BOOK THREE (continued 2)

"That's precisely what I advised you to do three weeks ago."

"Yes, and if I had at that time brought a little more pressure to bear on the Austrian minister, he'd have sent that devil of a poet..." He pulled himself up. "Forgive me," he pleaded, drawing her to him on the sofa. "I'm sorry—he was your friend—well, there's nothing to be done now—he'll have to do penance for his sins—rather young, but he has always lived fast—— What do you think?"

He fancied her preoccupied with a woman's memories of Andreas while he was speaking. But her thoughts were quite differently engaged. She was coolly calculating the hazards of the impending duel, remembering Andreas's inaptitude with firearms. Had he not given her a demonstration of it that day in the shooting-range? Again she considered the risks an opponent must run when faced by an unskilled marksman....

"Twenty paces, did you say?"

She closed her left eye, raised her right arm, and aimed an imaginary weapon at the door.

"An exchange of three shots? Who's the umpire?"

"The prince."

"At six?"

"Six-thirty."

Diana got up, went towards the fireplace, pushed the logs together, and leaned on the marble mantelpiece, staring at the little clock.

"It is two," she said in a strangely cold voice.

The practical, everyday tone, which she had assumed as armour against the emotional strain under which she was labouring, was misconstrued by her lover to mean that she was deep in memories of Andreas. Jealousy, which Gregor had hitherto kept in leash for her sake, now flamed up with redoubled force against this young rival whom he hoped soon to put out of action. His voice was gloomy as he exclaimed:

"Diana."

"Gregor."

The two names, which so shortly before they had tossed towards one another like gaily coloured balls, now fell darkly through the night.

"Did you—love this poet?" he asked at length.

"At one time I loved him," she answered calmly, after a slight pause.

He thought:

"Will she speak as calmly of me, saying 'at one time,' when another than I asks her the same question? A chain in which I am no more than a link? In days gone by, the rôles were the other way about...."

His agitation increased.

"And he you?"

"He loves the countess."

"Not you, Diana, no longer you?"

His question was uttered in a tone of such urgent need, such poignant longing, that she turned towards him in a sudden impulse. Her heart was full of pity at the sight of this man whom jealous doubts had thus mastered after all that had happened between them and after he had surprised Andreas with Olivia; yet she realized that it was solely on her account that he was thus overwhelmed with anxiety and mistrust; had he not asked only about Andreas's feelings towards her, not the other way about?

He, for his part, as he now saw her standing before him, the contour of her body gleaming through her thin silken nightgown as she stood with her back to the fire, seemed transported to another sphere, and everything around him seemed like the memory of a dream. The fine room, built in the Arab style, the heavy curtains, the figure of the young woman by the hearth—all this on the night before a duel.... Had he not lived through it once already, long ago? As if under compulsion, unconscious of his movements, he got up, and went towards the apparition, which advanced a step to meet him. The vision stretched out hands, his hands reached out likewise. What was the matter? What was the burden of grief weighing upon this moment of time? Was she perhaps a spirit come to take him far away? She was close to him, and he saw that she had mighty pinions, and in her right hand a torch hanging down towards the ground....

Her hand pressed his in silence, and suddenly he knew that her life at that present moment was bound up in his. His gaze, which had been fixed and hard, softened, and she saw his eyes looking kindly down into her own.

"Where have you been, my dear?"

He sighed deeply, as if freed from a torpor.

"I seemed—to be—in a dense—fog. Is that you, Diana? Is it you?"

He sank into a chair, drew her down on to his knee, pressed his lips against her, wrapping her about in his arms as if he were hugging the very essence of life and youth to his heart.

"Stay with me!"

Very softly the words were spoken, and it seemed to her as if he were afraid of giving voice to a presentiment that he was about to be torn apart from her; it seemed as if he were melting away in her very arms, vanishing like a shadow, a thought.

But she shook off the terror, smiled up at him, and said:

"You stay with me!"

Never before had Gregor felt this steeled body nestling against him with such passionate self-surrender.

CHAPTER EIGHT

For an hour Olivia had lain motionless upon the divan in the guest's room. Then she was seized with anxiety, not so much as to the issue of the duel, but rather as to the possibility of seeing Andreas again. He could not come to her; she could not go to his hotel. Next morning she sought out the prince in his office. She was hatless, for thus she had left her apartment to come down to see him. Her whole aspect and the unusualness of such a visit (she had never entered the offices at the embassy before) were a surprise.

"Prince, listen to me. I want—I must—this evening—I must see Herr Seeland once more. You will lend me your rooms?"

It sounded more like a command than a request. He understood, drew his keys from his pocket, and handed her the one she needed.

"Thanks. Thank you very much."

Late that same evening, on foot, muffled in a veil, she entered the little flat. It was empty. Soon after, there was a gentle tap on the door. She opened. Andreas stood outside.

There had been no extensive preparations for the visitors. On the buffet, fresh water and wine, cigarettes, and a few biscuits, were just as the prince had left them. He had sent his servants away till the morrow, had, himself, gone through the rooms to see that all was as it should be. In the dining-room where, on New Year's Eve, they had drunk the count's health, he paused for a moment and smiled ironically. Here, two weeks later, the count's wife was to spend what would perhaps be the last hours she would ever spend with her husband's rival. He put on his hat, took his walking-stick, then went back to his bedroom to readjust his tie in front of the mirror. His eye fell upon the perfectly made bed with its faultless coverlet, and he whistled softly as he puffed at his cigarette.

"Honi soit..."

At first Olivia seemed agitated, and her lover thought:

"She's not at her best tonight."

She would stare mutely into nothingness, and then suddenly make a wild gesture as if to pull him to her, following this with another gesture which thrust him away. She got up and paced to and fro in the little room, backwards and forwards between the window, the chairs, and the divan. She spoke of Clemens, of divorce, of Linnartz, once even referred to her mother in Dalmatia, about whom she usually thought with contempt. But Andreas soon realized that all this was merely an effort to bridge the gulf that had yawned between them when these two persons of simple nature had suddenly been brought face to face with the fact that they were guilty of adultery.

Andreas had always looked indulgently and even reverently upon her blind gratification of her instincts; he had interpreted the inability on her part to speak, a dumbness which was wont to follow upon moments of ardent ecstasy, as a symbol of the ineffable which he, the plastic artist, was excluded from experiencing. His alert and active mind had found a haven in the churlish silences of this woman, and it was that more than anything else which had swept him along into the stormy waters in which he now found himself. He had never conceived of his passion or of hers as appertaining to the courses of everyday life, and he was at a loss to understand why this everyday life should now intrude upon a province outside its sphere. Yesterday's happenings left him cold, they did not seem to him to be part of the world he and she had created in common—a community based on the sensuous and yet quite above and beyond the circle of the senses, intangible, in no way belonging to the realm of reason.

Now, when he and Olivia were alone and together once more, he too was aware of the same inhibition within himself which had caused her so much disquietude; and he who had vowed himself to Olivia with that first look into her languorous eyes as he gazed from afar across the wide expanse of blue carpet, felt that he was hedged about with the identical constraints as she. Had it been otherwise, the insatiable thirst which consumed them would have driven them into one another's arms immediately the door had closed upon the outside world, and the turbulent waters of passion would have submerged them, leaving them with neither regrets nor shame when they came to the surface again. Today the banality of a conventional discovery stood like a barrier between them. In the twilight hours, as he sat with Othello in his room, the thought of death sprang at him, attacking him unexpectedly, from the rear. But now he had no other thought at all than to come to some sort of an understanding with this woman.

An hour of torturing suspense found them at last in that sphere which their natures shared in common: their passion. Olivia, wearied with pacing the tiny room like a wild beast in a cage, had thrown herself, distraught and exhausted, upon the divan, and Andreas, who felt that at any cost this state of tension must be snapped, flung himself upon her and with shameless cynicism took that which in no way he desired. And yet, maybe, it was this rough handling which she needed for the appeasement of her uneasy soul. She yielded to his embraces with the frosty delight of a hetaira, wrapping herself round in the mantle of fleshly lust as if in defiance, as if to shield herself from a foe.

Yet when they emerged from this dread battlefield, they had found themselves and they had found each other. The lassitude with which love's combat had so often before made limp their limbs, filling their souls with a strange and voluptuous horror, was now, after this present possession, bordering as it did upon the realm of hate, to leave them benumbed, inert, as if death's hand were upon them. Bitterness, the bitterness Olivia had dreamed of these twenty years, the draught whose waters she had first tasted in Andreas's arms, now submerged her, covering her face, her body, as with a grievous mask. She felt the flesh of her cheeks, her brow, her chin, her throat, filmed over as it were with a strange, green patina like that which covers very ancient bronzes, while her body seemed crushed and broken beneath the man who lay like a corpse across her.

A chance movement at last released them from the spell. Andreas said:

"Why continue?"

The words fell into the great pool of tragical silence with a sound as warm and gentle as that of woodwind after brass.

"We should soon have been consumed in our own fires. It is well that the man should die, his heart pierced by so tiny a thing as a bullet. But the woman must live!"

She scarcely heard what he said. All she felt sure of was that he had surrendered himself to his destiny, that a strange, far-away voice was telling her what she had known since yesterday: "It may not be just, but it is perfectly logical, that Andreas should perish at Gregor's hands." Age-long and primeval things had surged up within her. In the half-ruinous crypts of her soul, after millennial sleep, feelings, judgments, rights, belonging to an ancient line whose origins were lost in the mists of time, now stirred, revealing to her, who had imagined such primeval impulses to be dead, that she was indeed a true daughter of her race, and that in her veins too the same blood flowed. Vague memories of fights long past merged themselves with present-day combats in her brain. In the mechanical processes of thought, Gregor once more stood before her as a young man, the descendant of a long succession of counts, bearing every advantage in his hands; for now he was to use the weapons familiar to all members of his caste, and to use them against a stripling who had moved away from the customary pursuits of several generations of learning in an inward, spiritual sense only, not by practical experience. She, who had always been out of tune with his plans for worldly advancement, who had been ever more and more strongly convinced that his urge towards the practical field of politics and diplomacy was in truth only the outcome of imaginative yearnings, felt today more keenly than ever that he was a poet first, last, and all the time, and that his invasion of the practical world would recoil on his own head.

Andreas swung his legs over the divan and sat on the edge. Olivia leaned on her elbow as was her custom, and surveyed the length of her body. Then she said softly, as if lying in wait for his reply:

"Not long now, Andreas."

The words, and the queer way she added his name as an afterthought, struck him by their strange ambiguity. He tried to jest:

"You are right, it is two o'clock," he said, glancing at the little timepiece over the fireplace.

He did not know Diana's bedroom, nor could he know what she was doing at the moment; and yet her form, her voice, appeared clearly to his memory, at that instant when she, too, was saying the same words while glancing at a similar clock. Incontinently he asked Olivia: "Where's the count? At home?"

"He went out before I left. The servant said he had gone off in the motor boat."

She held her peace and he, too, was silent. But Olivia's thoughts ranged wide, and she asked after a considerable interval:

"Do you still love Diana?"

He flushed a little for she had read his thoughts, and countered with:

"Do you love the count?"

Olivia stirred. She put her right foot to the ground, and at the same time drew the coverlet over her naked limbs as far as the waist. Then she leaned her right arm on to the low table at the head of the divan, and, drawing up her knee, clasped it round with her left hand. A smile, at once wise and tragical, flitted across her habitually solemn features. She gazed straight before her.

There rose upon her vision a castle overlooking the sea. Wedding festivities were in progress. Two evenings earlier Gregor had been sitting near her in her low-ceilinged, wainscoted room, and he had watched her, from the embrasure in the window, combing her long, golden hair. Suddenly he had sprung to his feet, had seized her in his arms, had stepped over to the door and slipped the bolt, and had had his will of the astonished bride. For him it was probably no more than a dare-devil escapade, the gratification of a young man's vanity; but her heart went out to him in thanks, for her stormy nature felt a repugnance of displaying the squeamishness of a maiden who, though betrothed, has not yet been legally wedded. Many years later, in the midst of the disappointments of her married life, her imagination was still pleasurably stimulated by the thought of that adventurous impropriety which had been the herald of their nuptial day.

"At one time I loved him," she said at last in a calm voice strangely resembling the tone in which Diana was speaking those same words at that same hour. Her alto gave the phrase a richer, fuller sound, maybe; she uttered it, too, with greater solemnity to match the heaviness of her nature as compared with Diana's elasticity and lightsomeness.

Like an endless band, her life with Gregor unrolled itself before her vision in retrospect. They were out hunting, the horn sounded in the air, she was riding in advance of the others. Now she was walking slowly, like a beast heavy with young. Those were the months just before Clemens was born. She saw Gregor's gleeful face as he tossed the baby, and how he played with the child in those early years. Then she saw him drift away from her, she heard the whispers of friends, the advice of the family doctor, her mother's anger; it seemed as if her own recollection of these troublous days was becoming dimmer, as if the measures taken by her relatives, their aid and their claims, were receding more and more into the background. Now she was always alone, she took no further part in the hunts, but rode by herself, galloped, put her horse to jumps that only a madman would attempt. She fell and lay for long where she had fallen. Peasants found her and carried her home. Long months she kept her bed, motionless. It was at that time she had acquired her taste for recumbency. She read much, read and pondered. Sometimes she would write letters which were never posted. She probed and sampled the many who came to her house; in her, distrust of the higher circles of society grew to irony, irony to cynicism. A sculptor had once wished to model her, but Gregor had refused to let her sit to the man; such opposition roused her desire, and for a while she was restless and agitated. Then the post of ambassador had come their way. She saw their new, palatial dwelling, heard the congratulations, pictured again the mighty waters upon whose bosom she wished, all in vain, to sail alone, gazed upon the immemorial park which reminded her so poignantly of the home of her fathers, contemplated the blue carpet she loved, alone, all alone, always alone, for Gregor had long since vanished from the landscape, and even the child was lost in distant mist-wreaths. Now, the poet entered her blue room, and she was recalled from her dream, back into the world of reality, back to the present hour.

Meanwhile Andreas had been gazing his fill at the majestic creature before him, the woman who lay as it seemed on a rock emerging from a vast blue sea, her eyes grave, overshadowed by a dark and monstrous bird with pinions wide spread behind her. The beat of those giant wings caused a wind which ruffled his hair; he knew that those were the wings of the angel of death and he gazed on them unafraid. The vision and the night filled his passionate nature with a contentment he had never experienced before, so that as she now looked up at him her eyes met a countenance at once so earnest and so taciturn that she felt she must be gazing into her own soul.

They suddenly realized that this was the moment of their leave-taking. Slowly they drew nearer to each other, body to body, lip to lip, in a long farewell.

Four hours later three carriages drew up near a little pinewood where many westerners had ere this met in mortal combat. Gregor was accompanied by Kopp and the major; Andreas by two compatriots from the Austrian embassy; the prince by a doctor. Abdul ran by the side of the first carriage, eager as if going to the chase. He had escaped just as his master was leaving the embassy and none had been able to catch him.

It was raining. The fog lay like a canopy over their heads as they took up their positions. The prince tested the pistols, handed them to the seconds for their examination; hardly a word was spoken. Andreas was wearing a grey morning suit; Gregor his loose and easy blue jacket. The prince measured the distance; gave each a weapon.

Andreas was himself amazed at his own coolness. On the drive hither he had been thinking: "Nikolai will publish my last poems.... My sister will hang my portrait in the old garden house, next to father's, in a black frame...." Now, when they had led him to his place and he could look his opponent in the eyes, he thought: "Yes, he is a lovable man; I understand Diana's choice better than I do Olivia's. I wonder if Diana will weep when she gets my letter? I have never seen her cry...."

Gregor was thinking: "He is still very young." And immediately thereafter: "Scoundrel! What is the countess to him?" He looked towards the prince from whom the signal was to come.

The prince asked:

"Ready?"

"Ready," came the reply.

"Fire!"

The two men stood unscathed.

The prince thought:

"What madness! As if a woman's part in life were not to bind men in friendship rather than to separate them!"

While thus thinking he stepped up and changed the weapons.

"Attention! Fire!"

Gregor fell to the ground. The prince raised an arm. Kopp, who was holding the dog in leash, was dragged forward by the outraged animal. Doctor and umpire hastened to the wounded man's side. Gregor did not stir, a little blood was oozing through his clothes on the left side. The doctor cast a look of intelligence at the men who had gathered round. The prince formally declared the duel at an end.

At first Andreas did not in the least understand what had happened. He looked inquiringly at his seconds. One of them went over to where the count lay. Then he beckoned to Andreas. The young man approached. He found four men busied round Gregor. The doctor was giving an injection of camphor; he was pouring brandy into the prostrate man's mouth. Five minutes passed. At last Gregor opened his eyes, looked at the circle of men, realized from the expression on their faces and from his own feeling of weakness, from a strange sensation near his heart, that all was over with him.

The others pushed Andreas forward. The count contemplated the young man for a while, critically rather than wrathfully. He was silent. Then he held out his hand and Andreas took it in his own. "Impossible," the poet thought. "He cannot be more than slightly wounded. He'll be all right again in a few minutes. Then..." He felt himself tapped on the shoulder; he drew back, slowly, as if his senses were befogged. Abdul was whining at his master's side. The dog had growled at Andreas's approach. Then, he laid a paw ever so lightly on the master's breast, cautiously, a caress as airy as gossamer lest the touch should hurt the dying man.

Gregor tried to rise. Impossible! He mused: "Better lie quiet, absolutely quiet, then, perhaps, I'll be able to say a few words." With a look, he bade the prince come nearer. The other three withdrew. The prince knelt close beside him. Gregor looked him in the eyes, assembling his forces for a last endeavour. Then, very slowly, in short-pulsed sentences:

"I beg you—to see that—Muthesius is not—given the post—as ambassador—otherwise—everything will be ruined—Tell His Majesty—yourself—personally, Prince—personally—I would recommend—Winterthur—He shares my views—Promise me you'll..."

The prince slipped his hand into the limp hand beside him. He knew his chief was nearing the end. A few minutes went by. Again the lips moved, but all Gregor had strength to say was:

"My love to—my love to—the ladies...."

His eyes glazed over; another fifteen seconds passed; he fell back, dead.

CHAPTER NINE

"No messenger yet, and it's nine o'clock. Mary, can't you see a boat on the water?"

"Nothing at all."

"Have you sent Ali on to the roof to look out?"

"Ali's been up there since seven."

"Mary, tell them to saddle my horse. I'll go myself..."

"But suppose they take the water-way?"

"You're right. Oh my God, this waiting!..."

When Diana had let Gregor out by the garden gate in the chilly hour before sunrise, she had said in her heart: "Never again. You will see him no more." It was only by exercising supreme control that she had been able to give him a parting look of encouragement and comfort. But as she stood once more on the balcony watching the day emerge in rain from beyond the grey horizon of the sea, her hopes revived: "Was he not always the lucky one?" To which an inner voice replied: "No, he was lonely."—"But does not the world spirit need him more than it does Andreas?"—"Who can tell?"—"Andreas is young; maybe the soul of a genius slumbers within him."—"And even so, what does a bullet care?"

Half past nine. Ali calls out that he sees a little cloud of dust in the distance; then a rider. Diana hastens up to the roof. She may perhaps be able to guess the news by the rider—Felix? Kopp? A servant?—— The prince! Gregor is dead! Only on Gregor's account would the prince be the messenger—— In any other case it would be Felix....

Yet might it not mean that both had been wounded? Over and over again the words were hammered out by her pulsating heart. Groping blindly she again found herself in the hall. "What am I hoping for? What am I still afraid of? Mary! Mary, go to meet him.—No, Mary, stay, don't go.—Ali, open the door." Forcibly she kept herself in the hall, waiting. The prince approached. He bit his lips. Diana dared not put the question that tortured her. At last, as if Diana were concerned with one only of the two duellists, he said:

"A bullet in the heart, at the second shot. Eight minutes later, he was dead."

Slowly Diana turned away, and leaned against a pillar. For a while she remained thus, saying nothing. Certainty, even of the worst, brought peace, of a kind; and yet her whole being seemed dumb and void. A painful clarity of vision made her aware of every detail in the material world, and she saw the little steamers plying up and down on the waters. "Ah yes, the nine o'clock boat. Late again," she thought.

Now she turned to her guest.

"You are hot with your ride," said she. "It is very good of you to have come yourself.... His household is probably... Who told the countess? You?"

The prince nodded. She begged him to be seated, herself took a chair, crossing her legs in her short serge skirt.

Again she was speaking: "Olivia has much strength of character, and has probably been just as anxious on the poet's behalf...."

He thought: "She's steeling herself by speaking of others. Does she feel it deeply?"

He rose to go.

"Already?"

"Sorry, but I'm afraid I must. There's much to do. We have to discuss the funeral arrangements. We may have to take his remains back to Germany."

"Of course—— But—did the count say anything—?"

"Yes, to me. Recommendations as to his successor."

"Winterthur," said Diana quietly.

"Yes," confirmed the prince, realizing how fully Gregor had trusted this woman. Then he took leave.

But as he reached the door, Eduard turned:

"Forgive me, but I forgot... I have one other thing to tell you—a message...."

"To me?"

Diana, who knew how reserved Gregor was by nature, was deeply moved at the thought that her lover had sent her a farewell greeting. The prince had besought the major to let him come to break the news to Diana solely on account of this last message. He found it difficult to speak.

"You will have to judge for yourself. The very last words the count uttered were: 'My love to the ladies'..."

Diana had listened with dilated eyes; she gripped the back of a chair; she stood silent. Then she sat down and was about to hide her face in her hands, when suddenly great tears were coursing down her cheeks. The prince, uncertain whether he should go or not, took a step towards the door. But she stayed him with a gesture, and he brought up a chair and sat down beside her.

Like water purling through a wood, this cool, proud woman's tears flowed down her face. From afar he had always admired her amazing self-possession, but even in this moment of her grief he could only think of Gregor's happy end. He had the melancholy recognition that he would never be able to woo and win a woman of this kind.

A long time passed before Diana raised her head. With a calm mien she now looked at her visitor. Then she wiped her eyes, smiled, and with a complete change of voice, like one who does not wish to disturb a sleeper's rest, she murmured:

"What a tender thing to have said; only a fully mature man could have sent such a message. Don't you think so too? I wonder if the countess will understand? Oh, surely she cannot fail to do so. Tell her, please tell her Prince, that by these words of a dying man she and I..."

From the landing-stage came voices, interrupting her whispered plea. She listened without stirring; the prince did likewise. He would have given much that nothing should come to trouble her in this, her hour of weakness and of confiding trust. At last he rose and went on to the balcony to see who the intruder might be. Simultaneously, Diana recognized the voice as that of the major.

"What can he be wanting?" she said petulantly.

"Can't think! He knew that I..."

Felix came in; hesitated a moment when he saw how pensive she was; then he said urgently:

"Forgive me for coming so early. No time to waste. Mademoiselle, you must go, at once."

Diana, whose heart had expanded under the influence of the dead man's last words and the noble dignity of her living friend, was refractory to any interruption, and was especially offended by the major's loud voice and inopportune intervention. She asked scathingly:

"Go? And why, pray? I have no intention of going."

"Sorry to insist, but the matter is urgent."

Diana got up, tossed her head, pulled her blouse to rights in her waistband, and said in a changed voice:

"What has happened?"

Felix was wounded by her manner. He assumed an official tone, and announced, as if he were reading a telegram:

"Just heard, that ministry here, been informed duel on your account. Foreign secretary wishes to profit by fact that you are temporarily unprotected to have you arrested as spy. Embassy cannot intervene on your behalf. Linnartz taken over running of affairs. Advise you to go at once."

Diana was by now regaining her usual clarity of mind.

"In that case I shall have to go. But I shall need a passport if I go by rail or passenger steamer, and arrest will be practically inevitable.... A little boat will be the only way of escape."

Felix nodded, and a twinkle in his eye was an indication of how much he relished the similarity of her nature and his when there was a question of having to make a decision or to take a comprehensive survey of the matter in hand.

"You have immediately grasped the sole possibility. I have already sent word to old Mohammed...."

"Thoroughly trustworthy fellow, in spite of being an Arab," interjected the prince.

"He has two dhows, a big one and a little one."

"We'll take the larger," said Diana promptly.

Felix nodded.

"It'll be ready in half an hour. The farther quay, south of the commercial harbour. Can you be ready by then?"

"Ready? Of course. Mary must come too."

"Impossible. Too conspicuous."

"Is she to be left to their tender mercies on my account? Mary goes too—or I stay."

"Very well. We'll do our best. But be quick."

"How are we to evade the port authorities?"

"I'm going with you. I've a free pass. Once through the danger zone, I'll land."

"Thanks."

She gave him a look full of friendliness, and offered him her hand. The major stooped over it, and kissed it. A thought crossed her mind.

"What about money? Can I get a cheque through to the bank?"

"Out of the question. They are sure to advise the bank first thing. Knowing this, I've brought what's necessary. A little bag of gold! Can't risk a cheque. Where shall I tell him to go?"

"Mohammed will know best.—Mary, your shawl. Bring me my coats. Yes, all of them, and yours.—Has Mohammed food aboard?"

"Of course—à l'orientale!"

"Good.—Are you coming with us, Prince? We'll drop you at the bridge. Ali can take your horse back to town."

She disappeared upstairs. Footsteps hurrying overhead, orders.

"Mary, my top boots. No, not those; the brown ones without nails."

Meanwhile she went over to the writing-table, and took three little packages out of one of the drawers.

"Mary, I'd better have my sword-stick. Not there, next the bed. Hurry up. No, don't bother about my dresses, they'll have to be left behind."

She went back into her bedroom, gave a cursory glance round. The arm-chair caught her eye, the one in which Gregor had sat last night. She stroked the leather of it; then went over to the sofa and shook up the cushions. Something fell out as she did so, something violet in colour. A garter she had hunted for that morning.

"He hid it," she thought. "I wonder when? Quite recently, anyway. He took it, and hid it."

She put it away in her pocket. Very lightly she ran her finger-tips over the embroidered bedspread.

"Good-bye," she whispered.

At the door, she turned for a last look.

The two men waited patiently below.

"Pressing danger?" asked the prince as soon as Diana had left the room.

"In two hours they'll be here."

"But she's not in any way compromised as far as I can see."

"No, but Linnartz is spreading rumours."

"Sure?"

"The first thing he did when he learned of the chief's death was to give the ministry the tip to clear Mademoiselle out. His pretext: the duel was on her account. The Linnartz factory has been busy!"

"The man is taking his revenge for something or other, I feel sure," exclaimed the prince.

Diana came back, wrapping the packets of letters in a cloth which she secured in her waistband. Her two friends noted that on her left side she carried her revolver in its brown leather case. She was wearing a brown sailcloth cap, had a small field-glass slung over her shoulder, and flourished an elegant cane in her hand. The major recognized this last item as a souvenir from Lyons. Felix handed her the little bag of gold, and she gave him a wire.

"Please have this sent to Herr Scherer. Send it in code. I've left absolutely nothing in writing behind."

They all three stepped forward towards the landing-stage. Ali and the other servants were scurrying hither and thither. Mary came, lugging her paraphernalia. Diana jumped into the boat. As they pushed off she suddenly fancied Gregor sitting at the helm just as he had sat so many times during these months coming and going to and from the little haven. It was the same boat he had used.

"Our own tiny harbour," she thought. "He used to laugh in that spot, and I with him. Am I to come here a second time?"

The major was worrying: "If only that idiot of a harbourmaster is not on duty yet. He can't possibly be at his office before eleven."

The prince mused: "Only adventurers are free. We others plod along our weary way. At the best we allow ourselves to be shot by one of them."

Towards evening, Diana awoke in the dark and evil-smelling cabin. She had slept long, dreamlessly, soundly. Mary, who was none too eager to trust these Arabs, had sat by her side, keeping watch. It was the voices of men singing at their work on the deck overhead that had at last roused Diana. She lay quietly for a while, motionless, silent, her eyes staring. Mary, who knew her mistress's dislike for being spoken to on waking, held her peace.

"Are we already at sea?"

"A long while ago."

"Will it soon be day?"

"It is going on towards night."

"Night? Have I been asleep since yesterday?"

"No, only since noon today."

"Is the wind in the north?"

"Captain says, north-east."

Diana raised herself on her elbow, and asked in a more vivacious tone:

"The captain? Does he speak Italian?"

"A few words."

"Is he the old man, the handsome old fellow?"

"No, the short one with the grey beard."

"I'm hungry."

"Here's some coffee."

"Aren't there any rusks?"

"Yes, but..."

"Well?"

"We've got to ration ourselves."

"Are you afraid we'll suffer shipwreck?"

"No, but it'll take some time to get to Egypt, and supplies are not abundant."

"Egypt? Did the captain tell you he was going there?"

"I have not asked him. I just thought that..."

"Why?"

"Because the other day you said you wanted to see the Sphinx again."

Diana laughed. She threw her two arms round the old woman's neck:

"You dear, you remember everything."

Suddenly she swung out of the berth, pulled on her top boots, and said:

"No, we're not going to Egypt. We'll put in at Athens."

"That's nice, too; it's warm," said Mary.

Diana leaned against the tall mast looking westward through her glasses. A saffron-coloured mountain thrust up its crest from the level waters, while the sun, concealed behind a cloud, sent out great shafts of yellow light in all directions. She dropped the glasses for a moment and gazed on the scene with the naked eye, then resumed the glasses once more. Calling over her shoulder, she said:

"É la costa bulgarese—quella?"

"No, Signora. Samothrace."

The captain came up, and pointed to various salient points on the mainland, telling her the names of these and of the islands.

"How many days will it take if the north-easter holds?"

"We may do it in four days."

"And if the wind changes?"

"Six. Possibly eight."

"Have we enough food on board?"

"I had barely an hour to get in provisions. There's plenty of olives and bread."

"Where else are we likely to put in?"

"Thasos. Maybe Eubœa also."

"Capable crew?"

"The boy's a new hand. The other three are experienced sailors. No time to pick and choose."

"When was your dhow last caulked?"

"Three weeks ago."

Diana went forward and examined the little sail; she asked the captain if he did not think it might be braced up a trifle more. He nodded, and called the youngster, giving his orders peremptorily in his native tongue, accompanied as it seemed by a torrent of abuse.

As she now sat on a campstool by the mast, the men resumed their singing, a monotonous, syncopated melody, accompanied by the deep moan of the keel cutting through the waters with a note which gave the impression of a pedal bass. In the pauses of the song she heard the click-clack of the cordage against the mast. She looked up to the spot whence the noise came, then her eyes travelled across the water, while she mused:

"That sound again, wet cords clapping against wood? Evening—the weather clearing—promise of fine weather tomorrow."

The men's voices rose once more, filling the air with sonorous sound.

"When could it have been?—Two years ago—Azores—when we were sailing over from Oporto. What a merry party we were. And that handsome young painter who was so indignant because there was only one cabin, always full of people. There must have been five of us in all. What's happened since? Last April, Baveno. I sailed a good deal there, but mostly alone. A nice little craft, though a trifle too light. Today? January is nearly out. The ball in the Piazza di Spagna did not take place until towards the close of the carnival—nearly a year ago."

The Arab song floated over to her, monotonous, now loud, now soft. The damp cordage flapped against the mast. The sonorous pedal note rose from the keel.

"Over the waters I sail; sailing, sailing over the sea. Where are you now Gregor, my friend, the proud young man with the white hair over the temples, where are you? At the bottom of this sea? Up there in the clouds, which cling to the last sunset hues as if they were loath to let another day go by? Or are you in the wind, blowing to me from another world, helping me on my course, that I may the sooner win to safety? Are you angry with me? Had I not come, you would perhaps not have left Olivia so often alone, and she would never have yielded to Andreas's love. If I had not left him he would probably never have come here, would never have called on you, never have gazed into Olivia's languorous eyes. And if I had not bitten Linnartz's hand in that hotel room at St. Petersburg, he might not have been so like a sleuth-hound on your trail. Entrapped! Again and again the net closes round me. And I who am so in love with liberty! Am I ever alone? Can I be sure that that young Arab boy who has just been getting a wigging on my account, does not hate me? He may have liked me at first; and now he may already be laying his plans for my undoing, may be contemplating murder. What remains in the end? Nothing but sorrow and loss."

Mary had gently laid a cloak about Diana's shoulders. Now the young woman slowly drew a locket from the bosom of her blouse; it had been one of Gregor's gifts. A slender silver chain; at the end a round, pale green chrysolite with a motto cut round the margin: Hic et ubique. She turned the gem in her fingers as she read. On the reverse side, engraved on a tiny silver disk, was the date of their first meeting. Very slowly she pressed the spring, and the locket opened.

A strand of grey hair lay within.

CHAPTER TEN

Andreas to Nikolai.

"On board the 'White Star.'

"Quiet days in the archipelago, but I cannot linger in this pleasant warmth. My whole being has to adapt itself to equatorial conditions, if you can grasp the meaning of such a daft kind of expression.

"For be it known to you, my friend, I am off to Zanzibar, not the isle of dreams peopled with cloves and palm trees, but to our consulate as attaché, where I shall have to apply myself to practical work. Is it really that the post 'happened to fall vacant' so that I, doctor of laws, could so conveniently slip into it? Or was it not, rather, that they wanted to get rid as quickly as possible of the man who had murdered the ambassador of a foreign power? I gather that I, whose poems no one in the home country has ever taken the slightest notice of, have suddenly become celebrated, and that people are interested enough in me to put themselves about in order to save me from detention in a fortress. The truth is that I am impatient to take up my job, that I am in love with my work, although the cause of my going and the place I am going to smack a little too much of the romantic.

"Meanwhile I am doing my best to keep a new work that has gripped me lately from intruding itself upon my conscious life. But it won't stay in the background all the time. It is taking shape in the form of a kind of rhapsodic trilogy, vaguely resembling certain things of Hector Berlioz's. I could give you an idea of it if you were here....

"It is horrible that my poems should have appeared just before the catastrophe; they have made a sensation and already run into several editions. Olivia has gone to the ancestral castle in Dalmatia; there was a picture of it in all the papers. Diana has disappeared without leaving a trace, spirited away from us all, and the cloak of mystery has once more fallen upon her strong young shoulders.

"The world which had always seemed to me a complicated but logical phenomenon, has become simpler, more understandable—because it is unlogical. Anyway, so far as I am concerned I cannot grasp how it happened that I should have slain that fine, able, and talented man, made Olivia a widow and Clemens an orphan, I who had no conception of bringing about all these disasters at the time I wooed and won....

"Othello has become very quiet these days. It is as if he knew all. I am a little anxious as to how he will stand the tropics. He will have to be my only muse now; no more women; no more poetry writing; only work.

"ANDREAS."

Linnartz to the Foreign Secretary.

"Sir,

"I beg to enclose a formal report on recent events. You will gather from its perusal that the catastrophe came as the logical consequence of the advent of that adventuress whose shameless flight has made it impossible for us, by delivering her over unconditionally to the local authorities, to counteract Sir Henry's and Le Chat's calumnious insinuations at the ministry here.

"Indeed, the Minister for Foreign Affairs is more incensed than ever against us because he firmly believes that we were instrumental in effecting her escape. You will see, Sir, from the report, that I did everything in my power to prevent her departure. Who is responsible for assisting this female spy to escape, neither I nor the local authorities have as yet been able to discover. The day it fell to my happy lot temporarily to take over control of affairs at the embassy, the most exemplary good order reigned in the house in spite of the very natural excitement caused by recent events. The gentlemen of the embassy were all at their posts, energetically dealing with the more pressing business, and making preparations, etc. I have treated as idle gossip the rumour that His Highness Prince Eduard ... went to see the spy at her villa early that morning; but at the same time I held it to be my duty to mention the rumour in my enclosed report.

"Putting things together, I would like to repeat, what you, Sir, will gather for yourself from my report, that Count von Münsterberg was the victim of a spy who used the so-called poet as her stalking-horse to get into the confidence of the countess (the strange behaviour of the Great Dane betrayed her machinations); that this same spy used her seductions to keep the count away from home, thereby isolating the countess and precipitating the catastrophe; and all this with a view to getting rid of the count and replacing him by a protégé of the newspaper magnate and financier Herr Scherer, whose interests make him wish to see Baron von Winterthur take over the ambassadorial post.

"Believe me, Sir, to be

"Your obedient servant, "LINNARTZ."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Lloyd steamer made its way into the harbour of Piræus twelve hours overdue. Scherer, who had left Berlin on the twenty-third, had thought to arrive in Athens on the last day of February. Now, as he put his foot on land this morning of March 1st, he asked himself whether the omen was a favourable one or otherwise. He had unwillingly to admit that he was superstitious, and would have done much to rid himself of this "sign of weakness," as he named it. In this he was successful for the most part, but the superstitious mood always reappeared when he had something important on hand.

And this day seemed to him an important one. Scherer's serious and thoroughgoing methods of negotiation, his ways of thinking and of feeling, had now depended upon the reports of this woman for something like nine months, a woman he had had under personal observation for no more than a couple of weeks and with whom he had talked intimately for one evening only. Her quick perceptions and her practical good sense had amazed him at the outset, and it was not until he had received proof of her capacity that the fact of her beauty began to penetrate his mind and senses. Just as his intellect built up the separate elements of the world of things, gradually, into a synthetic whole, so had he pieced together, bit by bit, the atoms which went into the composition of this strange young woman. On the evening when they had dined together, he had for the first time got a more or less coherent picture, but even then the splendid unity of form and content baffled him.

How could all this be encompassed within the framework of one woman, he had asked himself. The unusual tension of his nerves had informed him that it was, indeed, the woman in her which stirred him. When he sent her to see after his interests in the Near East, he hardly realized how much he had been influenced by the fear lest her presence near him might distract him from the work he had in hand. He wanted to have her at a distance; and yet, when she had gone, he found he missed her sorely.

The purely business nature of their correspondence (for never a word of personal news slipped into their letters from either side) removed her to an objective distance. But when rumour coupled her name with the count's, when gossip became rife in political circles, a feeling of envy began to stir in Scherer's heart. For just as Scherer was many other things besides being a clever thinker, and Count Münsterberg many things besides being a Don Juan, yet this fundamental contrast between the two men was bound in the end to lead to friction. They realized the possibility themselves. There was, indeed, a conflict in Scherer's mind. The more his own representative, by her intimacy with the representative of the country, was able to turn this friendship to Scherer's account, the more uneasy did he become; and yet the count's passion was welcome as the confirmation of Scherer's personal impression of the young woman.

The news of the tragedy had first reached the circles in which he moved with Linnartz's gloss on it, a gloss not only expressing the baron's personal pique, but likewise subservient to the design of advancing the writer in his career. To most people, therefore, the fatal shot was the symbol of time's revenges against a man of adventurous temperament; and no one thought that the countess's honour might be tarnished by such an interpretation, for every one considered her blameless. Meanwhile, those in the know had learned the true motives that lay at the back of the affair. A week after the first tidings had come to hand, the second version was all the rage, and was the more readily believed because of its piquant implications. Scherer had guessed the truth almost at once, and had pierced to the heart of Baron Linnartz's intrigue. It speedily became obvious that Linnartz was going to fight tooth and nail against Münsterberg's last wishes in the matter of a successor to the ambassadorial post. Scherer set about countering Linnartz's activities. Diana had not interrupted her correspondence with her employer. On the contrary, she furnished him with such a wealth of detail that he was able to confute page after page of Linnartz's first report to the foreign secretary.

Although as business man and as observer Scherer had felt the count's death keenly, yet at the same time this removal of a rival had made him easier in his mind, especially at first. As he paced up and down his library that night, he could not help exclaiming: "She is free!" Next day came her wire: "Compelled to leave. Wassilko." Nothing more. No reason given for her sudden departure, no mention of where she was going. The major had coded the message himself, so that it need not go through the office; and it was unlikely that its contents caused any curiosity at the capital seeing that every one's interests were otherwise engaged. So Scherer waited. He was confident of hearing from her as soon as she was in a position to communicate with him anew. As for seeing Diana in Berlin, he knew this was unlikely, for she would have to avoid the metropolis for a time. When, a week later, he received her first dispatch, it came from Athens. He thereupon made up his mind to leave town and seek her out.

He was fond of Athens from of old. As a young man he had been attracted to that place in preference to Rome, for he had been trained in the humanities and he loved to come into close contact with the relics of the most orderly and magnificent of civilizations. Again, fairly recently, on the return voyage from Ceylon, he had renewed his earlier impressions, and come nearer perhaps to understanding the secrets of Athens' attraction. But he was not the man to yield to a romantic lure, and to crown these early weeks of spring by an intrigue with a lovely woman. He had come here with a definite purpose, for he had resolved to ask Diana to marry him. His chances, he surmised, would be all the better if he tried his luck soon, while she was still stunned by her recent adventure, and when the security of a comfortable home such as he had to offer would make a specially strong appeal.

He sent his luggage on to the hotel where he had ordered a room. Ignoring even the light railway linking harbour to town, he set forth on foot for Diana's quarters. It was now ten o'clock; the morning was bright, and so warm that every one was sporting summer attire. He was informed that the lady had gone out early. Scherer took a seat on the terrace, turning his back on the sea he had been gazing at so many days, and facing the Acropolis. From no other point, it would appear, could so fine a view of the temple be obtained, for the west front lay fully exposed, and from this distance, the slight damages in the pediment were invisible. One therefore got the impression of a well-preserved building. Scherer knew the view of old, and enjoyed it once again in the morning radiance which seemed to filter through the very substance of the structure.

"I wonder how long she'll be?"

What with the dazzling light, and a certain restlessness that had come upon him, he got up and made for the marble hall which ran round the inner side of the terrace. Force of habit led him to the table where journals of all sorts lay; and since he had not seen his own newspaper since leaving Trieste he seized upon that one first. "It must have come by a faster boat," thought he, "by way of Venice most likely." His feelings were mixed as he scanned these familiar columns; for in part he contemplated them with the boredom of an expert weary of the stale tricks of journalism; and in part he was animated by a wish to detect some flaw which would after all prove his presence at the head of things to be indispensable.

He sat leaning back, his legs crossed. One saw light-grey trousers, a huge newspaper hiding most of the reader's body, and a face in profile to the entrance. It was thus Diana glimpsed him on her return. A whole minute she stood looking at him, unnoticed, motionless, after her first gesture of surprise. "Scherer!" At that instant she became acutely aware that she was a woman.

Scherer put down his paper, and saw Diana, who stood smiling at him from the doorway. He rose and went calmly up to her, while she moved towards him, her gait timed to a nicety so that it was a trifle slower than his.

"My word, she is beautiful," thought the man.

Diana, whom he had always before seen dressed in light colours, now stood before him clothed entirely in black. Her tightly clinging gown was almost too narrow in the skirt to be fashionable, and her wide-brimmed hat was not such as were being worn at the time. A long silver chain hung down to below the waist-line; gauntlet gloves of grey doeskin were pulled well up the forearm. A huge bunch of Greek violets was pinned into her bodice at the breast. Her face was tanned as he had always seen it; but she looked slimmer, and prouder of mien, than his memory of her had led him to expect. Though her lips were parted in a smile, they seemed to him more reticent than ever, and sad. She stretched out a hand in welcome:

"Good-morning. So you've come all the way to Phaleron to read your own paper! When did you arrive? How did you get here? You look the picture of health!"

Her voice rang out clear and steady. His voice, too, sounded like true metal as he answered:

"You are looking well, likewise; and since, as each new day dawns, Dame Rumour has it that tomorrow you will die, I thought I'd look you up so as to give her and all of them the lie." They laughed.

"Are you going to stay down here?" asked she.

"No, in the town."

"Got some decent rooms?"

"I hope so. I've not seen them yet, only just landed, came here straight from the boat."

"It's a shame to have kept you waiting! I usually go up to the hill of the gods in the morning."

Scherer thought: "Her questions are apt. Now she knows that I have come on her account, her use of the word 'waiting' makes the whole thing clear."

Diana thought: "So soon? He lets me know at once that he has come here only to see me. Probably he has a definite scheme in mind."

She proposed a walk along the sea-front, and while questioning him about everything and anything in which they were mutually interested (though naturally avoiding a reference to the duel and its consequences), her eyes travelled over the coastline, the hills, and the islands and, lest this semi-political conversation should dissipate itself in chatter about the landscape, she drew his attention to the works then in progress for the fortification of the shore, and to the new hangar for the seaplanes. Scherer showed a lively interest, and yet he was at pains to bring the talk back to personal topics. After a while he said with a smile:

"May I express a wish that even here, though you are on furlough, you will continue your work? ..."

She laughed, but more out of courtesy than because she was amused.

"There's twelve sounding. Shall we go in to lunch?"

As Scherer awaited her in the hall his mood underwent a change. Diana had stirred him to the depths. She seemed so alone; as she walked along by the blue sea, a forlorn little figure in black, mourning for the beloved, the scent of those wonderful violets around her, her form outlined through the folds of her tightly fitting dress, she had, all unawares, awakened the man in Scherer. He, who had left his artificially warmed office in the capital where the lords of winter still held sway, had paced the deck of a little steamship for days, his heart beating in anticipation, had hoped to find her shaken by her recent experiences. He had, besides, for many years voluntarily renounced all intimate friendship with women. Diana had always appealed to him; now it was the feminine in her that made a special impression; indeed, at this moment she affected him more than any woman had ever done before. So greatly were his senses stirred that he, usually so self-controlled, could not keep his thoughts off her, but needs must allow his errant fancy to follow her to her room and picture her as she slipped off her morning dress and put on an afternoon gown. He even went so far as to regret his tactfulness in taking rooms elsewhere, and wished he had put up at her hotel. But when she came back she was in the same black dress, and said as they passed into the dining-room together:

"I like wearing black just now, and anyway nobody knows me here...."

As luncheon was nearing an end, Scherer said:

"It is nine months since for the first and only time we sat at table together."

"So long, already?"

"To a day. It was on the first of June."

"How is your beautiful house?"

"My house is empty."

Her hand went to her bosom with a gesture as of defence. Then, to give herself countenance, she took the flowers from her bodice and asked the waiter for a glass of water into which she put the drooping violets.

"They are rather tired, poor things. But it's amazing how quickly they revive. I buy a big bunch every morning. My room is full of them. In no land I have ever visited have I come across such huge violets. Nor have I ever experienced such a spring. Yes, they come from Attica. So different from the small, modest violets of the north. Huge blossoms which seem to open melancholy eyes as if to express the language of passion."

She spoke very quietly, almost to herself; but her last words seemed to him a sign, or, at least, they seemed to give him permission to broach the subject of his thoughts.

"Are you vexed that I should have looked you up?"

"No, no; I am grateful to you for coming. I've been alone for three weeks with only Mary to talk to. She's my old servant, who came away with me in the little sailing boat."

"Did you have favourable winds?" This was the first he had heard of the method of her escape.

"One day it was a bit slack, but otherwise brisk, mainly from the north-east."

"It was good of you to think of wiring."

"I did not dare to be more explicit. The prince made himself responsible. Oh, no, it was the major who saw after it. And it was he who managed to smuggle me out of the port."

Scherer was glad that the major's name had come up. He seized his opportunity to say:

"... The major loves you."

Diana looked up quickly.

"Did he tell you that?"

"Very nearly."

Diana thought: "Felix is absolutely incorrigible. What can I do to distract Scherer's mind?"

"Do you know that you've just come in time for the carnival?" she said aloud. "The whole town is full of music and laughter. Nearly a week it lasts. Shall we go and have a look at it?"

They agreed to meet later at his hotel. He bade her good-bye for the time, and went to his rooms. Here he changed, read his correspondence, answered what was necessary. Then he stepped out on the balcony which looked on to the gardens adjoining the royal palace, and on to the big square. Every minute the number of masqueraders increased; they must form at least half of all those who are now promenading the streets, he thought. The bright colours swamped the sober greys and blacks of everyday fashion. As soon as he caught sight of Diana driving up, he went downstairs to meet her, and soon they were lost in the crowd of merry-makers.

In order not to be too conspicuous, she had put on a grey dress, and a violet-coloured veil almost covered her hat. As they reached the corner by his hotel, they stopped, and for a moment they were completely surrounded. Women and boys, addressing them in a medley of languages, were pressing their wares upon them: great branches of apple blossom, round and resplendent like buxom women; delicate pink almond sprays, willowy and tall; huge bundles of blue hyacinths; cascades of yellow tulips; and, conspicuous among them all, the huge bunches of violets whose dreamlike flowers seemed to resent the restricting string which bound them together.

"These people know me," said Diana, laughing. "I have to trundle the whole cart load off to Phaleron most days. Today..."

Suddenly, she had an idea. She separated one lad from his comrades, gave him a note, and told him to take the whole contents of his handcart to the hotel and ask the porter to put them in Herr Scherer's room. Scherer gathered from her gestures what she had in mind, and, turning to another vender, bought a bunch of violets for her to wear. He gave it to her, saying:

"So little, for so much."

His voice trembled slightly as he spoke. It was the first time she had known him to be deeply moved. "He is indeed poor, this man; for all his millions could not buy that barrow of flowers I (who tomorrow may be penniless) have just sent to his room!"

CHAPTER TWELVE

They spent the next few days wandering about on foot, driving to this place and that, taking a boat and sailing upon the waters of the Ægean Sea. Hitherto they had known each other only from afar; now they studied one another close at hand. How contrasted were their temperaments! Their lives had run along such different paths of experience, and yet their intellectual and instinctive sympathies bridged the gulf that might otherwise have yawned between them. Scherer had escaped from the northern winter and from his professional duties. Now the companionship of this young woman was to confirm his first impression of her. She interested him, she was prolific of ideas, she was productive in her work; and yet it seemed to him that the woman in her was again slipping through his fingers, and that all he had beside him was a trusty friend. Diana, whose doubts of him had been laid to rest as soon as he had resumed his ordinary poise, was eager to discover all she could of this man whose brain was a match for hers, and whose knowledge of the world was far superior.

When, four days later, they met by appointment in the museum to look at the Mycenean relics, he seemed pleasurably excited. Drawing a telegram from his pocket, he handed it to Diana, saying:

"Something to cheer you up!"

She read: "Winterthur to succeed Münsterberg. Linnartz to go. Foreign secretary probably retiring."

"A voice from the tomb," murmured Diana, as she gave the slip of paper back to him. "Maybe this is the modern equivalent of the old-fashioned ghost, the way to make your influence felt after death! These people of an age long past took gold with them into the grave, and we of a later generation stand looking at them as they lie in their glass cases. This cup with the running lions carved upon it speaks to us of the spirit of Agamemnon. And look at this one, and this, are they not perfect?"

They examined the treasures in the glass cases for a while; a dagger, a pot, a ring. Then, quite suddenly, Diana exclaimed:

"Linnartz to go!? They should have strung him up to the first lamp-post that came handy!"

Scherer smiled as he answered, mimicking Linnartz's voice and manner:

"Throughout he assumed an absolutely unprejudiced attitude, and deserves a good mark against his name in the State archives."

Diana resumed her study of the contents of the glass cases in silence. After a while they passed out of that room and into the one where the coffins are preserved. She had become very quiet, as if she were no longer aware of Scherer's presence. Then she noticed that his attention was concentrated upon one tomb in particular. He stood contemplating it for many minutes. A naked youth, life size, was depicted on it, in very low relief. Leaping towards him was a greyhound. Beneath, was carved the Greek word: Χαϊρε!—Scherer knew what was in Diana's thoughts.

That evening as they were dining at his hotel, the tumult from the streets came to them through the open windows. Carnival frolics were in full swing. The sound of flutes, rattles, mandolins, and drums, mixed with the patter of many feet, filled the wide square. There were calls and screams, snatches of music and laughter. Like fireflies on a summer evening in the north, little Japanese lanterns flickered and fluttered by in the gloaming. But away there beyond the noise and the bustle, rose the flat-topped hill crowned with the silent, stately pile of the Acropolis, still glowing faintly in the light of the western sky. The scent of the orange blossom was wafted to them from the royal gardens, to mingle with all the other springtime perfumes within the room and without.

Scherer's fancy endowed his companion with magic arts, and he felt as if bewitched with a circle of her making. She had a long Venetian shawl wrapped round her shoulders, a garment she dearly loved. The lamp shone softly down upon her bare head, and Scherer was struck with the difference in her looks tonight from what he remembered of her as she had sat that evening nine months ago on the terrace of his home in her pale lilac silk frock. He was amazed at her faculty for changing her appearance, of becoming, as it were, a different woman, adapted to different moods and circumstances. The barriers he had so carefully set up around him were being broken down one by one as his interest and curiosity were aroused. A tone of subdued excitement was in his voice as he spoke.

"On the way here, I kept on thinking that in this land at least you should adopt the Greek form of your name, and call yourself Artemis. Yet now it seems to me that Cassandra would be a more fitting appellation, and that I should be awaiting your oracle."

"Just listen to the way that merry throng is responding to your rhetoric," laughed Diana. "Little drum-taps such as the god will call for when he is in a good humour, and before he has lost his head. Lanterns swaying joyously over the heads of the merrymakers, who are laughing and singing as if Death were dead and everlasting life were the key to happiness!"

"Do you want to die?" asked Scherer, calmly.

She raised her arms slightly, so that the black folds of the shawl fell apart, disclosing the delicate tint of her bare neck.

"Why do you ask?" she said reservedly but without any coldness in her voice. "Had I wished to do so, should I not already have gone from this life, now, when a part of my very self has slipped from my hands and vanished into the night of darkness? Yes, I loved Count Münsterberg, and the baron's lies are in essence truths far greater than he can have any idea of, for it was on my account that Gregor died. I felt all along that the affair must come to a violent end. Only I did not know who the victim would be. In any case our friendship would have had to cease as soon as the poet or the countess decided to go away. It might very well have turned out that I was to be the victim. But fate struck him...."

She sighed, caught in the toils of pain renewed, her eyes lowered on to the table. Then she turned towards the square and looked at the medley of masqueraders below. Her voice was steady when she resumed:

"And we three go on living, all three of us, who mourn his death. I, who was the greatest loser, do I not sit here at dinner with you, feel the scent of flowers around me, wear a nosegay of violets at my breast, listen to the joyous calls of the Athenian youth, just as if nothing unusual had happened? We are enmeshed in the web of life; don't you feel it too? And since I am thus enmeshed I do not choose to die before I have experienced all there is to experience. To taste of everything just once—in order to be able to despise everything."

She flung the last words across the table to him, a note of challenge in her voice. But he had long since known that she despised possessions and wealth. Nevertheless he picked up the gauntlet she had thus thrown down, for he was resolved to make his request, now, fearlessly and without ambiguity. Yet when the moment came to put the question in cold blood, his heart failed him; his intellect took command, and all he was able to say was:

"So much striving after harmony and yet so great disquietude! Need one really experience everything in actual reality? You, who are a student of Plato, is it possible that you should not have recognized what I fully recognized when I decided to confine my activities in life to the narrow circle of my present occupations—narrow, for all the outer world may think to the contrary? You who have gained in a few years a knowledge of the world which others take many decades to acquire, can afford to break away from your present way of living. And I urge you: give it up now. Concentrate your activities, instead of scattering them to the four winds. Try to possess yourself of yourself. Make your life secure and safe; do this hand in hand with me, as mistress of my house, which you once were kind enough to praise. I came to Athens for no other purpose than to ask you to be my wife."

With a sudden inspiration, he took up the orange he had peeled, divided it in half, and handed one portion over the table to Diana. Moved by his impassioned speech, she reached towards the fruit, and as she did so she met his eyes fixed on her with an expression of infinite longing, most unusual in a man accustomed to command.

"I accept the half," she said, unflinchingly, as she kept her eyes on his, "for I feel that you are my friend.—You said well. Harmony. It might be thought a rather venturesome word to utter in this place and at this time. Yet over there, on the hill of the gods, which the night has now swallowed up so that I can no longer see it as background to your silhouette; over there, harmony watches over the present, harmony in its everlasting embodiment. But I am not a column, or a structure of stone, or, even, a tree. You have created for yourself a world of security wherein you may dwell in peace and harmony; I love life precisely because of its insecurity, and, because of this love of mine, I have no fear of death. You with your clear vision, have you not noticed that I have no roots? Did I not hear you say—I am so fond of your voice, it rings true—did I not hear you say my name that evening on the terrace of your home as if you understood all its implications? And again, when you were coming down here to see me, you thought of me as Artemis. I am for the chase, for a lifelong chase through the world. Even if I do strive after harmony, I must have freedom all around me. Would you ever grant freedom to your wife? Every freedom, even to the ultimate, the freest of freedoms?—Have I lost you now by my refusal? Please, please, do not deprive me of your confidence, you who came to recognize what I was, and what my worth. Please—shake hands...."

He set the half of the orange on the table and took her outstretched hand. He held it for a moment, but did not kiss it.

Towards midnight she prepared to go back to her hotel. He begged to be allowed to drive to Phaleron with her. The carriage could only move along at a foot's pace, so densely packed were the streets with revellers. Even now, the air was full of confetti, and flowers long since withered were thrown aloft with jubilant cries. As they neared the outskirts of the town, the crowd gradually thinned, and the going was better. The sweet air was blowing from the sea. They had both lapsed into a mood of quiet contemplation, and it was with a faraway smile that Scherer shook some confetti out of her shawl. He, as a northerner unused to southern exuberance, had been more bewildered by the noise and commotion than she, and the heavy southern wine flowed sluggishly through his veins. His mind was clouded, and in vain did he try to fill the great black void which her answer had dug in his very heart. The little act of flicking the confetti from the folds of her wrap was no more than a pretext; he wanted to be nearer to her, and yet was fearful lest by some rash move he might spoil his chances for ever.

With the knowledge of an experienced woman, Diana knew the struggle that was going on within him, and was cogitating as to the best way to meet him. Since Gregor's death her senses were benumbed. Never in her life had she been so free from all sensual desire, especially in the springtime of the year. Scherer took her hand in his, slowly unbuttoned her glove, and suddenly bowed his dark head over the back of the hand he held, covering it with kisses.

"I am lonely," he said disjointedly. "Won't you—join me—?"

Looking down at him, she murmured:

"You want a faithful and devoted wife, and children in your home. I need freedom."

His passionate desire grew as the conviction was forced upon him that he pleaded in vain. Instinct took possession, while intellect went to sleep in the warm and fragrant night. He seized her hand, her arm, and said:

"Diana! I would have given my life..."

She felt him pressing against her shoulder, and realized how shaken he was, how his whole spirit bent beneath the emotional stresses of this hour. Even more, she knew that now he was asking her to accept no more than what a hundred other women would have accepted on the terms, and she recalled the honourable proposals with which he had at first pressed his suit, in spite of the facts he knew about her previous life. Again she felt, as in days gone by, that there inevitably comes a moment when the platonic affection between man and woman breaks down before the onslaught of human instincts.

They had passed the sea-front, had driven along the quay, and were now coming to the lighted streets again, to houses, and at any minute might be crossing the path of other vehicles. She made him sit up and begged him to compose himself. As they drew near her hotel, she took him kindly by the hand.

"Try to—pull yourself together—go back and have a good sleep...."

They drew up. He sprang out and helped her to alight, hardly touching her in the process. Then he asked in as matter-of-fact tones as he could muster:

"And tomorrow?"

She stood pensive for a second, then said gaily:

"Tomorrow? Weren't we going to Salamis tomorrow?"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Evening was drawing on. On the topmost step of the Parthenon, her left elbow resting on her knee and her chin in the cup of her hand, sat Diana in her long black draperies, motionless as a statue, her gaze towards the sea. Only a veil streaming out from behind the pillar gave evidence that between the rigid column and the woman seated there, the wind, a living creature, was at work.

Scherer's tall figure was seen mounting the white steps towards the Propylæum. He liked to visit the great antiques, and to ignore the little ones which the moderns have interspersed here and there as if to give relief. His expression was typical of a man thoroughly enjoying his leisure; he looked lively and his face was lit up by a smile of perfect contentment. Muscular, perhaps a trifle too broad in the shoulders in spite of his height, he might have been taken for an Englishman; and yet his thoughtful cast of countenance showed him to be in reality a member of the German confraternity. He was, indeed, more akin to the massive, square-cut structure of the Propylæum, than to the temple itself, and during his sojourn in Athens had made frequent pilgrimages to study the portal. When he reached the platform and turned his steps westward, he became aware of Diana's dark shape away there in the corner.

"Is solitude after all the fundamental need of this woman?" he wondered as he advanced towards her. "Or is it just that she is seeking refuge from me? She behaves differently to others, I feel it in my bones; does not succumb to these long meditative pauses, which at times develop into actual flight. I wonder whether, having refused my offer of a secure life, she will one day give herself to me freely.... She will not grow old; suddenly, she'll die; but she'll leave no heirs behind, leave no sign of her passage...."

She had caught sight of him now, and they had nodded recognition without uttering a word. Diana looked up at him, thinking:

"Modern clothes usually look so ridiculous up here among these noble columns; but he looks well, he's so elastic in his gait, and how earnest is his expression. He's as healthy an animal as I, and he thinks he acts up to the same laws—and yet in reality how different are our outlooks! He is devoted to me—but he would fight me tooth and nail. His love stirs me, and I could give him all, everything—except my personal freedom. That I must safeguard...."

His clear voice broke in on her musings.

"I'm late. Business. One can't get away from it completely."

"The sun is setting over Corinth—it must be past six o'clock."

"... Ah, you've been reading them," he said, taking his place beside her on the step and picking up a little book she had let fall.

"Yes, but I should have done better to refrain. Andreas's poems, the ones he wrote to me, are more delightful to read in his own delicate script than here in cold print, on hand-made paper...."

Scherer turned over the pages as one who knew the book well, seeking for a special poem of his choice. Then in his clear, metallic voice, which he subdued to the spirit of the verses and the place where he was sitting, he read the poem he loved. As his lips shaped the words, Diana was transported back to the isle where they had first been written; she forgot his proximity for a while, but as with the concluding words he let the book sink, and she was brought back to the present, she marvelled that he had been able to read so unfalteringly—for did they not apply to his case with special poignancy? Now he was saying:

"And—what about those he wrote to Countess Olivia?"

But her thoughts were elsewhere as she answered:

"At first I was troubled by such passion. I asked myself where it would find a suitable outlet. I wondered what dreams would come to play havoc with this young soul. Then he found Olivia." She paused a moment, and Scherer knew she was thinking of many things in her life with Andreas, things that were for her alone. "And then," again she paused. When she resumed, her voice trembled slightly. "Then I asked myself whether these verses had not been paid too dear, whether they were beautiful enough to warrant such an expenditure, whether the gods had been right to sacrifice Gregor the man of the world to Andreas the poet?"

"Well," said Scherer reassuringly, "maybe they would have been wrong if Münsterberg's work had gone down with him, if his opponent Muthesius had replaced him instead of Winterthur...."

"Yes, Winterthur has come," she affirmed, looking at her companion with steady fearlessness. "And was not that his achievement, the last work of a dying man? It seems almost as if he had bequeathed his convictions to his follower, a spiritual heritage, so that his nation might be safeguarded from war; or, if war comes nevertheless, that his people shall find a treaty awaiting them in an emergency where they expected to find a foe."

Scherer smiled.

"Is the world spirit to be rehabilitated? Is Hegel to oust Plato in order that a northern friend may be pleased?"

His tone was comradely, as it had been ever since the night of the carnival. He had deliberately assumed it as armour against his own too passionate feelings. Even today she let him have his little joke, for she well knew he merely wished for a confirmation of his own statement. She could not help smiling in her turn when she reflected that at another time and in another mood she would have been swayed by passion to give a far different judgment from the one she had spoken with such wise audacity.

She, therefore, left his question unanswered, saying brightly:

"And what are the northern friend's plans?"

"He must soon be off."

"When?" she asked with a sigh.

"At the end of the week."

She smiled.

"And today is Friday—I know, because Mary told me this morning."

As if to anchor herself to this land, she grasped the lip of the marble step. He noticed her movement, noticed how eagerly she leaned forward drinking in the landscape and the sea. After a while he said:

"You'll stay on here, I suppose. Of course. Only I'm afraid that in summer the heat may..."

His mien was solicitous; but she laughed.

"I'm in your service, and four months' leave is more than even an operatic tenor would expect! Let me have—shall we say four, or five, weeks more. Then I'll come back to the office again. On the first of May, when I come knocking at your door, I should be grateful to find you at home...."

END OF VOLUME ONE