CHAPTER SIX

Scherer was determined to find out all about her. He knew that Paula Linke was not her real name, and the information bureau to which he applied was soon able to give him further particulars. Her father was a Pole by birth, had been naturalized a German, and had been vice-consul in Macedonia some twenty years ago. Rumour had it that he was a merchant and a dealer in furs. But according to another report he was a savant with private means, and had spent much of his time in exploring out-of-the-way parts of the world. He was now living in England. Diana herself had recently come from Italy, had been engaged in manifold activities, had worked in various institutions, had been a librarian. Her movements were even traced to a riding school in Munich where she had apparently given lessons in horsemanship. Three years ago she had been in this very town for a few months in the company of a certain countess, had been entertained by the Automobile Club, had been a competitor at the regatta, and was supposed to have spent one summer at a country house in Masuria.

Scherer's experience as a man of business had taught him that inquiry agents, when stumped for accurate information, are wont to spin fairy tales. He therefore chose to believe about half of this budget, and it was enough for him to know that the report contained nothing scandalous. As man of the world he exercised the utmost care in regard to his private life, avoiding intimacy with persons whose acquaintance was thrust upon him, and who he considered might be useful to him. He felt amply rewarded when his affairs in this field ran smoothly. On the other hand, as financier, he penetrated into alcoves, private clubs, and bedchambers, for he knew that more money was lost in such places than on the Stock Exchange.

He had been led to make his inquiries because he was possessed of the idea of utilizing Diana's services for a special mission, a mission for which her qualities made her particularly suitable. Every day brought him fresh surprises as to her abilities. He would constantly put her to new tests, would engage her in discussion of the political issues predominant in the countries they were at the moment chiefly concerned with; would ask questions whose answers he himself knew perfectly well; gave answers which he knew to be incorrect. He did not put these tests in any spirit of mockery; indeed, his respect for this woman's intelligence grew from day to day.

At the same time, both were careful to preserve the integrity of their business footing, and their precautions in this were all the greater in proportion as his information assumed a more confidential character. Scherer was pleased to note her aloofness, was delighted with the way in which she deliberately closed all the avenues to a more intimate approach. Yet as man of the world he could not ignore the investigatory gaze of this woman who concealed her inner self behind a veil of silence, while probing him to the core. It was her capacity for judging men and things (a capacity which he felt her exercising in regard to himself with just as fine a penetration as in respect of other personalities) which led him to consolidate his plans.

Yet this man who was bold enough to play with fate, scarcely realized that the magnetic spell of a woman was driving him, all unconscious, into ventures which, though they were not in Eros's realm, might prove no less hazardous in other fields than love.

Diana guessed his plans. She knew that he had big financial interests in the East. So much she had gathered from reports, from letters dealing with company and banking concerns, about which she was occasionally consulted--not always, of course, for she was not Scherer's secretary. "He'll need me down there," she thought, "perhaps he's going to send me...." When, after a while, she realized that he could not dispense with her services, she slipped him into the general machinery of her existence, and started to reckon upon him as a factor in her life, doing so all the more coolly seeing that she was not stirred by him as a man. The days following that night of the opera flowed peacefully by. When she entered her room late on the following day, she found a bunch of white carnations awaiting her. Despite the ill success of his advances, the major could not refrain from celebrating this happy meeting by sending her the loveliest flowers he could find. He was also influenced in his choice by the recollection of all that similar white carnations had meant to him one winter day in a snow-storm. At that time they had been her favourite flowers. His note ran:

"Don't be angry with me. Require of me that I await a sign from you, but do not ask me to take you at your word, for that would rob me of all hope of renewing the most beautiful days of my life. You have fresh conquests to record, the homage of young men and old in the East and in the West. I am turning grey, you saw as much quite clearly when I bent to kiss your lovely hand and that infernal lamp blazed down on me. You are more blooming than ever. I have asked you to share my life and my name. True, my request was bluntly made; I am nothing but a soldier. You have refused me. But I beg you to remember that I shall always look upon myself as your friend. I trust you to give me a chance to be of use to you. Believe me, in any danger that may arise, your unchangeable

"FELIX."

To which she replied:

"Your white carnations are as lovely today as those you gave me years ago. Thank you. I may be leaving before long. It would be nice to take a drive somewhere together. You will be my first thought if ever danger arises.

"DIANA."

As she slipped the note into its envelope and addressed it to him in his new rank, she thought of all the talks they had enjoyed together, talks which had lured him from his humdrum regimental occupations to put his gifts to finer uses, talks which had plucked him from the morass of stereotyped adventures, and, by stimulating his ambition, had led him to more intellectual spheres of activity. "----, Major on the General Staff." Surely that was better than an order, a prize-cup for good horsemanship, or the daily billet-doux in the scented envelope.

Diana loathed the idea of being a "general purveyor of happiness." For her, kindness was not a law unto itself, a regulative principle residing freely within her. Nay, rather, was it apprehended in a lively understanding of things, and was, therefore, easier to lavish upon animals and plants than upon mankind, for in the initial stages of her acquaintance with human beings her combative instinct was invariably aroused. Yet she had ever an urgent inclination towards spurring on to the utmost the individuals with whom she came into contact, and to this task she devoted herself with all the powers of a lively imagination, cultivating it as a fine art.

She glanced from the letter to the flowers and back. Then she smiled as she pondered the reasons for her brother's silence, for he had made no move. Sidney was of an undemonstrative temperament, in absolute contrast to the open-hearted candour of the major. This quality in her brother was an echo of her own character; like her, he was reluctant to show off his knowledge, preferred to withhold at least a portion for his own intimate use, to have reserves in his battle with the world. She knew that he, too, enjoyed observing others while himself remaining unobserved. These cogitations aroused a half-maternal sense of responsibility for Sidney, a feeling that had slumbered in her heart for years since she had first realized all the peril that life held for a man of his disposition. Thinking of him made her wish to find him.

"He must belong to some club or other," she mused. "He could not live without his club! There are four hundred clubs in the telephone book, I'll have to engage a messenger boy to find out the one Sidney belongs to...."

Her inquiry was not successful, and she was left troubled in her mind; for his appearance the other night, his handsome face, his elegance, showed him to be a man of leisure and of means. This seemed to her, in view of his youth, to be full of dangerous possibilities. She must, indeed, find his whereabouts.