CHAPTER ELEVEN

The morning light shone down limpid and warm in the courtyard of the Armenian monastery on the island in the lagoon; and as the slanting shadows of column and arch fell athwart the cloistered ways, the shafts and crosses and arches were figured on the marble flooring, creating as it were a second architectural masterpiece.

Two human shadows came to mix their contours with those of the masonry. A tall, black-robed elderly monk was leaning against one of the pillars, and was speaking quietly but earnestly to an old man, likewise clad in black, who was bending his head in order to be on a level with the eyes of his interlocutor, and was listening attentively. Both men had flowing white beards. In the court round which the cloisters were built, there was a little fountain plashing in the sunshine, and on the edge of its basin sat a young woman lazily stroking a great cat which responded with sensual delight to her caresses, arching its back and raising its tail as her hand passed from its neck and down its spine.

All four of these sentient creatures were being penetrated with the sun's rays, and three of them appeared to be so content as to be wholly without a desire of any sort. Only he who had vowed to renounce the world, seemed to be a prey to passionate impulses.

"Even a convent is unable to kill the impulsive force of man," thought Diana, as her eyes travelled from the calm face of her father, to the glossy coat of the animal, now stroked into ecstatic quietude; as she considered her own mood, and then compared these three states of beatific tranquillity with the secret flame which consumed the monk. "Maybe my father only attained his present condition of meditative peace after death had deprived him of his companion. Helena! The name rose from his very heart when he uttered it yesterday. And she died in giving birth to a son whom he never sees...."

The two men separated, and her father turned to seek her out. With infinite precaution, lest she disturb the sleeping cat, she slid down from the basin's rim and crossed the flags to where he stood. As she went, she noticed that the well-tended beds were planted with vegetables, and the aroma of damp earth rose to her nostrils.

"They must have watered the young shoots before the sun got round," she thought, vaguely.

The conversation which the meeting with the monk had interrupted was now resumed as father and daughter paced up and down beneath the Gothic arches.

"As I looked at you both," began Diana, "the layman seemed to be the more spiritual of the two. What had occurred to excite the Armenian?"

"I have known him these twenty years," said the old man, passing his ivory-handled stick into the small of his back and resting his two hands on it at either end. "In those days, when I was engaged on excavation work in Anatolia, he spoke with just the same animation. His people out there are still being harried by the Turks, and he imagines I can pull strings on Armenia's behalf because I occasionally dine at the embassy in London."

"Have you ties out there?"

"I don't keep them up now. But you were in those parts not so long ago, and at cross purposes, it seemed to me."

"Not at cross purposes, Father."

"What about the heart--did you not write to me that...?"

She hung on his arm, saying:

"When will my heart beat a steady rhythm?"

"As soon as it beats slower, Diana," he assured her, looking at her out of friendly eyes, while she clung to him more resolutely than ever.

"When did your heart begin to beat slower, Father?"

"A long while ago."

"How long?"

"When my hair turned white."

"I wish mine were grey," she said, a smile on her lips.

"I have no wish that mine be brown again. I love age. It seems to me like a statue one has dug up out of the ground: more lovely than a new one could ever be, even though a limb should be lacking."

He paused by a capital which had fallen from one of the columns in the cloisters and now lay amid the grass, surrounded by purple iris, looking for all the world as if it had just been shovelled out of the earth and the column to which it belonged lay still beneath the soil.

"What purpose can this old thing serve, I wonder?" He stood contemplating it pensively.

"It will catch the dews from heaven in its convolutions so that birds may come and slake their thirst," answered Diana.

He looked up, and they resumed their walk.

"How charmingly you choose your words," he said after a while. "But my birds are all flown and seek other springs."

"Let me fly free a little longer, spreading my wings over the endless seas that lie beyond this lagoon. Do you hear how the gulls are calling?"

She pulled herself away from his arm as if to get nearer to the waters which lapped round the island's sandy shores. He stood awaiting her pleasure, a smile irradiating his face. He watched her as she took off her wide-brimmed hat and swung it over her arm, while shaking out her curls as if to feel the sea-wind through her locks. Soon, she turned to him again, took his hand in hers, and kissed it.

"Forgive me," she said. "It is barely a day since I left the yacht, and the scream of a seagull fills me with longing. How will the bird fare inland?"

"And what about Sidney?"

"Sidney? Would you not like to have him back with you again?"

"He left of his own accord, two years ago. I cannot put constraint upon grown-up children."

"Is he getting--sufficient money from you?"

"Only a little sum, hardly enough to live even modestly upon, the same I wanted you to have when you decided to fend for yourself. I have no more to give."

"But he needs a great deal."

"He's never written to ask for more. Is he earning nothing? Is he not drawing?"

"He did--a little modelling recently."

"Ah? Caricatures? Animals?"

"No, a figure."

"A man's?"

"No, mine."

The father asked no further. He had an allegorical turn of mind, and the faculty of seeing symbolical meanings in things. He saw his two children before him in fancy, and marvelled at the idea that one of them should serve as the beautiful material for the art of the other. The sense of liberation, which he was invariably aware of when confronted by the work of a master, became associated with this symbolical conception, so that he felt only allegory and form, and that the two were mysteriously intertwined. He lost himself in a series of strange conclusions, wherein a mythical brother wedded his mythical sister; he then returned to his own fatherhood and let his fancy roam on the thought how the mother of these two children (who had always seemed to him the symbol of beauty) was reproduced in the form of Diana, while his own plastic talents had been reincarnated in Sidney's hands. Thus plunged in meditation, the old man strolled along at Diana's side. After a while he seemed to arouse himself as if from slumber, and was about to ask if the modelling had been successful, when he became aware of a quickening in Diana's step, a tall apparition arising in the path, and of greetings exchanged.

Eduard, who had spoken of the San Lazzaro monastery with Diana, and whose thoughts were wholly centred upon her, had come over to the island this morning on the chance of meeting her there. As the father slowly aroused himself from his reverie and observed the cordiality of the encounter between the two young people, it was borne in upon him how far he was removed from the trend of his daughter's destiny. He observed the countenance of the man, suffused with inner happiness, and, guessing all this signified, he turned his eyes away as the two, like a bridal pair, came towards him. Diana introduced the prince, whose bow was deeper than he himself was aware.

"I'm disturbing you, intruding on your morning serenity, I fear," Eduard said hesitantly, and his tone took Diana by surprise, for it had such a boyish ring.

"Certainly not, Your Highness," said the old gentleman. "Diana has been telling me how well you keep the party entertained on board. And to think that on her old father's account she should have had to forgo those pleasures!"

"I have to thank you for your invitation, Herr von Wassilko," and Eduard felt how much more seemly the name sounded when addressed to this white-haired veteran than to the young whipper-snapper in Berlin.

They continued their stroll to the accompaniment of such civilities until they reached a stone bench at the other end of the cloisters. The seat was bathed in sunshine, and the three sat enjoying the warmth. The old man was pleased with the young man's manner, though it seemed a trifle too conventional for his taste, and he asked himself why it was that Diana had singled out this particular member of the yachting party for specially friendly commendation. Diana did not join in the conversation; she was waiting for one of those airy nothings which the prince was wont to indulge in when he talked.

But Eduard was thoroughly enjoying these exchanges. He wanted more of them, and he was delighted when the old gentleman rose to his fly and began to discuss personalities moving in the diplomatic circles of London society. The prince was wholly indifferent to such people as a rule, but he listened now, for the pleasant gossip gave him a sense of security, showed him the social background against which Diana's father moved and had his being. At last he was getting something he had long sought for, the confirmation of his own surmises as to Diana's status and upbringing. Inasmuch as, under stress of the remnant of inherited prejudices which persisted despite all his open-mindedness, he was on the lookout for a uniform in which he could clothe the members of this remarkable family, thereby raising them to his own level--he showed towards this man whose whole demeanour and aspect betokened a rare intelligence, a suavity which his father had never been able to make him exhibit towards his real equals.

"Do you know San Lazzaro, Sir," asked Wassilko, rising and pointing to the monastery buildings. "I fear I am keeping you too long in England when you should be enjoying a glimpse of Armenia."

"I know the place well. Here, too, there is at least one English room."

"Ah, Lord Byron's? Is he a favourite of yours?"

"Now at last," thought Diana, "he will raise his mask."

But the prince was silent. He was asking himself whether Diana, this child of liberty, would ever adapt herself to the laws of his class (at least to the extent of an outward observance of its conventions). In his perplexity, he had been tempted, that morning, to emphasize, before her and her father, his own rank and station. Now, when the name of the English poet cropped up in the air radiant with morning sunlight, he looked past the questioner and Diana, across the glistening waters of the lagoon, and said:

"As a poet I appreciate him greatly. But as a nobleman he seems to me to have been somewhat of a wastrel."

Hardly had he spoken, when Diana realized what was going on within Eduard, and why he separated at this particular moment in time the poet from the nobleman. At the same instant she saw through the whole complicated network of considerations and hesitations in which he had for so long been enmeshed. Nevertheless, she was not going to allow that there was anything amiss in the famous adventurer's conduct; she was on the defensive in his behalf; but her training hindered her from taking up the cudgels by word of mouth until her father had spoken. He, meanwhile, had been tranquilly awaiting the prince's reply and now made ready to answer, beginning with grave formality.

"Sir, your own birth and station would naturally predispose you to consider the nobleman before the poet. But we others, who have no ties either as Englishmen or as noblemen, may be permitted to judge him by his verses, whose beauty even you are willing to concede."

Diana, who had listened in silence while the two men were talking, now seized her opportunity for the defence. "I can see him as he sat at his table in a cell over there in the east wing. He would rise from his stool after hours of toil, for the light of day was fading and he could no longer decipher the words in his Armenian Bible. Approaching the window he would look out, his ear bent towards the town over there, across the lagoon. It must have been in June. He calls his servant, who makes ready the gondola. Byron steps down to the water's edge, indifferent to the little waves which wet his feet. Suddenly, he flings his coat and boots into the boat, plunges into the water, and swims to the town. Dripping, he steps ashore, crosses the Piazzetta, and changes his clothes in the rooms of one of his inamoratas, dances the night through, and returns next morning to the holy fathers to resume his studies and his translation of the sacred text. Yes, indeed, Prince! In such circumstances one may well remain unproductive as a poet--and scandalous as a nobleman!"

Eduard, forgetful of his pose, listened to Diana's tirade with growing appreciation. Her voice, low and melodious at first, had increased in volume as she warmed to her subject, until, at the last, she had flung out the words sharply, turning her shaft against him in a direct attack. He smiled as he said:

"Mademoiselle has sacrificed the poet. Nothing can hinder me now from sacrificing the nobleman."

"You could not venture to speak in that way in England, Diana," commented her father, wishing to pour oil on troubled waters, while he thought: "They must be on very unfriendly terms, I fear."