or we'll get cold," she said crisply, setting out in quick-march style. "Come on, come on," she teased, beginning to run, "otherwise we'll start dreaming!"

"The wood is dreaming already. What can you do to prevent it?"

He, too, quickened his pace until he was near enough to slip the crook of his walking stick into the belt of her coat and hold her back. Now he became more active and while she pulled and he held firm, he took her hand and pleaded:

"Nice, soft gloves. Do they fit so tight that...?"

"Frozen to my hands," she cried freeing both her hand from his grasp and her belt from his stick. "Fancy giving way to such sentimental wishes in the midst of sunshine and frost!—Well, what have you been doing all this while?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing, as usual," he said, dropping into step at her side. "But last night I saw the most beautiful lute I've ever seen in my life, or, let us say, the second most beautiful, almost as lovely as the one from Pieve di Cadore."

"Tell me all about it. Is it old?"

"Old? Did Luther not flourish somewhere about the seventeenth century? Or was it Old Fritz? You know such a lot. Well, it's a theorbo—about so big, like a bronze covered with patina, its belly like—do you remember that three-cornered seed of some Indian fruit you once showed me?—its belly is like that, and it has a full, rich tone, that has nevertheless a tartness which reminds me of that Burgundy I told you about, and..."

"Is it dear?"

"The price of a castle! Absolutely out of the question even for such a person as yourself—perhaps, if he were very economical for a year, a man in Scherer's position might be able to afford it...."

"Where may it be seen?"

"At my own pet curio-dealer's of course, in the Wilhelm Strasse, where we found those blue Schumann cups, which you gave away after all, and not even to me!"

"What amazing creatures these poets are, to be sure," thought Diana. Last night, at the upper end of the Wilhelm Strasse, dear old Franklin, evening dress and all complete, was one of a company at a ministerial reception, taking a look at the new political world, while at the lower end of the same street Wilhelm was nosing around among dusty lutes—"and yet both are at one and the same time the masters and the servants of their fantasies."

"I tell you what," she said after a pause, "I'll ask you to my house one of these days to meet a man who's just home from Africa. He's a poet, like yourself."

"He'll have some fine tales to tell! Where is he staying? I should love to look him up. Camels! And nigger girls with small, firm breasts! And the native dances! Oh, and, of course, elephants! I should like to go. And what about you?"

"I'd like to harness the pair of you together, give you rein, and let you gallop awhile through the world with me," she cried merrily, shaking a young tree so that he was powdered with frost.

"Diana! You are shaking away their dreams," protested Wilhelm, mopping the damp from his neck.

"I wish I could shake you too, so that one would rise higher and the other fall lower. Don't you understand?"

She kicked the herbage impatiently with the point of her shoe, as he cried half reproachfully:

"Do you mean in the world?"

"No, in the Wilhelm Strasse!"

Now both of them laughed.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sidney was ensconced in an arm-chair in his sister's pleasant sitting-room. There was not much of him to be seen, save a pair of elegantly trousered legs crossed in mid air. Examining the treasures in a glass cupboard at the other side of the room was Prince Eduard. Both young men were smoking. They did not speak, but seemed to be awaiting some event which might break the distressful tension that resulted from their being alone together. They heard Diana moving about in a neighbouring room. Neither could endure the other, and both were now cudgelling their brains to discover why Diana should have brought them together a second time. A superficial look would imply that they had much in common. One in the early twenties, the other close on thirty, they both sought the same kind of distractions in the same kind of club circles, both were courtly, of an ironical turn of mind, reserved; it might have been expected that even in the course of many years' acquaintanceship no cause of friction should arise between them.

And yet from the first moment when Diana had introduced them to one another, a spontaneous feeling of mistrust had seized them both. Could it have been Sidney's boyish good looks, and the shy hesitancy of his first handshake, that had annoyed the elder man? Or was it the assumed stiffness of Prince Eduard's pose? Eduard sensed a dangerous reticence in the youth; Sidney felt that the prince's silence was due to arrogance; each had mental reserves in respect of the other. Thinking over the matter afterwards, they justified their attitude satisfactorily to themselves: the brother seeing in Eduard a princeling in search of a beautiful mistress; Eduard, a brother who by gambling and underground activities was bringing further discredit on a family which had already suffered in the world's esteem. This evening they had hitherto been content to exchange a chilly and formal greeting.

Although it was Sidney's duty to play the host in his sister's stead until she should appear, it fell to the prince to break the long silence. Pointing to the glass-doored cupboard with the tip of his patent-leather shoe, he said:

"A fine piece. Simplicity is after all the best master. How restful this room is with its couple of easy chairs, its two serviceable tables, its many flowers and few pictures. It speaks eloquently of the occupant!"

"Yes, thank goodness," agreed Sidney, pulling himself up and looking round. "Style consists in bringing suitable things together. I can conceive of nothing more intolerable than to have to live in a 'period' house, so that one has to come in like an old-time marquis, eat in a Raphael setting, listen to music in Napoleonic surroundings, and digest one's meals among the jejune furnishings of the ordinary middle-class household. That's the English fashion...."

"Were you long in England?"

"We were brought up there—at least I was. My father lives in London."

"Fräulein de Wassilko has not spoken of him to me."

"She rarely speaks of him. She is very fond of him."

Prince Eduard became pensive. "That's beautifully put," he thought; and again he was filled with envy of those people who could live their lives out in privacy, who were not for ever forced to be in the public eyes, whose genealogy was obscure.

Sidney was thinking: "That's touched him on the raw. He did not like a reference to the father, since he thinks he'll make light work of the brother to reach his ends!" Then, in spiteful mood, and hoping to get even with this scion of a ruling house from whom he expected nothing but arrogance and treachery, he said:

"Didn't I see you the other day talking with His Highness? He looked to me a good deal older than the pictures of him would have us believe."

"My father is far from well," answered Eduard, much relieved that Diana came in at that moment.

"I'm so sorry. Please forgive me for being late. Well, Sidney, I hope you did the honours in proper style. What's the time?"

Her manner was easy. She wore a loosely falling dress with a chain of amber beads so long that it reached her knees although she had wound it twice round her neck.

"I am glad to find you 'en famille,' for I am an ambassador bringing a petition," said Eduard.

"This sounds very solemn!"

"You are respectfully requested to play the part of a goddess. The divine huntress."

"A southern one?" asked Sidney in unfriendly tones. "We are still in February—a Prussian February!"

"And yet I have just come from a hive of buzzing ladies," retorted the prince, "gathered together with intent to uplift, or ameliorate, or educate, or—well, in a word, I come from a meeting of some women's welfare society or other. The chair was occupied by my worthy chief's wife, Baroness Mühlwerth, who is a wholehearted advocate of human progress, and supports the movement with the full weight of her—of her position. The slogan runs: Down with prejudice! The committee is meeting today to discuss plans for the organization of a great propaganda festival. Admission (which does not include the banquet) gentlemen thirty marks, ladies twenty. I have never been able to fathom why the admission price for women should be less than for men.—Let that pass.—The profits to be devoted to the cause of illegitimate children, so there's to be a ball and tableaux. Subject: A Gallery of Famous Women. Of course they won't be the most important, for those only seek notoriety in memoirs. The women in this gallery are to be persons who have acquired legitimate celebrity, a celebrity built up in the course of centuries, tier upon tier like a wedding cake, from Semiramis down to Sonya Kovaleffska."

"How many tickets do you want me to buy?" asked Diana.

"Oh, but I haven't come here to sell you tickets! You are misunderstanding me. What these worthy ladies have sent me to do is to get your consent to figure in one of the tableaux they have arranged, in No. 4—or 5, I can't remember which. They literally assaulted me with petitions: You know Fräulein de Wassilko! She is so lovely, so beautiful! You must persuade her to do it! She's the only one who can take the part of Atalanta!"

Sidney frowned. His lower lip drooped, as a greyhound's does when it is about to be nasty. He moved away from the other two, murmuring:

"That's queer!"

Diana, who disliked that others should precipitate her decisions, felt mischievously defiant, and inclined to acquiesce in the plan before her better judgment could counsel her to refuse. There was vexation in her face, as she looked at her brother's back.

"Atalanta," she said softly, going towards a little bronze statue on the writing-table. It was a copy of the Diana at the Louvre, short-kirtled for action, her hand holding back by the antlers the very deer she is about to chase. Diana stood gazing down at the statuette, her arms behind her, as if studying the lines of the perfect body of the sculptured goddess. But her cold and searching glance passed beyond the little figure on the table. How long she stood thus before the godlike impersonation of herself, she did not know. Sidney, the inevitable cigarette between his lips, stood by the window, looking askance at his sister from the farther end of the room. Eduard, on the other hand, felt his pulses quicken as he watched the silent colloquy with approval. For the first time he became fully aware of her two-fold nature: the pensive woman and the free woman; the ardent woman and the student. He had always instinctively felt this duality of character, but it was his cultured mind that had brought him to realization. During these last few weeks he had felt bolder, and younger than he had ever hoped he might feel again.

At first he had been unsympathetic towards the charitable scheme. But when the chairwoman had read the name of Atalanta from the list of notable women, his imagination had summoned up Diana's figure in a trice. He was, therefore, hardly surprised when commissioned to seek her out and get her to consent. All the way to her rooms, he had been wondering if she would agree. For three seconds he would see her from afar.... But it would be before a thousand others eyes.... Had not the whole thing already taken place? ... And was it not now a memory and nothing more? ... Or could it be that his heart misgave him? Was it that, from a distant box, protected behind an opera glass, he wanted to assure himself that she was as beautiful as the picture his imagination had conjured up? ... He was inclined to repent of his mission, when, with an abrupt move, as if she had suddenly made up her mind, Diana turned and faced him, supporting herself from behind by her hands on the edge of the table where the goddess presided. Then, with perfect self-possession, she said:

"Agreed!"

Sidney scowled. The prince bowed, and seemed to await an addendum. She came towards him, defiantly, and continued:

"But you can tell your ladies that I refuse to play the part in a perfunctory way. I hate tights, and nobody is to dictate to me the manner and mode of my appearance— Good evening," she exclaimed as Scherer and Franklin came in.

Franklin had already called upon her, but she had felt a little estranged. He had plied her with questions, and she was not accustomed to giving an account of herself to anyone. She did not feel inclined to permit his bluntness to encroach upon her freedom. During the years since they had parted, Diana had developed into an independent personality. Franklin, although younger than his grey hair would lead one to believe, had become more staid; whereas she, in spite of her rich experience of life, seemed to have grown younger, to be even more full of vitality than before. He was inclined to cherish the illusion that he would be able to take up the threads where he had dropped them, become the teacher again, establish a mastery over one who had long enjoyed the boon of liberty.

Franklin would have liked to unite in himself the qualities of a man of the world and an artist, and he could not help feeling a twinge of affectionate envy for this young woman who, in spite of playing her part in the turmoil of mundane life, succeeded in being the artist as well. In addition, he was curious to know what sort of man this child—it was thus he thought of her—would bless with her favours. There would be no shadow of jealousy in this case; his regard for her was paternal, thanks to his friendship with her father and his relationship to her as a little girl.

Diana read him easily, and determined to fend off his indiscreet questionings in a friendly spirit. But she felt that Sidney would not be a match for him, and would have to be shielded from his intrusiveness. The four guests were obviously embarrassed. Though each had been separately to Diana's rooms before, they had never met here together. There was a feeling of tension in the air, which warned the hostess that she had better lead her guests to the dining-room as soon as possible, when at that very moment Wilhelm arrived breathless on the scene and put them all at their ease.

"So sorry, it really isn't my fault," he gabbled in his usual rambling way, "for what could I do if a dapple-grey horse drawing a carriage, very slowly, passed me by, with a lady inside smiling like the queen of heaven, as they say in the court circulars, only it was true this time, yes, smiling full graciously at me..."

"Oh, Wilhelm, that's so like you," said Diana. "This is Wilhelm," she continued, turning to the company and not mentioning his surname, "and his dapple-greys are quite enough to betray what kind of a man he is without my taking the trouble to introduce him as a poet. Let's go in to dinner."

The ice was broken. None of them wished to shine, but each contributed his quota to a sprightly interchange of rather desultory conversation which ranged from overfeeding on ocean-going steamers to Hungarian national dishes and back again to the sea with its dolphins and its flying fishes. Diana, as hostess, was prone to take a back seat, and so this evening she let her five guests do the talking while she followed the trail of her own thoughts: "They are all artists and men of the world, and yet I should be nonplussed, except of course in Wilhelm's case, to say just exactly what each of them really is, for Scherer is also a philosopher, and I fancy the prince hides the heart of a poet."

"You must decide," she heard Prince Eduard say to Franklin, "for, sandwiched as I am between two poets, I have no choice but to fall back upon the time-honoured method of setting you one against the other! On my right," he phrased his speech rather peculiarly so as to avoid mentioning names, seeing that he knew the young man only as Wilhelm, "we have enthusiastic eulogies of your position as consul. Can you, in spite of having been there in person, swear in cold blood that Zanzibar, an exporting land of third-rate importance, exchanged (thank all the gods there be) against Heligoland, is a genuine island swimming on the bosom of the waters, and is not just a place on a map where the sea is always painted such an obstreperous blue? That forests of palm trees, forests like our Grunewald with its pines, Potsdam in short, stretch away for mile upon mile against the everlastingly cloudless skies? That coco-nuts, as large as a full-sized baby, hang threateningly suspended over the heads of the natives, and when one of the fruits does happen to fall it is the nut and not the head which suffers damage?"

"What is Your Highness doing?" exclaimed Wilhelm. "Would you deprive us even of the scent of clove carnations in that magic isle? It does smell of carnations, doesn't it, Dr. Franklin? Say it does, please! I read all about it in a detailed account, and have no intention of influencing you one way or the other."

"Well," bantered Scherer, "are you going to answer as poet or as man of the world?"

"Both conceptions of the place are correct," began Franklin perfectly seriously. But he could not proceed, for the company burst into merry laughter.

"As diplomatist," exclaimed Diana. "But the day you become Austrian minister for foreign affairs you'll have to write verses again, poems about Zanzibar."

"Maybe—when we have dined," put in Wilhelm, whose author's vanity was a trifle touched. "For the moment, we want an answer to the prince's question."

"You are right, Herr Wilhelm," said Franklin, "Zanzibar is a medley of Indian gems, of silks, wood inlays, daggers; it is a wilderness of phœnix palms; an island in the sea, which catches the rays of sun and moon so that it becomes iridescent as a shell; it is a place wherein the long, lean Arab steals to and fro; where the palaces have roofs opening to the sky, and princely dames sit there of an evening, fanning themselves drowsily in the twilight. No place, be it never so hoary with saga and legend, is more entrancing than this island whose airs are heavy with the scent of carnations. But Zanzibar is likewise a market of third-rate (though I fancy it has risen to second place now!) importance; it has an export harbour with evil-smelling warehouses, yelling niggers, black women at whose pendant breasts squalling children tug. It is a nest of wicked intriguers acting on behalf of the great powers, a land whose soil is being drained of its fertility by the thriftless farming of Arabs, a land overrun by rapacious half-castes and perfidious Hindus—in fact it is a world in miniature, Herr Wilhelm, just like any other State where the chancelleries and business houses smell, like Zanzibar, of the mixed perfumes of carnations and sweat."

"I am all for the carnations," cried Wilhelm resolutely.

"Quite recently," said Scherer, "I heard a speaker who demanded justice for his brethren, and yet he was howled down by the very persons on whose behalf he was speaking, because he advocated methods of achievement that pleased him but which did not please his auditors. What was that man out for, do you fancy? For the carnations? Or for the sweat?"

"For crucifixion," murmured the prince.

"Maybe he was out for power," said Diana pensively, looking at the last speaker. But Eduard did not answer. At such moments her voice was apt to become inaudible to his ears, and he was only aware of the shaft from her falcon eyes.

When, later, they had gone to her sitting-room, the prince said softly to Diana:

"This consul represents the newer forms of public activity. He has, as it were, skipped the disappointments which are almost inevitably the lot of idealists. And yet I cannot rid myself of one final doubt, whether the expenditure of time, energy, and talent is really worth the experience gained, whether there is any balance between the two—as in the case of that marvellous cuckoo clock we had in the nursery at home, which went unfailingly for twenty years and was obviously wound up by the hand of God."

"The present cuckoo," said Sidney sardonically, fixing his eyes on Franklin, "is obviously wound up every morning with the utmost precision."

His sally at the elder man's expense brought balm to his feelings, which had been set on edge by Franklin's paternal attitude. But it laid him open to a possible agreement with the prince's contention, and this he determined to avoid. He found it impossible to escape a feeling of antagonism towards all men who admired his sister, for he was jealous of her without loving her, and hated her friends without harbouring any jealousy towards them.

Scherer, who had been keeping a tight hand on himself all the evening, now said reflectively:

"Herr Franklin is a poet, whatever you may say."

"And precisely for that reason we can allow him his export statistics," exclaimed Diana.

Meanwhile Franklin and Wilhelm were standing in the bow window. The young man seemed to have won the elder man's regard. Candour, and belief in everything that was said, such were two of the characteristics possessed by Wilhelm, and they reminded Franklin of himself as a youth, though, if he remembered rightly, he had been somewhat more ambitious at Wilhelm's age. He was genuinely happy at finding so disingenuous a youngster, one who looked forth with such innocent eyes into a world which Franklin at that age had already resolved to analyse and investigate.

"Would you, too, like to travel?" he asked at length.

"I can't understand you," said Wilhelm irrelevantly. "When I listen to you speaking, you seem to me like one of those knights of old who wore silken shifts under their armour."

"Armour does not form part of my outfit," answered Franklin gaily. "But I always carry an opera glass handy, and alternately look through the wrong end and the right. Thus I get a vision of the world at close quarters or at a distance—a most hygienic exercise for the eyes of one's soul!"

He moved away to join the others, for he wanted to get Scherer to elaborate an idea which had only been broached between them at the Political Club recently: the idea of introducing on the continent the English system of news service, the "tape," whereby items of interest were recorded without comment anywhere you liked.

"I can't see," said Scherer, "why Berlin should not be able to install what every good hotel in London has installed in the lounge. It's merely a matter of organization."

"As to telegraph, I'd have it introduced right into the heart of the jungle," exclaimed Franklin, rhapsodically. "It is the symbol of our epoch. I am fascinated with the notion that when I become a minister of State I shall sit in my little office and my words shall float out over land and sea, and shall be recorded there, crisp and dry, meting out law and order to nigger chieftains!"

"No doubt about the dryness," commented Eduard, "especially when we are dealing with dispatches from the Wilhelm Strasse!"

Wilhelm, who was all ears, could not understand what they were laughing at, and asked them to explain the joke.

"Just imagine for a moment," exclaimed Franklin good-humouredly, while Diana handed round the coffee, "a long strip of paper, endlessly running on a rod under a a little glass plate, and a strange kind of pencil writing on it, ceaselessly writing, day and night, while you stand in front of it...."

"What is it writing? A novel?"

"Something far more precious," said Diana, who was taking an active part in this new undertaking of Scherer's. "It's writing the most exciting things imaginable, for the tape itself has no idea what is going to be inscribed on it from minute to minute."

Wilhelm suspected them all of playing upon his credulity, and asked cautiously:

"Who dictates the stuff?"

"Life, Wilhelm!"

Diana spoke quietly and reverently. Eduard was moved by the words and by the way she had said them. Franklin was struck by the tone of her voice, and vague thoughts drifted through his brain. But Scherer came to the young poet's rescue.

"At a telephone exchange, thousands of messages flow in from every part of the world...."

"Yes, I know that...."

"Well, by means of a ticker," exclaimed Scherer patiently, "news is recorded on a strip of paper, and the message then transmitted through another instrument to hundreds of hotels and clubs and private houses. And these tickers, as the paper moves continually onward, record all the important happenings throughout the world, and news-items are received simultaneously from Peking, Washington, Hamburg, or Zanzibar, always at the same speed, always in the same signs, without interruption, without any arrangement, just haphazard as they take place and as they are sent in."

"Wonderful," said Wilhelm softly. "It's like a piece of finely worked tapestry, a Gobelin."

"A mirror," put in Diana.

"A rhapsody," exclaimed Franklin.

All eyes were turned upon Wilhelm, who stood pensive. During the pause which followed, Prince Eduard joined them, saying:

"To me it sounded more like a fugue."

"It is a fugue," cried Diana and Franklin in one voice. This made them laugh; but the prince felt uneasy. Was she on intimate terms with this grey-haired and yet youthful man? Or had they been on such good terms formerly that now, after many years' separation, without prearrangement, they should have the same thoughts?

At that moment a sound came from the door. They all turned round to see who was there. The handle was pressed down, but no one entered.

"Doreville," cried Diana. The door was pushed open a little way and a light grey muzzle was seen through the opening. Then followed the remainder of a dog, whose length of limb and whose build resembled a greyhound, but whose muscular development and smooth coat made him look more like a Great Dane.

Sidney was transformed. The dog had made straight for him, and was now rubbing its head against the young man's knee. Laughing down at the creature, Sidney fondled it and spoke gently to it, bending over it affectionately. He looked so amazingly beautiful at the moment, that although none of the four other men could bear him, they were constrained to stare in silence at the charming picture.

Then the animal went over to Diana, and she, jumping up to meet it, pulled it towards her. At the same time her eyes caught sight of the statuette on the writing-table, and she scrutinized it as though to test it, to compare it with herself.

"The girl should be riding a horse," thought Franklin, "instead of sitting in an office; or she should be sailing upon the waters of her Macedonian birthplace, instead of being engaged in paddling about on the ponds of such typically urban conversations!"

"Maybe he was out for power," repeated Prince Eduard to himself, for Diana's tone had forced him to apply the words to himself.

Sidney and Wilhelm were looking at each other from either end of the room.

"He is certainly very handsome," thought Wilhelm. "But I wonder if he really can draw?"

"If I only had the naïveté of that boy," thought Sidney, "I'd be a genius."

CHAPTER FIVE

"Why do you affect this huge reception room, my dear Father? There are such cosy wine-cellars to go to nowadays, low-ceilinged, comfortable; the kind that only the upper middle class and artists used to patronize, but now available to higher circles of society. These old hotels along the Linden oppress one, as soon as one passes the threshold, by their Bismarckian proportions."

"And it is for that very reason that I am not going to allow my sons to persuade me into making a change," answered the old prince. "There are sufficient visitors here to make a public figure inconspicuous; besides, these many mirrors permit of one making valuable observations—or are the devices of our old-world diplomacy likewise to be thrown on the scrap-heap along with all the other relics of the Metternich age?"

Prince Eduard and his father were a strange contrast as they stood talking together. The old man's face was lined with suffering, his square musician's head was grey and bowed with the years and with illness, but it was finely moulded and gave an impression of great intelligence. The son's fair head, with its carefully parted hair, was long and narrow, for he took after his mother's family. They nevertheless had one point in common: both were fond of indulging in quaintly ironical turns of phrase, though the son's reserved nature, and his dread of giving himself away, frequently made him assume a cynical pose. As father and reigning monarch, the old man was kindly, though in other respects his knowledge of human nature had induced a mood of resigned scepticism. Towards this queer son whose mind was filled with such outlandish notions he was tolerant; indeed he loved the strange fellow, and was all the more lenient in that there was no likelihood of Eduard ever rising to a position of responsibility in which his modern ideas might jeopardize the welfare of the little State. True, this visit to the metropolis had been undertaken with a view to finding out by discreet inquiries at court and among old friends of the family what sort of company Eduard kept, for gossip was rife at the paternal residence, and painted the young man's life in lurid colours.

As they sat at dinner in a corner of the vast dining hall, they would have been cut off from the rest of the room were it not that the many mirrors reflected every detail to the very entrance. Prince Eduard's glance was continually travelling to these detectors while he spoke. Suddenly he leaned forward and scrutinized one of them with keener interest.

"On the contrary, I'm all for the old school," he said, "for I can look my fill, unobserved, at Olivia Countess of Münsterberg who is dining over there in a corner, alone, divinely beautiful in a dark-blue gown. Even you, Father, whom Queen Louise dandled as a baby, would enjoy the sight of her..."

"I met the countess yesterday, and had a word with her in the entrance hall. As for Queen Louise, she was a friend of your great-grandmother; and in spite of your proverbial lack of genealogical competence I should have thought some of your tutor's lessons might have stuck..."

"Good old Mengeberg," exclaimed Eduard. Then mimicking his teacher's voice and manner: "Now, let us recapitulate: Your late honoured great-grandmother..."

"Eduard!"

"Sorry, Father!"

"Tell me, is it true," continued the old man precipitately, partly to cover up the little reproof, and partly because the moment seemed opportune to put the question which had long occupied his thoughts, "is it true that Countess Münsterberg is on friendly terms with her former rival, that—that political agent or—whatever the woman may be?"

"What woman, Father?"

The young man's tone was so formal and so distant that the father realized his motives were discovered, and he acknowledged in his own mind that Eduard's forbearance was commendable. Yet they pursued the game as if neither knew what the other was driving at.

"But Eduard, you were there at the time..."

"Ah yes, so I was. Yes, I fancy they are seeing one another."

"Have you not met the countess there from time to time?"

"Yes, Father."

A pause. Eduard helped his father to another dish. The old man leaned forward and looked kindly into his son's face.

"Tell me, Eduard, is it seemly that you should visit that house?"

"If Countess Münsterberg..."

Another pause. The father settled himself back comfortably in his chair, sipped his wine with an affectation of relish, looked round as if wanting something to complete the savoury dish before him.

"What is it you want, Father? Mustard? Waiter! Mustard please."

"Yes, Sir!"

A third pause. The elder man again leaned forward, even going so far as to lay a hand lightly on his son's arm.

"My dear Eduard, you are in an independent position. Heinrich and Stefan are not so free. But I would ask you to consider this. There are people who may find occasion to say that you are often to be seen in the house of a young woman who cannot be your mistress since Countess Münsterberg visits her, but who is at the same time not quite obviously enough a lady whose position could warrant her, unwedded as she is, to keep a house of her own... For she is not received anywhere ... and Scherer's bachelor quarters seem to be the only respectable house she has hitherto been able to penetrate, the climax of her social achievement..."

Prince Eduard loved his father, and though during these last few weeks Diana's image and Diana's name had much occupied his mind, endowing him, the confirmed sceptic, with a youthful vivacity none of his friends had suspected him capable of, he had perpetually repeated to himself, as if to condone his sentiments: "But there is certainly one person who has a prior claim on you:—Father." Now, as he saw the beloved head before him, the warning the old man wished to give appeared in a fresh light, so that when Eduard spoke again there was a boyish ring in his voice and a smile on his lips.

"Excuse me, Father. The climax attainable by—that lady—far exceeds the confines of the salons she sets her foot in. Remember what the worthy Mengeberg, whose shade you so recently called up from the tomb, remember what he, at your command, used to tell us about the aristocracy of the mind."

The tenderness with which he pronounced the words "sets her foot" struck the old man as something quite novel in his son. He thought: "Things seem to have gone pretty deep with him, and it is all rendered even more complex by the fact that she does not appear to be his mistress."

"Still, it's a pity you should see so much of political women," he said at last.

"I fear Curtius—or was it Senderstein?—has misinformed you. The lady whom your gentlemen are so worried about is not in any way connected with politics.—Won't you take a little cheese?"

"No thanks. Please go on..."

"There's nothing more to say. Are we going to spoil our evening together on account of some one whom I've seen at most about four times? Does that look as if I were in love, Father?"

"I hope not, Eduard."

"What are you afraid of, then? To what end all those precepts of toleration, that catechism of liberalism which you so earnestly forced upon us all in the hope of democratizing your realm? Because poor Heinrich cannot marry a lady with fewer than thirteen quarterings in her coat-of-arms, am I to forgo the acquaintance of a woman who happens to earn her own livelihood?" He broke off suddenly, surprised at his own vivacity. Then, laughing: "How absurdly melodramatic! I might be quoting a socialist paper!"

In spite of his earnestness, he had not raised his voice, nor exceeded the bounds imposed by respect and good breeding. But the father was so unaccustomed to hear this son of his express himself with feeling, that he was profoundly moved. He felt that Eduard had right on his side, and yet he continued to question the young man coldly:

"German family?"

"I think some Slav blood as well, born in the Balkans, the father has become anglicized."

"Is he—on view?"

"No, only a brother."

"What—does this brother do?"

"I don't know, Father."

"They tell me he gambles."

"Quite possible. I saw him once at the club playing with Sagan. The duke won."

The old man dipped his fingers into the bowl, and as he dried them he seemed to be washing his hands of this matter as one he would rather discuss no further. He realized that his son had had the best of the argument, that the duke's name had been introduced adroitly, all the more since the scene of the card-table had very likely been invented on the spur of the moment. He seized the favourable opportunity thus afforded him to ask innocently:

"Do you see much of Sagan?"

"I met him recently at my chief's."

"Ah, and how is Mühlwerth?"

Eduard, delighted at having tided over the momentary clash with his father, answered in his customary mocking yet courteous tone:

"Mühlwerth is playing to the gallery, while his lady struts as tragedy queen by his side. False democrats, Father, coquetting with the left wing. When he drives along in an open car, he ostentatiously reads Vorwaerts. The first day he was in office, he... Have one of mine, won't you?"

They had both opened their silver cigarette cases bearing the family crest, and each was pressing the other to partake, the older man offering a large sized smoke tucked away in two orderly rows in a wide case, the younger, with a less steady hand, offering lighter fare in a smaller case. They smiled at one another as they made their choice, and the reconciliation was complete.

"Thanks. And what did Mühlwerth do the first day he was in office?"

"Many thanks.—He got there at twenty past eight, himself opened all the correspondence—one hundred and eighty letters in all—read every line, dictated to three typists who were scared out of their senses and had come dribbling in at eight-forty, eight-fifty, and eight fifty-five, the whole hundred and eighty answers, and at half past ten, when we were standing around at a loss how to repair the catastrophe: 'I trust your well-known acumen to see to it that these answers are modified as far as may be necessary to make them fully accordant with the tenor of your letter-files.'"

He stopped short as he heard a boyish voice greeting him, and looking up beheld Sidney. The youth's extraordinary beauty, his resemblance to Diana in all essentials save that his face was unwholesomely pale and his eyes lacked lustre, struck the prince afresh. The old man was rather repelled by so much comeliness in a male, and asked coldly:

"Who's that? I don't know quite what to make of your modern types, but it seems to me that that young man must be a natural son of a man of distinction—unless he happens to be a well-bred actor."

"Ignotus," lied Eduard complacently, resolved to avoid reopening a subject which might renew the friction between him and his father.

"He seems to be accosting Countess Münsterberg. Does she live here?"

"Yes, I fancy she does."

In the mirror, Eduard saw Sidney bowing to the countess, his gesture almost maidenly in its graceful disingenuousness. Olivia then motioned him to a chair at her side. The likeness to Diana, the talk he had just had with his father, the dim light that pervaded the room, everything combined to make the prince feel that Diana herself was over there by the countess, masquerading in male attire. It was a relief to him when the old man rose and he could rid himself of the vision the mirror revealed. As they sought the exit, he endeavoured to edge his father away from the young couple. But try as he would, he did not succeed. Olivia and the reigning prince only exchanged a few commonplaces, but the thing Eduard had especially wished to avoid took place. Before he realized quite what had happened, he heard the countess saying:

"Herr de Wassilko."

The deed was done. Eduard grew pale, and he hardly knew whether to thank his father or not, when the old man, turning on his heel, silently left the room.

"What a splendid veteran," commented Olivia in her golden voice, her languorous eyes looking ardently into the grey, catlike orbs of her companion. She might well have been Sidney's mother, so that her expression had something incestuous about it. Passion alone could serve as bond between two such disparate natures.

Not until he was driving home did Eduard find sufficient peace of mind to reflect calmly upon the relationship between these two. Yet he had been aware of it at the first glance. He knew that Olivia had been Diana's guest once, and must therefore have met Sidney on that occasion. Her greedy eyes having alighted on so handsome a youth, it would not take long for his precociousness to rally to her desire.

"She is capable of any freedom where the feelings are concerned," thought Eduard, as he jolted along in company with his father. But what of the young man himself? Why did he meet her half way? Because of her rank, or because of her money?

Meanwhile the old man at his side was asking himself:

"Why did Eduard pretend not to know his inamorata's brother?"

After a while he asked aloud:

"Wassilko, is not that a Ruthenian name?"

"Quite possibly."

"Or, maybe, it is Polish," said the old man, amused by his son's reticence. "You never can tell with such people...."

CHAPTER SIX

The ball was at its height. Two orchestras, one at either end of the huge hall, alternately struck up a succession of dances; eighty ladies, members of the organizing committee, were unwearied in their efforts to keep the guests amused; fairy lights, garlands, curious and delectable sweetmeats, a myriad fanciful preparations abounded to enchant the charitably hearted crowd. And yet a certain North German rigidity kept the dancers from abandoning themselves to the revels which perhaps lacked freshness and originality to a society already surfeited with the pleasures the metropolis had to offer. Still, two thousand persons had paid entrance money, and the treasurer reckoned on a return of no less than forty thousand marks.

Eleven o'clock struck, and the multitude was urged to withdraw to the farther end of the hall. A noisy march blared out, and the guests found themselves faced by serried ranks of chairs. On consulting their programmes, the younger dancers sighed when they realized that they would now have to face half an hour of edification. "Living pictures to orchestral accompaniment in the style of the epoch," they read.

"Why are the names of the participants not given? That is really the only point of interest in the whole show. Do you happen to know who they are?"

"I'm going along to have a look," said Sidney.

He felt uneasy, and nevertheless he was determined, unobserved by his sister, to gaze his fill at her. Diana was to him like a much-loved statue. When he knew her to be among admirers, his selfish regard for her demanded that she behave coldly towards all other men. His affection made the thought of her as the object and the victim of masculine desire intolerable. Did not the same blood flow in her veins as in his? He might wish that she had a woman as friend. But his wish must for ever remain unfulfilled, for Diana was not the kind of woman to make friends among her own sex. Women fought shy of her, and Olivia was the only one for whom Diana could feel affection.

"So you are here after all," a strident voice was saying to Olivia in welcome. "My dear, why didn't you give us the pleasure of adding your name to our list of distinguished patrons?"

The speaker was Baroness Mühlwerth, who now took a chair just behind Olivia.

"I am still leading a very retired life," answered the countess simply.

"Yes, yes, of course," the baroness rejoined fluently and heedlessly. "But on occasions such as this, intelligent people always manage to put in an appearance, although as a rule they can find little pleasure in sharing the amusements of the thoughtless many. Ideas invariably triumph in the end!"

Prince Eduard had just run up against Scherer, and would like to have got clear again. But the newspaper magnate was unwilling to let him go. The older man pressed the younger to share his box, and at that moment the lights were lowered.

A beautiful girl stepped forward on the platform and endeavoured to gain a hearing for a little speech which the restless merrymakers rendered inaudible. She was to have spoken a kind of prologue outlining the benefits woman had brought to mankind. Her futile efforts were applauded, and, instantly, the orchestra began to play the priests' stately march from The Magic Flute. The curtain went up, and Semiramis, the most remote in the annals of notable women, was disclosed, sitting stiffly on her throne, clad in gold, a regal figure indeed, flanked by Assyrian lions. Four girl slaves crouched nearby, while a grandee of the empire knelt offering a salver. The whole tableau was obviously meant to symbolize the subjugation of half Asia.

"Who is the severe looking lady?" asked Scherer, glancing over his shoulder at the prince. "You are on the committee, so you must know."

"A certain Frau Meister or Meiler, who has been influenced by Deussen's treatise on cuneiform writing, and therefore insists that Semiramis did not wear a veil. She was willing, however, to retire if the other members of the committee felt that such an opinion was erroneous."

Scherer smiled, while the remainder of the audience clapped its appreciation. The curtain was raised once more on the unveiled Semiramis, whose heart throbbed responsive to these plaudits, and to the pleasure of being the target for two thousand pairs of eyes.

"Has one long to wait between tableaux?" asked Scherer.

"I am not on the tableaux committee, and have no responsibility in the matter. Through private channels of information I've managed to get a lot of fun out of the affair. Ah, the band has struck up Schumann's Hebrew Melodies; that means that Holofernes is about to receive his quietus from the woman's movement!"

The second tableau showed a man asleep upon a renaissance sofa, completely unaware that a tall, dark-haired Jewess was about to slay him with his own sword. The group had been fashioned after Caravaggio's picture, and won lively applause.

"Quite authentic, eh?" the baroness was saying to Olivia, while intending her neighbours to hear as well. "She's Goldmann's daughter, you know, the councillor to the Board of Trade. Religious prejudice would be out of place under the circumstances."

"Hasn't Goldmann himself any?"

The baroness laughed up at the questioner and answered softly:

"As a matter of fact, Dr. Franklin, the young lady's father did enter a protest. He suggested that his daughter be allowed to represent Maria Theresa rather than Judith."

When the 'cellos began to play the opening strains of the Aria in A-major from Gluck's Iphigenia, the young girls in the audience instinctively drew closer together while the men nodded their approval. Every one appeared now to be at ease as the curtain rose on a heavily-draped woman representing the Greek heroine, endeavouring with a kindly gesture to heal her retreating brother. But some of the audience did not fail to note the absence of the Furies to the left of the scene.

"Capital," exclaimed Scherer. "I suppose the Eumenides were too naked...."

"That goes without saying," answered the prince absently, and for a moment Scherer failed to catch the import of the prince's mischievous insinuation.

This tableau proved a great favourite, and the curtain was raised repeatedly. All agreed that it was the best thus far shown.

"Atalanta next," some one said.

"I'm not sure..."

"The huntress, is it not?"

"Quite right; the Caledonian boar! Meleager."

This time the music was less familiar, and sounded strangely in the ears of these merrymakers. Ah, yes, of course, Debussy's L'après-midi d'un jaune. Diana had selected the piece, and had herself arranged the tableau. The band played for some little while before the curtain was raised, and then, for a moment, the audience was nonplussed.

Hitherto the tableaux had depicted groups in postures of activity. Now, on a greatly diminished stage, before a red curtain, a solitary figure emerged in relief. The young woman was seen in profile, resting her weight on the left foot, while her right hand fondled a great hound. Both woman and hound stood absolutely motionless.

Diana had modelled herself upon the Louvre statue of the huntress, a copy of which was on the writing-table in her flat. She had a golden fillet circling her brow, and a short, full chiton of the same colour covering her from breast to knee. The draperies were so arranged as to give the effect of being blown against her body by the wind and carried backward so as to expose part of the left thigh. Her sandals, the girdle fastened high under the breast, the quiver on her back, all were of the same shade of gold, which harmonized exquisitely with the red curtain, the grey dog, and the fine bronze of her skin. The beast at her side did not stir, and his gentle breathing only served to enhance the beautiful effect of this living statue, coming as it did so rhythmically from between his teeth and setting the muscles over the ribs quivering and vibrating.

The curtain remained up longer for this tableau than for its predecessors, while the band continued to play the beautiful, strange music. When at last it was lowered, the applause, at first hesitant, became vociferous. But the curtain was not raised a second time, only the strains of Debussy's magical music continued until the end. The assembly was eager to see the tableau once more and was not a little vexed when its applause was ignored. Many, in their excitement, had risen in their places. Now they resumed their seats and waited for the music to stop. "Who can the lady be?" was on everyone's lips. Few could answer the question for Diana's name and antecedents were very little known in Berlin society circles. A few of the older ladies were at first inclined to protest against the breach of the conventions, judging the tableau to have exceeded the limits of propriety. But such objections were speedily quelled, for no one in this domain of pseudo-emancipation had any wish to appear old-fashioned and reactionary. Some of the older men whispered to one another that the young lady had undoubtedly been scantily clad. The younger girls blushed under the scrutiny of their admirers, who seemed to be making unfavourable comparisons.