The Inner Shrine Part 21

After that it was not unnatural that Diane should go and sit on the divan beside Dorothea for any exchange of such confidences as could not be conveniently made from a distance. If she admitted anything on her own part, it was by implication rather than by direct a.s.sertion, and though she did not promise in words to come to the aid of the youthful lovers, she allowed the possibility that she would do so to be a.s.sumed.

So, in soft, whispered, broken confessions the evening slipped away more rapidly than the day had done, and by ten o'clock they knew he must be near. The last touch of welcome came when they pa.s.sed from room to room, lighting up the big house in cheerful readiness for its lord's inspection. When all was done Dorothea stationed herself at a window near the street; while Diane, with a curious shrinking from what she had to face, took her seat in the remotest and obscurest corner in the more distant of the two drawingrooms. When the sound of wheels, followed by a loud ring at the bell, told her that he was actually at the door, she felt faint from the violence of her heart's beating.

Dorothea danced into the hail, with a cry and a laugh which were stifled in her father's embrace. Diane rose instinctively, waiting humbly and silently where she stood. At their parting she had torn herself, weeping and protesting, from his arms; but when he came in to find her now, he would see that she had yielded. The door was half open through which he was to pa.s.s--never again to leave her!

"Diane is in there."

It was Dorothea's voice that spoke, but the reply reached the far drawing-room only as a murmur of deep, inarticulate ba.s.s.

"What's the matter, father?"

Dorothea's clear voice rose above the noise of servants moving articles of luggage in the hall; but again Diane heard nothing beyond a confused muttering in answer. She wondered that he did not come to her at once, though she supposed there was some slight prosaic reason to prevent his doing so.

"Father"--Dorothea's voice came again, this time with a distinct note of anxiety--"father, you don't look well. Your eyes are bloodshot."

"I'm quite well, thank you," was the curt reply, this time perfectly audible to Diane's ears. "Simmons, you fool, don't leave those steamer rugs down here!"

Diane had never heard him speak so to a servant, and she knew that something had gone amiss. Perhaps he was annoyed that she had not come to greet him. Perhaps it was one of the duties of her position to receive him at the door. She had known him to give way occasionally to bursts of anger, in which a word from herself had soothed him. Leaving her place in the corner, she was hurrying to the hall, when again Dorothea's voice arrested her.

"Aren't you going in to see Diane?"

"No."

From where she stood, just within the door, Diane knew that he had flung the word over his shoulder as he went up the hail toward the stairway.

He was going to his room without speaking to her. For an instant she stood still from consternation, but it was in emergencies like this that her spirit rose. Without further hesitation she pa.s.sed out into the hall, just as Derek Pruyn turned at the bend in the staircase, on his way upward. For a brief second, as, standing below, she lifted her eyes to his in questioning, their glances met; but, on his part, it was without recognition.

XI

Half an hour after Derek's return Diane was summoned into his presence in the little room where she had arranged his letters in the afternoon.

The door was standing open, and she went in slowly, her head high. She was dressed as when she had parted from him; and the whiteness of her neck and shoulders, free from jewels, collar, or chain, was the more brilliant from contrast with the severe line of black. In her pale face all expression was focussed into the pained inquiry of her eyes.

She entered so silently that he did not hear her, or lift his head from the hand on which it leaned wearily, as he rested his elbow on the desk.

Pausing in the middle of the room, she had time to notice that he had opened a few of the letters lying before him, but had thrust them impatiently from him, evidently unread. The cablegram she had laid where his glance would immediately fall upon it was between his fingers, but the envelope was unbroken. His att.i.tude was so much that of a man tired and dispirited that her heart went out to him.

It was perhaps the involuntary sigh that broke from her lips that caused him to look up. When he did so his eyes fixed themselves on her with a dazed stare, as though he wondered whence and for what she had come. In the eager attention with which she regarded him she noted subconsciously that he was unshaven and ill-kempt, and that his eyes, as Dorothea had said, were bloodshot.

He dragged himself to his feet, and with forced courtesy asked her to sit down. She allowed herself to sink mechanically to the edge of the divan where, only an hour ago, Dorothea and she had exchanged happy confidences. In the minutes of silence that followed, when he had resumed his own seat, she felt as if she were in some queer nightmare, where nothing could be explained.

"Did you ever hear of a young French explorer named Persigny?"

She nodded, without speaking. The irrelevancy of the question was in keeping with the odd horror of the dream.

"Did you know he was exploring in Brazil?"

"I think I may have heard so."

"He came up from Rio with me--on the same steamer."

She listened, with eyes fixed fast upon him, wondering what he meant.

"He wasn't alone," Derek went on, speaking in a lifeless monotone.

"There were others of his party with him. There was one, especially, with whom I became on terms that were almost--intimate."

For the first time it occurred to her that he was trying to see through her thoughts; but in her bewilderment at his words, she met his gaze steadily.

"There was something about this young man that attracted me," he continued, in the same dull voice, "and I listened to his troubles. In particular he told me why he had fled from Paris to hide himself in the forests of the Amazon. Shall I tell you the reason?"

"If you like."

"It was an old story; in some respects a vulgar story. He had got into the toils of an unscrupulous woman."

Her sudden perception of what he was leading up to forced her into a little involuntary movement.

"I see you understand," he said, quickly, with the glimmer of a smile.

"I thought you would; for, as a matter of fact, much of what he said brought back our conversation on the night before I sailed. There was not a little in it that was mystery to me at the time, which he--illumined."

She sat with lips parted and bosom heaving, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. If she was conscious of any sensation, it was of terrible curiosity to know how the tale was to be turned.

"What you said to me then," he pursued, in the same cruel quietness of tone--"what you said to me then, as to the influence of a bad woman in a man's life, seemed to me--what shall I say?--not precisely exaggerated, but somewhat overwrought. I didn't know it could be so true to the actual facts of experience. My friend's words at times were almost an echo of your own. He had been the lover of a woman--"

Once more she started, raising her hand in silent protest against the words.

"He--had--been--the--lover--of--a--woman," he repeated, with slow emphasis, "who, after having ruined her husband's life, was preparing to ruin his. She would have ruined his as she had ruined the lives of other men before him. When he endeavored to elude her, she set on her husband to call him out. There was a duel--or the semblance of a duel. My friend fired into the air. The poor devil of a husband shot himself. It appears that he had every reason for doing so."

"My husband didn't shoot himself."

"Your husband?" he asked, with an ironical lifting of the eyebrows.

"What makes you think I've been speaking of him?"

"The man whom you call your friend is the Marquis de Bienville--"

"He didn't mention your name; but I see you're able to tell me his. It's what I was afraid of. I've repeated only a very little of what he said; but since you recognize its truth already, it isn't necessary to continue."

She pa.s.sed her hand over her forehead, with the gesture of one trying desperately to see aright.

"I must ask you to tell me plainly: Was I the--the unscrupulous woman into whose toils Monsieur de Bienville fell?"

"He didn't say so."

"Then why--why have you spoken of this to me?"

"Because what I heard from him fitted in so exactly with what I had heard from you that it made an entire story. It was like the two parts of a puzzle. The one without the other is incomplete and perplexing; but having both, you can see the perfect whole. I will be frank enough to tell you that many of your sayings were dark to me until I had his to lend them light."

"Would it be of any use to say that what he told you wasn't true?"