Diana

CHAPTER SEVEN

Diana had gone straight home after her tableau. As she entered her flat the maid told her that Doctor Franklin had been waiting to see her for ten minutes or so.

The visit was not wholly welcome, for Diana had wished to be alone, had wanted not to speak to anyone this evening. The tableau had had for her a quasi-religious significance. For a moment, she had embodied the semblance of the goddess whose name she bore, and she had felt herself to be the handmaiden of her to whom she had dedicated her life. She had hardly been conscious of all this until that very morning when she had waked in her white bedroom and had beheld the pale wintry sun shining through the window greeting her like a herald from a southern clime. Then, in silence, she had offered up a prayer to her namesake, as if in very truth the huntress were a deity. While driving to the show, her mind had been wholly concerned with practical affairs. She thought of the beautiful way the draperies were to cling to her, of how she would hold Doreville by the collar and constrain him to stillness; and on the homeward journey she had been wondering if perhaps she had not lifted her right heel a trifle too high.

"Are you hungry?" she asked Franklin, unable wholly to hide her irritation. "Mary won't be long now. She is bringing Doreville home."

"How splendidly he behaved."

"Could you see him breathing?"

"When I looked at the tableaux through my glasses it was easy to see that all the figures were breathing, with one exception—you, my child."

"I had lost the knack of holding my breath and have been practising every day for the last week by holding my face under water in my bath."

She took a cigarette from the box and threw herself just as she was, in her dark walking dress, upon a low sofa. She looked pensive and serious.

Franklin was in a mood of contemplation rather than of admiration, and as he looked down on her reclining form he no longer saw her as an individual but as a type. He followed in imagination the course of the development of the eager girl she had been, to the beautiful woman she was now; and, with the injustice habitual to mankind (which is on the whole envious when it sees a beloved being on the way to a fruitful expansion) he asked himself whether her experience of life had not been bought too dear, whether the wandering and aimless existence she led had not hindered the development of her inner self. Only to his artist friends did he acknowledge the cleavage in his own soul, torn as it was between the world of art and the world of practical affairs; and, like all active idealists, he was inclined to be intolerant when other idealists invaded his privacies.

"Is it really necessary," he said with a smile, "to learn diving if one would be a goddess?"

She sat up. All that was combative in her nature was on the alert.

"Is it really necessary," she expostulated, "to visa passports in order to be lord of the land of dreams?"

"One tries to keep the two things separate...."

Diana relaxed, and laid her head back among the cushions.

"For my part, my dear Franklin, I try to combine the two."

"You were very fine, Diana. Even the foot you were not putting your weight on remained perfectly steady. Your breast and hair were in keeping with works of the seventh or sixth century. You seemed to belong to the classical world, for unfortunately you wear your hair short."

"Yet the Sphinx is old. I think she is ages older," she retorted pertly.

"Only the Sphinx happens to be a man, you know," he corrected, her provocative manner have piqued him into assuming the rôle of teacher.

"You are awfully domineering tonight; whereas I feel..." She did not finish her thoughts, but stretched her arms out sideways.

"A younger man's company would suit your mood better, I fancy."

She clasped her hands under her head and looked at him, a challenge in her eyes.

"You seem to take me for an idiot or a cow...."

"Not at all; just a woman."

She became defiant.

"Mm, and yet, barely an hour ago, I was Diana immaculata striding through the woods!"

"A statue which is very active on weekdays!"

"Like certain poets, Franklin."

"Precisely! Do you not realize that I am fighting against myself and not against you, dear child?"

"My father is very different from you," she said, hoping to discourage his paternal airs.

"Your father, like all mysteries, is a precious possession. For that very reason he will never tell you genuine truths."

She did not stir, but put her next question squarely.

"What do you object to in my present way of living?"

He blew the smoke noisily through his lips and rejoined:

"I had hoped..."

At that moment the door opened and Countess Olivia entered, accompanied by the dog.

Of all those who had been spectators at the entertainment and had seen Diana's tableau, Olivia had been the most deeply stirred. Filled with loving envy of Diana's youthful freedom, she had today experienced an almost tragical intensity of delight which had urged her to come and tell Diana of her affectionate gratitude for the pleasure the tableau had given. So great had been her desire to unburden herself that, contrary to her custom, she had hastened hither instantly in spite of the late hour. She had met Mary and the dog as she was waiting for her car and had offered to give them both a lift. The faithful old soul had assured her she would find Diana alone and had again as the car drew up before Diana's door, urgently requested her to drop in for a moment. Now the countess stood motionless and aghast on the threshold. Her hand loosed its hold on the dog's collar, whereupon Doreville precipitated himself upon his mistress, displaying so stormy a delight at finding her again as to prevent her rising to receive her visitor.

Franklin, too, was taken aback by the countess's intrusion, and his chilly aspect added to the lady's discomfiture. Diana's mood, however, was considerably enlivened by the new turn of affairs. She did not speak immediately, but while trying to calm the dog's demonstrations of joy, lay thinking:

"How quickly people are made to suffer when they over-step the conventions. The countess has to pay for it because she comes to visit me at an unusual hour; and Franklin is punished for his contrariety by the inopportune appearance of this blond beauty."

She smiled at Olivia, saying:

"I am so pleased that you should have brought him and not someone else. He did splendidly, didn't he? He has earned his supper, and we'll give him the bone I promised if he were good. Mary! Please bring in tea for us all.—You must be perishing with cold; or did I suffer alone because of my scanty raiment? Huntress goddesses must wear furs here in Prussia if they are to enjoy the chase!—Do take this yellow chair, it goes so well with your dress. That blue reminds me of the southern seas."

"Your tableau was very beautiful," said Olivia gravely. Her velvety voice made Diana think of the lap of the waters among the rocks at the foot of the countess's Dalmatian home, away there in the Adriatic, the ancestral castle of ancient story.

"Thank you," she answered no less gravely, looking affectionately at Olivia. Then, in lighter voice: "You are the first among all those who saw my tableau to tell me that. For the poet here has only had time to criticize my way of wearing my hair. I like long hair in others, but not for myself."

The tea-tray was now brought in. A bone for the dog too, and Doreville was put through his paces before being given his reward for his good behaviour. There were questions of sugar, of cream, of rum, and all the other byplay relating to the comfort of her guests. Yet the atmosphere remained charged, and not one of the three felt at ease.

Diana's thoughts ran: "Why could they not have left me to myself? I wonder whether she came on Sidney's account?"

Olivia mused: "She is more racy than Sidney. I wish I were a man so that I could be her lover. What does that old bachelor want from me?"

Franklin was thinking: "Those two women are a living poem. There they sit opposite one another and I am hard put to it, as I am with Titian's picture, to decide which represents sacred love and which profane."

They simultaneously broke the silence which had encompassed them, and their voices seemed to them to come from infinite distance.

"Was the hall full?"

"Not a free seat to be seen."

"They must have done well for their charity."

But Diana as she spoke was thinking: "I wonder if Franklin is her lover? Their voices go so well together."

And Olivia: "I shall not see Sidney again."

Franklin: "Leopardess and lioness."

Aloud they were saying, and again their voices seemed to be coming from afar:

"Did you have a good place?"

"Yes, about the sixth row."

"One could see well from every part of the hall."

At last they were gone.

"I wonder why my tall prince did not come? A visit from him would have pleased me better," thought Diana as she slipped into bed.

Franklin, in order to prolong the few minutes he would be in the countess's company, had proposed to walk home with her across the park. The arc lamps shone down upon the tree-tops like moons that had come close to the earth. It was a lovely night, clear and fresh as only a winter night can be. They walked along in silence side by side; and the longer the silence lasted, the more freely did they allow their thoughts to range, until Franklin said aloud:

"And yet Diana's beauty is no more than a cloak to protect her liberty."

Olivia's mind had been toying with similar ideas. She looked up suddenly at the tall stranger with the mellow voice, and the poet read in her eyes the meaning of her melancholy. Olivia said:

"And at the same time it is a magic garment which carries her away into the air. Have you known her long?"

"Many years ago I was studying with her father in London. She was my fellow student."

"Is he a professor?"

"He is a sage."

"Does he live alone?"

"As man of the world and crank."

"Is her mother still alive? She never speaks of her."

"She died when giving birth to her son. It is for that reason that the old man cannot bear to have his son near him. Her name was Helena, but he never mentioned her to me. Diana once showed me her picture."

As they emerged from the park, Franklin reflected that he had wasted his few minutes with Olivia in talk about Diana instead of about the countess herself, and he would have liked to remedy matters now. But she turned to him again and asked:

"Do you think she cares for her brother?"

Franklin answered innocently:

"He'll make good yet."

"As an artist?"

"As a man."

Olivia's thoughts took a somewhat cynical turn. Then:

"I may hope for as much in my son's case!"

"You have a son, Countess? A child?"

"Not that, but a boy who is still quite young."

"Like you?"

"He takes after his father."

Franklin suddenly remembered the duel which had put an end to the count's career, he remembered that a love affair had been the cause of the duel, and he saw the woman walking at his side burdened rather than protected by her furs, and for several minutes he climbed the ladder of imagination, up and down, up and down again, giving his fancy full play. Then, very slowly, as if he would have prepared to stop half way in the expression of his thought, he murmured:

"And his father was, so I am told, obliging enough to..."

Ten strides separated her from her hotel. Olivia was thinking:

"They are all alike, these poets, these worthy cits. Ah, if only our own people were less banal, one would give such men the go-by.—Sidney took a room here yesterday. I suppose he's waiting for me in the lobby."

Aloud she said frigidly to the man who had seen her home:

"Thanks. Good night."

But the young man was not awaiting her in the lobby after all.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Next day, while Diana was at breakfast, Sidney called.

"Wonders will never cease," exclaimed Diana; "you up at half past eight in the morning! What's afoot?"

"I have it in mind to come round every day until further notice at nine o'clock, if your chief will agree to your arriving an hour later at the office. It all depends upon you."

He spoke quietly, but with a note of firmness in his voice, and with a sprightliness of mien she was surprised to find in a man of his lackadaisical disposition.

"Can it be that you are in love, and want to have me teach you Serbian or Turkish because your lady understands no other tongue?"

"May I light up, or is it too early?" he asked, striking a match. He did not sit in his usual way with his legs higher than his head, but, rather, as rider. Both his feet were firmly planted on the floor, he narrowed his eyes as if he were about to take pencil in hand and start drawing. Then he said:

"Didn't you and father always harbour a wish that I should do modelling?"

"And do you want to model me?"

He made no answer. Diana rose and went towards the window, drummed upon the pane, tapped her toe gently on the floor, and then stood silent for a while. Suddenly she turned about, folded her arms, looked steadily at her brother who had not moved from his earlier position and had kept his eyes fixed upon her, and at length asked composedly:

"Sidney, have you a commission to do this? Sit still, don't lose your temper at once like that. You have no commission for the work? Honour bright?"

She went up to him with the gait of a young man and held out her hand. He shook, but his expression remained somewhat rueful, his lips pouting, and his eyebrows raised. Diana took a deep breath, and said:

"That's all right. I'll gladly be your model, and I'll take you at your word. You'll come here every morning from eight to ten."

He smiled. Seductive lines formed themselves in the beautiful oval of his rather weak face, as he said, softly and beseechingly:

"I said nine."

Diana laughed gaily. She took him round the neck and kissed him. But he seized her vehemently and drew her towards him, so that Diana's heart seemed to cease beating for a second. Her spirit darkened. She closed her eyes against her brother's soft cheek. Then she pulled herself free.

"You really mean that we shall work? The place will have to be very adequately warmed. There is rather a draught from the bay window."

"Why not in your bedroom?"

Again her heart seemed to stop beating. After a moment's hesitation she acquiesced.

"And when do you wish to begin?"

"Tomorrow."

"Are you going to do some sketches first?"

"No, I'll start straight away with the clay."

"Good." After a pause, and with slight emphasis, she added: "Of course the work will belong to me."

"If it is a success," he answered unsteadily.

"That won't do. I must have it in any case."

"Agreed!" he laughed.

When he had gone, she stood deep in thought. It seemed to her that her limbs were made of lead, for her body readily responded to her mood. He had vowed he was not commissioned to do the work. Yet she felt uneasy.

Sidney set himself to his task with feverish haste. He had been wont to do his drawing hesitantly, in an undisciplined way, by fits and starts. Now his whole manner was changed. Next morning, on the stroke of eight, he was knocking at Diana's door. He was elegantly dressed, as if paying a courtesy call. Diana was ready for him, waiting in a well heated room which she had had transformed from a bedroom into a workroom. The carpet had been covered with a dust-sheet. She stood on a wooden pedestal, clad like Atalanta in short, clinging draperies, almost naked. The quiver lay ready to sling over her shoulder. Sidney was baffled. He smiled, kneaded his clay, and hardly gave her a glance. Now he wished to start the work, took his measurements, then flung all aside and looked earnestly at her, saying:

"No, Diana. That won't do. I want—I would like—to model you in action."

She hesitated. Her thoughts seemed to drop from her head to her heart, and her feelings seemed to rise from her heart to her head and overwhelm her. For years, Diana had been endeavouring to cajole her brother to take his work seriously. Vainly had she tried to wean him from his lethargy, for she felt that it held nothing but danger for his future development. He had never mentioned any of his friends to her, and she was not at all sure that she wished to know anything about them. Occasionally, Scherer had given her news of him and his doings, but he had done so with caution, and she had not been encouraged to ask further.

Sidney's sudden decision to model her led Diana to believe that he was going through a crisis. She was reluctant to hamper him in any way, for she felt that her reappearance on the stage of his life had aroused more than his artistic appreciation. As his sister, she had been somewhat alarmed at the warmth of his embrace. But she was too courageous in face of danger and too proud to go back upon her resolutions. Besides she felt a maternal tenderness for Sidney which added to her determination to do all in her power to bring him back into the path of artistic accomplishment.

His half-commanding and half-imploring manner, the compelling gaze of his cat-like eyes, told her she must obey if she was to succeed in doing what she had set herself to do. Without a word, quite simply, she let the draperies fall from her shoulders. Now she stood before him, very still, her arms hanging by her side, her thoughts turned inward upon herself.

Swiftly and silently he gripped the moistened clay. Morning after morning for five consecutive days he toiled to reproduce what he saw before him. As soon as the two hours were up, he took his departure, silently, leaving the work wrapped in wet cloths. Thus he came, and thus he went. He had got her to stand in profile, as if striding along, her right arm slightly raised. He hardly spoke a word, and never came to see her at other times.

She had not looked closer at the work, nor even from where she stood did she seem to discover what he was doing.

On the fifth morning, as he was stopping work for the day, Diana flung her bath wrap over her shoulders and, drawing it closely round her, stepped up to the clay model which was about a quarter life size. Sidney stood behind her. She was looking at something that was certainly not a portrait of herself.

The clay showed her the figure of a girl of fifteen, remotely similar to herself; the breasts were small and undeveloped, the legs thin and boylike. The head resembled hers so little that it might have been modelled on a younger brother, one not even as like her as Sidney. The strange statue seemed to her the work of an amateur, of a man endowed with talent, but entirely self-taught. It set her guessing as to Sidney's fantastic and erotic life; she thought of his dreams....

She turned towards him and as she did so he looked away and began gathering his tools together. He did so precipitately and absent-mindedly. She hesitated to say a word of praise. It seemed to her that he wished to avoid any physical contact.

"Are you not going to work any more today?"

"It's all nonsense," he muttered. "Nothing doing. No use trying to blind oneself to the truth. Break it up. Thanks, all the same. Good-bye."

He made his exit in a state of agitation, leaving the fragment behind. No sooner was he gone than Diana began to study the work more closely. Her thoughts were confused, now flitting to him, now back upon herself, now concentrated upon this dream child. Mary came in to help her.

"Mr. Sidney went away at nine today?"

"Yes, Mary. Give me my coat and skirt, the black one, please."

"But the sun is shining today and it is sure to be warm."

"No matter."

While helping Diana to dress, the old servant glanced at the statue.

"Is that Mr. Sidney's work," she asked dryly.

"Do you like it?"

"What's it supposed to be?"

"Can't you recognize it?"

"No, I do not know the child."

Mary's opinion was important to Diana, for if this old nurse failed to recognize her youthful charge, the resemblance must indeed be difficult to trace.

"Why did Mr. Sidney want to do his modelling here?"

"There's no central heating where he lives."

"Ah, I see," answered Mary, paying little heed to the inconclusiveness of her mistress's explanation. She loved Sidney, but was sad at heart concerning him, and often wished that the lad's father would exercise a little parental control.

Diana lifted the statuette in her arms and carried it into the sitting-room. She set it up in the bay window.

Towards evening that same day Prince Eduard called. He did not notice the new statuette, for the bay window where Diana had placed it was not lighted. Since the evening of the charity fete he had come but once to see her, and had been told she was out. Today, a week later, he came without giving notice. His first words on entering were:

"It's an eternity, or as my old tutor would have said, a decade, since I last saw you. Our, or rather, your, evenings a trois seem to be things of the past.... Besides so many 'seasonable' events came to interfere.... And ever since the recent martyrdom I have not once looked up the committee ladies to present them with roses in token of my gratitude—though I should have done so seeing that I am the only male on the committee. The press has been obliging enough to do the job for me, but I don't suppose you have read the papers."

"I read nothing but the competitions," put in Diana as she paced to and fro. "Also the news items under the captions 'accidents,' 'agriculture,' 'weather forecast.' Herr Scherer tells me that the clerical press insists that in those days the huntresses were fully clad."

"The funeral orations concerning you were worse, for they were written with genuine feeling. One depicted the dream you had given him, although he can't possibly have had time to dream his dream and get it into next morning's paper. His soul..."

"Don't let's talk about the soul when the subject in hand is the body! It makes me think of the missionaries who corrupt the negroes by turning the poor creatures' thoughts away from work to contemplate the so-called soul."

"Psychology is a pitfall!"

"No," said Diana, whose critical faculty seemed to have become more acute since that morning's experience, "all that is wrong with psychology is that it should have escaped from the hands of the poets and brain specialists and strayed into the dubious hands of women and journalists. Dancers should not meddle with the science, and diplomatists would be well advised to give it closer study."

"At times they all begin to take an interest in it, and in the end this works productively."

"You mean to imply that the latter are led to embark upon bold undertakings, while the former set about concocting sly intrigues?"

"I meant that both are led to create racy offspring—and that handsome women petrify into pretty images, since they are too proud to become dancers and too dangerous to be allowed to dabble in diplomacy."

"Would either exist at all if there were no onlookers, do you think?"

"The way is free," laughed the prince waving his hand towards the stretch of carpet and stepping aside. "I, at least, will disappear behind the curtains."

She laughed, but as he entered the bay window he said:

"I seem to have fallen in with a very young girl."

He drew the curtain back, and Diana switched on a light which instantly flooded the statue. The prince became very still and very silent. Time passed by unheeded. He wanted to know who had stood as model and who could be the author. Gradually it dawned on him that Sidney might have done it, for the young man's sketches were familiar to him, and he had come to appreciate the work of this queer brother of Diana's. He did not venture, however, to mention any names, merely commenting:

"Good, quite good. Almost perverse. Pardon me, but who has fashioned this child?"

He deliberately chose the word "child" in order to exclude any thought that the statue resembled Diana. She put out the light, turned, and went back into the room, saying nonchalantly:

"A study by my brother."

"I did not know he modelled in clay."

"He's having a try at it now."

"What a waste of talent! He really ought to go to some art school or other and study."

"Do you see him sometimes?"

"Very seldom."

"Is he gambling still?"

"I—hardly know. Perhaps, a trifle, occasionally, as we all do."

Diana noticed the prince's embarrassment, and the old sensation of anguish seized upon her heart as it always did when she felt her own personal freedom was being invaded by other people's destinies. She must rid herself of the tension that had oppressed her since early morning. Her eye fell on the piano. Stepping up to it, she opened it and asked the prince to play.

Eduard, sensitively aware of her uneasiness, sat down and began to play, although in reality he was a violinist rather than a pianist. Diana sat at the other end of the room as far away from him as possible. She was wearing a golden brown frock, and lay back in an arm-chair, letting her thoughts run free. Not until he had played several bars did she recognize the piece.

It was Debussy's romantic idyl of the faun, upon whose strains she had built up her tableau of Atalanta. The tender and joyous strains flowed over her sad heart, and she was grateful to the prince for his gentle homage. Her limbs lost their leaden weariness, she slowly rose to her feet, and, hardly conscious that it might be the prince's former reference to the free path along the carpet and his gesture which invited her to dance, she began to move rhythmically to and fro in the room like a living statue, He scarcely looked at her, so anxious was he not to disturb her mood. But she knew very well that she owed him a debt of gratitude for having through his music broken the spell upon her limbs, and after a while she ceased her strange dance. He concluded the piece somewhat abruptly, but the picture had been engraved upon his memory. When, without any witticism or sardonic joke he took leave of her a moment later, he realized just as she did that a bond of feeling had been set up between them.

CHAPTER NINE

The first movement closed on a cadence. No one spoke. Franklin, who took the viola part, very softly tested his G string, which had gone a little flat, while Scherer, from his seat at the piano, looked over the top to where the 'cellist sat. Seeing that the trio of strings was ready, he started the adagio which he played as a passionate prologue. The piano was soon joined by the sombre strains of the viola, taking up the subject in fugal form. Now another voice, soaring aloft in seraphic ecstasy like a boy's, joined itself to the others. It was the violin, played by the prince. Eduard did not intend to make the violin part take precedence of the piano, as is so often the way with soloists when they embark on chamber music. But the exquisite tone of his instrument, and the upward curve of the melody, put the others for a moment into the shade, so that the three were forgotten, and, indeed, themselves both listeners and players, kept their parts strictly modified to form a genuine accompaniment.

Soon, however, the 'cello made its entry with a second subject in a more lively rhythm, and the boyish voice seemed to be replaced by the mellow contralto of a woman. Then, gradually, the strings were dominated by the virile notes of the piano, which, in generous chords, united the melodies into a harmonious whole.

The little company had forgathered in Scherer's music-room, a place devoid of carpets, and panelled throughout. Diana, who alone had been invited as audience, had ensconced herself in a corner, protected from the view of the players by darkness and distance. Neither during the previous quartette, nor during the one they were now performing had she cast her eyes towards the circle of light in which the musicians played, save once, when the 'cello had introduced the second theme. Then she had glanced over towards the player, who was a new acquisition to their circle. She mused: "He presses his instrument against him, and, gently caressing it with his hand, brings forth its rich and perfect tones." Her thoughts took flight into other realms of emotion; they hovered and dipped and rose again on wings of sensual delight, until her whole being was suffused with feelings such as she had not experienced since the previous summer, her life having since then passed on a purely platonic level.

The men broke up, stretching their legs which had become stiff with long sitting. They fluttered the pages of the music for a while in silence. Then, with maternal gentleness, the three string players tucked their instruments away into the cosy warmth of the cases, and snapped the locks to, while Scherer, spreading cloths over the keys and the outside of the piano, closed down the lid. Diana, meanwhile, had not stirred from her corner.

Scherer came slowly towards her.

"You are smiling," he said softly, taking a seat at her side. "And yet you have been gazing on Medusa's head."

"No, not Medusa's," she corrected, wincing as Scherer suddenly turned on the full lights in the centre of the room. "I hardly heard the presto. What's the opus number?"

Scherer named it.

"One of Beethoven's last works," he added, somewhat didactically. She had asked her question merely to gain time, and his tone instantly scattered what remained of her dreamlike trance. Suddenly rising, she stepped over to join the other group.

"Don't be too severe in your criticism, please," said Franklin. "I made a terrible hash of the last movement. But it goes so quickly, and I've never had much technique. Besides, I'm not used to playing with others."

"You'd rather play solo," teased Diana, laughingly.

They went in to dinner, Diana on Scherer's arm, and all five took their places at the round table.

"Yes, I like playing alone," exclaimed Franklin, his whole tone betraying how hard he found it to accommodate his libertarian temperament to co-operative labours.

"And yet," said Scherer, motioning the prince to a chair next Diana's and the other two men to the remaining places, "and yet, it seems to me that a solo player can never be a genuine musician."

"Poets never get beyond the solo stage," commented the prince. "They feel they must reign as absolute monarchs."

At these words the newcomer to the quartette raised his head. He had hitherto taken hardly any share in the conversation, and now turned his eyes on the speaker. But the prince was immersed in the contemplation of his plate, and, instead of the prince's eyes, the stranger met Diana's fixed upon him. There was an eloquent expression of protest in the man's whole countenance, a critical rebuke of the prince's paradoxical utterance.

"What a strange, dumb method of speech these Russians possess," thought Diana, lowering her eyes in turn to her plate.

After the introduction at the charity tableaux, Scherer had invited Dr. Kyril Sergievitch to his house, and had been surprised and delighted to learn that the young man played the 'cello. This was decidedly an addition to his musical evenings, for he had long wished to have a full quartette. His invitation had been all the more cordial and pressing. When he had told Diana of his find, he waited in vain for a token of surprise and curiosity in her, or, at least, some sign that she was forcing herself to show indifference. She had almost forgotten the Russian, and, in general was inclined to keep music and musicians apart from her inner life. When she had felt her hand in Sergievitch's huge fist earlier this evening, he seemed to her more bashful than she had expected him to be. She found his embarrassment difficult to explain, for Scherer had not told her of the meeting at the charity ball, nor of the Russian's question that same night, nor of their further encounters at the political club.

Diana and Sergievitch sat opposite one another, strangers, although each had seen the other at different times on a stage under somewhat peculiar circumstances.

Conversation emerged slowly for all were still under the spell of the music, and at first was carried on by the three other men, while Diana and the Russian sat silent, the latter intent and listening, the former abstracted.

"If everyone were to play tutti all the time," Franklin was saying challengingly, "who would be left to create and lead? The conductor? He's only an employee!"

"Perhaps the invisible composer, Herr Franklin," said Scherer.

"Dust and ashes this long while since," exclaimed the prince. "Ideas, if they are to be fecund here below, must filter down to us from the spheres of those who hold aloof from the world's turmoil."

Again the Russian raised his handsome head with its crown of fair hair. But his forehead was puckered in a frown as if he were trying to keep his eyes from flashing. This time it was Scherer who was given the benefit of the Russian's silent conversation. The effect on the host was somewhat uncanny, and, hoping to break the spell he said to his guest.

"You appear to be dubious?"

"Why should not ideas rise, once in a while? May it not be that this earth of ours holds hidden treasures, stores of ideas, undreamed of in that enlightened heaven of yours?" His eyes turned to the prince, dark and questioning.

Silence.

"A threatening storm," thought Franklin.

"Heavy artillery," thought the prince.

Then to crush any possibility of a debate in the Russian manner, Prince Eduard said aloud:

"Certainly, certainly, you are right, Doctor. Heaven and earth are each of them the mental terminuses of the human express."

"Why except the sea?" demanded Diana, a warm protest in her voice.

"What can one do with fishes and molluscs, Madam?" asked the Russian coldly. "The sea is just nature and nothing more!"

Diana turned away from the speaker, with an aggrieved air the prince was quick to detect. Franklin seemed to hear in space a conversation similar to this, but better developed and on a higher intellectual plane. Scherer was unwilling that so all-embracing a theme should occupy his guests while at dinner, and so soon after the enjoyment of the music. He tried therefore to soothe matters by saying:

"One thing is certain, that we have been permitted to hear the music of earth, sky, and ocean through the medium of your exquisite 'cello."

Passionate debater though he was, and loath to miss the opportunity of discussion with such an adversary as the prince, the Russian was nevertheless sidetracked by this reference to his beloved instrument. After a slight pause he said:

"Yes, it has a lovely tone. It is seventeenth century, from Brescia, a legacy from a friend of mine."

The quiet warmth with which he spoke acted soothingly upon the company, and the talk wandered off on to the subject of old fiddles. The prince told the story of his own violin, which he had inherited from long dead ancestors, he himself being the eleventh member of his family to be a competent player. Diana spoke of the wonderful lute Wilhelm had found, an instrument of so great value that Scherer alone was in a position to buy it, and even he would have to cut his expenses down for a year at least to do so. All made merry over the story, especially Scherer himself, who invariably chuckled over stories concerning his "great wealth." By the time the tokay was served they were in good fettle, and at ease one with the other.

"All the sunshine of Hungary has been captured in this bottle," cried Diana, "and there is more sunlight in this one glass than in the whole of the Balkans! In actual fact, I never have suffered from cold so greatly as in our Castoria, among the Macedonian lakes; and never experienced such heat as on Lake Flatten."

Everybody now complained of the unusual cold, which this year had continued intense even into March.

"Each morning as I turn that draughty corner in the Wilhelms Platz," said the prince, "my thoughts fly to Hamlet, Act One, the scene on the platform before the castle at Elsinore, when Francisco says: ''Tis bitter cold.' As soon as I enter the office, the resemblance to Hamlet becomes acute, because of the prevalent indecision in ministerial circles. So let us, Herr Scherer, up anchor and set sail for Zanzibar."

Franklin declared that nothing would please him better than to have the whole party as his guests in his Arab home; the Russian invited them all to Livadia, where the tsar's fist could not reach them; Scherer, who seemed to be enjoying some secret of his own apart from the others, turned to Diana, asking:

"And you? Whither does our good European want to take us?"

The men were silent, waiting upon her words.

"I? I have but one home," said Diana softly, "but I am afraid it is not to the liking of all here present." Her smile slowly changed from an external demonstration of social affability to one of inward enjoyment, while her companions sat expectant. Then quickly and fervently, she added: "My home is on the sea."

"I love the sea," said the Russian, who felt that her shaft had been aimed at him. "I don't expect any of you have sailed the seas so much as I. But I did not voyage on them in search—of ideas!"

"If only I possessed one that would please you," said Scherer blithely.

As he spoke he drew a postcard from his wallet and offered it to his neighbour at table. Diana looked upon the picture of a yacht, graceful and white, with but one funnel, and displaying abundance of tackle—a boat that could be used either as steamer or as sailing vessel. Aft, the deck was sheltered by an awning. The name of the yacht could be deciphered at the stern. It read, "Excelsior." Diana waved the picture aloft, crying:

"Excelsior!"

"Excelsior," echoed Scherer, smiling.

Franklin was the first to question. Then the whole company joined in a chorus of gleeful laughter.

"A friend in Hamburg has asked me whether I will not hire it for a few weeks because he himself has to go to London this spring. So I was wondering if you would care to give the sea and me the pleasure of your company for a little while...."

Eduard looked up in surprise. In a flash he sensed all that the invitation held of adventure. He glanced at Diana, then at Scherer, for Diana's eyes were fixed upon her host.

She was probably the only one of the party used to sudden invitations of the kind, and the way in which Scherer had spoken told her the command he was exercising over himself. She was loath to make a decision before the three men concerned had expressed their feelings in the matter. But since all eyes were now upon her, and everyone seemed waiting upon her word, she felt constrained to say something. Nothing better came to her mind than to exclaim once more:

"Excelsior!"

Now there was a different ring in her voice, as though she had said: "Excellent!"

Scherer handed round other papers with sketches of the yacht from various angles, information regarding its tonnage, accommodation, and so forth. Questions, surmises, proposals, flew from mouth to mouth. Only the Russian sat silent, waiting for the others to allow him a glimpse. But they seemed to have completely forgotten him. At last Scherer, to whom an adventure appealed only so long as he felt it was going to run the course he had planned, turned with sudden resolve towards Sergievitch, saying:

"And you, Doctor, if these gentlemen will but allow you a glimpse of the pictures, will see that there are six cabins in addition to those belonging to the crew. Will you choose one for yourself? I should recommend either No. 5 or No. 6, whichever seems to you the nicer."

The other men turned eagerly towards him encouraging him to a decision. But he sat silently gazing at Diana, who, unconscious of his scrutiny, was examining the intricacies of cordage one of the pictures displayed. At last the young man said:

"It is very kind of you, but I came to Germany to study ideas, not to voyage on the blue sea, not to study nature."

They laughed, and each was brought back upon himself. Even the prince felt he ought to think the matter over before deciding. But Scherer said:

"So that's settled. The only question remaining open is when we shall start. I was thinking that April would be a good month to choose. What do you say?"

Eduard and Franklin agreed. Diana demurred:

"I shall have to get leave of absence from my employer, first!"

"Your contract with the firm is quite clear upon that matter," retorted Scherer.

Diana looked pensive and remained so for the rest of the evening. The prince, as he contemplated her, realized how closely attuned she was to nature, to the sea and the wind and the sun. When Scherer left her to rejoin Franklin, who wished to have further particulars as to the length of the voyage, the prince and the Russian moved forward to her side, and the three thus stood grouped in the middle of the room.

"Are you going, too?" asked Diana, including both men in her glance.

"I'm entirely at your orders," answered the prince, assuming a certain military rigidity of pose.

The Russian laughed:

"Your orders! So German!"

"But only to those in authority," said the prince curtly.

"Is this fair lady...?" began Sergievitch.

"Only in the realm of ideas," Diana was quick to rejoin with a merry laugh. "Not in nature! And you?"

"I would pray for personal liberty," said the Russian proudly, his anarchist spirit rising in the ascendant.

"At your orders," retorted Diana coldly, looking through him haughtily as he bowed his acknowledgment.

Then she turned with a pleasant smile towards the prince.

BOOK FIVE

CHAPTER ONE

The white yacht sailed gracefully over the dark blue waters of the Mediterranean. She seemed to be moving in response to an inner impulse. This was the sixth day of the cruise, and that morning she had left the harbour at Messina to sail in a southerly course round the eastern shores of Sicily. The sea was calm, and the bows cut so smoothly into the water, that the dividing line between water and metal was as sharp as if it had been ruled with a diamond point on the surface of a mirror.

Diana stood in the bows, her head tossed back and the breeze playing with her curls, the white linen dress clinging to her and outlining breast and leg. From a distance, she might have been taken for the figure of that marble Nike which, in times of old, had been placed at the nose of the Greek warship and had flown forward to victory. But no one was about on this particular morning. She had ship and sea and sunlight to herself, so far as any personal observation was concerned, for the weatherbeaten helmsman and the two Low German sailors keeping the watch had no time to contemplate young ladies at so early an hour, even though, if we except old Mary, Diana was the only woman aboard.

And Diana knew that she was unobserved. She, like her companions, had started off in a spirit of adventure, and had sought nothing but enjoyment out of the voyage, the sprightly talk, the long silences, the laughter. But, alone of all the pleasant company, Diana knew and loved the sea, was under the spell of the dancing waters. She had felt this as soon as she stepped on board at Genoa, and now she was completely won to its moods and enchantments, in storm or calm, radiant at morn, tranquil at noon-tide, lively at sunset, or a murmuring mystery at night. She felt at home among the hawsers and tackle, the life-belts and ropes and masts, the shining brasses, all the paraphernalia of seafaring life. Untiringly she questioned the crew as to this, that, and the other detail she did not understand. She was learning to be an adept in reckoning how many knots they were making, in reading the charts, in calculating the mid pressure, and was becoming weather wise. Yet all this seemed to her no more than a game played upon the surface of the waters. Dark forces were at work within the abysses of her soul. She was lured within the magic circle of this fluid element, to plumb her own depths, dumbly, unseeingly, and to gauge her strength in the eyes of her friends and under the blue dome of the starry night. When such moods of self-contemplation assailed her, she forgot all about logarithms and maps, and allowed herself to penetrate into the mysteries of her own nature. Nowhere were such meditations more fruitful than when she was surrounded by the sea.

As Diana stood in the bows this morning she seemed to form part of the elements around her. The sunshine sparkled from the water as from the surface of a mirror, it was split up into a thousand facets on the ripples, as if the mighty fist of a god had dealt a blow upon the moving mass from which, at the moment of impact, a cascade of light had generated. But the impression upon Diana was different. The radiance and the sea were for her a world divided against itself and seeking reunion through strife; as night fell, the radiance was absorbed into the sea; when day dawned, it arose once more from the bosom of the waters; and this descent and resurrection was reproduced within herself as if she too were part of the living cosmos. The sensation of fettered freedom was strong upon her as the yacht glided through the Mediterranean, for here, and here alone, did night and morning become visible phenomena, superseding the habits of a lifetime, and giving concrete substance to the passage of the hours. The stars, which served to guide the vessel on her course, appeared more pregnant with mystery than those which shone over the houses of a town or even over the trees of a forest. At such moments, Diana became blind to externals, for she yielded herself up entirely to a kind of mystical contemplation. She saw neither birds nor fishes, nor the distant mountains coming slowly into view to starboard, nor the flattened cone shimmering white against the blue sky. Her thoughts were turned inward, while the breeze played fresh and cool upon her skin, the murmur of waters caressed her ears, the brine and the brilliance smote upon her eyes. Oblivious to all exterior happenings, she was only aware of palpitating sensation.

It was for her one of those rare moments of inner solitude which seem absolutely unattainable amid the growing tumult and complication of modern life. Of one thing alone did she become aware as the moments passed and she stood awake while her friends lay wrapped in slumber: that the sky was cloudless over a glittering sea.

CHAPTER TWO

She was roused from her reverie by the sound of rushing water. The men were washing down the decks, and she had to jump lightly on to a coil of ropes in order to escape the flood. It looked like glass as it flowed over the boards and through the scuppers. Diana felt her whole personality invaded by a sensation of cheerful security, of joy, at being absorbed as it were into a moving entity. She smiled serenely, and looked around her at these evidences of a century to which she seemed to be returning from a flight into a primal age. Westward, barely eight miles away, the rugged cliffs of an island rose out of the sea, crowned with what might be—she had no telescope—the Roman Theatre of Taormina. Years ago she had sailed these self-same waters, but she had never had an opportunity of visiting the island before, or of studying its coast-line. The young sailor who was busy swabbing down the deck had hitherto only sailed the Atlantic to and from America. This was his first experience of the Mediterranean, and he could give her none of the information she so eagerly desired. Nor could she consult the charts, for they were in the captain's cabin. The man at the wheel was always chary of words first thing in the morning. No one was about who could tell her what she longed to know. But soon the sound of an electric bell warned her that her friends were beginning to stir below, and she forgot her preoccupation with the landscape in order to guess who the ringer might be. Three times the summons was repeated, short, decisive, peremptory. It must be Scherer; he alone, as owner of the yacht, would venture on so authoritative an expression of urgency. The prince usually rang but once, with deliberation. Franklin's impatience was implied by three short, syncopated trills following close upon each other. The Russian never rang at all, probably, thought Diana, because it smacked too much of the master. She smiled to herself, hoping breakfast might soon be served. Meanwhile she watched the gulls flying overhead, and as she did so she heard footsteps approaching. The soft, slow tread told her that this was the fifth of her friends aboard.

When the plans for the cruise had been concluded, soon after that evening at Scherer's, and Diana had been asked if she knew of anyone else who would fit into the party, her thoughts had naturally flown to Wilhelm, whose lute playing and fanciful imagination would be greatly appreciated during such a voyage. Indeed, Wilhelm had proved so pleasant a companion to all concerned, that Scherer himself was grateful for the young man's presence.

"Good morning, Wilhelm," Diana called to him as he approached. "You are the first to put in an appearance, and yet you come an hour too late. The best of the day is past!"

"What? Breakfast?"

"No, the early hours!"

"But the sun's hardly risen."

"True; still, like a traveller after an hour's tramp, the sun's beginning to feel a trifle hot and weary. The first step into the free morning air when all the rest of the household is asleep, the first footfall to rouse the echoes along the slumbering street—that's over for today. And look, there's Etna!"

"You are cold," said Wilhelm waving his hand to the mountain. "Farewell! Farewell!—Where are we going to land?"

"Herr Scherer said Syracuse."

"At noon?"

"No, later. Perhaps not before evening."

"And there we'll find the tyrant?"

"Say, rather, the ear of Dionysius."

He sat Turkish fashion on a coil of ropes, his eyes blinking in the dazzle of sun and sea. His dreamy nature made him critical of all this clarity and hardness of outline. It seemed to him that the white apparition before him, resting a foot lightly upon a taut bit of cordage and leaning against the brass rail, with the background of blue, was poised in mid air.

"You have a way of talking about the gods as if they were relations of yours, Diana. And now you want to know where Dionysius keeps his ears! What do they matter? A man needs no more than mouth and nose to appreciate Burgundy."

"This morning you have no eyes," she retorted, smiling and poking him playfully with the point of her shoe. "If only you had ears! Then you would have heard what Herr Scherer had to tell us last night about this ear, seeing that this time, may it please you, we are not making for your tutelary deity, but for the tyrant who took the name of the god because—well, because he may have felt a kinship to the gods just as Diana does. And now let's have some breakfast."

So saying she jumped off the rail, pulled Wilhelm to his feet, linked arms with him, and sped down the deck to the dining-room, a place of glass and steel situated on the promenade deck. Taking the seat at the head of the table, she said to the steward, who awaited her orders menu in hand, "Oh, just give us anything you have a mind to, fruit, tea, what you will!"

"Impossible," protested Wilhelm, grasping the menu and measuring it with his fingers. "Eight inches of breakfast can't be walked off! And the spacing between dishes is as close as in the cheap edition of Jean Paul I have downstairs in my cabin. So for today I decree that we choose the even numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, and tomorrow we'll eat the uneven."

Thereupon he handed back the card to the steward who went off to get them what they had ordered. As soon as the man was out of earshot, Wilhelm said:

"Have you noticed how the Russian eats?"

"He eats splendidly," said Diana with ostentatious decision, smoothing her table napkin primly over her lap.

"Splendidly! Indeed?" The young man raised a hand in protest. Then with the utmost solemnity, as if the conventions of good manners were his main concern in life, he continued: "Didn't you notice how, last night at dinner, he took a quail in his fingers and bit off its head, smartly and almost savagely, as if he were an ogre dining off a grand duke?"

Diana laughed in spite of herself. She bit heartily into an apple, as she retorted:

"Yes, Wilhelm, smartly and savagely," and she suited her action to the words, biting ferociously into the fruit she held in hand. "I'm not particularly enamoured of this conceited young Russian, and as far as I am concerned he might have stayed at home. But he has the finest teeth I've ever seen biting into anything, and it's only when he attacks his food that you can see them, for he never laughs. Besides, as far as quails are concerned, conventional etiquette permits one to bite their heads off, as you can read for yourself in Brillat-Savarin, even if one be a grand duke and one takes the quail for a roasted anarchist!"

"I'll have to ask the prince about that," said Wilhelm huffily, helping himself to porridge. "He's nearly a grand duke himself and must know about such things better than any of us."

The prince appeared at that moment and stood looking through the glass door, as he said with indulgent pity:

"Fancy eating breakfast just as we are sailing by Fiumefreddo, Gurna, and Fondachello! A fleeting moment we may never hope to recapture...."

"Fancy sleeping on to eight o'clock on such a morning," retorted Diana, "and then to try and cloak the misdemeanour with an erudition acquired on the wing as it were—for I am sure you've only culled those names from a map as you were dressing!"

"Well, you can't deny that I've committed them to memory with commendable promptitude," said the prince, as he took his place on Diana's left, for, wishing to avoid formal etiquette of any kind, it had been agreed that all were to take their seats at table as chance would have it—an arrangement which invariably entailed a general post of table napkins as the prelude to every meal. "Fate, in the person of Giorgino, our worthy chef's assistant, who from a passionate desire to move in high social circles gets up when everyone else is asleep and lays the breakfast table, fate, I say, had decreed that the Russian should sit here. But I am not afraid to gainsay the dame by removing Sergievitch's napkin to a lower place at our board," and he suited the action to the word. "Good morning, Herr Wilhelm!"

Wilhelm, busy ladling in his porridge, was content to reply:

"Good morning! Do you happen ever to have killed a quail by biting off its head?"

The prince's eyebrows went up in perplexity at the question. Then, turning to Diana, he inquired:

"Has Herr Wilhelm had a bad dream?"

She shook her head, saying:

"Marsala, porridge, sea air, Jean Paul, and a good deal of Stromboli...."

"Too much Stromboli," interrupted Scherer as he came forward with the Russian. When the chorus of greetings had subsided, he continued: "Not only that, but too much mail as well. I was a fool to call for it in Messina yesterday, it's given me a headache going through the pile and has made me late for breakfast."

"Allow me," said Diana offering him the dish, and for a good while thereafter the five of them were busy with the details of breakfasting.

"Can I get no information for my department?" inquired Diana, at length.

"I suggest an editorial staff on the following lines," said the prince. "The aim of the Scherer expedition: to incite Lord Northcliffe to suicide. The means: publication of events just before their occurrence. Leader writer: the Captain. Trade: Herr Scherer. Commerce: Fräulein de Wassilko. Technical affairs: Herr Wilhelm. Advertisements: Herr Franklin. Art: Giorgino, who lays our dining table so well. Reminiscences of the twenty-first century: Dr. Sergievitch."

"And what about yourself, Prince?"

"I am, of course, the Constant Reader, who for years has sent in letters of protest, in English, in American, in Russian, in Italian, to say: 'I earnestly request you to give us a little less "Excelsior."'"

"Your arrangement won't do at all," interrupted Scherer, "for, since we shall have to depend on our advertisements for our financial security, we must have some one who can get up early!"

Whereupon they all began to comment on Franklin's unpunctuality as if they themselves had been up for hours. Diana recommended Wilhelm for the post, seeing that he had been the first of the men to put in an appearance, but, since Franklin himself entered at that moment, all were nonplussed for a reply.

"I'm awfully sorry," apologized Franklin, hastily slipping into the vacant place, "but I've had a most extraordinary dream!"

"With whom?" asked Wilhelm innocently.

"With a French colonial. He and I used constantly to be at loggerheads...."

Whereat they all laughed, and Diana said:

"The prince told us a similar story yesterday. It seems to me there is too much dreaming aboard the 'Excelsior.' You ought to run more races, or swing dumbbells or something. Have we any foils?"

"You need not have anxiety on my account," said Scherer, "for I never dream."

He spoke so simply that no one could doubt the truth of the statement. The prince's scepticism might have led him to demur had not Kyril, with his usual solemnity amid the flashes of wit and humour of his comrades, exclaimed:

"So there really are people in the world who never dream!"

"And who are, nevertheless, musical, you'd like to add. Eh?"

The prince had tossed the repartee to the Russian, hoping to bring a little levity into the solemn seriousness which the man's words had cast upon the company.

"No, what I had in mind was that there were actually persons who never dream and are yet competent to carry out business transactions."

Even the prince, paradoxical as were his outlooks as a rule, was taken aback. Who could have imagined such words in the mouth of a revolutionary? Everyone was now alert in the discussion, while Scherer endeavoured to exculpate himself by saying:

"And why not? So long as a man does not forget the dream of his own practical endeavour, what matters it if his nights are dreamless? Day cannot kill a dream which night has not created!"

"Wilhelm," cried Diana cheerfully, "confirmed dreamer that you are, there's hope for you yet! Even now you may become a man of action!" Her eyes met Franklin's as she spoke, and she realized that though he too was striving towards practical achievements, he had no wish to be exiled from the realm of dreams. She smiled at him across the table.

"You're laughing at me," protested Scherer.

"I am merely laughing at the principles of those who can tolerate fulfilment only when it is in harmony with their own peculiar nature."

The prince, silent himself, became aware that between Diana and the four other men, a series of epigrams was in course of construction. He seemed to perceive the thoughts like living sparks glowing in mid air, when the Russian intervened:

"Fulfilment? There's no such thing so far as rationalists are concerned, and as for us others it would only serve to hinder our activities. Unless one can die at the very moment of fulfilment, it were better never to have been born at all. He who, while dreaming, acts, is even more dangerous than he who could create in response to his dream. In this matter, likewise, I am all in favour of a partition of powers."

Franklin, hardly admitting even to himself how much he disliked the Russian, followed what Sergievitch said as in a dream, barely conscious of the meaning of the words. Before him he saw a man, handsome and young, with hair, complexion, and eyes so clear as to gainsay the sombre spirit which pervaded Kyril's whole inner being. Surely, thought Franklin, this man must be instinct with devotion, imagination, and at the same time so completely master of himself that he gives his fancy rein only to a circumscribed extent, never allowing it to get out of control. He sought to probe the young Russian's heart.

Precisely because he did not understand Kyril as well as Franklin did, Wilhelm liked the Russian. After a while he asked innocently: