Diana

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The morning light shone down limpid and warm in the courtyard of the Armenian monastery on the island in the lagoon; and as the slanting shadows of column and arch fell athwart the cloistered ways, the shafts and crosses and arches were figured on the marble flooring, creating as it were a second architectural masterpiece.

Two human shadows came to mix their contours with those of the masonry. A tall, black-robed elderly monk was leaning against one of the pillars, and was speaking quietly but earnestly to an old man, likewise clad in black, who was bending his head in order to be on a level with the eyes of his interlocutor, and was listening attentively. Both men had flowing white beards. In the court round which the cloisters were built, there was a little fountain plashing in the sunshine, and on the edge of its basin sat a young woman lazily stroking a great cat which responded with sensual delight to her caresses, arching its back and raising its tail as her hand passed from its neck and down its spine.

All four of these sentient creatures were being penetrated with the sun's rays, and three of them appeared to be so content as to be wholly without a desire of any sort. Only he who had vowed to renounce the world, seemed to be a prey to passionate impulses.

"Even a convent is unable to kill the impulsive force of man," thought Diana, as her eyes travelled from the calm face of her father, to the glossy coat of the animal, now stroked into ecstatic quietude; as she considered her own mood, and then compared these three states of beatific tranquillity with the secret flame which consumed the monk. "Maybe my father only attained his present condition of meditative peace after death had deprived him of his companion. Helena! The name rose from his very heart when he uttered it yesterday. And she died in giving birth to a son whom he never sees...."

The two men separated, and her father turned to seek her out. With infinite precaution, lest she disturb the sleeping cat, she slid down from the basin's rim and crossed the flags to where he stood. As she went, she noticed that the well-tended beds were planted with vegetables, and the aroma of damp earth rose to her nostrils.

"They must have watered the young shoots before the sun got round," she thought, vaguely.

The conversation which the meeting with the monk had interrupted was now resumed as father and daughter paced up and down beneath the Gothic arches.

"As I looked at you both," began Diana, "the layman seemed to be the more spiritual of the two. What had occurred to excite the Armenian?"

"I have known him these twenty years," said the old man, passing his ivory-handled stick into the small of his back and resting his two hands on it at either end. "In those days, when I was engaged on excavation work in Anatolia, he spoke with just the same animation. His people out there are still being harried by the Turks, and he imagines I can pull strings on Armenia's behalf because I occasionally dine at the embassy in London."

"Have you ties out there?"

"I don't keep them up now. But you were in those parts not so long ago, and at cross purposes, it seemed to me."

"Not at cross purposes, Father."

"What about the heart—did you not write to me that...?"

She hung on his arm, saying:

"When will my heart beat a steady rhythm?"

"As soon as it beats slower, Diana," he assured her, looking at her out of friendly eyes, while she clung to him more resolutely than ever.

"When did your heart begin to beat slower, Father?"

"A long while ago."

"How long?"

"When my hair turned white."

"I wish mine were grey," she said, a smile on her lips.

"I have no wish that mine be brown again. I love age. It seems to me like a statue one has dug up out of the ground: more lovely than a new one could ever be, even though a limb should be lacking."

He paused by a capital which had fallen from one of the columns in the cloisters and now lay amid the grass, surrounded by purple iris, looking for all the world as if it had just been shovelled out of the earth and the column to which it belonged lay still beneath the soil.

"What purpose can this old thing serve, I wonder?" He stood contemplating it pensively.

"It will catch the dews from heaven in its convolutions so that birds may come and slake their thirst," answered Diana.

He looked up, and they resumed their walk.

"How charmingly you choose your words," he said after a while. "But my birds are all flown and seek other springs."

"Let me fly free a little longer, spreading my wings over the endless seas that lie beyond this lagoon. Do you hear how the gulls are calling?"

She pulled herself away from his arm as if to get nearer to the waters which lapped round the island's sandy shores. He stood awaiting her pleasure, a smile irradiating his face. He watched her as she took off her wide-brimmed hat and swung it over her arm, while shaking out her curls as if to feel the sea-wind through her locks. Soon, she turned to him again, took his hand in hers, and kissed it.

"Forgive me," she said. "It is barely a day since I left the yacht, and the scream of a seagull fills me with longing. How will the bird fare inland?"

"And what about Sidney?"

"Sidney? Would you not like to have him back with you again?"

"He left of his own accord, two years ago. I cannot put constraint upon grown-up children."

"Is he getting—sufficient money from you?"

"Only a little sum, hardly enough to live even modestly upon, the same I wanted you to have when you decided to fend for yourself. I have no more to give."

"But he needs a great deal."

"He's never written to ask for more. Is he earning nothing? Is he not drawing?"

"He did—a little modelling recently."

"Ah? Caricatures? Animals?"

"No, a figure."

"A man's?"

"No, mine."

The father asked no further. He had an allegorical turn of mind, and the faculty of seeing symbolical meanings in things. He saw his two children before him in fancy, and marvelled at the idea that one of them should serve as the beautiful material for the art of the other. The sense of liberation, which he was invariably aware of when confronted by the work of a master, became associated with this symbolical conception, so that he felt only allegory and form, and that the two were mysteriously intertwined. He lost himself in a series of strange conclusions, wherein a mythical brother wedded his mythical sister; he then returned to his own fatherhood and let his fancy roam on the thought how the mother of these two children (who had always seemed to him the symbol of beauty) was reproduced in the form of Diana, while his own plastic talents had been reincarnated in Sidney's hands. Thus plunged in meditation, the old man strolled along at Diana's side. After a while he seemed to arouse himself as if from slumber, and was about to ask if the modelling had been successful, when he became aware of a quickening in Diana's step, a tall apparition arising in the path, and of greetings exchanged.

Eduard, who had spoken of the San Lazzaro monastery with Diana, and whose thoughts were wholly centred upon her, had come over to the island this morning on the chance of meeting her there. As the father slowly aroused himself from his reverie and observed the cordiality of the encounter between the two young people, it was borne in upon him how far he was removed from the trend of his daughter's destiny. He observed the countenance of the man, suffused with inner happiness, and, guessing all this signified, he turned his eyes away as the two, like a bridal pair, came towards him. Diana introduced the prince, whose bow was deeper than he himself was aware.

"I'm disturbing you, intruding on your morning serenity, I fear," Eduard said hesitantly, and his tone took Diana by surprise, for it had such a boyish ring.

"Certainly not, Your Highness," said the old gentleman. "Diana has been telling me how well you keep the party entertained on board. And to think that on her old father's account she should have had to forgo those pleasures!"

"I have to thank you for your invitation, Herr von Wassilko," and Eduard felt how much more seemly the name sounded when addressed to this white-haired veteran than to the young whipper-snapper in Berlin.

They continued their stroll to the accompaniment of such civilities until they reached a stone bench at the other end of the cloisters. The seat was bathed in sunshine, and the three sat enjoying the warmth. The old man was pleased with the young man's manner, though it seemed a trifle too conventional for his taste, and he asked himself why it was that Diana had singled out this particular member of the yachting party for specially friendly commendation. Diana did not join in the conversation; she was waiting for one of those airy nothings which the prince was wont to indulge in when he talked.

But Eduard was thoroughly enjoying these exchanges. He wanted more of them, and he was delighted when the old gentleman rose to his fly and began to discuss personalities moving in the diplomatic circles of London society. The prince was wholly indifferent to such people as a rule, but he listened now, for the pleasant gossip gave him a sense of security, showed him the social background against which Diana's father moved and had his being. At last he was getting something he had long sought for, the confirmation of his own surmises as to Diana's status and upbringing. Inasmuch as, under stress of the remnant of inherited prejudices which persisted despite all his open-mindedness, he was on the lookout for a uniform in which he could clothe the members of this remarkable family, thereby raising them to his own level—he showed towards this man whose whole demeanour and aspect betokened a rare intelligence, a suavity which his father had never been able to make him exhibit towards his real equals.

"Do you know San Lazzaro, Sir," asked Wassilko, rising and pointing to the monastery buildings. "I fear I am keeping you too long in England when you should be enjoying a glimpse of Armenia."

"I know the place well. Here, too, there is at least one English room."

"Ah, Lord Byron's? Is he a favourite of yours?"

"Now at last," thought Diana, "he will raise his mask."

But the prince was silent. He was asking himself whether Diana, this child of liberty, would ever adapt herself to the laws of his class (at least to the extent of an outward observance of its conventions). In his perplexity, he had been tempted, that morning, to emphasize, before her and her father, his own rank and station. Now, when the name of the English poet cropped up in the air radiant with morning sunlight, he looked past the questioner and Diana, across the glistening waters of the lagoon, and said:

"As a poet I appreciate him greatly. But as a nobleman he seems to me to have been somewhat of a wastrel."

Hardly had he spoken, when Diana realized what was going on within Eduard, and why he separated at this particular moment in time the poet from the nobleman. At the same instant she saw through the whole complicated network of considerations and hesitations in which he had for so long been enmeshed. Nevertheless, she was not going to allow that there was anything amiss in the famous adventurer's conduct; she was on the defensive in his behalf; but her training hindered her from taking up the cudgels by word of mouth until her father had spoken. He, meanwhile, had been tranquilly awaiting the prince's reply and now made ready to answer, beginning with grave formality.

"Sir, your own birth and station would naturally predispose you to consider the nobleman before the poet. But we others, who have no ties either as Englishmen or as noblemen, may be permitted to judge him by his verses, whose beauty even you are willing to concede."

Diana, who had listened in silence while the two men were talking, now seized her opportunity for the defence. "I can see him as he sat at his table in a cell over there in the east wing. He would rise from his stool after hours of toil, for the light of day was fading and he could no longer decipher the words in his Armenian Bible. Approaching the window he would look out, his ear bent towards the town over there, across the lagoon. It must have been in June. He calls his servant, who makes ready the gondola. Byron steps down to the water's edge, indifferent to the little waves which wet his feet. Suddenly, he flings his coat and boots into the boat, plunges into the water, and swims to the town. Dripping, he steps ashore, crosses the Piazzetta, and changes his clothes in the rooms of one of his inamoratas, dances the night through, and returns next morning to the holy fathers to resume his studies and his translation of the sacred text. Yes, indeed, Prince! In such circumstances one may well remain unproductive as a poet—and scandalous as a nobleman!"

Eduard, forgetful of his pose, listened to Diana's tirade with growing appreciation. Her voice, low and melodious at first, had increased in volume as she warmed to her subject, until, at the last, she had flung out the words sharply, turning her shaft against him in a direct attack. He smiled as he said:

"Mademoiselle has sacrificed the poet. Nothing can hinder me now from sacrificing the nobleman."

"You could not venture to speak in that way in England, Diana," commented her father, wishing to pour oil on troubled waters, while he thought: "They must be on very unfriendly terms, I fear."

CHAPTER TWELVE

The simple meal came to an end quicker than any of the party expected, and Scherer was thinking how difficult its preparation must have been, for Herr von Wassilko lived in two rambling, scantily furnished rooms lacking all the amenities that would have tended to make guests comfortable. And yet, in spite of obvious drawbacks, everything had gone off without a hitch. The very simplicity of the entertainment was a factor of its success. Mary had noiselessly attended to every one's needs, and talk flowed easily around the table under the red-shaded lamp, the only spot of light in a room where the shadows lingered. The old gentleman and Scherer had contributed most to the conversation, for they found one another congenial. Diana's attention was divided, for she had to play hostess and see that Mary provided all that was needed for the comfort of her father's guests. Eduard could not take his eyes off her as, sitting there in her flowing lilac gown, she acquitted herself of her part with so much ease and dignity. Before him arose visions of her presiding at other tables, not at official banquets so much, as at homely gatherings, homely both in the worldly and in the idyllic meaning of the word. He fancied himself unobserved, but Diana felt his eyes upon her, and she knew (since she had so suddenly plumbed the depths of his thoughts that morning) that this evening he would come to certain conclusions concerning her, conclusions which would be the result of long previous cogitation.

Kyril, taciturn by nature and only able to give vent to his ideas in spontaneous debates, had met so many party members since his arrival in Venice and had learned of so many underground intrigues, that his tendency to keep silence in the presence of others was accentuated this evening. In addition, his host's appearance fascinated him, and he sat observing the old gentleman attentively. Wilhelm, alone of the company, appeared to be disappointed. He had expected to meet an astrologer, a man who could read the meaning of the stars, or, at least, an alchemist, some wonder-worker whose house would be full of maps and globes, of bottles, retorts, and measuring glasses. Yet in the hall, as he entered this sometime wealthy palace which had now fallen on evil days, instead of armour and chains, all he saw was a row of pegs each bearing a hat belonging to the master of the house. To this display, the newcomers reacted differently. Kyril sneered inwardly at so much needless formality; Scherer mentally appraised their cost; and the prince noted the absence of the tall hat, which might of course be in safe keeping in one of the old man's boxes.

As Herr von Wassilko rose from table, he said:

"I trust you will excuse so primitive an entertainment, it is all the impoverished descendant of an old family can afford. But I prefer to rent a couple of rooms such as these, rather than put up in a hotel. I cannot help envisaging the persons who have been there before me, perhaps vacated the premises an hour before, sat upon the same chairs, eaten from the same spoons, and set the air tingling with the sound of their senseless talk. I cannot help being aware of this as I sit at table; the whole atmosphere is full of it."

They took their places in a semicircle before the open glass doors leading to the balcony, two of the chairs being comfortable modern ones, and the remainder stiff and austere, recalling the furniture of an earlier period. The host, though his guests had pressed him to take one of the easy chairs, elected to sit in a large Gothic chair devoid of any kind of upholstering. Eduard and Scherer, loath to make themselves more comfortable than the old man, had ensconced themselves in equally rigid seats, while Diana, throwing a huge Venetian shawl about her shoulders, had pulled a dumpty to the step leading on to the balcony and had settled down there out of range of the lamp and of Eduard's persistent eyes. Only from time to time was she for a moment lit up in the flickering light of a passing gondola.

"Thus it remains for the two young gentlemen to play the grandfather," said the host pleasantly.

Wilhelm, who had expected as much, immediately threw himself into the depths of one of the arm-chairs, exclaiming:

"That's just what I feel too! And we'll have to be taken great care of for we are the hope of the nation."

"I accept the rôle with pleasure," said Kyril, suiting the action to the word. "It seems to me the only thing I can do under the circumstances, though I don't feel in the least bit grandfatherly. Those other chairs take us back to earlier centuries, reminding us of the might wielded by long extinct courts. At best they should be in a museum, where a protective cord would intimate to the man of the twentieth century that he may only gaze on them from afar—if, that is to say, he ever finds time in this age of hustle to study such antiquities."

"You would thus appear to be the most advanced among us, and so, I suppose, the youngest, Doctor?"

"His Highness is no older," said Kyril grumpily.

"And now you must draw their horoscopes," cried Wilhelm eagerly. "You have all the necessary apparatus, haven't you?" He sprang up from his chair, ready to fetch the supposed implements, and burning with curiosity to see them. But Scherer held him back.

"We must not trouble Herr von Wassilko today."

"Ah, my daughter has been giving me away! I gather the young gentleman looks upon me as a second Swedenborg."

"Was Swedenborg in Venice once?" asked Diana dreamily. She had paid no heed to the rest of the conversation, but the seer's name had caught her attention, and she sensed an affinity between him and her father, though the latter had seemed inclined to repudiate anything of the kind.

"Yes," he said, "Swedenborg was here, anno 1718. That's nearly two hundred years ago, Diana."

Eduard pricked up his ears. The quiet way in which the words were spoken, the mystery surrounding the Swedish mystic, the old-fashioned use of the Latin word, the affectionate tone in which he had pronounced Diana's beautiful name, the resemblance of his manner of speech to hers, so pensive and comfortable, as if the best had been left unsaid; his movements, as he leaned forward in his high-backed Gothic chair, to address his daughter sitting at the open door; his flowing, white beard, lit up in the rays of the lamp which had been brought over to where they sat; the contrast between this venerable countenance and her face, lifted in childlike expectancy to his, questioning and eager, suffused with a ruddy glow from the shaded lamp—all these things combined to fill Eduard with a sudden rush of tender impatience, and his lonely heart longed to be linked for ever with such fellow mortals as these, persons who realized freedom through self-restraint. Now, for the first time, he wished that Diana might read his feelings clearly in his eyes. He stepped forward towards the circle of light, intending, while turning his back upon the others, to be visible to her alone. But he was arrested half way by a sonorous voice inquiring:

"What, actually, did this man Swedenborg achieve?"

It was Kyril who spoke from the encompassing shadows. Diana turned her eyes from the contemplation of her father towards the spot whence the voice had come, and Eduard perceived that her brows were puckered where a moment before they had been serene. But Wassilko answered unperturbed:

"He left us twenty volumes of natural science, dealing in especial with mineralogy; he was a member of many learned societies; and, on account of his achievements, his name has been entered in the annals of science."

Kyril stirred uneasily. Imbued with a fanatical conception of an imaginary future, ever in conflict with prejudice and tradition, he had found no time, pressed as he was with the tasks imposed by his own spirit and by the position he held in the party, to bring equipoise into his nature. Thus it was that, with all the powers of his mind, he had resisted the daimonic forces within him, banishing them whenever he felt that they were raising their heads, looking upon them as some out-worn conceit that must at all cost be overcome. And yet he was attracted by that other world, lured by the unreasoning realm of emotion, especially by the realm of music; the cosmos of impenetrable laws fascinated him, drawing him away from the tangible laws of economics, and subjecting him against his will to its caprices. Now, when he learned for the first time that a visionary, a man towards whom he felt a fundamental mistrust, had likewise been an investigator in the field of positive science, he realized (for gifted natures almost invariably apply the lessons from the life histories of notable personalities to themselves) that there was a possibility that he himself might some day lapse into a similar state of spiritual depravity. He said after a pause:

"Yet had he produced nothing more than these works of science, he would hardly have penetrated into the ranks of the famous and dwelt in the memories of men. I had myself never heard of his achievements in this field, nor do I fancy have most people."

"That's true enough," confirmed Scherer. "I remember when Professor Somebody-or-Other was giving the memorial lecture at the Stockholm academy, he stated that he himself was far from knowing all the works of the master whose memory he was honouring."

A laugh rippled round the circle, and the old gentleman added:

"You are right, and I, too, am no wiser than that laudator officialis."

Kyril stuck to his point.

"But what about those other works of his which dealt with the occult? His so-called 'supernatural' ideas must be familiar to you. Tell me whether in these there is anything tangible, anything of lasting value."

Diana turned away and gazed down upon the canal, thinking: "He should be climbing in the rigging, using his splendid limbs, or biting into an apple with his dazzling teeth. He is a fish out of water in Venice and in my father's company."

Eduard, who had followed her movement and had dimly caught the expression on her face as she turned away, was thinking: "If I were sitting beside her in that gondola now drifting by, I would try to whisper away all the things that are causing her pain at this moment."

"Such a question is very difficult to answer," said Herr von Wassilko, sitting upright in his high-backed chair. "These things are impalpable, and durability is hardly one of their characteristics. They do not seem bound by time, but only to men (and there have been such since man first began to think) who, following the laws of their own nature, aspire to bring them into closer relation with their own humanity."

"Very ably put," thought Scherer, whose habit it was to evade such transcendental questions by similar generalizations. He felt the old man was his equal as a man of the world, and entirely failed to perceive that the reticence of the reply masked a believing soul and was not the result, as it would have been in Scherer's case, of consideration for a cultured, though thoroughly rational, outlook which had to be upheld from two sides at once.

Kyril was silent. He felt that he had been worsted, and since the others felt the same, they were grateful to Wilhelm for his intervention when he said innocently:

"If only I knew whether one could learn the art of seeing spirits! I once asked an expert in Berlin after a séance, and he said: 'Your friends tell me you play the lute. Well, if one has music in one's heart one is not far from the occult world.'"

"Where is your lute, Wilhelm?" asked Diana.

There was a general sigh of relief at this change of subject. They spoke of musical instruments; and when Wilhelm came back with his lute in his hand (he rarely went out of an evening without it and Venice was the last place in the world where he would neglect to take it), Wassilko said:

"I'm sorry there is neither a piano nor a violin here. But my landlord possesses a wonderful 'cello, and, since I used to play the instrument long ago, he always leaves it in its case in my room whenever I come to stay."

He got up, and after a short absence, returned with the 'cello. His guests hastened to relieve him of his burden, and gathered round to examine it and pass their comments. Wilhelm alone had not risen. He was back in the huge arm-chair, which he had vacated for no more than a minute to fetch the lute. Now he said very softly to Diana:

"No one is going to take this chair from me this evening, after what he said about them—unless, of course, you have a fancy for it, Diana."

His gentle considerateness went to her heart. She felt sundered from Eduard, wounded by Kyril, disturbed by the course the talk had taken; she had more and more cut herself adrift from them all, giving herself up to her own train of thought as she gazed into the darkness without, and was dimly aware from time to time of the lap of waters, the emergent lights, and the cadenced calls, arising from the canal below. The boyish words spoken to her by the young man lounging in the easy chair had fallen with so friendly a lilt upon her ear that she was grateful. Franklin's image rose before her, and she wondered why he had stayed away, whether he dreaded being together with her and her father; then, again, her thoughts turned to the prince.

Meanwhile Kyril had possessed himself of the 'cello, had sat down, tuned it, and had become wholly absorbed in the instrument.

"Will you play something?" asked Scherer.

"Alone?"

"Wilhelm's lute will replace the piano as accompaniment."

Every one was delighted. Wilhelm, who could not read music, playing by ear and adapting his accompaniment to almost any song, agreed to do his best, but insisted he be allowed to remain seated where he was in the "revolutionist's chair" as he called it. Kyril exchanged with the prince so as to sit more commodiously with the instrument. He glanced with misgivings at Wilhelm and the lute; then, without preface or explanation, started to play Bach's suite for 'cello. Wilhelm, who knew it well, was too alarmed to venture an accompaniment. He would not dare to make up something out of his own head to music such as this. So he laid his lute aside. Kyril glanced up for a moment, looked his appreciation, and continued to play alone. As the mellow tones fell into the quietude of this warm spring night, Diana sat up and turned towards the player. At first her blood surged wrathfully through her veins, as if she had been touched with a fencing foil. Then the music subjected her to its mighty melodies. She sat very straight on her low stool, her black shawl slipping unheeded from her shoulders.

The music penetrated her whole being, sapping her combativeness, and luring her eyes to the figure of the Russian as he played his 'cello in the ruddy glow of the lamp. She saw his powerful right hand wielding the bow, the fingers of his left, agile and dexterous, drawing vibrant notes from the strings, his muscular legs pressing the red-brown wood between his knees, and, silhouetted against the carved back of a chair once occupied by a Venetian nobleman, the fair head of a fanatical Russian peasant bent over the instrument as if over a woman he held against him while with his right hand he caressed her to responsiveness and with his left he toyed with her curving throat....

Eduard was all too aware of her absorption in the man who was ravishing the company with his music, and at this minute he would gladly have exchanged the realm of his father and his brothers for the spiriting of his fiddle to his side that he might pit his musicianship against this alien's.

A long silence followed upon the final notes of the suite, broken at last by Wilhelm, who said: "I'm sorry, but I really could not give you any assistance in that. I had thought you were going to give us some Chopin."

They laughed at the speaker's naïve excuses, and the host together with Scherer and Eduard, gave voice to their appreciation. But Diana, awaking as it were from a spell, rose and stepped out on to the balcony, shaking off the magic which had bound her and to which she had surrendered against her will. She leaned for a moment against the iron balustrade, then turned, and, stretching her arms towards the glass door (a gesture which suggested a longing to embrace this evening so pregnant with melancholy) picked up the wrap which had fallen from her shoulders, saying:

"Wilhelm is right! The day itself and all the ardours of the sun are in your playing—and yet here we are encompassed by night."

Kyril looked at her, and in his heart he told himself that what she said was true, for through the medium of music every hesitancy of the spirit was revealed to him who, in theory, denied that any such insight existed. He began playing Chopin's nocturne in E-flat major, and Wilhelm accompanied him throughout, while Diana stood leaning upon the rail of the balcony gazing down on the darkened water.

"All this is good," thought she. "So is this town, and my father, and the prince, and Wilhelm. So, too, maybe is the Russian at times. And even if things are to be otherwise in the future, yet for tonight I will that they be as they are!"

Soon after this the party broke up, for the yacht was to put to sea at peep of day. Wassilko stopped Diana when she reached the middle of the great room, and, taking her face between his hands, he kissed his daughter on the top of her head. The four men watched him in silence: Scherer and Wilhelm as if they were assisting at a ceremony which they would, undoubtedly, have performed better than any of those who were present; Kyril with vague recollections of the Russian parental blessing; Eduard once again with the feeling that his own father was before him, his father, kissing Diana.

Their farewells were more genial than their greetings had been, and yet there was something aloof in the manner of the four men as they bade their host good-night. They divided forces as they approached the two gondolas, the prince pairing off with Diana while Scherer and Kyril took their places in the other boat. Wilhelm stood hesitant on the landing-stage, pondering the alternatives: should he please Scherer by stepping into the foremost boat and thus preventing the prince and Diana from being alone, or should he please Eduard by leaving the field free? Scherer, guessing his dilemma, was determined to bring no pressure to bear upon the young man's decision. Finally Diana signalled to him her wish to have the prince all to herself, and so it was that Wilhelm sprang in beside Scherer. He instantly struck up one of those light-hearted ditties that are the rage in Venice, and make one feel they must have been composed in Vicenza, so gay and debonair is their lilt. Old Mary, in company with one of the yacht's crew, followed in a third gondola.

"Shall I tell him to stop?" asked Eduard softly.

"Oh no! It is sweet to hear his lute over the water...."

"Is Herr von Wassilko a good player?"

"His heart plays well, but his fingers are clumsy and out of practice."

"And yet they were dextrous enough when it was a question of bringing ancient statues out of the earth...."

"Yes, and glass-ware too; that's a far more delicate business."

"He seems more vigorous than my father, and yet is much the same age."

"Is the prince still ailing? Have you any news of his health?"

She was never the one to start a conversation about his relatives, always waiting for him to begin.

"He has been in a precarious condition ever since my mother died. I have not much confidence either in the bulletins or in his doctor," said Eduard softly, turning away.

"I, too, love my father," murmured Diana.

Eduard, profoundly moved by her unuttered thought, again reminded of the scenes he had witnessed on the steps of the museum and in the room at the moment of farewell, seized her hand as it lay in her lap. She made no protest, and he whispered her name: "Diana..."

He had never yet called her by name, and now, very slowly, he bent his head and kissed her hand, pressing his lips to it long and tenderly.

"How gentle are this young man's kisses," she mused. "I would like to kiss him... Yet he is silent, and seems to be enclosing me in a great circle ... slowly... Behind us, in our wake, Wilhelm trills his song of love, as if life were nothing but an Eden of amoretti, short-kilted in pale blue raiment... Have I dreamed all this before?..."

And, as if the prince had drunk in her reverie through the pores of her bronzed skin, he raised his head, still holding her hand in his, and leaned back once more among the black cushions, saying dreamily, as if musing on things long past:

"One night we were in a gondola together, and, for the first time, I called you by your name ... Diana... Do you remember? It was the same evening that your father had entertained us at his rooms. The Russian had tried to draw him into a discussion on Swedenborg ... that fair-haired Russian who was born on the same day as I ... He plays Bach as only a man can play... Is he still alive? ... Has he been hanged? ... Scherer, too, was one of the party, young still, and hospitable and active ... Wilhelm played and sang in a gondola that followed us, a song about a Venetian woman and her lout of a husband and her handsome cousin... It was amid this queer medley of voyaging, do you recollect? ... The 'Excelsior' ... and the journey was not yet at an end..."

"And as we passed by the Piazzetta," Diana took up the tale in the same key, as she, too, leaned back among the cushions, "the two giants were just striking the clock in the tower to the leftward, for it was midnight... But the journey was not yet at an end... Do you remember, Prince?"

They were very still, hand lay in hand, but they did not turn to look at one another. Then, close in the rear of San Marco, the gondola swung round a bend, and the lights of the "Excelsior" shone through the darkness.

The prince sprang on to the gangway and helped her up. At the top, he kissed her hand. Diana turned, and bade good-night to the others who had followed close on her heels.

BOOK SIX

CHAPTER ONE

Three wide terraces sloped downwards towards the sea, thrusting forward into the waters. On the centre one of these terraces, beneath a straw-thatched roof supported on bamboo canes, lay Olivia in a long wicker chair, her light-coloured dress contrasting with the brown-and-white fur stretched out beneath her, which she had thrust here and there, as fancy dictated, into the interstices of the wickerwork. She had turned away from the light, and was gazing eastward, where the sky was aflame with the reflected glow of the sunset. Then, from her eyrie, she looked down towards the bay and the little grey town on its shores, and it was as if all the legendary lore that had grown up around the castle of her Dalmatian forefathers in the course of centuries were gathered into one vast legend, embodied in herself alone. Her mien was threatening rather than pensive; her eyes domineering and gloomy as she stared at the huddled houses below, which sheltered a hundred poverty-stricken fisherfolk—who, dumb and sullen, continued to tolerate the yoke of servitude imposed by her ancestors. She felt very much alone; but she was not alone. A girl of sixteen was sitting near by on a low stool. Her hair was golden like Olivia's, but not with so dazzling a sheen; her eyes had the tranquil look of unawakened maidenhood, her lips were full, but innocent; she looked like a young madonna, entrancing with the promise of womanhood. Her hands were clasped behind her head, and her eyes were fixed on the western sky where the colours lingered, though the sun had set. Without a desire in her heart, she sat contemplating the fiery interplay of sky and sea, merely enjoying the spectacle before it vanished, gratifying the natural instinct of her youth. But the big woman's gaze was full of anger as the evening closed around them.

Maria, who was almost young enough to be Olivia's daughter, had been reading aloud and a book lay within reach of her hand. It was a dishevelled and forlorn little object, as its pages fluttered in the breeze now blowing from the sea. Ever since Gregor's death had given her back her freedom, and had simultaneously condemned her to a life of solitude once more, Olivia had taken to reading again; yet she harboured a peculiar kind of hostility within her against the books of her own choice. Her searching, restless heart, wearied with the habits of her class, found no comfort in the tale of the doings of imaginary characters. She had hoped to read studies of free people, but found that their lives, too, were involved in inextricable tangles.

Olivia had returned to her ancestral hall with the coming of spring, and her mother (a worldly and vigorous lady) had started for Rome two days after the daughter's return, intending to enjoy a few weeks of society life. Olivia had herself proposed the journey to her mother in one of her letters, hoping thereby to shorten the period of their life together that summer.

So long as she had the old castle to herself Olivia found it a beautiful refuge. But when her mother took it into her head to fill it with Dalmatian nobility (as she purposed to do this year with a special end in view) the place became intolerable. To dream away the hot days lazing on the broad terraces, very slightly disturbed by her son's little friends who came and went; to take a leisurely bathe in the blue waters of the bay; to lie about a great deal; in the morning to gaze westward, and as day drew to an end to turn and contemplate the eastern sky; occasionally to read a strange and fascinating book; it was thus she had thought to pass her time till the end of June, undisturbed, save for the company of this young niece whose quiet ways she loved, and whose gentle fingers proved to be strong and supple when, seated at the piano, she would play a fugue of Bach or a chaconne. And when on retiring to bed Olivia kissed the girl good-night, she would inhale the subtle aroma of womanly locks, and feel her pulses stir uneasily in never-satisfied expectation.

The bay was usually calm; from time to time fishing boats would furrow its waters, trailing the long nets homeward with the morning catch; twice a week the steamer from Trieste would put in to shore, or, if by chance the sea was agitated, the captain would send the dinghy instead, for every one eagerly awaited the mail-bag. These afternoons Olivia was disinclined to spend out of doors, for her untamed, undisciplined nature resented having to wait and to keep a lookout, and the steamer never arrived at a definite hour. Every other day in the week she could lie on the terrace in perfect security, knowing that nothing was likely to arrive from the outer world and establish a claim upon her against her will.

It was, therefore, with a feeling of alarm rather than of joy that she now saw, rounding the point in the gloaming, the nose of a vessel, which soon revealed itself to be a white ship. She called softly to the girl beside her:

"Maria."

Startled by this unusual interruption of the silence which she knew her aunt loved, the young girl swung round, and, as she turned, she, too, caught sight of the vessel.

"A ship," she cried, "a white ship! It is not one of ours—and she's turning round!"

"What do you mean?"

"She's changing her course, she's making for land, they are going to come ashore!"

The girl ran to the railing.

Olivia, too, rose and moved towards the edge of the terrace, but before she reached it the voice of her little son came to her from below, calling eagerly up to her and her companion.

"Mamma! Maria! There's a cutter in our bay. I'll run down to the harbour, I must see it close...."

The household bestirred itself, there was much talking and guessing, and when, half an hour later, a sailor under Clemens's somewhat imperious leadership handed Olivia a note, she guessed at once who had landed on the shores of her little realm.

"My dear Countess, Prince Eduard was informed while we were in Venice that you had returned home. The 'Excelsior' is lying in your bay, but we still have steam up, so that you may feel quite at liberty to say if our advent is inopportune. In that case we will run up a flag in salute, its message being: Au revoir. If, however, we shall not be a burden upon you or upon the princess, your mother, we can be with you in an hour.

"SCHERER"

They had planned to stay a couple of days but to make the yacht their headquarters as far as sleeping and feeding were concerned, for they could imagine the confusion the unexpected arrival of five guests would cause in this sleepy little household. Scherer, even as he proposed this arrangement, had secretly hoped the party would veto it, for he would willingly have entered upon more commodious quarters than the yacht could offer. Since that early morning talk as they lay outside Leucas his spirit had been casting new and ever renewed circles around Diana, and when, two evenings ago, the prince had paired off in so determined a manner with her in the gondola, Scherer had resolutely tightened the net. He felt his senses more and more stirred as he perceived that she and the prince were drawing together. Kyril's silent observation had the effect of making her appear more desirable than ever. He had been rather surprised when both Eduard and Kyril acquiesced in his proposal, and could not help wondering whether they, too, had secret fears of what the freer intercourse ashore might entail, and had therefore elected to remain together on the yacht.

The meeting at the castle was as natural and simple as could be; it seemed as if they had all been parted for no more than a couple of weeks. That Olivia's mother was away made the company feel more at ease; and Maria, to whom all of them were strangers, immediately made friends with Wilhelm, who, at the very first handshake, laid his heart at her feet. Being the youngest of the grown-ups, he was seized upon by Clemens, who was attracted to a man whom his elders called a poet, and with childlike impatience the boy insisted on dragging Wilhelm away from the rest of the party. Thus it was that Maria, Clemens, and Wilhelm sped gaily away, a trio of youthful freshness and innocence.

Kyril and Olivia felt hostile towards one another at their first encounter. Reserved, cold, and ardent, as they both were at bottom, they exercised that inimical attraction for each other which serves as a bond between persons who temperamentally mistrust happy encounters. It was not in error, but by malice aforethought, that the Russian insisted on addressing her as "Your Highness," as if he were resolved not to let her forget her royal descent. Defiance severed these two from the rest of the cheerful company, and welded them together against their will. The situation at once became apparent. During one of the first walks in the park, whose shelving terraces had been cut out of the mountain face, and along which little paths zigzagged up the steep acclivity, Scherer had said to the prince:

"Have you noticed? The countess, too, never laughs."

"Had she not been born in a castle, our Russian friend would find a way to make her open her lips. He'd only have to show his own fine set of teeth!"

"And all this is yours," exclaimed Wilhelm with the gracious gesture of a king of balladry, embracing in the sweep of his arm the whole of Dalmatia. He was flanked on either side by Maria and Clemens, the three of them dancing lightly along well ahead of the others. "And to think we can explore the whole place to our hearts' content! Are there many quails and lizards? Let's have a hunt! Now!"

"It's getting too dark," said Maria demurely, although she would have loved to begin the search at once. Clemens was quick to feel how he was to deport himself in respect of the other two.

"We have some with blue heads," he said, as if speaking of his subjects. "They live in our grottoes above the seashore. It's an awfully difficult climb to get to them, but I've climbed up twice, with Giro."

"Let's take Giro along with us tomorrow morning," suggested Wilhelm, wondering who Giro might be.

"I will order him to be at the Rocco Grande at six o'clock without fail," said Clemens grandiloquently.

"He'll not be back from the fishing grounds at six," put in Maria.

"When we have guests, he does not need to go fishing," said Clemens decisively.

Diana, at the outset, had joined Kyril and Olivia in the dark avenue of ancient yews. But the stuffiness under the thick arches of the trees and the oppressive silence of her companions made her break away into a gayer atmosphere. Thus it was that she had overheard the amusing braggadocio of the little boy who was the son of her dead friend. She sought some likeness to his father in the lad's countenance, and, drawing him towards her, said, swinging the hand he had clasped in hers to and fro:

"But what shall we do if there's nothing to eat, Clemens?"

The boy, hitherto absorbed in Wilhelm, whose droll ways attracted and pleased him greatly, had not taken any notice of his mother's other friends. Now, hearing himself directly addressed, he looked up at Diana, and suddenly recognized her as a lady who had come to tea with his mother at the embassy. And yet his recollection of her was somewhat blurred, for two years had passed since then.

"We have heaps of fish, you know. A whole lot of fish in the larder." Torn between perplexity and arrogance, he lied with the utmost assurance. Then adroitly changing the subject: "D'you know I've got a boat! Have you seen my boat?"

He pulled vigorously at the lower ends of his short breeks as if to make trousers out of them—had he not besought his grandmother for a year and more to allow him to wear trousers? Only since his mother's return had she prevailed upon the princess to concede the boy's urgent request. The trousers had been ordered, but they were a long time coming, and here were these strangers—of course they chose today for their visit—and he was still in shorts. Was it any wonder this beautiful lady should address him by name? Clemens, indeed! Just as if he were a kid!

Diana was struck by the lad's question: Have you seen my boat? Were not those the very words Gregor had spoken, Clemens's father, so cheekily and gaily, so wilfully and yet so shyly? She sensed instinctively that the boy wished her to treat him no longer as a child; yet she wanted him precisely to give her a child's trust, and not the homage of a youth, since he was not yet old enough for that.

"Where is your boat? Ah, of course, it'll be at the landing-stage, near the 'Excelsior'!"

"Is that the name of your yacht? The 'Excelsior'?"

"Yes. But it belongs to Herr Scherer."

"Then you are not—I thought..."

"No, I am not his wife; what made you think so?"

"It just looked as if you must be, when you arrived."

"His instinct makes him astute," thought Diana; "for if I were the wife of any man in our party, surely Scherer is the most likely mate."

"Just give me a good look, Clemens," she said; "see if you can't recognize who I am."

She stopped in the middle of the path, and the youngster turned face about. They had come to a bend in the path, and while they stood thus inspecting one another, the other walkers had room to pass. Wilhelm and Maria went slowly by, and Diana heard the poet say: "We shall probably cruise about for another week, but I can land wherever I please...."

"That would be jolly," answered Maria.

Then Clemens was speaking.

"Yes, perhaps I do, but I'm not sure," and he fidgeted from one foot to the other. "Weren't you at the embassy once when my father was still alive?"

The boy no longer says Papa as in those days, thought Diana. Death and fate have turned Gregor into Father! Ah, those were Gregor's very eyes, the ne'er-do-well, the deceiver.

She forgot to answer.

"Park with groups," she suddenly heard the prince say, for he and Scherer had now reached the bend where she and the boy were standing. But she sensed that in his heart he was saying: Even today, through the medium of the son, that man's image is still alive in her heart—ineradicable.

"Yes," she found herself answering, "yes, I was at your house once. And now, shall we go and find your mother? How do you like that man over there."

"That is Prince Eduard. He used to be with us at the embassy." The child spoke as if he were commending a bailiff to her attention.

"No, not that one. I mean the man who is walking with the countess."

Clemens, who had been feeling embarrassed by the turn the conversation had taken, was relieved to find that it was Wilhelm Diana was referring to. His tone became livelier on the instant.

"He ought to remain here with us. He's just the man we want, for he's never shy, and he isn't so very old, and I'm sure he's not a nobleman."

His choice of words, his tone, the gesture with which he smoothed his hair, all were reminiscent of Gregor, Gregor as he must have been before he had earned the nickname "mad Münsterberg." "Because he's never shy ... and I'm sure he's not a nobleman." Diana smiled.

Meanwhile Olivia and Kyril had come to a standstill. The countess had an innate repugnance to doing the honours of her ancestral home, to showing guests round in the approved manner of an obliging hostess; while Kyril was not one to ask the questions appropriate to his rôle as guest; they had, therefore, strolled along in silence ever since Diana had cut herself loose from their company. One question only had dropped from Kyril's lips:

"You know Fräulein Wassilko?"

To which Olivia had answered:

"Yes, I know her."

Her velvety alto came as a beautiful counterpart to his deep baritone.

But that was as far as they got, and these two, who so heartily disdained the conventions of society, were grateful to each other for such abstinence. Now, however, they had reached the end of the winding path, and had before them a series of steps and terraces upon which Olivia was unwilling to embark until the rest of the party had rejoined her. Negligent hostess though she was, even she felt it might not be seemly to proceed farther without at least pointing out the most hoary of the ancestral towers to her guests, for this was always the culminating point of interest to strangers. Every one was now assembled on the green before the walls, and Clemens saved his mother the trouble of speaking by acting as guide, pattering a few dates and names, without much cohesion in the tale he was telling. Scherer's accurate mind rebelled against such vagueness, and he insisted on more precise information, endeavouring to disentangle the stories of two knights, and in the end turning amicably to Kyril who had been listening the while with an expression of superlative contempt to the confused narration.

"After all, my dear Doctor, we cannot unmake the events by denying them, any more than we can take what beauty there is in them away by being cynical," said Scherer in conciliatory vein.

"All superfluous," commented Kyril dryly.

"I find this giant growth of ivy wholly charming," said the prince, who always came to the rescue with banter when a situation threatened to become too romantic. "And so far as the robber forefathers of Master Clemens are concerned, whose history has just been told us with so much lucidity and interest, they were at bottom no worse than any of our own ancestors—unless, of course, Dr. Sergievitch can prove the contrary."

"I shall have great-grandchildren," said the Russian; "I have no ancestors."

"Your ambition, then, is to be an ancestor yourself?"

"My grandchildren will have to forget me, just as I have forgotten my forbears. Deeds alone are lasting, not names, nor pictures."

"Simplicity personified: no oil paintings, no photographs," snapped the prince.

"Deeds?" The clear voice broke into the conversation like a clarion call. "Did these robber knights, then, perform no deeds?" It was Diana who spoke, coldly and challengingly.

"Nothing but adventures," retorted Kyril, from the opposite side of the circle the company had grouped itself into. His manner equalled hers for coldness, and he frowned as he spoke. "Those who played the vagabond in their day, like these Dalmatian nobles, without an idea in their heads, may serve as forefathers to a line of descendants and have the memory of their deeds preserved in an ancestral tower. But we, today, do not wish to work merely for a castle or for a family. We are working for the whole of humanity, Fräulein Wassilko."

"Car tel est notre plaisir!" Diana tossed the phrase across the circle, as if she were desirous of unveiling the inner meaning of his words by the quotation of a tyrant's dictum.

She turned on her heel, and the assembly broke up into groups, continuing down the steps and the terraces which led to the inhabited parts of the castle. Maria, somewhat alarmed at the asperity in Diana's tone, looked up at Wilhelm inquiringly: "Who is—the young lady?"

"I don't know," answered Wilhelm humbly. "In the end she always comes out victor."

Clemens marched along at their side, cudgelling his brains to remember which of the French kings had said those words. "I read about him only the other day," the boy said to himself. "In my history book.... Who could it have been?"

Olivia followed with Scherer.

"What concern of ours are the deeds of these robbers?" she asked gloomily. "Far better were it to be descended from peasant forefathers."

"It's precisely because he is the son of a peasant stock, that this Russian is so arrogant."

"And he is really a bandit," chimed in the prince who was following close at their heels in company with Diana.

"The Russian?"

"The knight!"

"But this Russian can't be allowed to play the high priest and cast my life in my teeth!" Olivia spoke so acrimoniously that the prince felt he must do something to conciliate her. With deliberate mendacity he shouldered the Russian's implied blame, as he said:

"His reproaches were aimed at us, not at you."

Diana, amazed at such a friendly deception coming from Eduard, turned to him radiantly, asking:

"How now, prince, do you mean to tell us that you, too, have had adventures?"

CHAPTER TWO

By the time they had returned next day from a ramble along the cliffs, Wilhelm had completely won over the heart of the boy, while Maria had conquered his own. A youth with a taste for adventure, inclined to search out the bizarre and the unfamiliar in nature and in man—this native of the South German highlands, born far from the sea, had during his first sea voyage gained acquaintance with some of the marvels of sea life, and (immune to the conventional pleasures of a voyage) had adapted himself to what conformed with his own predisposition. Having read in a story of sea life something about great lizards, he felt sure that they would have their habitat on the very coast where fate had now beguiled him. And in truth they were there where he expected to find them. It was as if a benevolent deity were unwilling to disappoint the young innocent in any of his hopes.

Indeed, Wilhelm was never disappointed. His youth had been passed alternately in the company of artists, of persons temporarily visiting the town, and of the peasants in his village at home, the peasant folk from whom he had sprung. He had never made any claims on life, for his wishes were visionary ones, incapable of realization in the world of every day. Half musician, and half poet, he wandered penniless through life and through many a countryside. One day he would rise from board with tourists in Florence, for his charming personality and a talent for acting as guide often made him one of a cheerful company for weeks at a stretch; the next day he would find hospitable welcome in a peasant's shanty at Carreggi, because he had sat down to teach the cottar's children to play the lute. He was usually deferential where women were concerned, so long as they were not ugly or old; and he was content if he could merely stroke a gloved hand while driving along in a carriage. But with English girls, who wanted all they could get from love without running any of the risks, he was not backward; indeed he was more cruel at times than he realized, for he would indite little poems full of innuendoes and ambiguities, which of an evening he read aloud to the parents and admirers of the young ladies. Back again in his native hills, he had no scruples in passing the night with a village maid, for he had a nice appreciation of the different spheres into which his birth and upbringing brought him.

Maria made a strong appeal to his nature, partly because she was still almost a child, but also because of her maidenliness. He toyed with these two aspects with delicate hands, and found Clemens a useful buffer in his manipulations. The lad himself was wont to feel that he and the girl were much of an age, but since Wilhelm, who was their senior, made proposals which in the ordinary course Clemens would have disdained as childish and lacking in dignity, the boy was willing to lend himself to his guest's suggestions lest, by refusing, he should appear babyish. Maria, on the other hand, so recently emerging from her childhood, was thrown back into that period by these light-hearted games; she lent herself agreeably to the stranger's will, telling herself it was all a huge joke, and Wilhelm's homage no more than that of a nice boy. So it was that the three of them crept in and out of damp caves, and the imp in Wilhelm so arranged matters that shoes and stockings had to be discarded, and that he should give a hand to the girl as they scrambled barefoot over the stones. Maria blushed, and that was balm to Wilhelm's heart. Clemens grasped the significance of no more than a part of this by-play; but he understood enough to make him react in boyish fashion. He would try to frighten her by suddenly disappearing—but he never stayed so long away as to give Wilhelm time to snatch a kiss. The knight in Clemens and his position as heir to these estates and as cousin made him fully conscious of his responsibilities.

That same forenoon Diana sat with Olivia in the spacious sitting-room, a square, vaulted chamber in one of the towers, giving from three sides on to the sea, but with its windows usually shuttered in conformity with the countess's preference for a dim light. Wanton sunbeams, however, defied her precautions, and took advantage of every crack and hole in the blue painted wood to send their radiant shafts across the darkness—a symbol of her own soul, as Olivia liked to think.

Leaning on her elbow as was her habit, her limbs stretched out on the wide ottoman, Olivia looked over to where Diana sat. Her ardent eyes burned with increasing fire, the longer she was condemned to gaze upon the arena of the passions. These two women had little use for the small change of conversation.

"You are quite brown, Diana; and yet you spent the whole winter in town, cooped up in rooms."

"It's the sea. I've been three weeks cruising."

"In twenty years, living upon this coast, I remained white."

"And is it not lovelier to be white and to have golden hair?"

"Atalanta!"

Olivia sank back upon the divan, gazing up towards the vaulted ceiling, for she wanted to call forth again the vision of the Diana she had seen that evening in Berlin, a vision which had seemed to express the fullest possibilities of the young woman's being. But to conjure up this picture she must not have Diana's actual form before her eyes.

"To be able to personify a goddess," she murmured, "to discover thus early one's own essential shape, and to be able to fill out its structure unto completion.... O blessed freedom...."

Diana was thinking: "How fiercely she strives and seeks; yet she is excluded from the realm of enjoyment so soon as her dreams become reality!"

"Have not you, too, since then gained something of freedom?" Diana asked.

With unwonted alacrity, Olivia replied passionately:

"Not as freedom! They all have a home; Maria, her hopes; my mother, this castle; Scherer, his newspapers; the Russian, his ideas; and Gregor—well, he wavered between deeds and adventures, and was at home in both. But you have chosen the world! Yes, you, Diana, among all the persons I have met, you alone are worthy to regard the great dome of the firmament (at which I have so often gazed as at something vacuous and inimical) as the roof of your ancestral home. That is why you are so fond of the stars!"

She spoke angrily and moodily, her eyes turned earthward, her chin resting in her palms as she leaned upon her elbows.

"Are not dreams, too, a home?" asked Diana softly.

"I want to get away; it is high time I did so; indeed, there is not a moment to be lost. How well I understand Herr Franklin's erratic behaviour. He refuses any longer to let his fancy roam; he is resolved to be up and doing, accomplishing something visible and tangible—though deep in his inner self he knows well enough that it is vanity and deception, and less than a dream.... Well, I too want a home; love shall be my roof-tree, and then, quaffing one final draught, I shall sink back into my dreams as if I had never forsaken them!"

She rose while she was yet speaking, and, quite contrary to her wont, paced up and down the room. Suddenly she stood still, surprised at the sound she heard. Diana was laughing! It was a quiet, short, two-syllabled ripple of laughter, and was repeated a second, then a third time. Olivia wanted to scold. Then, taking heart, for the little metallic music gave her back her courage, she stepped up to Diana and said:

"You are laughing, O most wise Diana, and that does not become a youthful huntress!"

She stood before Diana, leaning forward, her two hands on the arm of the chair, her face very near that of the seated woman. Diana looked up, unperturbed; nor did she try to still the laughter that was still lighting her countenance.

"You have at last spoken as I have so long been hoping to hear you speak, my beautiful Olivia." And as the words fell from her lips she was thinking: I should like to kiss her now; but then she'd be furious or she'd withdraw into her shell.

Slowly Olivia raised her head with its heavy crown of golden hair, and, as she stood before her guest, she said irrelevantly:

"I believe I want to have more children."

"I've been thinking the same thing ever since I met you again."

Olivia had opened her heart to Diana with unwonted candour. She, like Diana, was not a woman who could make friends with other members of her sex. And yet, today, she had confided in another woman! Diana's tranquil statement made Olivia feel that here was a person of superior strength, and, forgetting her own preoccupations for a moment, she asked:

"And what about yourself—do you still hesitate?"

Behind the question, Diana sensed a growing distrust, and she said to herself: "It's just as well I did not kiss her just now!" Still, she did not shirk an answer:

"I have never gone against nature, and I have always felt that those above, who guard me and protect me, will not deal harshly with me."

"Do you believe in the saints?" asked Olivia, somewhat awed, and coming a step nearer.

"In the gods," corrected Diana softly.

"Is this Russian a believer?" asked Olivia, once more without transition.

"I fancy he loves no one but himself."

"No one but himself," echoed Olivia, and Diana felt instinctively that the countess was comparing him with her own self, and was applying the words to herself.

"And the prince?"

Olivia seemed to be questioning the oracle.

"The prince appears to be a believer, after his fashion. Perhaps he is the first knight who is not at the same time a robber!"

Olivia's mind, awakened to fresh issues, because for the first time in her life she had spoken her thoughts out frankly, did not take in Diana's last words. Again she spoke irrelevantly.

"All these men are more or less in love with you! And yet you can cruise about alone with them on a ship. If I did not know what you had done with Gregor, I'd fancy you were as cold as the sea."

Diana got up.

"Let us clearly understand one another," said she resolutely. "Not one of these men is of so much account to me that, if the 'Excelsior' sailed tomorrow, he might not stay behind in this castle for all I cared."

The unusual bluntness with which she spoke was deliberate for she wished to adapt herself to Olivia's unsocial prejudices. But Olivia, whose heart had beat tumultuously since first she had thrust aside the veils of her inner sanctuary that morning, again did the unexpected, for she seized Diana's hand, saying:

"There is but one person to my knowledge who should not sail away in the 'Excelsior' tomorrow. Give me your promise! Clemens, too, is uneasy at the thought that you and Wilhelm may go away."

"Clemens will forget me in this affection for Wilhelm; and you will do the same in your love for Clemens. He is handsome and chivalrous, and in a short while will become your admirer!"

Olivia turned her face away.

"He'll learn about love from a serving-wench in a year or two!"

There was a knock at the door, and, when Olivia petulantly cried "Come in," Eduard appeared upon the threshold.

"That sounded more like 'Go away,' as in the Magic Flute! This dim religious light is also quite in keeping."