CHAPTER FIVE

"Where could it have been? Where on earth have I seen that pert toss of the head before? And those love-locks? And those firm hands, long and tapering? How do I know that they are strong? Was it at the tennis tournament in Baden? But she would have been a mere baby when I was playing there. Or at Cannes?"

The baron racked his brains trying to remember. At last, next day as he sat in his study reading a dispatch concerning unrest in the Soudan, memory suddenly flooded his mind.

"By God--it is--! St. Petersburg! Of course! St. Petersburg! That very wrist! My instinct is as trusty as a machine. I felt uneasy the moment she stepped into the room. Hm. All the same, I can't exactly tell Gertrude..."

He laughed, half malignantly and half lasciviously.

"I say, my dear Linnartz," said the ambassador as he came in quickly, a cigarette between his lips and a dispatch in his hand. "Just read this."

He leaned over the baron's shoulder as the latter sat reading the document.

"Well, what do you think of it?"

"First of all, since it does not come from headquarters, it hardly..."

"Headquarters," interrupted the count, pacing up and down. "At headquarters they are as usual sleeping the sleep of the unjust. When my friend Rochow codes me that he believes Le Chat is to be sent here, and his surmise harmonizes with our own local information--what on earth do headquarters matter one way or the other?"

"Your Excellency must decide..."

"Now you're offended again, my worthy Baron. For my part, I'm going to search out proof of that which I have long suspected, and which my advisers have never wished to believe."

He flung himself into the depths of an easy-chair next the writing-table, made rings with his tobacco smoke, drummed with his fingers on the edge of the glass top, and then said, speaking through his teeth:

"If only we were not all of us in such bad odour over there. Every dragoman may be looked upon as a spy. What have you to say, my dear Linnartz?"

"I've always been against these crooked methods, although I am quite willing to acknowledge that at times..."

"We must--find--new--people--to..." The ambassador spoke very slowly, like a beast of prey preparing for a spring. He passed his acquaintances in review, and suddenly the image of Andreas rose before his mental vision.

"If only he were one of our compatriots..."

The count rose, took a turn round the room, seeking for a way of approach.

"Perhaps after all there is no truth in the surmise..."

He made as if to go, stopped as he reached the door, turned abruptly, and asked in a completely changed tone of voice: "Tell me, how did you like our young poet the other day?"

"Very intelligent young man. But I am always suspicious of people who are backward in their profession. Anyway he has no knowledge of law."

"What matter? The lack relates only to the very beginning of things, where a man is a slave of documents. It would be a poor sort of poet whose intuitions would not be of more use to him than having passed some dry-as-dust examination, when the matter at issue is the management of men!"

"I don't know what kind of a poet the young man may be ... but I personally am inclined to be cautious in my dealings ... with everyone..."

The count felt that the last words implied a suspicion against Diana, too, whom chance had brought to his house at the same time as the poet, and concerning whom the baroness had whispered her disapproval in his ear. He knew Linnartz of old, and was accustomed to find in him the enemy of his friends, of his own inclinations, and, whenever possible, of his policy. The innuendo did not, therefore, cut very deep, and he said rather distantly:

"Yes, it's true, she's a charming little woman, this Fräulein de Wassilko!"

Linnartz was quick to seize the opportunity thus afforded. He rose, fixed his monocle, and approached his chief with the utmost formality.

"I feel it my duty to inform you, Count, that I have already had occasion to observe the lady..."

"How?" asked the other, taken aback.

"Three or four years ago when I was attaché in St. Petersburg. I had rooms in the Grand Hotel at the time, as a single man. I met the lady--several times--in the company of some wealthy young Poles; they supped together, very décolletée, very lively, somewhat prolonged festivities...."

"Well, and what then?"

"Nothing that I can prove. But I thought that in the interests of the country I should be remiss in my duty if I failed to draw Your Excellency's attention..."

"Thanks, my dear Baron, many thanks," said the count with a frosty smile as he left the room.

Once back in his own study he gave vent to his feelings.

"Je m'en fiche," he exclaimed. "This wretched Linnartz is for ever there, talking like a decree from the ministry itself. 'I feel it my duty... in the interests of the country ... décolletée... wealthy young Poles...' Well, and what if she did?"

He had seen Diana once since the luncheon party. But a feeling of unrest, which in no way resembled the ardent desire of a virile nature, had daily urged him to seek a meeting with this woman. Her personality and her name intrigued him, lured him to probe the depths which he had glimpsed in those few seconds of their first encounter.

"Fine weather for a sail," he had thought when, early one morning, he glanced from the heights where he lived down upon the great spread of waters. "Diana would look well in a sweater as she sat at the helm. I am sure that with such eyes and such hands she must be a splendid navigator."

Or, again, as he took a stroll in the park after breakfast, he would murmur:

"In the forenoon I'd have her dressed in flowing drapery, à la grecque, so that her raiment, caught by the breeze, would cling to her boyish limbs, and, as she stood with her back to the sun, her whole outline would be visible through the diaphanous material."

Or, of an evening, he would step forth on to the balcony where dinner was served, and would imagine her leaning against the balustrade, illuminated by the lights from within the drawing-room, silhouetted against the night sky.

With a reserve which pleased him mightily while it made him all the more impatient to see her, she had refused all invitations, and once only had come to play tennis in the afternoon. Even then, she had been no more than a quarter of an hour on the court. For the countess, who did not play, was on the watch for her coming and kept an eye on the lawn from behind the sun-blinds of her apartment. Twice she had been to the window in vain. After each rebuff she had returned to her occupation at the great table which was heaped with Venetian beads of every shade and hue. These she amused herself with by letting them roll idly through her fingers. On looking down a third time into the garden she spied Diana. The countess rang. As soon as her maid appeared she sent word begging her guest to come up as she was not feeling very well.

Diana responded at once to the invitation. The blue room was darker, cooler, more mysterious this day than it had been at Andreas's first visit, and as Diana entered she saw the big woman with her heavy coils of golden hair and her long, dark blue, loosely hanging robes, coming forward in welcome. The countess, however, saw a very young girl, whose legs emerged firm and slim from below the short white linen skirt, while from under the brim of her white felt hat the chestnut hair escaped in delicate tendrils as if it longed to realize that perfect freedom which indeed breathed from the whole personality of the visitor.

"Forgive me," said the countess, "I am not really ill. But I do not care for the company of the ladies I have to meet in my garden below, so I never go down now."

Diana had stepped up to the table where the beads were displayed. She contemplated them but did not touch them.

"Do you like them?" asked the countess.

"Many a chain could be made from them. Strings of beads in one colour or in many different colours."

"True enough. I'd never thought of that."

"What do you do with them?"

"I--oh I just rummage among them," answered Olivia softly, somewhat nonplussed. Her thoughts ran:

"This young creature is striving after proportion and harmony while engaged in restless adventures. What of myself? I gather reckless dreams to my heart while my life goes smoothly along in untroubled ways."

She offered her guest a tall, inlaid bowl of iced fruits. Then she withdrew into the shadows, and seated herself on a low couch where she seemed rather to recline than to sit. The two women sat silently opposite one another, while from below came the calls of the tennis players. After a long pause, the countess said languidly:

"You are sunburnt. As you take the cool fruit in through your lips you remind me of a young Arab I once saw in the bazaar at Damascus. His hot, bronzed skin was reflected in the cool waters of the river that has created the oasis on which the town stands."

"How beautifully you speak," said Diana as if to ward off the comparison.

"When I'm in ordinary social gatherings I am dumb. I hate being in a large company. Do you not feel the same kind of dislike?"

"Oh, no! I often feel a sort of stream flowing through people when they talk together--a stream that gives them life and motion, that has the beauty of a unified work of art."

"You are lucky in being able to choose your own companions. I am not free."

She flashed a hostile glance towards the window through which the voices from the garden reached her from time to time.

"And yet," said Diana, "I find people in your circle, here as everywhere, who hide more than their chatter reveals."

"Why hide? Why dissemble?" The countess's rich alto trembled as she spoke. "Life is short, the possibility of choosing a friend comes so rarely, opportunities are so few and far between. Why then should the cumbersome veils of formality be superadded to prevent men from knowing their fellow men? Artists are freer! Without caring a snap of the fingers for traditions which might restrict their movements, they grasp and take all that pleases them. They grab the mad adventure of life itself by the hair and never pause to inquire whether they are rumpling those glorious locks... There, now you're laughing!"

"What comes after the mere grabbing?" asked Diana. "A man is just a man and is not to be distinguished from his fellow mortals if he merely grasps and takes what he likes."

"You are very young--Diana. May I call you by your name? We are alone. The years that lie ahead of you are measureless, you think the forces within you are inexhaustible, and the feeling of undying youth makes you lavish in your use of time and space. You, with your--let us say--four-and-twenty years have seen many more countries and come into contact with many more men than I have during the thirty-five years of my life. Why is it so? Because you are free. Because your father never constrained you to live according to the dictates of a small and exclusive caste, because no husband was perpetually warning you to be careful lest your conduct might jeopardize his position, because no one was for ever noting every step you took. Can you deny this? Are you not free?"

She lay on her low couch, cowering as it were, her great knees drawn up and outlined through her draperies. Now she lifted her gold-crowned head towards the slim white apparition beside her. Diana slowly rose to her feet.

"Yes, I am free," she exclaimed, with a joyous ring. She turned towards the window, holding her arms straight out before her as if bearing a gift. She did not look at the questioner, but, her eyes fixed in a vacant stare, she seemed to be following the movements of a vision. A pause ensued. Then she slowly dropped her arms, and said gloomily: "Only experience can show how hard a thing freedom is."

"I am not afraid of it," came in sonorous tones from where the countess lay. "I used to ride wild horses until I had broken them in--why should I dread freedom?"

Diana was suddenly aware of a feeling of hostility towards this woman who seemed to grudge her her freedom. A dull sense of resentment moved her to ask:

"And now? You said 'used.'"

The countess sat up, and gripped her hair which began to tumble about her shoulders.

"I had a fall."

As if enraged by the recollection, she flung open one of the shutters and was suddenly flooded with the full light of day. Her great arms were raised to the glory of her hair which rippled in golden plenty down her back; her deep bosom rose and fell in mourning and longing. Diana regretted having asked the question. She stepped up to Olivia and said shyly:

"You are beautiful."

The countess's gloomy eyes gazed down at her, seeming to drink in the younger woman's fiery spirit as she stood there in her short white frock, her skin burned by sun and wind, silent, waiting. Then, in a softer tone Olivia said:

"No, Diana, it is you who are beautiful."

Gregor came in as she finished speaking. The women drew apart. He begged Diana to stay, but she excused herself, pleading a previous engagement. He was taken aback by the chilly manner of her farewell, and looked down from the window as she drove away.

He paced up and down wondering what could have been the gist of this short interview. When, later, he questioned Olivia as to what she thought of Diana, the countess replied laconically:

"I like her."