CHAPTER XVI
Two or three days later the Château Fragonard was closed,—its windows were shuttered and its gates locked. The servants were dismissed, all save Vasho, who, with his black face, white teeth, rolling eyes and dumb lips, remained as sole custodian. The usual callers called in vain,—and even the Baroness Rousillon, a notable and persistent inquirer into all matters of small social interest, could learn nothing beyond the fact (written neatly on a card which Vasho handed to all visitors) that “Dr. and Madame Dimitrius had left home for several weeks.” Of Diana May no information was given. Among those who were the most surprised and deeply chagrined at this turn of events was the Marchese Farnese, who had himself been compelled to be away for some time on business in Paris, but who had returned as soon as he could to Geneva in the hope of improving his acquaintance with Diana sufficiently to procure some sort of reliable information as to the problems and projects of Dimitrius. His disappointment was keen and bitter, for not only did he find her gone, but he could obtain no clue as to her whereabouts. And even Professor Chauvet had been left very much in the dark, for Diana had only written him the briefest note, running thus:
“Dear Kind Friend!“I’m going away for a little while with Madame Dimitrius, who needs change of air and scene, but I will let you know directly I come back. I shall think of you very often while absent!“Affectionately yours,“Diana.”
“Dear Kind Friend!
“I’m going away for a little while with Madame Dimitrius, who needs change of air and scene, but I will let you know directly I come back. I shall think of you very often while absent!
“Affectionately yours,“Diana.”
Chauvet put by these brief lines very preciously in the safe where he kept his jewels,—“Affectionately yours” was a great consolation, he thought!—they almost touched the verge of tenderness!—there was surely hope for him! And he amused himself in his solitary hours with the drawing of an exquisite design for a small coronal to be worn in Diana’s hair, wherein he purposed having some of his rarest jewels set in a fashion of his own.
Meanwhile the frozen stillness of an exceptionally dreary and bitter winter enveloped the Château Fragonard and its beautiful gardens, and no one was ever seen to go to it, or come from it, though there were certain residents on the opposite side of the lake who could perceive its roof and chimneys through the leafless trees and who declared that its great glass dome was always more or less illumined as though a light were constantly kept burning within. Rumour was busy at first with all sorts of suggestions and contradictions, but as there appeared to be no foundation for any one of them, the talk gradually wore itself out, most people being always too much interested in themselves to keep up any interest in others for long.
But, had Rumour a million eyes, as it is said to have a million tongues, it might well have had occasion to use them all during the full swing of that particular “season” at Davos Platz, where, in the “winter sports” and gaieties of the time, Diana was an admired “belle” and universal favourite. She, who only three or four months previously had been distinctly “on the shelf” or “in the way,” was now flattered and sought after by a whole train of male admirers, who apparently could never have enough of her society. She conversed brilliantly, danced exquisitely, and skated perfectly,—so perfectly indeed that one fatuous elderly gentleman nicknamed her “the Ice Queen,” and another, younger but not less enterprising, addressed her as “Boule de Neige,” conceiving the title prettier in French than in rough English as “Snowball.” She accepted the attentions lavished upon her with amused indifference, which made her still more attractive to men whose “sporting” tendencies are invariably sharpened by obstacles in the way of securing their game, and, much to her own interest, found herself the centre of all sorts of rivalries and jealousies.
“If they only knew my age!” she thought one day. “If they only knew!”
But they did not know. And it would have been quite impossible for them to guess. Thus much Diana herself was now forced to concede. Every day her mirror showed her a fair, unworn face, with the softly rounded outline of youth, and the clear eyes which betoken the unconscious joy of perfect health and vitality, and the change in her was so marked and manifest that she no longer hesitated to speak to Madame Dimitrius about it when they were alone together. At first the old lady was very nervous of the subject, and fearful lest she should in some way displease her masterful son,—but Diana reassured her, promising that he should never know the nature or extent of their confidences. It was a great relief to them both when they entered into closer mutual relations and decided to talk to each other freely—especially to Madame Dimitrius, who was anxious to be made certain that Diana was not in any physical suffering or mental distress through the exercise of Féodor’s extraordinary and, as she imagined, almost supernatural powers. She was soon satisfied on that score, for Diana could assure her, with truth, that she had never felt better or brighter.
“It’s like a new life,” she said, one day, as she sat at the window of their private sitting-room in the hotel, which commanded a fine view of the snowy mountain summits. “I feel as if I had somehow been born again! All my past years seem rolled away like so much rubbish! I’ve often thought of those words: ‘Except ye be born again ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of God.’ They used to be a mystery to me, but they’re not so mysterious now! And it is just like ‘entering the Kingdom of God’ to look out on this glorious beauty of the mountains, the snow and the pine trees, and to feel alive to it all, grateful for it all, loving it all,—as I do!”
Madame Dimitrius regarded her earnestly.
“You do not think, then,” she suggested, “that my son is guilty of any offence against the Almighty by his dealings with these strange, unknown forces——”
“Dear Madame!” interrupted Diana, quickly—“do not for a moment entertain such an idea! It belongs to those foolish times when the Church was afraid to know the truth and tortured people for telling it! What offencecanthere be in exerting to the utmost, the intelligent faculties God has given us, and in studying to find out the wonderful advantages and benefits which may be possessed by those who cultivate reason and knowledge! I think it is a far greater offence against God, to wilfully remain in ignorance of His goodness to us all!”
“Perhaps!”—and the old lady sighed—then smiled. “I’m afraid I am one of those who ‘darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge!’ But, after all, the great thing for me is that I see you well and happy—and greatest marvel of all—growing younger every day! You see that for yourself, don’t you?—and you feel it?”
“Yes.” And, as she spoke, a strange, far-away look came into Diana’s eyes. “But—there is one thing I wish I could explain, even to myself! I feel well, happy, keenly alive to all I see and hear,—and yet—there is an odd sensation back of it all!—a feeling that I havenofeeling!”
“My dear Diana!” And Madame Dimitrius’s pale blue eyes opened a little wider. “What a strange thing to say! You are full of feeling!”
Diana shook her head decisively.
“No, I’m not! It’s all put on! It is, really! That is, so far as human beings and human events are concerned. I feel nothing whatever about them! The only ‘feeling’ I have is a sort of suppressed ecstasy of delight in beauty—the beauty of the skies, the effects of sunlight on the hills and plains, the loveliness of a flower or a bit of exquisite natural scenery—but I have somehow lost the sense of all association with humanity!”
“But—my dear girl!——” began Madame, in perplexity.
Diana laughed.
“Ah, now you call me a ‘girl,’ too!” she exclaimed, merrily. “Just as they all do here in this hotel! I’m not a girl at all—I’m a woman of ‘mature years,’ but nobody would believe it! Even Dr. Féodor himself is getting puzzled—for he addressed me as ‘dear child’ this very morning!” She laughed again—her pretty laugh,—which was like a musical cadence.
“Yes, dear Madame!—it’s a fact!—with my renewal of youth I’m developing youth’s happy-go-lucky indifference to emotions! People,—the creatures that walk about on two legs and eat and talk—have absolutely no interest for me!—unless they do something absurd which they imagine to be clever—and that makes me laugh,—sometimes,—not always! Even your wonderful son, with his amazing powers and his magnetic eyes which used to send a thrill right down my spine, fails to move me now to any concern as to my ultimate fate in his hands. I know that he is, so far, succeeding in his experiment; but what the final result may be I don’t know—and—I don’t care!”
“You don’t care!” echoed Madame, in bewilderment. “Really and truly? You don’t care?”
“No, not a bit! That’s just the worst of it! See here, you dear, kind woman!—here I am; a bought ‘subject’ for Dr. Féodor to try his skill upon. He told me plainly enough on one occasion that it wouldn’t matter and couldn’t be helped if I died under his treatment—and I quite agreed with him. Up to the present I’m not dead and don’t feel like dying—but I’mhardening! Yes! that’s it! Steadily, slowly hardening! Not in my muscles—not in my arteries—no!—but in my sentiments and emotions which are becoming positivelynil!” Her merry laugh rang out again, and her eyes sparkled with amusement. “But what a good thing it is, after all! Men are so fond of telling one that they hate ‘emotions’—so it’s just as well to be without them! Now, for instance, I’m having a splendid time here—I love all the exercise in the open air, the skating, tobogganing, and dancing in the evening,—it’s all great fun, but I don’t ‘feel’ that itisas splendid as itseems! Men flatter me every day,—they say ‘How well you skate!’ or ‘How well you dance!’ ‘How well you play!’ or even ‘How charming you look!’ and if such things had been said to me in England six months ago I should have been so happy and at ease that I should never have been afraid and awkward as I generally was in society—but now! Why now I simply don’t care!—I only think what fools men are!”
“But you must remember,” said Madame Dimitrius gently—“you were very different in appearance six months ago to what you are now——”
“Exactly! That’s just it!” And Diana gave an expressive gesture of utter disdain. “That’s what I hate and despise! One is judged by looks only. I’m just the same woman as ever—six months ago I danced as well, skated as well, and played the piano as well as I do now—but no one ever gave me the smallest encouragement! Now everything I do is made the subject of exaggerated compliment, by the men of course!—not by the women;theyalways hate a successful rival of their own sex! Ah, how petty and contemptible it all is! You see I’m growing young looks with old experience!—rather a dangerous combination of forces,Ithink!—however, if our souls become angels when we die,theywill have a vast experience to look back upon, dating from the beginning of creation!”
“And, looking back so far, they will understand all,” said Madame Dimitrius. “As one of our great writers has said: ‘To know all is to pardon all.’”
Diana shrugged her shoulders.
“Perhaps!” she carelessly conceded. “But that’s just where I should fail as an angel! I cannot ‘pardon all.’ I hold a standing grudge against injustice, callousness, cruelty and cowardice. I forgive none of these things. I loathe a hypocrite—especially a pious one! I should take pleasure in revenge of some sort on any such loathsome creature. I would rather save a fly from drowning in the milk-jug than a treacherous human being from the gallows!”
“Dear me!” and Madame smiled—“you speak very strongly, Diana! Especially when you assure me that you cannot ‘feel!’”
“Oh, I can feel hatred!” said Diana. “Thatsort of feeling seems to have a good grip of me! But love, interest, sympathy for other folks—no!—ten thousand times no! One might love a man with all the ardour and passion of a lifetime, and yet he may be capable of boasting of your ‘interest’ in him at his club and damaging your reputation—(you know some clubs are like old washerwomen’s corners where they meet to talk scandal)—and you may waste half your time in interest and sympathy for other folks and they’ll only ask dubiously, ‘What is it all for?’ and ‘round’ on you at the first opportunity, never crediting you with either honesty or unselfishness in your words or actions. No, no! It’s best to ‘play’ the world’s puppets—never to become one of them!”
“You are bitter, my dear!” commented Madame. “I think it is because you have missed a man’s true love.”
Diana laughed and sprang up from her chair.
“Maybe!” she replied. “But—‘a man’s true love’—as I see it, seems hardly worth the missing! You are a dear, sentimental darling!—you have lived in the ‘early Victorian’ manner, finding an agreeable lover who gave you his heart, after the fashion of an antique Valentine, and whom you married in the proper and conventional style, and in due course gave him a baby. That’s it! And oh,SUCHa baby! Féodor Dimitrius!—doctor of sciences and master of innumerable secrets of nature—yet, after all, only your ‘baby!’ It is a miracle! But I wonder if it was worth while! Don’t mind my nonsense, dearest lady!—just think of me as hardening and shining!—like bits of the glacier we saw the other day which move only about an inch in a thousand years! There’s a ‘sports’ ball on the ice to-night—a full moon too!—and your wonderful son has agreed to skate with me—I wish you would come and look at us!”
“I’m too old,” said Madame Dimitrius, with a slight sigh. “I wish Féodor would makemeyoung as he is makingyou!”
“He’s afraid!” and Diana stood, looking at her for a moment. “He’s afraid of killing you! But he’s not afraid of killingme!”
With that she went,—and Madame, laying down her work, folded her hands and prayed silently that no evil might come to her beloved son through the strange mysteries which he was seeking to solve, and which to her simple and uninstructed mind appeared connected with the powers of darkness rather than the powers of light.
That evening Diana scored a triumph as belle of the “sports” ball. Attired in a becoming skating costume of black velvet trimmed with white fur, with a charming little “toque” hat to match, set jauntily on her bright hair, and a bunch of edelweiss at her throat, she figured as an extremely pretty “girl,” and her admirers were many. When Dimitrius came to claim his promised “glissade” by her side, she welcomed him smilingly, yet with an indifference which piqued him.
“Are you tired?” he asked. “Would you rather not skate any more just now?”
She gave him an amused look.
“I am never tired,” she said. “I could skate for ever, if it were not, like all things, certain to become monotonous. And I’m sure it’s very good of you to skate with a woman ‘of mature years’ when there are so many nice girls about.”
“You are the prettiest ‘girl’ here,” he answered, with a smile. “Everyone says so!”
“And what do you say to everyone?” she demanded.
“I agree. Naturally!”
He took her hand, and together they started skimming easily over the ice, now shining like polished crystal in the radiance of the moon and the light thrown from torches set round the expanse of the skating ground by the hotel purveyors of pleasure for their visitors. Diana’s lightness and grace of movement had from the first been the subject of admiring comment in the little world of humanity, gathered for the season on those Swiss mountain heights, but this evening she seemed to surpass herself, and, with Dimitrius, executed wonderful steps and “figures” at flying speed with the ease of a bird on the wing. Men looked on in glum annoyance that Dimitrius should have so much of her company, and women eyed her with scarcely concealed jealousy. But at the end of an hour she said she had “had enough of it,” and pulling off her skates she walked with a kind of sedate submissiveness beside Dimitrius away from the gay scene on the ice back to the hotel. Their way led through an avenue of pine trees, which, stiffly uplifting their spear-like points to the frosty skies and bright moon, looked like fantastic giant sentinels on guard for the night. Stopping abruptly in the midst of the eerie winter stillness she said suddenly:
“Dr. Féodor, do you know I’ve had three proposals of marriage since I’ve been here?”
He smiled indulgently.
“Ay, indeed! I’m not surprised! And you have refused them all?”
“Of course! What’s the good of them?”
His dark eyes glittered questioningly upon her through their veiling, sleepy lids.
“The good of them? Well, really, that is for you to decide! If you want a husband——”
“I don’t!” she said, emphatically, with a decisive little stamp of her foot on the frozen ground. “I should hate him!”
“Unhappy wretch! Why?”
“Oh, because!”—she hesitated, then laughed—“because he would be always about! He’d have the right to go with me everywhere—such a bore!”
“Love——” began Dimitrius, sententiously.
“Love!” She flashed a look of utter scorn upon him. “You don’t believe in it—neither do I! What have we to do with love?”
“Nothing!” he agreed, quietly. “But—you are really rewarding my studies, Diana! You are growing very pretty!”
She turned from him with a gesture of offended impatience and walked on. He caught up to her.
“You don’t like my telling you that?” he said.
“No. Because the ‘prettiness’ is your forced product. It’s notmynatural output.”
He seized her hand somewhat roughly and held it as in a vice.
“You talk foolishly!” he said, in a low, stern voice. “My ‘forced product’ as you call it, is not mine, except in so far that I have found and made use of the forces of regenerative life which are in God’s life and air and which enter into the work of all creation. Your ‘prettiness’ is God’s work!—lift up your eyes to the Almighty Power which ‘maketh all things new!’”
Awed and startled by the impassioned tone of his voice and his impressive manner, she stood inert, her hand remaining passively in his firm grasp.
“Men propose to you,” he went on, “because they find you attractive, and because your face and figure excite their passions—there is no real ‘love’ in the case, any more than there is in most proposals. The magnetism of sex is the thing that ‘pulls’—but you—you, my ‘subject,’ havenosex! That’s what nobody outside ourselves is likely to understand. The ‘love’ which is purely physical,—the mating which has for its object the breeding of children, is not for you any more than it would be for an angel—you are removed from its material and sensual contact. But the love which should touch your soul to immortal issues, and which by its very character is expressed through youth and beauty,—thatmaycome to you!—that may be yours in due time! Meanwhile, beware how you talk of my ‘forced product’—for behind all the powers I am permitted to use is the Greatest Power of all, to Whom I am but the poorest of servants!”
A deep sigh broke from him and he released her hand as suddenly as he had grasped it.
“You have felt no ill effects from the treatment?” he then asked, in a matter-of-fact tone.
“No,” she answered. “None at all—except——”
“Except—what?”
“Oh, well!—no very great matter! Only that I seem to have lost something out of myself—I have no interest in persons or events—no sympathy with human kind. It’s curious, isn’t it? I feel that I belong more to the atmosphere than to the earth, and that I love trees, grass, flowers, birds and what is called the world of Nature more than the world of men. Of course I always loved Nature,—but what was once a preference has now become a passion—and perhaps, when you’ve done with me, if I live, I shall go and be a sort of hermit in the woods, away altogether from ‘people.’ I don’t like flesh and blood!—there’s a kind of coarseness in it!” she concluded carelessly as she resumed her walk towards the hotel.
He was puzzled and perplexed. He watched her as she moved, and noted, as he had done several times that evening, the exquisite lightness of her step.
“Well, at any rate, you are not, physically speaking, any the worse for receiving my treatment once a fortnight?” he asked.
“Oh, no! I am very well indeed!” she replied at once. “I can truthfully assure you I never felt better. Your strange ‘fire-drop’ never gives me any uncanny ‘sensations’ now—I don’t mind it at all. It seems to fill me with a sort of brightness and buoyancy. But I have no actual ‘feeling’ about it—neither pleasure nor pain. That’s rather odd, isn’t it?”
They were at the entrance door of the hotel, and stood on the steps before going in. The moonlight fell slantwise on Diana’s face and showed it wonderfully fair and calm, like that of a sculptured angel in some niche of a cathedral.
“Yes—perhaps it is odd,” he answered. “As I have already told you, I am not cognisant of the possible action of the commingled elements I have distilled,—I can only test them and watch their effect uponyou, in order to gain the necessary knowledge. But that you have no ‘feeling’ seems to me an exaggerated statement,—for instance, you must have ‘felt’ a good deal of pleasure in your skating to-night?”
“Not the least in the world!” and the smile she gave him was as chill as a moonbeam on snow. “I skated on the ice with the same volition as a bubble floats along the air,—as unconscious as the bubble—and as indifferent! The bubble does not care when it breaks—nor do I! Good-night!”
She pushed open the swing door of the hotel and passed in.
He remained outside in the moonlight, vexed with himself and her, though he could not have told why. He lit a cigar and strolled slowly backwards and forwards in the front of the hotel, trying to soothe his inward irritation by smoking, but the effect was rather futile.
“She is wonderfully pretty and attractive now,” he mused. “If all succeeds she will be beautiful. And what then? I wonder! With every process of age stopped and reversed, and with all the stimulating forces of creative regeneration working in every cell of her body it is impossible to tell how she may develop—and yet—her mentality may remain the same! This is easily accounted for, because all one’s experiences of life from childhood make permanent impressions on the brain and stay there. Like the negatives stored in a photographer’s dark room one cannot alter them. And the puzzle to me is, how will her mentality ‘carry’ with her new personality? Will she know how to hold the balance between them? I can see already that men are quite likely to lose their heads about her—but what does that matter! It is not the first time they have maddened themselves for women who are set beyond the pale of mere sex.”
He looked up at the still sky,—the frostily sparkling stars,—the snowy peaks of the mountains and the bright moon.
“Thank God I have never loved any woman save my mother!” he said. “For so I have been spared both idleness and worry! To lose one’s time and peace because a woman smiles or frowns is to prove one’s self a fool or a madman!”
And going into the hotel, he finished his cigar in the lounge where other men were smoking, all unaware that several of them detested the sight of his handsome face and figure for no other reason than that he seemed ostensibly to be the guardian, as his mother was the chaperon, of the prettiest “girl” of that season at Davos, Diana May, and therefore nothing was more likely than that she should fall in love with him and he with her. It is always in this sort of fashion that the goose-gabble of “society” arranges persons and events to its own satisfaction, never realising that being only geese they cannot see beyond the circle of their own restricted farmyard.