The Inner Shrine Part 44

"Surely you exaggerate. You could do it quietly. No one need know--outside Derek Pruyn and two or three more of us."

"I don't do things in that way," he said, with an odd return of his old-time pride.

"If I put the woman right, it shall be in the eyes of the world. I don't ask to have things made easy for me. If I do it at all, I shall do it thoroughly. I'm not afraid of it or of anything it entails. It's a curious thing that a man of my make-up is afraid of being ridiculed or being given the cold shoulder, but he's not afraid to die."

Though he was looking straight at her, he was too deeply engrossed in his own thoughts to see how proudly her head went up, or to note the flash of splendid light in which her glance enveloped him.

"I was all ready to die," he pursued, in the same meditative tone, "that morning in the Pre Catalan. George Eveleth could have had my life for the asking. I'd never known him to miss his mark, and he wouldn't have missed me--if he hadn't had another destination for his bullet. I've regretted it more than once. I've had pretty nearly all that life could give me--and I've made a mess of it."

"You haven't had--love," she ventured.

"Love?" he echoed, with a short laugh. "I've had every kind of love but one; and that I'm not worthy of."

"We get a good many things we're not worthy of; but they help us just the same."

"This wouldn't help me," he returned, speaking very slowly. "I shouldn't know what to do with it. It would be as useless to me in my new conditions as a chaplet of pearls to a slave in the galleys. So, what would you do?"

"I'd do right at any cost."

She scarcely knew that the words were spoken, so intent was her thought on the strange mixture of elements in his personality. It was not until she had waited in vain for a response that she found the echo of her speech still in her mental hearing and recognized its import. Her first impulse was to cry out and take it back; but she restrained herself and waited. It was an instant in which the love of daring, that was so instinctive in her nature, blew, as it were, a trumpet-challenge to the same pa.s.sion in his own, while they sat staring at each other, wide-eyed and speechless, in the dancing firelight.

XXIV

On the following day the Marquis de Bienville found the execution of any intentions he might have had toward Derek Pruyn postponed by the circ.u.mstance that Miss Regina van Tromp was dead. The helpless, inarticulate life, which for three years had served as a bond to hold more active existences together, had failed suddenly, leaving in the little group a curious impression of collapse. It became perceptible that the hushed sick-room, where Miss Lucilla and Mrs. Eveleth were the only ministrants, had in reality been a centre for those who never entered it. Now that the living presence was withdrawn, there came the consciousness of dispersing interests, inseparable from the pa.s.sing away of the long established, which gives the spirit pause. The days before the funeral became a period of suspended action, in which Life refrained from too marked a manifestation of its energies, out of reverence for Death. Even when the grave was filled in, and the will read, and the family face to face with its new conditions, there was a respectful absence of hurry in beginning the work of reconstruction. The lull lasted, in fact, till James van Tromp arrived from Paris; and it was broken then only by the banker's desire "to get things settled" with all possible speed, so that he might return to the Rue Auber.

The first sign of real disintegration came from Mrs. Eveleth. She had waited for the arrival of the man whom she looked upon now as her confidential adviser, to make the announcement that, since Miss Lucilla would no longer need her, she meant to have a home of her own. The economies she had been able to practise during the last two years, together with a legacy from Miss van Tromp, would, when added to "her own income," provide her with modest comfort for the rest of her days.

There was something triumphant in the way in which she proclaimed her independence of the daughter-in-law who had been the author of so many of her woes. It was the old banker himself who brought this intelligence to Diane.

During the fortnight he had been in New York he had formed an almost daily habit of dropping in on her. She was the more surprised at his doing so from the fact that her detachment from the rest of the circle of which she had formed a part was now complete. She had gone to see Miss Lucilla with words of sympathy, but her reception was such that she came away with cheeks flaming. Miss Lucilla had said nothing; she had only wept; but she had wept in a way to show that Diane herself, more than the departed Miss Regina, was the motive of her grief. After that Diane had remained shut up in her linen-room, finding in its occupied seclusion something of the peace which the nun seeks in the cloister.

There was no one but the old man to push his way into her sanctuary, and for his visits she was grateful. They not only relieved the tedium of her days, but they brought her news from that small world into which her most vital interests had become absorbed.

"So the old lady is set up for life on your money," he observed, as he watched Diane hold a white table-cloth up to the light and search it for imperfections.

"It isn't my money now; and even if it were I'd rather she had the use of it. She would have had much more than that if it hadn't been for me."

"She might; and then again she mightn't. Who told _you_ what would have happened--if everything had been different from what it is? There are people who think they would have had plenty of money if it hadn't been for me; but that doesn't prove they're right."

"In any case I'm glad she has it."

"That's because you're a very foolish little woman, as I told you when you came to me three years ago. I said then that you'd be sorry for it some day--"

"But I'm not."

"Tut! tut! Don't tell me! Can't I see with my own eyes? No woman could lose her good looks as you've done and not know she's made a mistake.

How old are you now?"

"I'm twenty-seven."

"Dear me! dear me! You look forty."

"I feel eighty."

"Yes; I dare say you do. Any one who's got into so many sc.r.a.pes as you have must feel the burden of time. I don't think I ever saw a young woman make such poor use of her opportunities. Why didn't you marry Derek Pruyn?"

Diane kept herself quite still, her needle arrested half-way through its st.i.tch. She took time to reflect that it was useless to feel annoyed at anything he might say, and when she formed her answer it was in the spirit of meeting him in his own vein.

"What makes you think I ever had the chance?"

"Because I gave it to you myself."

"You, Mr. van Tromp?"

"Yes; me. I did all that wire-pulling when you first came to New York; and I did it just so that you might catch him."

"Oh?"

"I did," he declared, proudly. "And if you had been the woman I took you for, you could have had him."

"But suppose I--didn't want him?"

"Oh, don't tell me that," he said, pityingly. "Why shouldn't you want him?--just as much as he'd want you?"

"Well, I'll put it that way if you like. Suppose he didn't want me?"

"Then the more fool he. I picked you out for him on purpose."

"May I ask why?"

"Certainly. I saw he was getting on in life, and, as he'd been a good many years a widower, I imagined he'd had some difficulty in getting any one to have him. If he's good-looking, he's not what you'd call very bright; and he's got a temper like--well, I won't say what. I'd pity the woman who got him, that's all; and so--"

"And so you thought you'd pity me."

"I did pity you as it was. It seemed to me you couldn't be worse off, not even if you married Derek Pruyn."

"It was certainly good of you to give me the opportunity; and if I had only known--"

"You would have let it slip through your fingers just the same. You're one of the young women who will always stand in their own light. I dare say, now, that if I told you I was willing to marry you myself, you wouldn't profit by the occasion."

"I should never want to profit by your loss, Mr. van Tromp."

"But suppose I could afford--to lose?"

Unable to answer him there, she held her peace, though it was a relief that, before he had time to speak again, a page-boy knocked at the door and entered with a card. Diane took it hastily and read the name.

"Tell the gentleman I can't see him," she said, with a visible effort to speak steadily.