CHAPTER IX
Diana listened to the quiet, emphatic tones of his voice in fascinated attention.
“Light is Life,” he repeated, slowly. “Light—and the twin portion of Light,—Fire. The Rosicrucians have come nearer than any other religious sect in the world to the comprehension of things divine. Darkness is Chaos,—not death, for there isnodeath—but confusion, bewilderment and blindness which gropes for a glory instinctively felt but unseen. In these latter days, science has discovered the beginning of the wonders of Light,—they have always existed, but we have not found them, ‘loving darkness rather than light.’ I say the ‘beginning of wonders,’ for with all our advancement we have only become dimly conscious of the first vibration of the Creator’s living presence. Light!—which is ‘God walking in His garden,’—which is colour, sound, heat, movement—all the Divine Power in eternal radiation and luminance!—this is Life;—and in thiswelive,—in this wemaylive, and renew our lives,—ay, and in this we may retain youth beyond age! If we only have courage!—courage and the will to learn!”
His brilliant dark eyes turned upon her with a searching steadfastness, and her heart beat quickly, for there was something in his look which suggested that it was from her he expected “courage and the will to learn.” But she made no comment. Suddenly, and with an abrupt movement, he pulled with both hands at a lever apparently made of steel,—like one of the handles in a signal-box,—and with his action the level floor beneath the great revolving wheel yawned asunder, showing a round pool of water, black as ink and seemingly very deep. Diana recoiled from it, startled. Dimitrius smiled.
“Suppose I asked you to jump in?” he said.
She thought a moment.
“Well,—I should want to take off my dress first,” she answered. “It’s a new one.”
He laughed.
“And then?”
“Then?—Why, then I shouldn’t mind!” she said. “I can swim.”
“You would not be afraid?”
She met his eyes bravely.
“No—I should not be afraid!”
“Upon my word, I believe you! You’re a plucky woman! But then you’ve nothing to lose by your daring, having lost all—so you told me. What do you mean by having lost all?”
“I mean just what I say,” she replied quietly. “Father, mother, home, lover, youth, beauty and hope! Isn’t that enough to lose?”
And, as she spoke, she gazed almost unseeingly at the wonderful Wheel as it whirled round and round, glittering with a thousand colours which were reflected in the dark mirror of the water below it. The sun was sinking, and the light through the over-arching glass dome was softer, and with each minute became more subdued,—and she noted with keen interest that the revolution of the wheel was less rapid and dizzying to the eye.
“Enough to lose—yes!” said Dimitrius. “But the loss is quite common. Most of us, as we get on in life, lose father and mother, home, and even lover!—but that we should lose youth, beauty and hope is quite our own affair! We ought to know better!” She looked at him in surprise.
“How should we know better?” she asked. “Age must come,—and with age the wrinkling and spoiling of all beautiful faces, to say nothing of the aches and pains and ailments common to a general break-up of the body-cells. We cannot defy the law of Nature.”
“That is precisely what we are always doing!” said Dimitrius. “And that is why we make such trouble for ourselves. We not only defy the law of Nature in a bodily sense by over-eating, over-drinking and over-breeding, but we ignore it altogether in a spiritual sense. We forget,—and wilfully forget, that the body is only the outward manifestation of a Soul-creature, not the Soul-creature itself. So we starve the Light and feed the Shadow, and then foolishly wonder that, with the perishing Light, the Shadow is absorbed in darkness.”
He pulled at the steel lever again, and the mysterious pool of water became swiftly and noiselessly covered as part of the apparently solid ground.
“One more thing before we go,” he resumed, and, taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked a tiny door no bigger than the door of a child’s doll house. “Come and see!”
Diana obeyed, and bending down to peer into the small aperture disclosed, saw therein a tube or pipe no thicker than a straw, from which fell slowly drop by drop a glittering liquid into a hollow globe of crystal. So brilliant and fiery was the colour of this fluid, that it might have been an essence of the very sunlight. She looked at Dimitrius in silent inquiry. He said nothing—and presently she ventured to ask in a half whisper:
“What is it?”
His expression, as he turned and faced her, was so rapt and transfigured as to be quite extraordinary.
“It is life,—or it is death!” he answered. “It is my Great Experiment of whichyouwill be the practical test! Ah, now you look amazed indeed!—your eyes are almost young in wonder!—and yet I see no fear! That is well! Now think and understand! All this mechanism,—which is far more complex than you can imagine,—this dome of crystal above us,—this revolving wheel moved by Light alone,—the deep water beneath us through which the condensed and vibrating Light rushes with electric speed,—these million whirling atoms of fire,—all this, I say, is merely—remember!—merely to produce these miniature drops, smaller by many degrees than a drop of dew, and so slowly are they distilled, that it has taken me ten years to draw from these restless and opposing elements a sufficient quantity for my great purpose. Ten years!—and after all, who knows? All my thought and labour may be wasted!—I may have taken the wrong road! The fiery sword turns every way, and even now I may fail!”
His face darkened,—the hope and radiance died out of it and left it grey and drawn—almost old. Diana laid her hand on his arm with a soft, consoling touch.
“Why should you fail?” she asked, gently. “You yourself know the object of your quest and the problem you seek to solve,—and I am sure you have missed no point that could avail to lead you in the right direction. And if, as I now imagine, you need a human life to risk itself in the ultimate triumph of your work, you have mine entirely at your service. As I have told you several times already, I am not afraid!”
He took the hand that lay upon his arm and kissed it with grave courtesy.
“I thank you!” he said. “I feel that you are perfectly sincere—and honesty always breeds courage. Understand, my mother has never seen this workshop of mine—she would be terrified. The dome was built for me by my French architect, ostensibly for astronomical purposes—the rest of the mechanism, bit by bit, was sent to me from different parts of the world and I put it up myself assisted only by Vasho, my negro servant, who is dumb. So my secret is, as far as possible, well kept.”
“I shall not betray it,” said Diana, simply.
He smiled.
“I know you will not,” he answered.
With almost a miser’s care he locked the tiny door which concealed the mystery of the fiery-golden liquid dropping so slowly, almost reluctantly, into its crystal receptacle. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and shadows began to creep over the clearness of the dome above them, while the great Wheel turned at a slower pace—and ever more slowly as the light grew dim.
“We will go now,” he said. “One or two ordinary people are coming to dine—and your luggage will have arrived. I want you to live happily here, and healthfully—your health is a most important consideration with me. You look thin and delicate——”
“I am thin—to positive scragginess,” interrupted Diana, “but I am not delicate.”
“Well, that may be; but you must keep strong. You will need all your strength in the days to come.”
They were at the closed door of the laboratory, which by some unseen contrivance, evidently controlled by the pressure of the hand against a particular panel, swung upwards in the same way as it had done before, and when they passed out, slid downwards again behind them. They were in the corridor now, dimly lit by one electric lamp.
“You are not intimidated by anything I have shown you?” said Dimitrius, then. “After all, you are a woman and entitled to ‘nerves!’”
“Quite so,—nerves properly organised and well under control,” answered Diana, quietly. “I am full of wonder at what I have seen, but I am not intimidated.”
“Good!” And a sudden smile lit up his face, giving it a wonderful charm. “Now run away and dress for dinner! And don’t puzzle yourself by thinking about anything for the present. If youmustthink, wait till you are alone with night and the stars!”
He left her, and she went upstairs at once to her own rooms. Here repose and beauty were expressed in all her surroundings and she looked about her with a sigh of comfort and appreciation. Some careful hand had set vases of exquisitely arranged flowers here and there,—and the scent of roses, carnations and autumn violets made the already sweet air sweeter. She found her modest luggage in her bedroom, and set to work unpacking and arranging her clothes.
“He’s quite right,—I mustn’t think!” she said to herself. “It would never do! That wheel grinding out golden fire!—that mysterious pool of water in which one might easily be drowned and never heard of any more!—and those precious drops, locked up in a tiny hole!—what can all these things mean? There!—I’m thinking and I mustn’t think! But—is he mad, I wonder? Surely not! No madman ever put up such a piece of mechanism as that Wheel! I’m thinking again!—I mustn’t think!—I mustn’t think!”
She soon had all her garments unpacked, shaken out, and arranged in their different places, and, after some cogitation, decided to wear for the evening one of the Parisian “rest” or “tea” gowns her friend Sophy Lansing had chosen for her,—a marvellous admixture of palest rose and lilac hues, with a touch or two of pearl glimmerings among lace like moonlight on foam. She took some pains to dress her pretty hair becomingly, twisting it up high on her small, well-shaped head, and when her attire was complete she surveyed herself in the long mirror with somewhat less dissatisfaction than she was accustomed to do.
“Not so bad!” she inwardly commented, approving the picturesque fall and flow of the rose and lilac silk and chiffon which clung softly round her slim figure. “You are not entirely repulsive yet, Diana!—not yet! But you will be!—never fear! Just wait a little!—wait till your cheeks sink in a couple of bony hollows and your throat looks like the just-wrung neck of a scrawny fowl!” Here she laughed, with a quaint amusement at the unpleasant picture she was making of herself in the future. “Yes, my dear! Not all the clouds of rosy chiffon in the world will hide your blemishes then!—and your hair!—oh, your hair will be a sort of grizzled ginger and you’ll have to hide it! So you’d better enjoy this little interval—it won’t last long!” Suddenly at this point in her soliloquy some words uttered by Dimitrius rang back on her memory: “That we should lose youth, beauty and hope is quite our own affair. We ought to know better.” She repeated them slowly once or twice. “Strange!—a very strange thing to say!” she mused. “I wonder what he meant by it? I’m sure if it had been my ‘own affair’ to keep youth, beauty and hope, I would never have lost them! Oddly enough I seem to have got back a little scrap of one of the losses—hope! But I’m thinking again—I mustn’t think!”
She curtsied playfully to her own reflection in the mirror, and seeing by the warning “time dial” for meals that it was nearly the dinner hour, she descended to the drawing-room. Three or four people were assembled there, talking to Madame Dimitrius, who introduced Diana as “Miss May, an English friend of ours who is staying with us for the winter”—an announcement which Diana herself tacitly accepted as being no doubt what Dr. Dimitrius wished. The persons to whom she was thus presented were the Baroness Rousillon, a handsome Frenchwoman of possibly fifty-six or sixty,—her husband, the Baron, a stout, cheerful personage with a somewhat aggravating air of perpetualbonhomie,—Professor Chauvet, a very thin little old gentleman with an aquiline nose and drooping eyelids from which small, sparkling dark eyes gleamed out occasionally like needle-points, and a certain Marchese Luigi Farnese, a rather sinister-looking dark young man, with a curiously watchful expression, as of one placed on guard over some hidden secret treasure. They were all exceedingly amiable, and asked Diana the usual polite questions,—whether she had had a pleasant journey from England?—was the Channel rough?—was the weather fine?—was she a good sailor?—and so on, all of which she answered pleasantly in that sweet and musical voice which always attracted and charmed her hearers.
“And you come from England!” said Professor Chauvet, blinking at her through his eyelids. “Ah! it is a strange place!”
Diana smiled, but said nothing.
“It is a strange place!” reiterated the Professor, with more emphasis. “It is a place of violent contrasts without any intermediate tones. Stupidity and good sense, moral cowardice and physical courage, petty grudging and large generosity, jostle each other in couples all through English society, yet after, and with these drawbacks, it is very attractive!”
“I’m so glad you like it,” said Diana, cheerfully. “I expect the same faults can be found in all countries and with all nations. We English are not the worst people in the world!”
“By no means!” conceded the Professor, inclining his head courteously. “You might almost claim to be the best—if it were not for France,—and Italy,—and Russia!”
The Baroness Rousillon smiled.
“How clever of you, Professor!” she said. “You are careful to include all nationalities here present in your implied compliment, and so you avoid argument!”
“Madame, I never argue with a lady!” he replied. “First, because it is bad manners, and second, because it is always useless!”
They all laughed, with the gentle tolerance of persons who know an old saying by heart. Just then Dr. Dimitrius entered and severally greeted his guests. Despite her efforts to seem otherwise entertained, Diana found herself watching his every movement and trying to hear every word he said. Only very few men look well in evening dress, and he was one of those few. A singular distinction marked his bearing and manner; in any assemblage of notable people he would have been assuredly selected as one of the most attractive and remarkable. Once he caught her eyes steadfastly regarding him, and smiled encouragingly. Whereat she coloured deeply and felt ashamed of her close observation of him. He took the Baroness Rousillon in to dinner, the Baron following with Madame Dimitrius, and Diana was left with a choice between two men as her escort. She looked in smiling inquiry at both. Professor Chauvet settled the point.
“Marchese, you had better take Miss May,” he said, addressing the dark Italian. “I never allow myself to go in to dinner with any woman—it’s my habit always to go alone.”
“How social and independent of you!” said Diana, gaily, accepting the Marchese’s instantly proffered arm. “You like to be original?—or is it only to attract attention to yourself?”
The Professor opened his eyes to their fullest extent under their half-shut lids. Here was an Englishwoman daring to quiz him!—or, as the English themselves would say, “chaff” him! He coughed, glared, and tried to look dignified, but failed,—and was fain to trot, or rather shuffle, in to the dining-room somewhat meekly at the trailing end of Diana’s rose and lilac chiffon train. When they were all seated at table, he looked at her with what was, for him, unusual curiosity, realising that she was not quite an “ordinary” sort of woman. He began to wonder about her, and where she came from,—it was all very well to say “from England”—but up to now, all conversation had been carried on in French, and her French had no trace whatever of the British accent. She sat opposite to him, and he had good opportunity to observe her attentively, though furtively. She was talking with much animation to the Marchese Farnese,—her voice had the most enchanting modulation of tone,—and, straining his ears to hear what she was saying, he found she was speaking Italian. At this he was fairly nonplussed and somewhat annoyed—he did not speak Italian himself. All his theories respecting the British female were upset.NoBritish female—he said this inwardly—nosingle one of the species in his knowledge, talked the French of France, or the Italian of Tuscany. He watched her with an almost grudging interest. She was not young,—she was not old.
“Some man has had the making or the marring of her!” he thought, crossly. “No woman ever turnedherselfout with suchaplombandsavoir faire!”
Meanwhile Diana was enjoying her dinner. She was cleverly “drawing out” her partner at table, young Farnese, who proved to be passionately keen on all scientific research, and particularly so on the mysterious doings of Féodor Dimitrius. Happy to find himself next to a woman who spoke his native tongue with charm and fluency, he “let himself go” freely.
“I suppose you have known Dr. Dimitrius for some time?” he asked.
Diana thought for a second,—then replied promptly:
“Oh, yes!”
“He’s a wonderful man!” said Farnese. “Wonderful! I have myself witnessed his cures of cases given up by all other doctors as hopeless. I have asked him to accept me as a student under him, but he will not. He has some mystery which he will allow no one but himself to penetrate.”
“Really!” and Diana lifted her eyebrows in an arch of surprise. “He has never given me that impression.”
“Ah, no!” and Farnese smiled rather darkly. “He would not appear in that light to one of your sex. He does not care for women. His own mother is not really aware of the nature of his studies or the object of his work. Nobody has his confidence. As you are a friend of his you must know this quite well?”
“Oh, yes!—yes, of course!” murmured Diana, absently. “But nobody expects a very clever man to explain himself to his friends—or to the public. He must always do his work more or less alone.”
“I agree!” said the Marchese. “And this is why I cannot understand the action of Dimitrius in advertising for an assistant——”
“Oh, has he done so?” inquired Diana, indifferently.
“Yes,—for the last couple of months he has put a most eccentric advertisement in many of the journals, seeking the services of an elderly woman as assistant or secretary—I don’t know which. It’s some odd new notion of his, and, I venture to think, rather a mistaken one—for if he will not trust a man student, how much less can he rely on an old woman!”
“Eccellenza, you are talking to a woman now,” said Diana, calmly. “But never mind! Go on—and don’t apologise!”
Farnese’s dark olive skin flushed red.
“But I must!” he stammered, awkwardly. “I ask a thousand pardons!”
She glanced at him sideways with a laughing look.
“You are forgiven!” she said. “Women are quite hardened to the ironies and satires of your sex upon us,—and if we have any cleverness at all we are more amused by them than offended. For we know you cannot do without us! But certainly it is very odd that Dr. Dimitrius should advertise for an old woman! I never heard anything quite so funny!”
“He does not, I think, advertise for an actually old woman,” said Farnese, relieved to find that she had taken his clumsy remark so lightly. “The advertisement when I saw it mentioned a woman of mature years.”
“Oh, well, that’s a polite way of saying an old woman, isn’t it?” smiled Diana. “And—do tell me!—has he got her?”
“Why no!—not yet. Probably he will not get her at all. Even let us suppose a woman offered herself who admitted that she was ‘of mature years,’ that very fact would be sufficient proof of her incapacity.”
“Indeed!” and Diana lifted her eyebrows again. “Why?”
The Marchese smiled a superior smile.
“Perhaps I had better not explain!” he said. “But for a woman to arrive at ‘mature years’ without any interests in life except to offer her probably untrained services to a man she knows nothing of except through the medium of an advertisement is plain evidence that any such woman must be a fool!”
Diana laughed merrily—and her laughter was the prettiest ripple of music.
“Oh, yes!—of course! I see your meaning!” she said. “You are quite right! But after all perhaps the elderly female is only wanted to add up accounts, or write down measurements or something of that kind—just ordinary routine work. Some lonely old spinster with no claims upon her might be glad of such a chance——”
“Are you discussing my advertisement?” interrupted Dimitrius suddenly, sending a glance and smile at Diana from the head of the table. “I have withdrawn it.”
“Have you really?” said the Marchese. “That is not to say you are suited?”
“Suited? Oh, no! I shall never be suited! It was a foolish quest,—and I ought to have known better!” His dark eyes sparkled mirthfully. “You see I had rather forgotten the fact that no woman cares to admit she is ‘of mature years,’—I had also forgotten the well-known male formula that ‘no woman can be trusted.’ However, I have only lost a few hundred francs in my advertising—so I have nothing to regret except my own folly.”
“Had you many applications?” inquired Professor Chauvet.
Dimitrius laughed.
“Only one!” he answered, gaily. “And she was a poor lone lady who had lost all she thought worth living for. Of course she was—impossible!”
“Naturally!” and the Professor nodded sagaciously—“She would be!”
“What was she like?” asked Diana, with an amused look.
“Like no woman I have ever seen!” replied Dimitrius, smiling quizzically at her. “Mature, and fully ripened in her opinions,—fairly obstinate, and difficult to get rid of.”
“I congratulate you on having succeeded!” said Farnese.
“Succeeded? In what way?”
“In having got rid of her!”
“Oh, yes! But—I don’t think she wanted to go!”
“No woman ever wants to go if there’s a good-looking bachelor with whom she has any chance to stay!” said the Baron Rousillon, expanding his shirt front and smiling largely all round the table. “The ‘poor lone lady’ must have taken your rejection of her services rather badly.”
“That’s the way most men would look at it,” replied Dimitrius. “But, my dear Baron, I’m afraid we are rather narrow and primitive in our ideas of the fair sex—not to say conceited. It is quite our own notion thatallwomen need us or find us desirable. Some women would much rather not be bored with us at all. One of the prettiest women I ever knew remained unmarried because, as she frankly said, she did not wish to be a housekeeper to any man or be bored by his perpetual company. There’s something in it, you know! Every man has his own particular ‘groove’ in which he elects to run—and in his ‘groove’ he’s apt to become monotonous and tiresome. That is why, when I advertised, I asked for a woman ‘of mature years,’—someone who had ‘settled down,’ and who would not find it wearisome to trot tamely alongside ofmyspecial ‘groove,’ but of course it was very absurd on my part to expect to find a woman of that sort who was at the same time well-educated and clever.”
“You should marry, my dear Dimitrius!—you should marry!” said the Baroness Rousillon, with a brilliant flash of her fine eyes and an encouraging smile.
“Never, my dear Baroness!—never!” he replied, with emphasis. “I am capable of many things, but not of that most arrant stupidity! Were I to marry, my work would be ruined—I should become immersed in the domesticities of the kitchen and the nursery, living my life at no higher grade than the life of the farmyard or rabbit-warren. In my opinion, marriage is a mistake,—but we must not argue such a point in the presence of a happily married couple like yourself and the Baron. Look at our excellent friend, Chauvet! He has never married.”
“Thank God!” ejaculated the Professor, devoutly,—while everybody laughed. “Ah, you may laugh! But it is I who laugh last! When I see the unfortunate husband going out for a slow walk with his wife and three or four screaming, jumping children, who behave like savages, not knowing what they want or where they wish to go, I bless my happy fate that I can do my ten miles a day alone, revelling in the beauty of the mountains and lakes, and enjoying my own thoughts in peace. Like Amriel, I have not married because I am afraid of disillusion!”
“But have you thought of the possible woman in the case?” asked Diana, sweetly and suddenly. “Might she not also suffer from ‘disillusion’ if you were her husband?”
Laughter again rang round the table,—the Professor rose, glass of wine in hand, and made Diana a solemn bow.
“Madame, I stand reproved!” he said. “And I drink to your health and to England, your native country! And in reply to your question, I am honest enough to say that I think any woman who had been so unfortunate as to marry me, would have put herself out of her misery a month after the wedding!”
Renewed merriment rewarded thisamende honorableon the part of Chauvet, who sat down well pleased with himself—and well pleased, too, with Diana, whom he considered quick-witted and clever, and whose smile when he had made his little speech had quite won him over.
Madame Dimitrius, chiefly intent on the hospitable cares of the table, had listened to all the conversation with an old lady’s placid enjoyment, only putting in a word now and then, and smiling with affectionate encouragement at Diana, and dessert being presently served, and cigars and cigarettes handed round by the negro, Vasho, who was the sole attendant, she gave the signal for the ladies to retire.
“You do not smoke?” said the Marchese Farnese, as Diana moved from her place.
“No, indeed!”
“You dislike it?”
“For women,—yes.”
“Then you are old-fashioned!” he commented, playfully.
“Yes. And I am very glad of it!” she answered, quietly, and followed Madame Dimitrius and the Baroness Rousillon out of the room. As she passed Dimitrius, who held open the door for their exit, he said a few low-toned words in Russian which owing to her own study of the language she understood. They were:
“Excellent! You have kept your own counsel and mine, most admirably! I thank you with all my heart!”