CHAPTER X
That first evening in the Château Fragonard taught Diana exactly what was expected of her. It was evident that both Dimitrius and his mother chose to assume that she was a friend of theirs, staying with them on a visit, and she realised that she was not supposed to offer any other explanation of her presence. The famous advertisement had been “withdrawn,” and the Doctor had plainly announced that he was “not suited,” and that he had resigned all further quest of the person he had sought. That he had some good reason for disguising the real facts of the case Diana felt sure, and she was quite satisfied to fall in with his method of action. The more so, when she found herself an object of interest and curiosity to the Baroness Rousillon, who spared no effort to “draw her out” and gain some information as to her English home, her surroundings and ordinary associations. The Baroness had a clever and graceful way of cross-examining strangers through an assumption of friendliness, but Diana was equally clever and graceful in the art of “fence” and was not to be “drawn.” When the men left the dinner-table and came into the drawing-room she was placed as it were between two fires,—Professor Chauvet and the Marchese Farnese, both of whom were undisguisedly inquisitive, Farnese especially—and Diana was not slow to discover that his chief aim in conversing with her was to find out something,—anything—which could throw a light on the exact nature of the work in which Dimitrius was engaged. Perceiving this, she played with him like a shuttlecock, tossing him away from his main point whenever he got near it, much to his scarcely concealed irritation. Every now and again she caught a steel-like flash in the dark eyes of Dimitrius, who, though engaged in casual talk with the Baron and Baroness Rousillon, glanced at her occasionally in fullest comprehension and approval,—and somehow it became borne in upon her mind that if Farnese only knew the way to the scientist’s laboratory, he would have very little scruple about breaking into any part of it with the hope of solving its hidden problem.
“Why do you imagine there is any mystery about the Doctor’s works?” she asked him. “I know of none!”
“He would never let anywomanknow,” replied Farnese, with conviction. “But she might find out for herself if she were clever! There is a mystery without doubt. For instance, what is that great dome of glass which catches the sunlight on its roof and glitters in the distance, when I look towards the Château from my sailing boat on the lake——?”
“Oh, you have a sailing boat on the lake?” exclaimed Diana, clasping her hands in well-affected ecstasy. “How enchanting! Like Lord Byron, when he lived at the Villa Diodati!”
“Ah!” put in Professor Chauvet. “So you know your Byron! Then you are not one of the moderns?”
Diana smiled.
“No. I donotprefer Kipling to the author of ‘Childe Harold.’”
“Then you are lost—irretrievably lost!” said the Professor. “In England, at any rate. In England, if you are a true lover of literature, you must sneer at Byron because it’s academic to do so—Oxford and Cambridge have taken to decrying genius and worshipping mediocrity. Byron is the only English poet known and honoured in other countries than England—your modern verse writers are not understood in France, Italy or Russia. Half a dozen of Byron’s stanzas would set up all the British latter-day rhymers with ideas,—only, of course, they would never admit it. I’m glad I’ve met an Englishwoman who has sense enough to appreciate Byron.”
“Thank you!” said Diana in a small, meek voice. “You are most kind!”
Here Farnese rushed in again upon his argument.
“That glass dome——”
Diana smothered a tiny yawn.
“Oh, that’s an astronomical place!” she said, indifferently. “You know the kind of thing! Telescopes, globes, mathematical instruments—all those sort of objects.”
The Marchese looked surprised,—then incredulous.
“An astronomical place?” he repeated. “Are you sure? Have you seen it?”
“Why, yes, of course!” and she laughed. “Haven’t you?”
“Never! He allows no visitors inside it.”
“Ah, I expect you’re too inquisitive!” and she looked at him with a bland and compassionate tolerance. “You see, being a woman, I don’t care about difficult studies, such as astronomy. Women are not supposed to understand the sciences,—they nevercangrasp anything in the way of mathematics, can they?”
Farnese hesitated.
Chauvet interposed quickly.
“They can,—but to my mind they cease to be women when they do. They become indifferent to the softer emotions——”
“What emotions?” queried Diana, unfurling a little fan and waving it slowly to and fro.
“The emotions of love,—of tenderness,—of passion——”
“Ah, yes! You mean the emotions of love, of tenderness, of passion—for what? For man? Well, of course!—the most surface knowledge of mathematics would soon put an end to that sort of thing!”
“Dear English madame, you are pleased to be severe!” said Chauvet. “Yet the soft emotions are surely ‘woman’s distinguishing charm’?”
She laughed.
“Men like to say so,” she replied. “Because it flatters their vanity to rouse these ‘soft emotions’ and translate them into love for themselves. But have you had any experience, Professor? If any woman had displayed ‘soft emotions’ towards you, would you not have been disposed to nip them in the bud?”
“Most likely! I am not an object for sentimental consideration,—I never was. I should have greatly regretted it if one of your charming sex had wasted her time or herself on me.”
Just then Madame Dimitrius spoke.
“Dear Miss May, will you play us something?”
She readily acquiesced, and seating herself at the grand piano, which was open, soon scored a triumph. Her playing was exquisitely finished, and as her fingers glided over the keys, the consciousness that she was discoursing music to at least one or two persons who understood and appreciated it gave her increased tenderness of touch and beauty of tone. The dreary feeling of utter hopelessness which had pervaded her, body and soul, when playing to her father and mother, “Ma” asleep on the sofa, and “Pa” hidden behind a newspaper, neither of them knowing or caring what composer’s work she performed, was changed to a warm, happy sense of the power to give pleasure, and the ability to succeed—and when she had finished a delicately wild little sonata of Grieg’s, pressing its soft, half-sobbing final chord as daintily and hushfully as she would have folded a child’s hands in sleep, a murmur of real rapture and surprised admiration came from all her hearers.
“But you are an artiste!” exclaimed the Baroness Rousillon. “You are a professionalvirtuoso, surely?”
“Spare me such an accusation!” laughed Diana. “I don’t think Icouldplay to an audience for money,—it would seem like selling my soul.”
“Ah, there I can’t follow you,” said Chauvet. “That’s much too high-flown and romantic for me. Why not sell anything if you can find buyers?”
His little eyes glittered ferret-like between his secretive eyelids, and Diana smiled, seeing that he spoke ironically.
“This is an age of selling,” he went on. “The devil might buy souls by the bushel if he wanted them!—(and if thereweresuch a person!) And as for music!—why, it’s as good for sale and barter nowadays as a leg of mutton! The professional musician is as eager for gain as any other merchant in the general market,—and if the spirit of Sappho sang him a song from the Elysian fields, he’d sell it to a gramophone agency for the highest bid. Andyoutalk about ‘selling your soul!’ dear Madame, with a thousand pardons for mybrusquerie, you talk nonsense! How do you know you have a soul to sell?”
Before she could reply, Dimitrius interposed,—his face was shadowed by a stern gravity.
“No jesting with that subject, Professor!” he said. “You know my opinions. Sacred things are not suited for ordinary talk,—the issues are too grave,—the realities too absolute.”
Chauvet coughed a little cough of embarrassment, and took out a pair of spectacles from his pocket, polished them and put them back again for want of something else to do. The Marchese Farnese looked up,—his expression was eager and watchful—he was on the alert. But nothing came of his expectancy.
“Play to us again, Miss May,” continued Dimitrius in gentler accents. “You need be under no doubt as to the existence ofyoursoul when you can express it so harmoniously.”
She coloured with pleasure, and turning again to the piano played the “Prélude” of Rachmaninoff with averveand passion which surprised herself. She could not indeed explain why she, so lately conscious of little save the fact that she was a solitary spinster “in the way” of her would-be juvenile father, and with no one to care what became of her, now felt herself worthy of attention as a woman of talent and individuality, capable of asserting herself as such wherever she might be. The magnificent chords of the Russian composer’s despairing protest against all insignificance and meanness, rolled out from under her skilled finger-tips with all the pleading of a last appeal,—and everyone in the room, even Dimitrius himself, sat, as it were, spellbound and touched by a certain awe. An irresistible outburst of applause greeted her as she carried the brilliant finale to its close, and she rose, trembling a little with the nervous and very novel excitement of finding her musical gifts appreciated. Professor Chauvet got up slowly from his chair and came towards her.
“After that, you may lead me where you like!” he said. “I am tame and humble! I shall never disagree with a woman who can so express the pulsations of a poet’s brain,—for that is what Rachmaninoff has put in his music. Yes,chère Anglaise!—I never flatter—and you play superbly. May I call youchère Anglaise?”
“If it pleases you to do so!” she answered, smiling.
“It does please me—it pleases me very much”—he went on—“it is a sobriquet of originality and distinction. An Englishwoman of real talent is precious—therefore rare. And being rare, it follows that she is dear—even to me!Chère Anglaise, you are charming!—and if both you and I were younger I should risk a proposal!”
Everyone laughed,—no one more so than Diana.
“You must have had considerable training to be such a proficient on the piano?” inquired Farnese, with his look of almost aggressive curiosity.
“Indeed no!” she replied at once. “But I have had a good deal of time to myself one way and the other, and as I love music, I have always practised steadily.”
“We must really have an ‘afternoon’ in Geneva,” said the Baroness Rousillon then. “You must be heard, my dear Miss May! The Genevese are very intelligent—they ought to know what an acquisition they have to their musical society——”
“Oh, no!” interrupted Diana, anxiously—“Please! I could not play before many people——”
“No,—like everything which emanates from Spirit, music of the finest quality is for the few,” said Dimitrius. “‘Where two or three are gathered together there am I in the midst of them’—is the utterance of all god-like Presences. Only two or three can ever understand.”
Diana thanked him mutely by a look, and conversation now became general. In a very short time the little party broke up, and Dimitrius accompanied his guests in turn to the door. The Rousillons took Farnese with them in their automobile,—Professor Chauvet, putting on a most unbecoming and very shabby great-coat, went on his way walking—he lived but half-a-mile or so further up the road.
“In a small cottage, or châlet,”—he explained—“A bachelor’s hermitage where I shall be happy to see you, Miss May, if you ever care to come. I have nothing to show you but books, minerals and a few jewels—which perhaps you might like to look at. Strange jewels!—with histories and qualities and characteristics—is it not so, Dimitrius?”
Dimitrius nodded.
“They have their own mysteries, like everything else,” he said.
Diana murmured her thanks for the invitation and bade him good-night,—then, as he went out of the room with his host, she turned to Madame Dimitrius and with a gentle, almost affectionate consideration, asked if she could do anything for her before going to bed.
“No, my dear!” answered the old lady, taking her hand and patting it caressingly. “It’s kind of you to think about me—and if I want you I’ll ask you to come and help an old woman to be more useful than she is! But wait a few minutes—I know Féodor wishes to speak to you.”
“I have not displeased him, I hope, in any way?” Diana said, a little anxiously. “I felt so ‘at home,’ as it were, that I’m afraid I spoke a little too frankly as a stranger——”
“You spoke charmingly!” Madame assured her—“Brightly, and with perfect independence, which we admire. And need I say how much both my son and I appreciated your quickness of perception and tact?”
She laid a slight emphasis on the last word. Diana smiled and understood.
“People are very inquisitive,” went on Madame. “And it is better to let them think you are a friend and guest of ours than the person for whom my son has been advertising. That advertisement of his caused a great deal of comment and curiosity,—and now that he has said he has withdrawn it and that he does not expect to be suited, the gossip will gradually die down. But if any idea had got about thatyouwere the result of his search for an assistant, you would find yourself in an embarrassing position. You would be asked no end of questions, and our charming Baroness Rousillon would be one of the first to make mischief—but thanks to your admirable self-control she is silenced.”
“Will anything silence her?” and Dimitrius, entering, stood for a moment looking at his mother and Diana with a smile. “I doubt it! But Miss May is not at all the kind of woman the Baroness would take as suitable for a scientific doctor’s assistant,—fortunately. She is not old enough.”
“Not old enough?” and Diana laughed. “Why, what age ought I to be?”
“Sixty at least!” and he laughed with her. “The Baroness is a great deal older than you are, but she still subjugates the fancy of some men. Her idea of a doctor’s private secretary or assistant is a kind of Macbeth’s witch, too severely schooled in the virtues of ugliness to wear rose-coloured chiffon!”
Diana flushed a little as he gave a meaning glance at her graceful draperies,—then he added:
“Come out for a moment in the loggia,—moonlight is often talked about and written about, but it seldom gives such an impression of itself as on an early autumn night in Switzerland. Come!”
She obeyed,—and as she followed him to the marble loggia where the fountains were still playing, an irresistible soft cry of rapture broke from her lips. The scene she looked upon was one of fairy-like enchantment,—the moonlight, pearly pure, was spread in long broad wings of white radiance over the lawns in front of the Château, and reaching out through the shadows of trees, touched into silver the misty, scarcely discernible peaks of snow-mountains far beyond. A deep silence reigned everywhere—that strange silence so frequently felt in the vicinity of mountains,—so that when the bell of the chiming clock set in the turret of the Château struck eleven, its sound was almost startling.
“This would be a night for a sail on the lake,” said Dimitrius. “Some evening you must come.”
She made no reply. Her soul was in her eyes—looking, looking wistfully at the beauty of the night, while all the old, unsatisfied hunger ached at her heart—the hunger for life at its best and brightest—for the things which were worth having and holding,—and absorbed in a sudden wave of thought she hardly remembered for the moment where she was.
“Millions of people look at this moon to-night without seeing it,” said Dimitrius, after a pause, during which he had watched her attentively. “Millions of people live in the world without knowing anything about it. They,—themselves,—are to them, the universe. Like insects, they grub for food and bodily satisfaction,—like insects, they die without having ever known any higher aim of existence. Yet, looking on such loveliness as this to-night, do you not feel that something more lasting, more real than the usual mode of lifewasandisintended for us? Does it not seem a flaw in the Creator’s plan that this creation should be invested with such beauty and perfection for human beings who do not even see it? Do we make the utmost of our capabilities?”
She turned her eyes away from the moonlit landscape and looked at him with rather a sad smile.
“I cannot tell—I do not know,” she answered. “I am not skilled in argument. But what almost seems to me to be the hardest thing in life is, that we have so little time to learn or to understand. As children and as very young people we are too brimful of animal spirits to think about anything,—then, when we arrive at ‘mature years’ we find we are ‘shelved’ by our fellow-men and women as old and unwanted. Women especially are sneered at for age, as if it were a crime to live beyond one’s teens.”
“Only the coarsest minds and tongues sneer at a woman’s age,” said Dimitrius. “They are the pigs of the common stye, and they must grunt. I see you have suffered from their grunting! That, of course, is because you have not put on the matrimonial yoke. You might get as old as the good Abraham’s wife, Sara, without a sneer, so long as you had become legitimately aged through waiting on the moods and caprices of a husband!” He laughed, half ironically,—then drawing nearer to her by a step, went on in a lower tone:
“What would you say if you could win back youth?—not only the youth of your best days, but a youth transfigured to a fairness and beauty far exceeding any that you have ever known? What would you give, if with that youth you could secure an increased mental capacity for enjoying it?—an exquisite vitality?—a delight in life so keen that every beat of your heart should be one of health and joy?—and that you should hold life itself”—here he paused, and repeated the words slowly—“that you should hold life itself, I say, in a ceaseless series of vibrations as eternal as the making and re-making of universes?”
His dark eyes were fixed upon her face with an intensity of meaning, and a thrill ran through her, half of fear, half of wonderment.
“What would I say?—what would I give? You talk like another Mephistopheles to a female Faustus!” she said, forcing a laugh. “I would not give my soul, because I believe I have a soul, and that it is what God commands me to keep,—but I would give everything else!”
“Your soul is part of your life,” said Dimitrius. “And you could not give that without giving your life as well. I speak ofholding your life,—that is to say,keeping it. Understand me well! The soul is the eternal and indestructible pivot round which the mechanism of the brain revolves, as the earth revolves round the sun. The soul imparts all light, all heat, all creation and fruition to the brain, though it is but a speck of radiant energy, invisible to the human eye, even through the most powerful lens. It is the immortal embryo of endless existences, and in whatsoever way it instructs the brain, the brain should be in tune to respond. That the brain seldom respondstruly, is the fault of the preponderating animalism of the human race. If you can follow me, still listen!”
She listened indeed,—every sense alert and braced with interest.
“All ideas, all sentiments, all virtues, all sins, are in the cells of the brain,” he went on. “The soul plays on these cells with vibrating touches of light, just as you play on the notes of the piano, or as a typist fingers the keyboard of the machine. On the quality or characteristic of the soul depends the result. Youth is in the cells of the brain. Should the cells become dry and withered, it is because the soul has ceased to charge them with its energy. But when this is the case, it is possible—I say it is possible!—for science to step in. The spark can be re-energised,—the cells can be re-charged.”
Diana caught her breath. Was he mad?—or sane with a sanity that realises a miracle? She gazed at him as though plunging her eyes into a well of mystery.
He smiled strangely. “Poor lady of mature years!” he said. “You have heard me, have you not? Well, think upon what I have said! I am not mad, be assured!—I am temperate in reason and cool in blood. I am only a scientist, bent on defying that Angel at the gate of Eden with the flaming sword who ‘keeps the way of the Tree of Life,’ lest men should take and eat and live for ever! It would not do for men in the aggregate to live for ever, for most of them are little more than mites in a cheese,—but as the Prophet Esdras was told: ‘This present world is made for the many, but the world to come for the few.’ That ‘world to come’ does not mean a worldafterdeath—but the world ofhereandnow—a world ‘for the few’ who know how to useit, and themselves!—a world where the same moonlight as this shines like a robe of woven pearl spread over all human ugliness and ignorance, leaving only God’s beauty and wisdom! Look at it once more!—make a picture of it in your mind!—and then—good-night!”
She raised her eyes to the dense purple of the sky, and let them wander over the lovely gardens, drenched in silver glory—then extended her hand.
“Thank you for all you have told me,” she said. “I shall remember it. Good-night!”