CHAPTER ONE

Towards the end of July, Diana received the following wire: "Rumour reports Greyhound daily hunts goddess of chase. Scherer." She laughed, then handed her reply to the waiting messenger: "Greater the certainty you will bag both. Wassilko."

She was reclining in a deck chair on the terrace of a white villa. The low roof and walls excluded the view on all sides save that which looked down upon the water. Nine o'clock had just struck, and it was at this early hour that Gregor had taken to coming. On horseback, the journey from the town needed a good hour, and under the most favourable conditions it took half an hour in the motor boat.

"Mary!"

The former nurse had joined Diana here in the early days. She was a native of these parts, and glad indeed was she to be back in the warm south, hoping never again to have to experience the bleakness of a northern clime. Her large, melancholy eyes with the earnest expression habitual to women born in southern lands, gazed forth with satisfaction upon the surrounding landscape. She now hastened to rejoin her mistress.

"Mary, do you see any sign of the boat?"

"Not yet. Here are your letters."

"They've come early."

"The telegraph boy brought them."

Diana drew the coarse linen wrapper about her knees, and sat up. She took her mail with a pout, as if swallowing some unpalatable doctor's stuff. Turning the letters over this way and that, she amused herself for a while trying to guess who the senders might be. Then throwing the others aside, she selected one from the pile because it had the town postmark and a typed address. It looked rather important, as if it might be an official message, something that needed immediate attention. The big quarto sheet bore no signature, merely the typewritten words:

"Be careful of showing your preference before the baron and his wife"

Just that; not even a full stop at the end. Diana had a flutter at her heart as she read the words "your preference" typed by a stranger's hand. Although she knew quite well that her intimacy with Gregor could not possibly remain a secret, she was loath to see a record of it on paper, typed by a fellow mortal's hand, sorted by yet another unknown person, stamped by a third, delivered by a fourth. She pushed the thing into an angle of the chair so that it might not be blown away in one of the sudden gusts of wind which frequently rose from the waters below. Chin in hand, elbow on knee, she gazed out over the shimmering expanse.

"Always this intrusion of the outer world! Always these octopus tentacles outstretched! Hardly had the blue ocean emerged from chaos and spread his great limbs to bask in the sun, sufficient unto himself, content, when ships must come sailing upon his heaving bosom, men must plumb his depths, besprinkle him with buoys, build towering lighthouses, so that in the end there is not one part of his anatomy that has not been discovered and named. When have I ever been left to love in peace? Not in Paris, where we were forced to leave the Hotel Athene and seek seclusion in a little servantless studio on the Montmartre heights. Not at Saint Gingolph, where no tourists visiting the lake of Geneva were ever supposed to come, and where Edmond always wore blue spectacles when he went into Evian so as not to be recognized. Not that time in Scotland when Charlie and I went away to the seaside, and he tried to transform his aristocratic ways and become a simple fisherman. Every time we were tracked down at last. And here are the scandalmongers at their old amusement once more!"

Suddenly she got up, called for her bathing things, slipped into a dark violet swimming suit, flung a white bath cloak about her, and in a trice had reached the little hut which stood on the margin of the water at the foot of the garden surrounding the villa. She climbed to the top of the ladder and dived. Up she came, spluttering to the surface, the head showing a few locks which had escaped from her cap and dripped down her cheeks. With a free, overarm stroke, she swam through a gap in the protective palisading out into the open water. The currents made swimming in these parts rather dangerous even for the best of swimmers, but regardless, she made for an eddy which sparkled in the sun, and swam round it. Now she saw a motor boat coming from mid-stream and making for the landing-stage she had left a moment ago. She knew both the vessel and its helmsman, and swam vigorously towards it. Within a few yards of it she suddenly dived and swam under water until she saw the keel above her. Then up she came again and cried:

"Ware, enemy; torpedo to starboard!"

Gregor, who had seen something suddenly disappear in the water ahead and who guessed whence the attack came, had slowed down to dodge his assailant. Now two brown hands gripped the side of the boat. Throwing her a rope, he exclaimed:

"Clear for action! Fire!"

Glistening and smooth, she pulled herself half out of the water, while he, making full speed ahead, put the boat's nose towards the shore.

"Spoils of war," she laughed. "Surrender!"

"No, no; having no ship, you are my prisoner."

Laughing and teasing, they reached the landing-stage. Throwing the painter to Diana's brown-skinned serving-man who had quickly come down to the waterside as they drew near, Gregor turned to speak to the swimmer, but she was nowhere to be seen, having with youthful alacrity clambered out of the water and made for the hut.

"Good morning, Sir," said Mary, and once more he was grateful to her in that she never called him "Excellency," and never bowed in deference to his rank.

He passed by the table which had been laid for breakfast in the cool twilit hall, and leaned against one of the wooden pillars whose silhouette stood out black against the pale-blue background of waters.

"Have I recaptured my lost youth? She looked no more than a girl in her teens just now. If I ever should divulge the fact that six weeks after I first met her I was confiding all my plans to this woman and relying on her for counsel and advice, I should be laughed out of court. People would say: 'Fancy at your age being led into such folly by the sight of a neat pair of ankles!' Romantic, indeed!"

The sound of naked feet running up the marble steps made him swing around. Diana stood in the doorway muffled in her towel wrap, her hair still damp from her morning dip.

"You are late and I am hungry. So must you be. Come along!"

She made him sit down and pushed dishes of meat and eggs and what not towards him, served him his tea, and scrutinized the figs that lay in a wide dish at the centre of the table. At last she found one to her liking, and, breaking it open, plunged her fine white teeth into its rosy pulp.

"Perfect! Neither too hard nor too soft, those are the best. They should be elastic, cool without and ripe within. What are you smiling at?"

"Like women, in fact!"

"There spoke Gregor the thirty-year-old."

"Yes, I suppose Gregor the greybeard should have said: 'Diana'!"

"No, not that exactly. You know the symbolism attached to this perfect fruit; you know that you grew to maturity slower and in a more natural manner than I, who, maybe, came to know everything too soon and in the end shall probably incur the wrath of the gods."

"Nereid! Were it not that you keep your charms (lately disporting themselves so shamelessly in the sun) hidden away in the folds of that clumsy wrap, I should establish my claim."

Diana had learned his way of giving the pathetic an ambiguous twist, so she let it go at that. He, too, knew his Diana well enough to know that she would never demean herself to fish for a compliment. They both sat eating, and kept their own counsel. At length Gregor broke the silence:

"We always seem to begin at different ends of the stick when we breakfast together. Suppose you pick me out a fig, to finish off with, as perfect as the one you had as an appetizer?"

She felt several of the fruits before she picked out one that satisfied her, one of the smallest in the dish. This she offered him, saying: "Perfect."

He took it, and cut it open.

"You always pronounce that word with a kind of solemnity, much as when I was a young man they came to tell us in the casino: 'Tomorrow His Majesty will be coming.'"

"That's just how I feel about it. The word makes me feel sort of anxious and uneasy."

"Perhaps it is because unconsciously you feel that you yourself are nearer perfection than most," he teased.

"I rarely compare myself with others, except in moments of weakness. I've too good an opinion of myself! But my idea of perfection is so immense, that I must remain humble for ever. That's why I have no desire to write, as you were suggesting lately. No book of mine could ever attain perfection."

"Yes, but doesn't the idea of influencing others attract you? I had that notion once when I dreamt of becoming a great composer."

"Very little, Gregor. I only care to influence those I am fond of and who are worth influencing."

"Is it worth your while this time?" he said banteringly, with a vestige of coquetry in his voice. But at the same instant he was on his feet and had come round to her side of the table. Pulling her chair back, he knelt before her, raising the wrap to her knees and kissing them:

"Is it worth your while this time, in spite of grey hairs and limbs that are no longer as lithe as a young Narcissus's?"

"Gregor," she protested softly, making him get up and sit at the table again.

Somewhat abashed, he changed the subject, and asked abruptly:

"Have you seen that--have you seen young Seeland again?"

"Oh yes, I saw him yesterday."

She spoke calmly, but he made an impatient gesture. There had been a slumbering uneasiness in his mind ever since that day three weeks ago when, on the homeward journey from the temple, in answer to his persistent questioning as to Othello's master she had said: "He was at one time an intimate friend of mine." Now this uneasiness, which had been dormant, sprang up, awake and alert again. He had not wished to intrude upon her privacy, and yet he could not resist asking: "Here?"

"Yes, he came to fetch Othello who had again run away from him."

Silence. Diana watched him. His nostrils quivered slightly, betraying his secret emotions. She laid a hand affectionately on his arm.

"Gregor, he was only here a minute or two, and I did not come down till he was about to drive away."

He looked up and said somewhat nervously:

"Yes, yes, I know, I believe you..."

"Well, and what then?"

"It must have been awfully exciting--for him!"

"Very likely."

"Did he behave--all right?"

"Faultlessly."

"Shake hands?"

"Of course."

"Kiss your hand?"

"Of course not."

"Er--came in the evening?"

"In the forenoon. If he'd come ten minutes earlier you'd have met."

"I must find out from my Austrian colleague when he thinks of utilizing the young man's capabilities in the consular service."

She laughed. He was suddenly silent, pensive. Then, drawing an envelope from an inside pocket he handed it to her.

"Just read that. Ridiculous nonsense!"

Diana spread out the sheet of paper and read: "The countess is betraying the count with Herr Andreas Seeland." The message had been typed.

She looked at him earnestly, trying to fathom his thoughts. His face revealed nothing. With a laugh she said:

"The letter to you is on smaller paper, intimate, more like a letter of condolence. Mine is on a large quarto sheet, altogether more imposing, taking the form of a solemn denunciation."

"You've had a warning too?"

Gregor spoke quickly, with ill-concealed excitement. The thought flashed through his mind that Andreas was courting both these women at once. Intolerable!

"My communication does not relate to him," she answered, reading his thoughts and hoping to tranquillize him.

"To whom, then? To me?"

"I am to be on my guard against the baron," she said, going off to fetch the letter.

The missives were compared, held up to the light, the postmarks on the envelopes examined.

"Differences don't mean anything. It must be the same person... and yet, no..."

"Whom do you think mine is from?"

"Hm. Kopp or the prince. They both dislike the baron and are fond of me. The prince has also a great admiration for you. But my correspondent---- Who can that be?"

"Linnartz, of course."

"I rather fancy it is the baroness."

"Yes, that is even more probable."

"And what do you make of it all?"

He spoke jauntily, but Diana saw that the second letter had upset him more even than the one he had received. She realized that with the receipt of these anonymous warnings the critical stage of Olivia's relationship to Andreas had begun. She knew that it behoved her to walk warily, to do her utmost to calm him down in the new emergency, just as she had lulled to rest his very natural misgivings in respect of Andreas and herself. Casting a disdainful look on the two miscreant papers, she exclaimed emphatically:

"Nonsense!"

Gregor was only waiting for this confirmation of his hopes. The expressive word acted like an elixir upon the gayer elements in his character, and he felt light-hearted again. He rose and thrust the letter back in his pocket.

"Going already?"

"I must. Conference." He embraced her passionately and left.