CHAPTER ONE

In the opera of _Manon_, the curtain had just been lowered for the second time. Prince Eduard stood in the entry to his box looking quietly down on the disturbed ant-heap below. Yet he hardly saw the people, for his heart was beating a wild response to the drama he had been witnessing; indeed the spirit of adventure was singing within him, in strains wilder by far than those he had just been hearing; a phantasmagoria of freedom and destiny passed to and fro before his mind as it had so often done before; a high tide of emotion, in conspicuous contrast to the habitual state of his feelings, now flooded his being. Ever since boyhood, music had been able to transport him to a brighter world; and when adventure beckoned him, even his hypercritical senses were laid to rest, so that he became nothing more than an eager and simple-hearted auditor. A girl's voice, grave beyond her years, broke in on his meditations:

"But why does Manon give up the poet whom she loves, and why does she let him be arrested by the officer?"

She put the question to her cousin with disingenuous emphasis, for she fancied that, since he invariably gave foolish answers, he must know a very great deal and say much less than he knew.

Eduard, thus suddenly dragged from the world of his fancy into that of his family, was furious at the interruption. The two spheres were such absolutely separate entities that he went from one into the other as through a trap-door. A certain amount of commotion invariably followed. He looked down at the eager face of his cousin, rose slightly on his toes, and said harshly:

"Officer versus poet, cara Matilda? Just imagine the composer of this tragi-comedy as your lover. Then along comes Herbert, in full-dress uniform, death's head on shako, stupendous boots, and all the rest of it--for whom would your heart flutter, eh?"

"Must it be so?" he thought, as he swept his opera glasses round the house. Then he laid them aside. Strange idea, to give a whole evening, once every week, to this naïve cousin of his.... Why did he do it? ... One ought to strike out more for oneself....

Berlin seemed crabbed and confined after his experience among intriguing diplomats in foreign parts. At least they did come within hailing distance of adventure.... But here? ... How constantly his thoughts were travelling to that Balkan world tonight! ... What things were possible down there; what a part women could play in affairs.... Old-time customs, old-time outlooks, had persisted, amid modern refinements and daring ventures; a strange medley of west and east struggling for supremacy in that disintegrated world....

"Do you think she goes to live with her officer?" The voice bored itself into his ears.

"Après minuit," he growled.

She turned away from him in a huff.

Again he was immersed in the tangle of his thoughts. "That will teach her not to ask such silly questions. She's blushed right down her neck and farther, to her utterly uninteresting body beneath her clothes. She's actually gasping for breath! And that's what our race is bred from.... Young cow! ... Ah, me, how was it such an anarchical creature as myself found its way into the lying-in chamber of a princely house?..."

His companion had discovered some friends; she was nodding to them, and insisted that he should bow to them likewise. Now she was happy.

"To find reflections of oneself, always oneself ... that's the idea," he thought, pursing up his lips and whistling his scorn inaudibly down the wind. But Manon--such women, who dance before the chariot of liberty like that groom of old who used to run clearing the way in front of Egyptian equipages.... Always ready to bestow themselves, lavishing their gifts, thoughtless of themselves, unsteady, undisciplined, carried away--redskins of the world of the emotions.... Shafts of freedom shot from sparkling eyes ... where else can one find them except on the stage? ... There was one woman ... yes, that morning.... Then the brown sail of her boat disappeared in the waters near that southern capital ... it seemed to get redder....

An insistent noise startled him from his reverie. It was the call-bell summoning the people back to their seats. Eduard stepped up behind the chair in which his cousin was sitting. He leaned very lightly on the back of it with one hand while with the other he once more swept the auditorium with his glasses before retreating to his corner to listen.

Suddenly he gripped the glasses firmer, his lips twitched; he was like a man who quite unexpectedly finds his dream coming true. He saw some one he knew leaning over the railing of her box. She could only just have come in, for her left foot was still upon the last of the shallow steps leading down to the front of the box. A draught of cold air must be coming through the door at her back, for she pulled her silk wrap closer around her. Her dauntless and radiant profile made her look for all the world like that carving of Nike which had served as a figure-head so many hundred years ago. Even the short hair gave an impression of wind and movement, for the curls trembled above the sun-tanned neck like wavelets breaking against a barque. She wore no gloves, and supported herself on the tips of her fingers as she looked down at the crowd below. At this moment she seemed to be the very embodiment of freedom and youth.

Yes, it was she, it was Diana, appearing thus before him in response to the memories which Manon's voice and destiny had revived. He stood, gazing his fill. He had found what he had not sought but had yearned for, and his feeling gradually passed from surprise to conviction as his dream took on flesh and blood before his very eyes. His first impulse was to go and join her; he raged in his heart at the social convention which decreed that he should stay where he was, at his cousin's side.

Then the lights went out, the magic wand of the conductor was raised, a fresh act began, and Eduard knew that for half an hour he would have to peer through the opalescent twilight trying to discern her box, wondering why she was alone, his brain in a turmoil, his ears assailed by Manon's voice and passion.

He had known for some weeks now that she was in town, and he might very well have looked her up. Yet he had hesitated even to find out where she was living, had contented himself with the hope of meeting her some day by chance in the street, in a concert hall, at the play. Now Manon, behind the footlights, was laughing and loving, betraying her friend in all innocence, weeping over her fault; and it seemed to the young man that he, the third son of a reigning prince, was being drawn into a magic circle wherein he himself, the adventuress on the stage, and the woman over there in the box, were interconnected by imponderable bonds....

In imagination he transferred the singer to the box and Diana to the stage; instantly he felt the freedom and tempo, the love, passion, and youth of Manon to be redoubled; it seemed to him that the orchestra lagged behind the accelerated impetus of the singer.... The fanciful vision disappeared, to be replaced by memories.... Summer months enlivened with her laughter.... A morning when she had wept the death of a friend.... Again he saw those same bronzed features, blooming and fresh.... What strangers they were to one another in spite of the many months of proximity ... not one moment of intimacy during the whole time.... But he had thought of her a great deal, and compared her, always compared her with other people and other things....

The act was nearing its end. He crept noiselessly out of his box so as not to make his cousin aware of his desertion, and when the lights went up and the applause was at its height, he was already by Diana's side.

She did not notice him for a second or two, and his delicacy forbade his forcing himself upon her attention. Indeed, he was reluctant to disturb the picture before him. Unheeding the commotion around her, she sat leaning back in her chair, her elbow resting on the upholstered ledge, her hand curved over ear and temple, her neck, shoulders, and arm silhouetted against a background of lights. She did not seem to belong to this time and to this modern opera house, but must surely be some nymph of ancient days woefully astray!

The moment of ecstatic delight was over. She awoke from her trance, turned round, and became aware of the prince's eyes upon her. Was he intentionally assuming the same pose as on that morning when they had bade farewell to one another? It seemed but yesterday. A shade arose behind him, a shade belonging to the past, belonging to an episode she had lived under his very eyes. With an effort, she dismissed these ghosts of yesteryear, rose to greet him, and stretched her long, virile hand towards him as he stood on the upper step at the back of the box.

"Good evening, Your Highness," she said with formal simplicity.

The words fell on his ears like faraway strains of a violin; they seemed the embodiment of a friendly reserve, of a chaste salutation, as if he and she had certain rights and preferences in common. He had taken her hand and was looking down at it as it lay in his; following up the line of blue veins, his mind became a blank. He forgot to kiss her hand as was the custom, and let it drop, while he stammered somewhat incoherently:

"Thanks, thanks...."

Diana was puzzled. What had become of his habitual savoir-faire? She had expected a witty phrase, a sparkling repartee. What on earth was he thanking her for? She must rise to the occasion and help him out of his embarrassment. Looking up at him with merry, challenging eyes, she said softly:

"How would it be if you ventured the plunge? You are rather high-perched up there!"

He smiled gratefully as he came down the shallow steps towards her.

"Not being successful in running you to earth anywhere else, I thought I might draw the Manon covert!"

"How daintily you dish up your lies! You see, Scherer has told me how long you've been in town."

"Still, for the moment it has the deliciously bitter-sweet flavour of quince ice--or have I just invented the delicacy?"

"For Manon, Prince," she rejoined, taking her seat.

"The wish is there, but I have no hopes! Our worthy forefathers were wont to go behind the scenes when their hearts were captured by the fair. Elopement followed...."

"Mm," commented Diana, crossing her legs, and sticking her hand behind her between the chair and her back in a very boyish attitude. Her voice took on a cutting tone as of a fine whiplash. "She'd smell of make-up, and would hurl a volley of abuse at the manager's head. The stage is all very well for those who, having no courage in their hearts, are willing to buy their dreams."

"And what about us?" asked Eduard incautiously. The words had hardly passed his lips before he regretted having spoken so heedlessly.

Diana frowned, and drew her shawl round her shoulders. She appeared to be withdrawing, isolating herself. That "us" seemed to her an impertinence. Nevertheless, she would treat him indulgently because he was obviously not himself tonight. So she retorted calmly:

"We? I have no idea how you live."

"Outwardly reasonable; inwardly a crusade," he growled.

"To Atlantis?" she queried mockingly.

"To the Holy Land, Mademoiselle."

Again she was nonplussed. Could this really be the man she had known, the man who had always barricaded the approaches to his heart with a thickset hedge of mockery? She opened her shawl a little at the throat with a conciliatory gesture, and as she caught the look in his eyes she suddenly realized what a terribly lonely man he was. Then the thought flashed through her mind that perhaps her image had been with him ever since the day they had parted, and that maybe all he needed to give him back his customary self-possession was a deliberate reference to the past, a thing she had so far avoided. She made the plunge.

"I saw Countess Olivia recently."

"Is she in Berlin?"

"She has been here."

The mention of Olivia's name opened the sluices of memory for them both. They relived those hours which they had experienced together. It was as if some secret they had shared in common had been recalled, sealing a friendship whose roots lay far back in wellnigh forgotten events and tinting it with faintly erotic hues. Diana's thoughts glanced over the twenty-five years of her life; the prince toyed with notions which were a mixture of desire and irony.

Once more the house was filled with the shrill-voiced bell. Eduard drew himself up as though he were a young officer, clapped his heels smartly together, fixed his monocle into his left eye-socket, and said with an affected twang:

"May I, with three compliments prolonged, as the son of a petty caliph, ask you for your Mutabor, or, rather, your 'phone number, so that I may make an appointment? And when may I have the pleasure...?"

"Always," she answered smartly.

But he felt that such a word falling from her lips was too vague; he wanted her to be more precise.

"Always? Does that mean constantly?"

She laughed.

"Always means over and over again! But just now it means away with you, for it will be dark in a minute and then you'll be a prisoner in my cave, and here comes the magician already, knocking at the door."

Many years of training in the conventional civilities now all at once had their way with the young man, and he remembered his obligations to the lady awaiting him in the box opposite; the clockwork inside him automatically set its pace to the tempo of his eighteenth-century ancestors; and just as Diana, somewhat discomfited by his abrupt change of manner, was expecting him to stay, he growled:

"My cousin is expecting me back; not safe for her to be alone in the dark; some one might make advances from a neighbouring box, you know...."

"Please go, then," she said airily, giving her attention to the stage.

He went without saying another word.

"The trees in the forest sing when they are swept by the wind," thought Diana. "When the prince play-acts he betrays himself, and he is for ever play-acting. Then he is like those little negresses who press their arms tightly over their breasts, for he is conscious of the nakedness of his soul.... Why do we always try to hide the best that is in us? ... Ah me, he should choose a little girl like that cousin of his and lead her home to be his bride; it is such as she should be mistress in the halls of his ancestors. That 'cello is playing as if it were the voice of fate...."

The prince opposite was also dreaming.

"Freedom! And were she no more than the beautiful, gay, wise thing she is, she'd be the very essence of freedom! ... Bronze, as if it were still summer and we were in the south.... She is a lady of such high breeding as might arouse the envy of my own folk who have taken years to attain the miserable culture they possess.... Hold her! Hold her, Eduard!"