Diane

“ She was on that day the most popular music-hall artist in Paris. Like Jean, she was Diane and yet not Diane. Her beautiful, mysterious dark eyes were unchanged, her frank, sweet smile was the same, but she was Mademoiselle Dorian, not merely Diane, or worse still, Skinny; that expressed it all. She had eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge; she knew the great, ugly, beautiful, laughing, weeping, snarling, generous, wicked, pious world; she was able to take care of herself; she could stand upon her feet and look the ferocious human race in the eye as Una faced the lion. ”

“ It was one of those times when it seems possible for a human being to stand outside of material things; when the veil which hides the everlasting verities is raised before eyes all pained and strained with gazing. The windows of Jeanne Le Ber’s room, overlooking the garden, stood wide open to the summer breeze. An overwhelming impulse moved Diane. No longer able to stifle the cry of her anguish, she sank on her knees, stretching out imploring, passionate hands. ”

“ The velvet dusk of Diane's eyes was sparkling with the zest of woodland adventure. To repose a confidence in one so spirited and beautiful was fascinating sport—and safe.
Now the minstrel found as the morning waned that he was not so strong as he had fancied. Wherefore he lay humbly by the fire and talked of his fortunes by the roadside. Bits of philosophy, of sparkling jest, of vivid description, to these Diane listened with parted lips and eyes alive with wholesome interest as her guest contrived to veil himself in a silken web of romance and mystery. ”

“ Diane resumed:—
"Come and sit by me, Gabriel. Can you believe it, dear, this moment, which has united us once more in so unhoped-for a manner, I have nevertheless dreamed of and foreseen, even in my apparently hopeless captivity? I have always felt sure that my deliverance would come through you, and that in my supreme peril God would send you, my own knight, to rescue me."
"For my part, Diane," said Gabriel, "the thought of you has always led me on as a lover and guided my steps like a ray of light. Shall I make a confession to you and to my own conscience? ”

“ There were no semi-tones in Diane's dark beauty, Carl reflected. It was a thing of sable and scarlet, and the gold-brown satin of her gypsy skin was warm with the tints of an autumn forest. Carelessly at his ease, Carl noted how the bold eyes of the painted Spanish grandee above the mantel, the mild eyes of the saint in the Tintoretto panel across the room and the flashing eyes of Diane seemed oddly to converge to a common center which was Starrett, white and ill at ease. And of these the eyes of Diane were loveliest. ”

“ Diane darted from the stream with a glad little cry, shaking the water from her long, tawny hair, the droplets of water sparkling on her bronzed skin like diamonds, the long, lithe lines of her body clothed only in the moisture until she found her buckskin shorts and halter and dressed. Life was comparatively simple and uncomplicated among the Shining Ones, and she, of all their encampment, remembered no other way. ”

“ Fixing a piercing glance upon Diane, the king continued,—
"I do not know, Diane, nor do I wish to know, whether you have been made acquainted with the wrong I have done Monsieur d'Exmès; I only wish you to feel that my silence has been due to my appreciation of that wrong and my regret for it. But is it not imprudent for me to maintain silence? Do not these outrages give warning of others more flagrant still? Ought I not to have an eye to Monsieur d'Exmès? ”

“ DUKE. [Alone.]
This alliance secures Diane from peril. The Marquis is young, noble,—has saved her life, and has a claim on it. She must marry while there's time to get away.
[Enter DIANE.]
Now, dear child, what is it?
DIANE. Father, I loathe this useless life of mine! I long for action—danger—anything that stirs the blood, and brings oblivion.
DUKE. Oblivion!—Nay, Diane, I have something happier to suggest than that. Time and circumstance commend to you a marriage. We owe our lives to the wisdom of a man who seeks your hand to-day. ”

“ That's the thought I can't endure, Diane. Try to be just to me. If I make mistakes, if I flounder about, if I say things that offend you, it's because I can't rest while you're exposed to danger. Alone, as you are, in this great city, surrounded by people who are not your friends, a prey to criticism and misapprehension, when it is no worse, it's as if I saw you flung into the arena among the beasts. ”

“ Could courage desert him now? It was Diane who, rousing her dauntless spirit with courage that affection alone could give, came to his aid. She had reached the highest manifestation of human passion—self-sacrifice—and was learning that the soul can be taught to bear pain as the saints taught their bodies to bear the rigors of hardship and self-mortification. She was like a soldier who must fight till the last gasp, who must bear every blow like a stoic, so long as there was any excuse for the conflict.
“They call you, du Chesne; leave Lydia to my care. The Blessed Virgin protect you.” ”

“ Every few seconds he called Diane's name, but there was no answer. No answer. Time crawled with the fear icy now, as cold as death, in the pit of his stomach, with the fear making his heart pound rapidly, with the fear making it impossible for him to think. Fear—for Diane. I love you, Di, he thought. I love you. I never stopped loving you. We were wrong. We were crazy wrong. It was like a sargasso, inside of us, an emptiness which needed filling—but we were wrong. Diane—
He reached the Gormann and plunged inside the airlock, swinging the outer door shut behind him. ”

“ Diane, however, so long as she had it in her power—that is to say, until 1559, when the King died—did everything she could to introduce a taste for magnificent and sumptuous bindings into France; to eclipse once and for all time the efforts of every book-lover who had preceded her. In a measure she succeeded, and certainly no good books come to us, when they come at all, which is but seldom, breathing more of romance than these volumes which Diane treasured till her dying day, in spite of Court frowns and persecution. ”

“ Diane was so young, so buoyant in her hopes, so high-spirited and high-hearted, that neither fear nor shadow of disaster could easily crush her. This was a time of trial, to be lived through as best they could, but it seemed positive that, after all, things must go well. With the sweet agitation of hope and delight dancing in her veins, she felt only elation from the excitement around her. The spectacle of a courage absolutely free from egotism was too common among the devoted Canadian women of the day to attract much attention. ”

“ The Countess's knitting fell into her lap. “I should not have the courage,” she murmured, leaning back in the deep -hair and looking into Diane's face, “no—never.”
“You would have the courage whenever you could be of assistance,” said Diane, quietly. “It becomes a passion to save life. Courage fails when one can do nothing. To stand beside some poor fellow over whom the surgeon is bending to see the surgeon rise—oh, how well I know the gesture!—and hear him say, Nothing to be done—and pass on—pass on to one for whom there was hope forget the one for whom there was none—that broke my heart. ”

“ The time has come to go to the Church, Diane; allow me to escort you to the great gallery, Madame, and then I will see you again at the tilting, and at the games in the afternoon. And if you are not too much incensed with me for my tyrannical conduct, perhaps you will condescend to applaud my strokes with the lance, and my passades, my fair umpire. ”

“ The monosyllable was so charged with interest and encouragement that Diane settled herself in her chair. "It happened in this way," she began. "Before I went to my father in Africa I read books under compulsion, at appointed times, as one eats." Looking up over her knitting, the countess smiled. "They did not interest me, those books of counsel and meditation, those lives of saints like wooden dolls. I used to say to myself: 'Of what use is a saint in a cell?'"
"It is easier to be a saint in a cell than in life, my dear. Did you not learn that with the army in Africa?" ”

“ Rochs, nor Nanon, both of whom had conceived violent prejudices against the intruder. During all the years of her after life Diane could never think of the strength of that dreadful temptation without a convulsion of her whole being. She had no choice; the steadfast spirit, holding brave sovereignty over the body and its pangs, must triumph. Hearts, apparently, were made to be crushed and broken. A little more or less, what did it matter in the vast and silent anguish that consumed her? In the heat of conflict there came a new tide in her veins, a novel force to all her thought. ”

“ Diane responded with a sad smile. "Besides, it is the real Christian title which will be suitable for me henceforth; for although I have not yet taken the vows, I am even now a nun at heart, and I soon shall be one in fact, I hope, when I shall have obtained the king's consent. Do you bring me that consent, my brother?"
"Oh!" exclaimed Gabriel, in a tone wherein reproach and grief were mingled.
"Mon Dieu!" said Diane, "there is not the least bitterness in my words, I assure you. I have suffered so much recently among men that I have naturally sought shelter with God. ”

“ They continued to stand staring into each other's eyes—the width of the room between them. A red azalea on the long mahogany table, strewn with books, separated them by its fierce splash of color. The apathy of Diane's voice was not that of worn-out emotion, but of emotion which finds no adequate tones. The very way in which her inquiry ignored all other subjects between them had its poignancy.
"What do you think?"
"Oh, I suppose he did. Every one says so; then why shouldn't it be true? ”

“ Diane stood up in the carriage holding her tricolor bouquet, and a great roar of cheering a thousand times greater than she had ever heard before, stormed the air. Diane stood erect, with her head thrown back.
At last there was silence, and Diane, pointing with her white gloved hand straight at Jean [128] not ten feet away, cried in her clear, practised, penetrating voice:
“There is a man who can sing La Marseillaise better than I can. Bring him here, and make him sing it, too.” ”

“ Proud, unerringly truthful, fastidious in speech and personal habit, truly majestic and generous, such was the shy woodland companion with whom Diane chose willfully to spend her idle hours, finding the girl's unconstrained intervals of silence, her flashes of Indian keenness, her inborn reticence and naïve parade of the wealth of knowledge Mic-co had taught her, a most bewildering book in which there was daily something new to read. ”

“ No one knows the meaning of pain who has not suffered jealousy. The iron entered into Diane’s soul when she overheard Grandin saying to his wife that the new girl would soon be as good an actress as Diane, and was much handsomer, which was the truth. And everybody was so taken up with rehearsing Mademoiselle Rose; Diane felt herself already thrust out from that ideal world of the stage which to her was the real world. ”

“ Diane’s abhorrence, her scorn, had shattered his last frail hold on hope. He could never retrieve himself, never come back absolved—not even by courage, by sacrifice, by self-denial. He doubted if death could wipe it out in her eyes, yet he loved her. The fact of his love for her had made him write to her, made him demand her own decision, not her father’s; but he was well aware what that decision would be. He had lost her!
There was a futility in his agony, a helplessness. There was nothing that he could do. Dr. Gerry was right—he should never have married Diane. ”

“ She laid the little one down beneath the shade of a wide-spreading tree, supported by cushions, and then, as she turned, encountered Pierre’s earnest gaze. Le Ber’s eldest son was seized with a sincere conviction that he would be better away from his father’s beautiful ward, yet he stood silent, rooted to the spot.
Life just then to Diane was a vague, sweet chaos. Rejoicing in the strength of her ardent youth, it was not easy to accept existence calmly and tranquilly. Every day the sunshine seemed brighter, the sky above her more blue. ”

“ Not a little interested, Diane raised frankly sympathetic eyes to his in diffident question.
"The music?" said the minstrel with his slow, grave smile. "Is there not more romance and adventure in the life of a wandering minstrel than in that of an idle seeker after health? In the open one finds happiness, health, color and life!" ”

“ It was very respectful in tone, and asked Diane why she had been so cruel the night before, and what evening would she honor Captain, the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel with her company at supper. The foolish Diane kissed the note and slept with it under her pillow.
The next morning about ten o’clock, Diane went out on a shopping expedition in the streets of Bienville. She was one of those women who have an instinctive knowledge of how to make the best of herself. ”

“ It was called The Literary Remains of—some one whose name I have forgotten. But that does not matter, for the book itself did not interest me, It was the title which captivated me. Literary Remains! I said to myself: Diane, you too will some day die. It may be you will never marry. You will have no children, and there will be absolutely nothing left unless you also have literary remains. So I began my journal, and I assure you,” observing the amusement on the Countess's face, “there are some interesting things in it. Do not imagine it is like Raoul's. ”