The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 33

"Is it all right?"

The peculiar eagerness in the tone struck Diana. She returned the kiss, a little wistfully.

"Were you so anxious about me? Wasn't it--rather plain?"

Mrs. Colwood laughed.

"Sit down there, and tell me all about it."

She pushed Diana into a chair and sat down at her feet. Diana, with some difficulty, her hand over her eyes, told all that could be told of a moment the heart of which no true lover betrays. Muriel Colwood listened with her face against the girl's dress, sometimes pressing her lips to the hand beside her.

"Is he going to see Lady Lucy to-morrow?" she asked, when Diana paused.

"Yes. He goes up by the first train."

Both were silent awhile. Diana, in the midst of all the natural flutter of blood and pulse, was conscious of a strong yearning to tell her friend more--to say: "And he has brought me comfort and courage--as well as love! I shall dare now to look into the past--to take up my father's burden. If it hurts, Oliver will help me."

But she had been brought up in a school of reticence, and her loyalty to her father and mother sealed her lips. That anxiety, that burden, n.o.body must share with her but Oliver--and perhaps his mother; his mother, so soon to be hers.

Muriel Colwood, watching her face, could hardly restrain herself. But the moment for which her whole being was waiting in a tension scarcely to be borne had not yet come. She chastened and rebuked her own dread.

They talked a little of the future. Diana, in a blessed fatigue, threw herself back in her chair, and chattered softly, listening now and then for the sounds of the piano in the room below, and evidently relieved whenever, after a silence, fresh fragments from some comic opera of the day, much belied in the playing, penetrated to the upper floor.

Meanwhile, neither of them spoke of f.a.n.n.y Merton. Diana, with a laugh, repeated Marsham's proposal for a six weeks' engagement. That was absurd! But, after all, it could not be very long. She hoped Oliver would be content to keep Beechcote. They could, of course, always spend a good deal of time with Lady Lucy.

And in mentioning that name she showed not the smallest misgiving, not a trace of uneasiness, while every time it was uttered it p.r.i.c.ked the shrinking sense of her companion. Mrs. Colwood had not watched and listened during her Tallyn visit for nothing.

At last a clock struck down-stairs, and a door opened. Diana sprang up.

"Time to dress! And I've left f.a.n.n.y alone all this while!"

She hurried toward the door; then turned back.

"Please!--I'm not going to tell f.a.n.n.y just yet. Neither f.a.n.n.y nor any one--till Lady Lucy knows. What happened after we went away? Was f.a.n.n.y amused?"

"Very much, I should say."

"She made friends with Miss Drake?"

"They were inseparable, till Miss Drake departed."

Diana laughed.

"How odd! That I should never have prophesied. And Mr. Birch? I needn't have him to lunch again, need I?"

"Miss Merton invited him to tea--on Sat.u.r.day."

Diana reddened.

"Must I--!" she said, impetuously; then stopped herself, and opened the door.

Outside, f.a.n.n.y Merton was just mounting the stairs, a candle in her hand. She stopped in astonishment at the sight of Diana.

"Diana! where have you been all this time?"

"Only talking to Muriel. We heard you playing; so we thought you weren't dull," said Diana, rather penitently.

"I was only playing till you came in," was the sharp reply. "When did Mr. Marsham go?"

Diana by this time was crossing the landing to the door of her room, with f.a.n.n.y behind her.

"Oh, quite an hour ago. Hadn't we better dress? Dinner will be ready directly."

f.a.n.n.y took no notice. She entered her cousin's room, in Diana's wake.

"Well?" she said, interrogatively. She leaned her back against the wardrobe, and folded her arms.

Diana turned. She met f.a.n.n.y's black eyes, sparkling with excitement.

"I'll give you my news at dinner," said Diana, flushing against her will. "And I want to know how you liked Miss Drake."

f.a.n.n.y's eyes shot fire.

"That's all very fine! That means, of course, that you're not going to tell me anything!"

"f.a.n.n.y!" cried Diana, helplessly. She was held spellbound by the pa.s.sion, the menace in the girl's look. But the touch of shrinking in her att.i.tude roused brutal violence in f.a.n.n.y.

"Yes, it does!" she said, fiercely. "I understand!--don't I! I am not good enough for you, and you'll make me feel it. You're going to make a smart marriage, and you won't care whether you ever set eyes on any of us again. Oh! I know you've given us money--or you say you will. If I knew which side my bread was b.u.t.tered, I suppose I should hold my tongue.--But when you treat me like the dirt under your feet--when you tell everything to that woman Mrs. Colwood, who's no relation, and nothing in the world to you--and leave me kicking my heels all alone, because I'm not the kind you want, and you wish to goodness I'd never come--when you show as plain as you can that I'm a common creature--not fit to pick up your gloves!--I tell you I just won't stand it. No one would--who knew what I know!"

The last words were flung in Diana's teeth with all the force that wounded pride and envious wrath could give them. Diana tottered a little. Her hand clung to the dressing-table behind her.

"What do you know?" she said. "Tell me at once--what you mean."

f.a.n.n.y contemptuously shook her head. She walked to the door, and before Diana could stop her, she had rushed across to her own room and locked herself in.

There she walked up and down panting. She hardly understood her own rage, and she was quite conscious that, for her own interests, she had acted during the whole afternoon like a fool. First, stung by the pique excited in her by the talk of the luncheon-table, she had let herself be exploited and explored by Alicia Drake. She had not meant to tell her secret, but somehow she had told it, simply to give herself importance with this smart lady, and to feel her power over Diana. Then, it was no sooner told than she was quickly conscious that she had given away an advantage, which from a tactical point of view she had infinitely better have kept; and that the command of the situation might have pa.s.sed from her to this girl whom Diana had supplanted. Furious with herself, she had tried to swear Miss Drake to silence, only to be politely but rather scornfully put aside.

Then the party had broken up. Mr. Birch had been offended by the absence of the hostess, and had vouchsafed but a careless good-bye to Miss Merton. The Roughsedges went off without asking her to visit them; and as for the Captain, he was an odious young man. Since their departure, Mrs. Colwood had neglected her, and now Diana's secret return, her long talk with Mrs. Colwood, had filled the girl's cup of bitterness. She had secured that day a thousand pounds for her family and herself; and at the end of it, she merely felt that the day had been an abject and intolerable failure! Did the fact that she so felt it bear strange witness to the truth that at the bottom of her anger and her cruelty there was a masked and distorted something which was not wholly vile--which was, in fact, the nature's tribute to something n.o.bler than itself? That Diana shivered at and repulsed her was the hot-iron that burned and seared. And that she richly deserved it--and knew it--made its smart not a whit the less.

f.a.n.n.y did not appear at dinner. Mrs. Colwood and Diana dined alone--Diana very white and silent. After dinner, Diana began slowly to climb the shallow old staircase. Mrs. Colwood followed her.

"Where are you going?" she said, trying to hold her back.

Diana looked at her. In the girl's eyes there was a sudden and tragic indignation.

"Do you all know?" she said, under her breath--"all--all of you?" And again she began to mount, with a resolute step.