CHAPTER TWO

At half-past twelve next day a carriage drew up before the embassy. Diana stepped down. She had arrived the previous evening, a week later than Andreas, and neither suspected the other's presence in the town. A sorrel horse was pawing the gravel at the foot of the steps leading up to the front door, tossing his head as the groom held the bridle-rein. Diana moved forward up the steps, and at that moment a little boy came running from the house, closely followed by three men of uncertain age. The men bowed to Diana in passing, while one of them called to the child:

"It's no use, Clemens, Papa is already coming down!"

"Just one little minute," pleaded the lad, placing his foot in the groom's hand and leaping into the saddle, while his three friends gathered round protesting.

Diana meanwhile handed the servant her card and a letter of introduction to the ambassador. The man shook his head:

"I'm sorry, Madam, but His Excellency is out riding."

She turned to go, and as she did so an Italian greyhound brushed against her, springing down the steps. From the door came a sound of spurs clinking; a tall shadow fell across her path. She looked up to find herself confronted by a man in riding breeches, a crop in his left hand, while his right was brought to the salute. A nod from her in acknowledgment, unusually free and debonair, took him so much aback that he forgot to drop his hand after the greeting. The dog stood shivering at his side, eager and expectant. Would the man speak, apologize for not receiving her? His lips opened; she liked his looks; smiled at him. He, too, smiled; but at that moment the boy called up to him:

"Papa! I'm going to ride away, and leave you!"

The elder man turned abruptly, made a sign to the child, saluted Diana once again, and, elastic as the greyhound at his side, ran down the steps to join the group round the horse.

Diana got into the carriage, the four men and the boy bowed farewell, the coachman whipped up the horses, and she was gone.

The ambassador watched the dust cloud rising behind the vehicle, then slowly dropped his eyes to the card and the envelope the servant had given him. He read: Diana de Wassilko, Hotel Savoy. The letter was an introduction from Scherer. He twisted the card between his fingers, vexed that the meeting had not been better managed on his part. His eyes travelled to the group round the horse; the greyhound whined with impatience at his side. Suddenly he saw the boy slip in the saddle, while the men teasingly pulled him by his little legs.

"Clemens! Come, I won't have it. Off you get!" And, stepping up swiftly, he lifted the child down. His voice was so harsh that his son looked up at him inquiringly. The three men, too, were embarrassed, as they watched the count swing himself into the saddle and ride away, preceded by the dog. With a sulky pout, Clemens gazed after his father's retreating figure. Then the party turned, and strolled up the hill. They were silent for a while, each thinking the same thought. At last the eldest murmured: "The chief's in a bad temper again. I wonder what's up?"

Baron Linnartz, the speaker, was a man of forty or more, secretary to the Legation. His bald head was sunk between exaggeratedly broad shoulders, and his moustache, which he carefully trained into an upward curve, did not conceal his shapeless lips, which twisted nervously from time to time.

"Probably the sequel of a lonely night!" exclaimed the military attaché.

The baron made a pretence of being shocked at such barefaced cynicism.

"My dear Eckersberg, what a suggestion!"

"Well, Linnartz, if you know of any better amusement in this vale of tears, out with it. If not, at least let us talk of our rake's dreams since we have been effectually marooned in this land of odalisques!"

"You forget that I am a married man, my dear Count!"

"Sorry, Baron."

The youngest attaché, who had hitherto held his peace, now put in a word hoping to dispel the slight tension which had arisen between his two companions. He had been nicknamed "the tall prince." A man with artistic tastes and a pretty wit, he was a universal favourite, though he himself suffered from a chronic state of tedium as he moved from one drawing-room to another on his long crane's legs.

"Honi soit qui mal y pense, Gentlemen! Our worthy chief was obviously put out because the young lady drove off so quickly. Didn't you notice? Wasn't she charming in her white dress, with the love-locks dancing under her lace veil? And he lost his opportunity, because he had decided on a ride. Poor old Gregory the Seventh! You ought to be sorry for him."

"You are always making excuses for him," protested the baron. "He has no business to behave like that, to be so offhand with us. One who is ill-tempered and capricious with his intimates is the same when dealing with political situations. The State..."

"Oh Lord, the State!"

"Yes, the State, if Your Highness will allow me to explain. Respect for the leading officers of a State should not have to depend on impressions created by the female of the species. One who has the State's interests at heart should not, indeed, allow himself to be influenced by impressions of any kind. I stick to what I have said ever since they sent me here two years ago: he may be a very gifted man, a man with fine ideas; but a man who has time to play Schubert all the morning is not fit for an official post."

"Chopin, my dear Baron," amended the prince, hoping to turn his companion's thoughts away from this perennial grievance.

The other cleared his throat for a further attack, but the prince leaned across him and, speaking to Eckersberg, inquired:

"Did you, too, notice nothing?"

"A thoroughbred! Must be of aristocratic birth. Probably she'll be invited to lunch and trotted out to show her points as usual! Have you seen the countess this morning?"

"She put off my wife yesterday--they'd been going to have tea together. Said she had a visitor. I fancy it was a young man who has just come here from Vienna."

"Vienna? He must be the young poet, then," interjected the prince.

"Poet?" repeated the count. "So that's the kind of people they are sending down here now! What extraordinary things Austria does export, to be sure!"

Half an hour later Diana was about to sit down to lunch when the waiter brought her a card.

"Is the gentleman here?"

"His Excellency is waiting in the hall."

"Give me time to get back to my room, then show him up, please."

Diana deftly put a little order into her sitting room, thinking meanwhile: "He's been quick about it!" On the way back from the embassy she had recapitulated the scene which had promised so well but which the chance word of a child had suddenly brought to a close. She tried to interpret the omen. Did it mean that the child was to keep them apart? But she had no designs on this man! All she had to do was to study him, to find out what influence he exercised, who were his opponents, and so forth. That is what she had come down here to accomplish after two days and two nights travelling in the train. As for him personally...

There was a knock at the door. The ambassador entered. He was still in riding breeches, but the dog and the crop had been left below. Stepping lightly as a youth, he came towards her with outstretched hand.

"Please forgive me for coming like this, but I did not wish to delay bringing my apologies. The servants have a general order... I was just off for my morning ride.... Yes, I know it is the hottest part of the day, and you may well shake your head disapprovingly that I should be so inconsiderate to my horse, in June, midday... And with such bad roads... I had to pay a call in the suburbs... Do you ride?"

"Of course!"

"I hope you've brought your saddle with you; there's nothing to be got here to suit a lady..."

"I don't use a side saddle. I ride astride, like a man."

There was a momentary silence between them. The words instantly conjured her up in his imagination as she had stood on the steps at the embassy; they flooded the whole picture with erotic significance, and set his heart to a quicker beat. At the same time the memory of her name flashed through his mind as he said:

"Perhaps it may suit you to..."

"With pleasure, if the countess can come too..."

She merely brought the countess into the conversation because she considered that the rôle she was destined to play demanded a scrupulous adherence to social conventions. But the count had been quick to read her true character, and was no more to be taken in than a dog one tried to entice on to a false scent.

"The countess? Oh, she's all right. She doesn't ride any more, since she was thrown... Besides, as you see, I am no longer young..."

He bent his head before her with all the subtle coquetry of a man used to woman's admiration. Her smile did not escape his notice, for he exclaimed:

"There, now you are mocking my grey hairs!"

"Does Your Excellency wish for veneration?"

"Ah, that title I am doomed to hear reeks of gout!"

He moved away from her towards the window.

Diana's mirth took to flight on the instant. She saw the finely shaped lips twitch ever so slightly, and guessed all the pain that lurked behind the pleasantry. It seemed to her suddenly as if she had grown old, had leaped the decades that divided her from this man, and that she and he were of equal age. So great were her powers of imagination that she was able to transfer her change of outlook to her physical appearance. The count turned round intending to make some trivial comment on the town, but the amazing change in her face stopped the words before they left his lips. He hesitated a moment, and then with a boyish smile he asked:

"Have you no word of comfort for a poor grey-haired man?"

She was not in the humour to continue in this vein, and whispered softly to herself:

"Grey-haired... What are years? ... Are we not here today and gone tomorrow?..."

"You mean...?"

"Don't you remember Hamlet's words to Horatio?"

"For the moment..."

She looked him squarely in the eyes, and said with meaning emphasis, as if shooting two arrows one after the other from the same bow:

"Hic et ubique? Then, we'll shift our ground."

"Hic et ubique! Did Hamlet say that too?"

"Who else, indeed?"

"That's our motto... It's the motto on the Münsterberg coat-of-arms."

"Strange coincidence," she said looking earnestly at him.

He returned her scrutiny, his expression slowly changing as he did so. Then:

"Hic et ubique! Are those words true?"

"What is truth?" said Diana quietly. "Truth is a word only the free in spirit can pronounce, Count."

"Are you so fearless?"

Without stirring from her place, she looked at him gravely and did not answer.

"And are you so proud?"

Again she made no reply. She waited. At last, unable to bear her scrutiny any longer, he rose from his chair and stood twisting his cap in his fingers like an awkward boy.

"Forgive me," he said. "Perhaps such questions are not becoming in a lady's drawing-room..."

"We are in a hotel," she replied airily. "Yesterday the room may have been a forger's den!"

"Do you think so badly of this town?" he laughingly inquired.

"No, not of the town, only of mankind in general."

He let his lips linger on her hand at parting.

"When may I hope to see you again, and where?" he asked.

Abruptly she was a girl again as she merrily replied:

"Hic et ubique, Count of Münsterberg!"

He rode slowly home, deep in thought. Abdul, the greyhound, sought to catch his eye, whining, barking softly, hoping for a run. But his master continued to keep the horse at a walking pace.

"Corpo di Baccho," exclaimed the count at last. "Here's a strange creature crossing my path! She stood on the steps and smiled down at me--just like a cheeky little duchess of seventeen. She gets into a carriage like a grande dame of thirty. Then she talks boldly, frankly, eloquently,--a reincarnation of Byron at nineteen or twenty! Extraordinary. What am I to do? She's too tender a thing for me to tamper with. And yet she's not tender, not in the least. She is made of metal throughout, throat, breast... How splendidly her name suits her. Why am I so squeamish, then? Is she too young? Am I really grey? Passé? ... Come up, Cavalier! Abdul!"

He set spurs to his horse, and the beast sprang forward to a gallop. Snorting, sweating, the three careered up the hill. At the top was a little hollow. Gregor, plucked from his impassivity by the excitement of the ride, now spurred his mount anew, and they flew over the ditch--much to the astonishment of some passers-by who had never seen him ride so furiously before. At break-neck speed, he continued along the alley. In the distance he espied a carriage. The flutter of light dresses told him that the occupants were women. Again he pressed forward, determined to overtake them.

"Youth, youth is driving ahead of me... Youth! I must catch up ... or ... we are passé... Come on, Abdul! Now then, Cavalier! Abdul!"

Like a conqueror reaching his goal, intoxicated and yet exhausted, he passed by the carriage at such speed that the horses shied.