CHAPTER THREE

Diana read the Bombay agent's letter a second time, slowly, thoughtfully, for the roundabout method of expression the writer had chosen seemed to her most un-English. She wondered if he could be concealing something. Was he trying to ingratiate himself with Scherer, who had big schemes on hand and needed a trustworthy correspondent on the spot, or did he mean by these references of his to "competing plans" to get as much private information as possible from headquarters at Berlin in order to use his knowledge against the firm in the sequel? Such ambiguity in business affairs was not at all to her liking. She must satisfy her mind as to what kind of person this Englishman might be. Opening the index cabinet she selected the man's previous correspondence and stood reading his letters at the window.

Thus it was that Scherer found her, silhouetted against the pale light reflected up from the snow, her face in profile, her dark tailor-made gown contrasting with the white walls of the office. He, too, held a sheet of paper in his hand, and, as he stood for a moment on the threshold, he realized anew the amazing productivity of an association such as theirs. They acted and reacted upon one another, a genuine camaraderie in which the erotic element seemed to have been entirely eliminated.

"Well," she said, not moving from her place. "Am I disturbing you?"

Neither seemed eager to broach the subject of their thoughts. It was not in Scherer's nature to play the chief with his employee by suddenly intruding with a question of his own into the realm of her activity. She, too, was cautious enough not to endanger her position by imparting needless details of information. So, this morning, as was their custom in these daily encounters of theirs, they stood looking at one another in silence, almost like two opponents. The woman was the first to yield. She smiled, dropped the hand which held the letter to her side, and looked at her employer with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. The man always enjoyed these subtle duels of the will, which were fought out in mid air. At last he drew nearer, and, pointing to the paper in his hand, asked:

"Do you happen to remember a certain Said Bey, the timekeeper on the Anatolian railway?"

"Of course. But first you must tell me whether this Henry S. Jackson in Bombay..."

"Who on earth is he?"

"Your future information agent in India. Can one offer the man a higher wage?"

"Why?"

"His references are good, and he seems to be coquetting with your rivals."

"With our rivals?"

"Yes, with yours," she affirmed, for she was ever careful to make it clear that she was no part of the firm, and would therefore never acquiesce in the use of "our" and "we." Scherer was very well aware of her sensitiveness in the matter, and, in order to change the topic, said he would look into the case. He had not come here merely for a talk, though he had used Said Bey as a stalking horse. His respect for her time and intelligence forbade his interrupting her work unnecessarily; but today he had something urgent to discuss, and he was at a loss how to begin. Happily the telephone bell came to the rescue.

"Yes," Diana was saying, "This is she speaking." He guessed at once by her smile and the little exclamations she threw in here and there that the call was a private one, and was making to retire when Diana signed to him to stay. "All right, come Saturday," she cried, hanging the receiver up. Then, turning to Scherer: "It was only Prince Eduard!"

"Ah, I met him last night at Mühlwerth's," said he, going over to the window. He wanted Diana to face the light so that he might see what she was feeling. But she guessed what underlay the manœuvre, and stayed quietly where she was with her back to the light.

"You meet him occasionally?"

"He's been back a couple of weeks."

"And as tall and lanky as ever! He suddenly appeared in my box at the opera the other night--like Hamlet's ghost."

Scherer was none the wiser after this exchange, for Diana was completely mistress of the situation and her words flowed smoothly and easily. He knew that she had met the prince in the Balkans, and it was no feeling of jealousy which prompted him. All he wanted was to keep a friendly eye on her. She knew his motives, and, not wishing to disturb her friend's quiet confidence in her, she indulged this fancy of his. But he was never tired of putting her to the test, of studying her reactions, so now he said:

"By the way there was a stranger in the company, who stood out from among the other guests on account of his sunburn and his leanness. I can't help fancying you would have taken to him, although he's a bit grizzled. It was Franklin, the poet, consul, explorer."

"Is Franklin here?" she exclaimed with lively interest.

"Do you know him?"

"He's the man with the beautiful speaking voice with whom I studied Phœnician glass as a girl in the British Museum, a pupil of my father's. Didn't I ever tell you?"

At such moments he envied her the wealth of her experience, feeling that his own eminently successful career had been too even, too commonplace, too ordinary. Diana, on the contrary, realized how solitary she was. Her employer belonged to a circle of society in which he could meet the Franklins and Prince Eduards at parties and receptions from which she was debarred. She had no social status, no world at her back. True, she was free; but she had no roots anywhere; today here, tomorrow somewhere else, in fresh climes, among new strata of society. Little did either know that each was thus occupied with much the same kind of thoughts.

"Your well is a deep one," he said at last. "Always some fresh surprise is brought up in the bucket!"

She laughed:

"And there you sit on the window sill and imagine I'm going to allow you to fish up whatever you please!"

"Have I ever pried into your affairs?"

"I have always found you the pink of propriety, Herr Scherer."

He thought: "The pity of it! There seems to be a wall between us, a glass wall...."

While she was thinking: "A pity; he is so good, if I had a sister I could not wish her to have a nicer lover. He's a queer fellow. Never a woman in his life...."

She became aware that he was asking politely:

"Would you care to meet Herr Franklin again?"

"Very kind of you, but he'll probably come and look me up of his own accord. How would you like to meet him at my house?"

She had put the question nonchalantly, but Scherer, who was beginning to know her fairly well, detected an undertone of pride in the way she had countered his civility, which placed her on a social level with himself. These mute contests, wherein she sought to rob the man of the world of the advantages he had over a free nature such as hers, were always a delight to Scherer. They had precisely the stimulating effect Diana wished them to have, for from the very first day of their acquaintance she had realized how fruitful her influence might be upon this well-balanced temperament and upon the whole tenor of his purposeful life. Diana acted thus like a ferment upon all who came in contact with her.

Meanwhile the question and counter-question remained unanswered. Seeing Scherer once more cast his eyes on the paper he held, Diana now stepped across to where he stood and said:

"This man, Said Bey, you were asking about, was time-keeper on the railway when I was down there. He led a typically oriental life at Konia, doing absolutely nothing. He was said to be a person of a pious frame of mind, hatching conspiracies with the French consul whose wife was a friend of his...." She was kneeling with one knee on a chair as she spoke, and was see-sawing to and fro. He barely heard what she was saying. His eyes and his thoughts were engrossed in her, hovering between her delicate lips that spoke so calmly and so precisely, and the finely chiselled framework of her body which was brought into relief by the swaying movement of the chair.

An hour later Diana was making her way through the forsaken Tiergarten. Hoar-frost was still upon the trees which spread their boughs aloft in the bluish-white winter sky. Crystalline and airy, motionless but not rigid, they seemed to be caressed by a spirit's breath, a spirit that simultaneously liberated and bound captive; they were sweet and fresh, delivered from the wintry blasts and from their burden of snow, and looked like the product of an uncanny, leafless spring sending forth countless white blossoms. Diana, light of foot and of heart, as cheerful and cold as this enchanted woodland under the pale midday sun, went on her way, smiling to herself. A tiny breeze passed among the branches overhead, scattering a few of the eerie blossoms. Her mood was such that she could not resist the joy of running against the very next tree and shaking it so vigorously that a shower of hoar-frost fell on her, covering her dark clothes with a sprinkle of white. She looked up, like a child, opened her mouth, and tried to catch some of the drops. Then, as she was slapping her cap free, she became aware that she was not alone. Three paces away, leaning on a stick, a man was quietly observing her.

"Oh--have you been here long? How d'you do--how d'you do, Wilhelm!"

A fair young man, long-limbed, and with large eyes that gazed wonderingly on to the world, stood before her. He looked a trifle gawky in his big ulster and wide hat, was evidently shy, had a sad smile, and made no attempt to come nearer as he answered:

"Well, you see I thought perhaps you might be coming through the Tiergarten, and we might meet one another, and so I just came on the chance."

"Come along, we'd better keep on the move or we'll get cold," she said crisply, setting out in quick-march style. "Come on, come on," she teased, beginning to run, "otherwise we'll start dreaming!"

"The wood is dreaming already. What can you do to prevent it?"

He, too, quickened his pace until he was near enough to slip the crook of his walking stick into the belt of her coat and hold her back. Now he became more active and while she pulled and he held firm, he took her hand and pleaded:

"Nice, soft gloves. Do they fit so tight that...?"

"Frozen to my hands," she cried freeing both her hand from his grasp and her belt from his stick. "Fancy giving way to such sentimental wishes in the midst of sunshine and frost!--Well, what have you been doing all this while?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing, as usual," he said, dropping into step at her side. "But last night I saw the most beautiful lute I've ever seen in my life, or, let us say, the second most beautiful, almost as lovely as the one from Pieve di Cadore."

"Tell me all about it. Is it old?"

"Old? Did Luther not flourish somewhere about the seventeenth century? Or was it Old Fritz? You know such a lot. Well, it's a theorbo--about so big, like a bronze covered with patina, its belly like--do you remember that three-cornered seed of some Indian fruit you once showed me?--its belly is like that, and it has a full, rich tone, that has nevertheless a tartness which reminds me of that Burgundy I told you about, and..."

"Is it dear?"

"The price of a castle! Absolutely out of the question even for such a person as yourself--perhaps, if he were very economical for a year, a man in Scherer's position might be able to afford it...."

"Where may it be seen?"

"At my own pet curio-dealer's of course, in the Wilhelm Strasse, where we found those blue Schumann cups, which you gave away after all, and not even to me!"

"What amazing creatures these poets are, to be sure," thought Diana. Last night, at the upper end of the Wilhelm Strasse, dear old Franklin, evening dress and all complete, was one of a company at a ministerial reception, taking a look at the new political world, while at the lower end of the same street Wilhelm was nosing around among dusty lutes--"and yet both are at one and the same time the masters and the servants of their fantasies."

"I tell you what," she said after a pause, "I'll ask you to my house one of these days to meet a man who's just home from Africa. He's a poet, like yourself."

"He'll have some fine tales to tell! Where is he staying? I should love to look him up. Camels! And nigger girls with small, firm breasts! And the native dances! Oh, and, of course, elephants! I should like to go. And what about you?"

"I'd like to harness the pair of you together, give you rein, and let you gallop awhile through the world with me," she cried merrily, shaking a young tree so that he was powdered with frost.

"Diana! You are shaking away their dreams," protested Wilhelm, mopping the damp from his neck.

"I wish I could shake you too, so that one would rise higher and the other fall lower. Don't you understand?"

She kicked the herbage impatiently with the point of her shoe, as he cried half reproachfully:

"Do you mean in the world?"

"No, in the Wilhelm Strasse!"

Now both of them laughed.