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 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 FLORENCE CONVERSE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFL1N AND COMPANY 
 
 , <ambri&0e 
 1897
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY FLORENCE CONVERSE 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 TO MY MOTHER 
 
 THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED 
 
 1782J30
 
 1 The last was a strong-minded monadess, 
 Who dashed amid the infusoria, 
 Danced high and low, and widely spun and dove, 
 Till the dizzy others held their hreath to see." 
 EDWARD ROWLAND SILL.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PRELUDE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 JEANNE, JACQUES, AND JOCELIN 1 
 
 BOOK I 
 "SPINSTERS ALL AND BACHELORS MERRY" 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. A FAMILY COUNCIL, 
 
 II. JACQUES' OWN WAY 
 
 III. THE ARRIVAL . . . . . 
 
 IV. Two OLD MAIDS 
 
 V. JACQUES' SISTER 
 
 VI. ROMA CAMPION CALLS 
 
 VII. SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA .... 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 JEANNE'S WINTER 
 
 I. MATRIMONY SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED . . . 127 
 
 II. THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUR WOMKN . . . 136 
 
 III. THE CARNIVAL 152 
 
 IV. CURTIS BAIRD GIVES A DINNER . . . 169 
 V. BETWEEN FRIENDS 180 
 
 VI. ASH WEDNESDAY 193 
 
 VII. THE COMING OF SPRING . 200
 
 Vill CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK III 
 
 ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP 
 
 I. CURTIS BAIRD'S HAPPY VALLEY . - . 213 
 
 II. CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN 225 
 
 III. JACQUES AND ENID 231 
 
 IV. MORE WOMAN'S RIGHTS 244 
 
 V. JOCELJN AND SYLVIA 254 
 
 VI. DURING THE WEE SMA' HOURS .... 263 
 
 VII. THE DAWN 275 
 
 VIII. JOCELIN GOES FORTH TO CONQUER . . . 284 
 
 BOOK IV 
 
 "MAN, OH, NOT MEN!" 
 
 I. MONSIEUR ADVISES 291 
 
 II. JACQUES' BROTHER 300 
 
 III. SYLVIA BEGINS TO BE SOMEBODY . . . 311 
 
 IV. JOCELIN, SAVIOR! 321 
 
 V. " IF AT FIRST You DON'T SUCCEED " . . 333 
 
 VI. SYLVIA UNDERSTANDS 342 
 
 VII. A BOOK AND A BABY 357 

 
 PRELUDE 
 
 JEANNE, JACQUES, AND JOCELIN
 
 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 PRELUDE 
 
 THE gray clouds drooped above the murky 
 waters of the lake, and there was a listening hush 
 upon all things. Jocelin was singing. Under 
 the bath-house he hung, just above the water; his 
 attitude was Promethean. Only a growing boy 
 could have invented and endured so uncomfort- 
 able and tortuous a posture ; only a growing boy 
 could have twined his arms and legs among the 
 rungs of the bath-house ladder as Jocelin's were 
 twined. They were thin, brown, bare arms and 
 legs, and they hugged the slimy ladder with a 
 serpentine tenacity. Jocelin's head was thrown 
 back as far as the ladder would permit, and his 
 stomach extended forward in inverse ratio, while 
 out of his mouth floated the melody, sweet, pas- 
 sionate, solemn, hushing the air to stillness. It 
 was something from "La Juive," a duet, and 
 Jocelin sang both parts : 
 
 " O ma fille ch^rie, ma fille ch^rie ! " 
 
 The voice thrilled through and through with
 
 4 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 paternal anguish, and Jocelin would be ten 
 years old his next birthday. 
 
 It was not a soprano voice; it was low and 
 brimming with sweet music; and in the heart of 
 every note there was a cry, and Jocelin heard the 
 cry, but could not understand. It was a voice 
 to love, and Jocelin loved it, more than his 
 mother, more than his baby sister and his old 
 colored mammie; more than the beauty of white 
 nights, when there was a silver moon-path wide 
 across the fluttering lake, he loved it. And 
 every one who heard the voice loved it ; already 
 Jocelin had begun to know the intoxication of 
 power; already he had begun to thirst for the 
 mysterious exaltation of moments when his fellow- 
 beings, sitting around him, were as statues, while 
 their souls were gathered, passive, into the hollow 
 of his hand. And Jocelin, when he thought upon 
 those wizard moments afterwards, thought with 
 his lips parted and smiling, and the breath com- 
 ing quickly. 
 
 But to-day he sang to the clouds and the lake. 
 And the bath-house above him sent his voice 
 ringing down and out over the water. He liked 
 to sing under the bath-house, because there was 
 so much vibration. In this hour he had forgot- 
 ten the world and its subtle temptings to ambi- 
 tion, and had lost himself in the delight of his 
 own effort : 
 
 " O ma fille ch^rie, O ma fille ch^rie ! "
 
 PRELUDE 5 
 
 Jocelin's eyes, deep, liquid, brown, were full of 
 a pensive, unseeing sorrow as they gazed into the 
 cloudy distance, and the singing mouth was 
 curved in wistful sadness below the short upper 
 lip. A narrow, long face he had, brown and 
 lean, this was when you stood in front of him. 
 Seen in profile, Jocelin's prominent feature was 
 his nose ; all his other lineaments were swallowed 
 up in this one ; like a blank wall it arose from his 
 face, nay, rather, it was his face, for when, 
 wishing to describe his profile, one had said Joce- 
 lin had a nose, there was nothing more to say. 
 The backward droop of his chin was noticeable 
 later. 
 
 It was an ancestral nose: from generation to 
 generation it had been handed down through the 
 race, and when, finally, it descended upon Joce- 
 lin, neither time nor intermarriage had softened 
 its angles or diminished its size. It was not a 
 hooked nose ; there was nothing Jewish in its con- 
 tour; it was an exaggerated Roman, and sprang 
 forth abruptly, thin and broad as the blade of 
 a carving-knife, between Jocelin's limpid eyes. 
 
 There was a portrait of Jocelin's earliest known 
 ancestor in the parlor of the old house in New 
 Orleans, a portrait in profile of a mass of curled 
 hair from which there protruded a nose. Of 
 course one knew at a glance that the hair was a 
 wig, one of those monstrous objects affected by 
 the courtiers of the "Grand Monarque." But
 
 6 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 that the nose was not likewise an adjunct it took 
 more than a glance to determine. One usually 
 decided the question in this manner : 
 
 "But, if the nose also is false, it must be that 
 the ancestor has been omitted from the picture. 
 Assuredly a serious oversight on the part of the 
 painter." 
 
 Young Jocelin, however, was a living voucher 
 for the reputation of that painter. Only the 
 year before, he had stood beneath the portrait, 
 and, laying two fingers on the side of his nose, 
 had said reflectively : 
 
 "Even now it is almost as large as your own, 
 mon ai'eul." 
 
 It will be observed that Jocelin was French. 
 The first part of the above remark is a transla- 
 tion, Jocelin's knowledge of English being lim- 
 ited, at that time, to such phrases as: "Ow do 
 you do?" and "Mair Kreesmus! " 
 
 The French also was inherited from the an- 
 cestor. There were many things in the life of 
 Jocelin, besides the nose, for which the ancestor 
 was responsible. There was the artistic tempera- 
 ment, for example. The ancestor had written 
 poems, and fairy tales, and masques. Other 
 things also he had done which were not as bene- 
 ficial to the race, but which were included in 
 the inheritance. Jocelin had aristocratic blood in 
 his veins, his mother said. It might easily be 
 imagined.
 
 PRELUDE 7 
 
 There had been a title, too, but evidently it 
 had not possessed the enduring qualities of the 
 remainder of the endowment, for when Jocelin 
 came into the world he came without it. 
 
 The ancestor had written poems and fairy tales ; 
 this Jocelin could never do. The music in him 
 came, not from his brain, but from his lungs and 
 vocal chords ; and every low, sweet note of that 
 strange child-voice was a revealing of the record 
 of those lives, wild, passionate, dissolute, artisti- 
 cally tempered, from which Jocelin's frail, worn- 
 out, young vitality had feebly taken its rise. 
 But although the ancestor had, undoubtedly, much 
 to answer for in regard to the constitutional 
 weaknesses of his young kinsman, justice requires 
 the statement that the boy's mother herself she 
 was not a descendant, being a kindly woman, but 
 of no blood was, to a large extent, accountable 
 for the aggravation of those weaknesses. If she 
 had had a grudge against him, some excuse could 
 be made for her ; but as she adored him, the fact 
 that she reared him in his earliest infancy upon 
 tea and claret is not easily pardoned. 
 
 At the age of two, Jocelin began to go to the 
 opera, and long before he was out of dresses he 
 was a connoisseur in voices and could tell you 
 how different notes ought to be taken, and why 
 such and such a singer failed to create an effect 
 in such and such a melody. To hear his "En- 
 core! encore! bravo!" when the tenor rendered
 
 8 DIANA VICTBIX 
 
 a difficult passage with especially careful art, or 
 to see him wince when the falcon's high notes 
 grew a shade too sharp, was as instructive and 
 entertaining as the opera itself. In the first 
 years of his attendance he sometimes dozed dur- 
 ing the intermissions, if the previous act had not 
 been too exciting; but at the first of the three 
 raps which announced the rising of the curtain 
 he was awake, alert, on his feet, his chin resting 
 upon the velvet rim of the partition which sepa- 
 rated the box from the aisle. It was always a 
 loge grillee, a retired family box, excellent for 
 hearing, and for seeing, too, when the lattice was 
 thrown back, the same box, year after year, 
 till it grew as homelike and familiar to him as 
 the picture of his ancestor. 
 
 This was before his father's death three years 
 ago. Since then, Jocelin had gone but seldom to 
 the opera, and when he did go he sat beside his 
 mother in the parquet and dangled his legs. It 
 was less comfortable, but it made him feel more 
 grown-up, and between the acts he was allowed 
 to go up in the foyer and the corridors. The 
 first time he did this, he peeped into "our box." 
 It was very rude of him, and, being a little 
 French boy, he realized it and said, "Pardon, 
 madame!" in his best manner to the lady who 
 sat there, but he could not help feeling as if she 
 and not he were the intruder. 
 
 This was only one of the changes apparently
 
 PRELUDE 
 
 due to the death of his father. Another, a less 
 important one in the eyes of Jocelin, was the 
 coming of Jeanne. She arrived about three 
 months after his father's departure, and he was 
 told that she was his sister. He took the an- 
 nouncement calmly, until some one said that her 
 appearance on the scene had put his nose out of 
 joint, and then he grasped his ancestral feature 
 and burst into tears, crying: 
 
 "It is already so large that the boys laugh, 
 but to be out of joint as well, oh, what an 
 affliction ! " 
 
 But it came about gradually that, beyond the 
 fact that he found Jeanne a pretty plaything so 
 long as she did not pull his hair, or his nose, 
 she made very little difference in his comfort 
 or discomfort in this world. He had a way of 
 arranging his affairs to suit himself. His own 
 voice consoled him for the loss of the opera, and 
 of late he had discovered that Jeanne, too, could 
 sing, and he found it entertaining to teach her. 
 
 " O ma fille ch^rie, O ma fille ch^rie ! " 
 
 There was a splashing to the right of the bath- 
 house, and presently another boy came walking 
 through the water and stood beside the ladder in 
 silejice, save for his quick breathing. Jocelin 
 made no sign of recognition, but, directing his 
 eyes absently towards the new-comer, continued 
 to sing without a pause.
 
 10 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 The water was very low under the bath-house ; 
 it came just above the boy's knees as he stood 
 there, a sun-browned, glistening, sturdy thing, his 
 legs planted apart, his hands on his hips, his 
 muscular chest heaving. The water trickled 
 down his chin, which was square and firm, and 
 off the end of his straight nose ; drops clung to 
 the long dark lashes which shadowed his keen 
 gray eyes. He tossed his close-cropped head and 
 drew one arm smearingly across his face. He 
 was attentive to the music ; one could see that he 
 enjoyed it healthily. He stared at Jocelin with 
 flattering admiration ; then (so quickly the thought 
 came that his countenance did not change) he put 
 forth his hand and tickled the sole of Jocelin 's 
 bare foot. 
 
 The melody ended with a howl and a French 
 execration. The boy laughed, and Jocelin, rag- 
 ing and writhing, at last freed his insulted limb 
 from the entangling ladder and kicked impa- 
 tiently into the air. 
 
 "I swam from the big wharf," said the boy, 
 also in French, standing at a safe but tantalizing 
 distance and endeavoring to change the subject. 
 
 "Yanhh!" said Jocelin. 
 
 "I could hear you singing as far as that," the 
 boy continued, with a placatory uplifting of his 
 straight black brows. 
 
 "Then why didn't you stay there?" growled 
 Jocelin, sullen but mollified.
 
 PRELUDE 11 
 
 "But you are conceited, yes! " The boy's eye- 
 brows went up this time superciliously. "And 
 you think I came all this way to hear you sing? " 
 
 "I despise you! " said Jocelin. 
 
 "I have some news." 
 
 "Keep it!" 
 
 "It concerns you! " 
 
 "You are a large bag of wind! " 
 
 " I intend to tell you, even if you do not wish 
 to hear it." 
 
 "I shall stop my ears! " Jocelin attempted to 
 suit the action to the word, but the ladder pin- 
 ioned his arms. At best he could close but one 
 ear, for if he freed both arms he must fall. He 
 yelled to drown the offending communication, 
 but the other boy shouted also. They were 
 dreadful words ; each one sounded as loud as the 
 beat of a bass-drum in Jocelin's ears: 
 
 "My father is going to marry your mother." 
 
 "You lie! " shrieked Jocelin. 
 
 "I shall punch your head! " said the boy, get- 
 ting red and sending sparks from his gray eyes. 
 "And I would assuredly do it, if you were not so 
 little and scrawny, and younger than I." 
 
 "Who told you that? " demanded Jocelin. 
 
 "My father, and he does not tell a lie, no, 
 never ! He said, ' My son, I have something of 
 interest to communicate to you, ' and he laid his 
 hand upon my head." The boy laid his own 
 hand upon an imaginary head "descriptively.
 
 12 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "Then he said, ' Madame Castaigne has done me 
 the honor of accepting my addresses ; the wedding 
 will take place in October, after we return to the 
 city. You will be a good son to her, my child ! ' 
 And I replied, ' Yes, my father, ' and moreover 
 I did not cry like a baby." Large tears were 
 streaming down Jocelin's thin cheeks. "I went 
 down to the big wharf and I threw off my clothes 
 and dived over, and I heard you singing; so I 
 said to Antoine, who was fishing, ' You bring 
 my clothes to the Castaigne bath-house in your 
 pirogue ; I shall dress there, ' and I came to tell 
 you." 
 
 The boy used his hands while he spoke, and 
 his gestures gave color to his words, one saw 
 him dive, and wave his farewell to the obliging 
 Antoine. 
 
 "I hear the boat now," he continued, and ran 
 out from under the bath-house, returning pres- 
 ently with a small bundle of blue cottonade and 
 white linen. It was apparent that his clothes 
 consisted of but two garments ; nor could Jocelin 
 boast of more, blue cottonade short trousers 
 and a white shirt with pink speckles in it, un- 
 buttoned at his brown bird-throat. 
 
 "I cannot see why my mother should desire to 
 marry your father," said Jocelin piteously, his 
 face streaked and wet with tears. 
 
 "As for my father, he is a very fine man," 
 said the other vigorously. "I will not deny that
 
 PRELUDE 13 
 
 my taste is not his in the matter of wives. For 
 myself, I prefer a woman who has not quite so 
 markedly the figure of a cotton-bale; but my 
 father is a man of individuality, he does not go 
 by the outside." 
 
 Jocelin's mouth, which had opened aggres- 
 sively at the word "cotton-bale," closed with a 
 baffled expression, and his future relative contin- 
 ued: 
 
 "There will happily now be some one to touch 
 you up on occasion with a peach-tree switch." 
 
 "And if he do I will kill him! " snarled Joce- 
 lin. 
 
 "Snipe! " said the other boy scornfully. 
 
 Jocelin was weeping from helpless rage. 
 " And if I did not know that I must go to bed if 
 I fall in the lake and these trousers are wet, I 
 should come down and tear your face ; but it is 
 not for your sake that I shall go to bed, no! " 
 he shouted vehemently. 
 
 There was a pitter-patter of little feet above 
 on the wharf, and a baby voice called caress- 
 ingly : - 
 
 "Jacques! Jacques!" 
 
 Jocelin still glowered, but the boy with the 
 gray eyes elevated his chin and smiled. 
 
 "What then, my little one?" he called. 
 
 " I have come down the wharf, alone, me ! 
 all the way! " chirped the voice. 
 
 A look of alarm came over the face of Jacques.
 
 14- DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 "And mammie, where, then, is she?" 
 
 "She sleeps! her mouth is open wide, like 
 this ! " A gesture evidently accompanied these 
 words. "It was too tiresome for Jeanne, - 
 Jeanne is here." 
 
 "Jeanne is naughty! " said the boy. "If she 
 had fallen over the edge of the wharf ! She must 
 stay still till Jacques comes." 
 
 "Jeanne is not naughty!" said the voice em- 
 phatically. "Does she not lie even now on her 
 stomach in the middle of the wharf, and the edges 
 are far away?" 
 
 "I shall tell maman, and she will spank you! " 
 said Jocelin sententiously. 
 
 "No, you will not tell maman, and she will 
 not spank her!" This time Jacques' eyebrows 
 were admonitory ; then he smiled pleasantly and 
 advanced towards Jocelin. "And mean while, 
 Jojo, mon frere, as it is necessary that I should 
 mount and put on my clothes, I shall be obliged 
 to climb over you." 
 
 He grasped the sides of the ladder, and, put- 
 ting his foot on the first step, raised himself face 
 to face with the singer and paused ; something 
 in Jocelin 's acquiescent expression made him add 
 before he climbed farther : " And if you bite me 
 I shall assuredly kick some of your teeth down 
 your throat! " 
 
 " I do not wish to have your distasteful flesh in 
 my mouth ! " sneered Jocelin, perjuring himself,
 
 PRELUDE - 15 
 
 but obtaining the last word. And the ascent was 
 accomplished without accident. 
 
 In two minutes the bath-house door slammed 
 and Jacques came out on the wharf. Jeanne 
 was lying there patiently, poking her fingers into 
 the cracks between the planks. He stooped 
 down and lifted her up into his arms easily, for 
 he was twelve years old and strong for his age. 
 
 "Look, then, at thy Jacques, thou mischief!" 
 he said, and she looked, and put her arms around 
 his neck and kissed him lightly on the nose. 
 
 The yellowest yellow hair had Jeanne, and the 
 brownest brown eyes; there was a dimple in her 
 chin, and her nose was tip-tilted. The paternal 
 feature had been entirely expended upon Jocelin, 
 and there was no choice left for Jeanne; she was 
 obliged to derive her nose from her mother's side 
 of the house, such a pretty nose ! Her cheeks 
 were pink and plump, not brown and lean like 
 Jocelin 's. A very puff-ball of a baby, light as 
 a fluff of down. 
 
 "And if Jeanne had fallen down, alone on the 
 wharf, and no Jacques near to kiss the bobo?" 
 said the boy. 
 
 "There are more times than one that Jacques 
 is not near to kiss the bobo," returned Jeanne 
 meditatively. 
 
 Jacques rubbed his hard young cheek against 
 her downy pink one and laughed, and walked 
 down the wharf carrying her.
 
 16 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "But Jacques will be always near hereafter," 
 he said presently, struck with a sudden thought : 
 "Jacques is to be thy brother, mignonne; tell 
 him if thou art not glad? " 
 
 "But no! " said the baby, "Jocelin is my bro- 
 ther. Not more brother! " 
 
 "And Jacques also! " returned the boy. 
 "Why not Jacques, bebe?" 
 
 Her lips quivered, and she flung out one little 
 arm passionately. "Jacques said, ' Jacques is 
 little husband, Jeanne is little wife.' Jocelin is 
 my brother ; is not one enough ? Jacques is not 
 my brother ! Jacques is Jacques ! Not brother ! 
 Not a brother ! Brother naughty, not Jacques 
 naughty! " 
 
 He laughed at her distress and attempted to 
 explain. "It is a thing that is unavoidable, my 
 little one. Listen ! It is not I who do this, it is 
 my father. If he will marry thy mother, what 
 can I do ? the thing is established by law. But 
 what do I say to thee ? Thou canst not compre- 
 hend, eh, little sister?" 
 
 She was in truth sadly bewildered; her brow 
 was puckered, and the tears were gathering in 
 her brown, brown eyes. "Little sister and little 
 wife also? " she said imploringly as the tear- 
 drops fell. 
 
 Jacques' own idea of the limits and possibili- 
 ties of this new relationship was hazy, and his 
 propensity to tease was strong.
 
 PRELUDE 17 
 
 "I fear it would not be considered comme il 
 faut," he replied with exaggerated gravity. "It 
 might be possible if you had a dispensation from 
 the Pope, but well you know the Pope ! 
 Such things are not obtained every day. For 
 me, I am not hopeful." 
 
 This harangue was all Greek to the baby, but 
 she understood that her desire was refused, and 
 she opened her mouth and howled. 
 
 Jacques trudged along steadily, and allowed 
 her to howl. 
 
 "But if it can't be helped, why should you 
 cry?" he said presently in an argumentative tone 
 which was entirely thrown away upon his little 
 comrade, who had lost sight of her grief through 
 her tears and was crying from pure momentum. 
 
 They had reached the end of the wharf. Far- 
 ther down on the beach lay mammie asleep with 
 her head propped on a log. The little wind that 
 comes before a storm had arrived suddenly, and 
 was blowing Jeanne's yellow curls; it brought 
 with it Jocelin's voice from the bath-house, where 
 he was singing again. A look of amazement 
 came over the face of Jacques as he listened. 
 
 "Thy brother is a crocodile!" he said to 
 Jeanne; "he sheds tears for grief, but he was 
 not sorrowful no ! hear him sing ! He does 
 not care. He has no bowels within him; he is 
 nothing but voice." He threw his head back, 
 and his chin was very square. He spoke to him- 
 self this time :
 
 18 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 "I did not shed one tear yet, no! Oh, my 
 father ! you and I, we were sufficient ; why 
 not? That Jocelin! That snipe! I would wish 
 to punch his head ! But if he had my lump in 
 his throat he could not sing, no! " 
 
 The baby's wail, which had died to a whimper, 
 was beginning to reassume its crescendo-forte 
 proportions, but Jacques turned and cried : 
 
 "Tr-r-r-oum, bourn, bourn, it is fate ! " in a tre- 
 mendous voice, with a terrifying Mephistophelian 
 depression of his expressive brows, like the man 
 in the play, and she stopped, reduced to silence 
 through intellectual bewilderment. She contin- 
 ued to stare at him in a dazed, baby fashion as 
 they walked, and he laughed at her blank little 
 countenance; and then the raindrops began to 
 come down, and he ran to the house. 
 
 Jocelin, who would have been quite safe if he 
 had remained under the bath-house, came home 
 instead and was very wet, and was put to bed, 
 because that was the third pair of cottonade 
 trousers he had spoiled that day. 
 
 "Jocelin is thy little brother; I am thy big 
 brother," said Jacques, as he sat on the gallery 
 floor amusing the baby ; but she shook her head 
 solemnly and said, "Jacques not say that! makes 
 Jeanne a bobo in her stomach." 
 
 And when the wedding day came, no one could 
 understand why the little .Jeanne, who was usually 
 so well-behaved and self-possessed, cried very
 
 PE ELUDE 19 
 
 loud in the middle of the ceremony for two min- 
 utes. Nobody knew but Jacques, who was sup- 
 porting her on the back of the pew, and said 
 softly, inspired by a spirit of mischief : 
 
 "Now thou art little sister! It is accom- 
 plished!" 
 
 And Jocelin sang a solo in the organ loft like 
 an angel.
 
 BOOK I 
 
 SPINSTERS ALL AND BACHELORS MERRY 
 
 " What shall arrive with the cycle's change ? 
 A novel grace and a beauty strange. 
 I will make an Eve, be the artist that began her, 
 Shaped her to his mind ! " 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A FAMILY COUNCIL 
 
 MONSIEUR DUMAKAIS sat in his armchair by 
 the window, his hands clasped tensely before him, 
 his sensitive, clear-cut face gray with suppressed 
 emotion, and rigidly blank. He had not, as yet, 
 spoken in the discussion; he had kept the words 
 back between his thin lips and his clenched teeth, 
 they were hard words of rebellion. 
 
 There was just now a lull in the conversation. 
 Jacques had pushed his chair away from the 
 breakfast-table and sunk himself into it, his hands 
 in his trousers' pockets, his head thrust down 
 between his shoulders. He was thinking the 
 matter over intently. Jocelin, long, thin, and 
 languid, flicked bread-crumbs across the table- 
 cloth with sullen indifference. He had the air of 
 one who knows himself a culprit, this Jocelin, 
 but persists in demanding sympathy. Madame 
 Dumarais held the letter in her fat hands close 
 to her fat chins and read it over her spectacles. 
 Behind her stood Jeanne, impatiently twisting 
 from one foot to the other. 
 
 All these things Monsieur Dumarais could not 
 see, but he could feel them, he was blind.
 
 24 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 Jacques slid up into the seat of his chair and 
 turned to his father. 
 
 " Eh bien, mon pere, what is it that 3^011 have 
 to advise in the matter? We have not heard 
 your voice as yet." 
 
 Then Monsieur Dumarais spoke, and his words 
 were a torrent. 
 
 "What should I say? What should I advise? 
 Am I anything, that I should speak? To sit 
 here day after day eating the bread of idleness 
 is not bitterness enough, but I must also be 
 mocked with authority ! My son asks permission 
 to put bread into my mouth. This is what it is 
 to be a man! Were I a woman, I should knit; I 
 might at least be able to deceive myself into 
 thinking that I was not wholly useless and de- 
 pendent. To sit in the dark and listen to the 
 makeshifts which are devised to keep the wolf 
 from the door! To remember that when these 
 eyes could guide these hands, there was no advice 
 in this house, there was my will ! There was 
 then no one who insulted us for charity's sake! : ' 
 
 He paused, shaking in his chair, with beads 
 of perspiration standing out on his ghastly fore- 
 head. Madame cast up her eyes, her hands, her 
 shoulders, silently, in resigned, apologetic pity. 
 Jeanne's eyes widened with fright, and sought 
 Jacques' steady, clean - shaven face with the 
 square, determined chin. 
 
 "It is not an insult, my father,'' said Jacques;
 
 A FAMILY COUNCIL 25 
 
 "it is simply this friend of Jeanne who visited 
 the Chesters last winter and spent an evening 
 here, you will remember. She had a voice like 
 a poll-parrot, but that is not visible in her letter. 
 Of course it is quite clear that she wants her 
 friends to stay here, but that appeals to me in 
 the light of a compliment rather than an insult, 
 you will appreciate my unbounded conceit, my 
 father!" 
 
 Jacques smiled jocosely, and the situation 
 seemed to grow less tense. 
 
 "And, moreover, she is most delicate in her 
 miinuer of not saying so. These things are done 
 every day now. I can see that it will be a relief 
 to her if we take them. She asks if we can sug- 
 gest any French family who would be willing to 
 receive them; and she adds that she would be 
 glad to feel they were coming to us, but she feels 
 that is not to be thought of. It is a most courte- 
 ous letter. She was not to me an interesting 
 woman, and no doubt her friends are stiff, North- 
 ern old maids with cranks ; but it is a most cour- 
 teous letter, notwithstanding. You know, my 
 father, that we have not yet come to want, and 
 it is my joy and privilege to provide for you and 
 111:1111:111 and Jeanne; but I thought, as so much 
 expense had been incurred unavoidably of late," 
 Jocelin's hand shook as he flicked his crumbs, 
 "that it would make maman happier if she had 
 this money all her own in addition. But if you
 
 26 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 prefer that it should not be so, we will not speak 
 of it again." 
 
 "It is now two years that the Bonets have had 
 a boarder, and Monsieur Bonet in good health 
 and having also a fine situation in that rice-mill. 
 No one considers such things these days," ob- 
 served Madame Dumarais in a tone of self -justi- 
 fication. "And the Martineaus, three boarders 
 this year, one of them a child, but I would not 
 take a child, no ! And those girls go everywhere, 
 and who remarks ? And the Barbiers ! Who is 
 it that stands better in the city than the Barbiers ? 
 He was a friend of your papa, Jocelin, Monsieur 
 Barbier. It was only last week Madame Bar- 
 bier said to me, 'We like it, these quiet times; it 
 makes the house a little gay. ' ' 
 
 Madame Dumarais was beginning to feel that 
 every respectable family ought to possess at least 
 one boarder. 
 
 "I do not anticipate that they will be gay, 
 these women," said Jacques sarcastically. 
 "Noisy, doubtless, with that disagreeable, hard 
 voice of the North. But as for gayety! these 
 Northerners do not understand how to enjoy them- 
 selves ; that is an established fact. Ours will be 
 old maids, mournful and cranky, drinking a 
 great deal of tea, and shocked at the sight of the 
 claret on the table." 
 
 "Grand Dieu, seigneur!" exclaimed Jocelin, 
 "and are we then to keep the claret off the table? "
 
 A FAMILY COUNCIL 27 
 
 Madame Dumarais and Jeanne looked help- 
 lessly at Jacques, who replied emphatically : 
 
 "Je dis non! they have come to see a French 
 family. Let them see, let them learn ! We live 
 as we have always lived." 
 
 Madame turned the letter irresolutely in her 
 pudgy fingers and glanced at her husband, who 
 was calm now, but looked discouraged and weary. 
 
 " Only for a little frolic we will take them this 
 winter," faltered madame. "It will not be for 
 always ; we have enough without. But it will be 
 cheerful for Jacques and Jocelin with two young 
 ladies in the house. It will be an education for 
 Jeanne; her English is not what it should be." 
 
 Jacques laughed, and madame blushed and 
 smiled apologetically. 
 
 "Then it is decided!" cried Jeanne with a 
 little skip, and Jacques arose and went over to 
 his father's chair. 
 
 "You will allow maman the pleasure of this 
 little frolic, mon pere," he said caressingly; "you 
 will allow Jeanne to do this kindness for her 
 friend who has written the charming letter? 
 These people who are coming are desirous of 
 dwelling in a family, not a boarding-house. You 
 will allow us to gratify them? If Jeanne and 
 maman were to go away for their health, would 
 not you be the first to demand that they should 
 live with people who could be their friends and 
 could chaperon them?"
 
 28 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 Monsieur Dumarais lifted his face towards the 
 voice of Jacques : 
 
 "I am a proud old man, my son," he said: 
 "proud, and sensitive, and unreasonable. Mon 
 Dieu! what can you expect at my age? Do as 
 you think best. Far be it from me to refuse to 
 shelter two harmless women. It will also be a 
 relief to your mother at times to have money 
 of her own to spend on little extravagancies for 
 which she need be accountable to no one." 
 
 And from this it might be inferred that Mon- 
 sieur Dumarais, although blind, had as keen an 
 insight into the situation as any one present. 
 Madame and Jocelin grew red, and avoided each 
 other's eyes. 
 
 "Go, Jeanne, and write the letter," said 
 Jacques, smiling. "Tell thy friend the poll- 
 parrot that her old maids may come here, and we 
 shall do our best to make the winter agreeable. 
 Go, then! I will take it with me to the post." 
 
 "Me!" exclaimed Jeanne with a gasp of ter- 
 ror; "but I can never do that! A letter in 
 English ! Oh, Jacques ! Why not maman ? Or 
 thou, Jacques, thou? Thou art so fluent with 
 the English, writing letters all day long." 
 
 "Ah, bah! " said Jacques. "And is it to me, 
 this letter, this request? And thou, having been 
 for two years at an English school, thou canst 
 not write a letter?" 
 
 "But, Jacques, yes! a school letter. Never
 
 A FAMILY COUNCIL 29 
 
 to a real person, and this thought makes me 
 afraid." 
 
 Jeanne's face was a picture of childish dis- 
 tress ; she was most unhappy. So Jacques made 
 a great noise in pulling forward a little table and 
 storming about for ink and a pen. And where 
 was Jeanne's best paper, with her monogram 
 upon it, which he gave her on her last birthday? 
 For what was it intended if not for such a mo- 
 ment as this ? And finally he had seated Jeanne 
 at the little table, and she was writing, at his dic- 
 tation, while her heart fluttered, a letter which 
 appeared to her to be a miracle of English. For 
 he was a man of affairs, this marvelous Jacques, 
 and one must speak much that is not French if 
 one would be successful on the Cotton Exchange, 
 even in New Orleans. And Jacques was success- 
 ful. 
 
 " Was there any arrangement about the amount 
 of board?" asked Jocelin in a low tone, pausing 
 beside his mother as he sauntered out of the 
 room. 
 
 "Not yet," she answered, and glanced appre- 
 hensively at the blind man by the window.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 JACQUES' OWN WAY 
 
 JACQUES had always been able to do the thing 
 he wished to do, and he was now twenty-eight 
 years old. One's habits are beginning to toughen 
 and take root at that age. Moreover, it is a long 
 time to be allowed to have one's own way, 
 twenty-eight years. 
 
 If you had intimated to Jacques that he always 
 did as he pleased, he would have laughed good- 
 naturedly, and told you that you were confusing 
 him with Jocelin. But it was not true that Joce- 
 lin always had his own way, and no one knew 
 this better than Jocelin himself. It was because 
 the desires that he was able to satisfy were so 
 often satisfied at the expense of the feelings of 
 other people that he had acquired a reputation 
 for self-indulgence, but there were other desires 
 which remained unsatisfied at the expense of 
 his own feelings. 
 
 Jacques' world was all one color. Having 
 always had his own way, he was entirely uncon- 
 scious of the fact. There had been no change in 
 his life to thrust it upon him, and the only other
 
 JACQUES' OWN WAY 31 
 
 way of becoming aware of it that of observing 
 the play of such contrast in the lives of others 
 was not his way ; his own affairs kept him suffi- 
 ciently occupied. Whether or not he possessed 
 the grace of sacrificing his desires to those of 
 other people is at present beside the question ; no 
 such sacrifice had hitherto been required of him, 
 because all that he had ever wished to do had 
 been so entirely the outcome of rigid common 
 sense, so unquestionably healthful and beneficial 
 for those over whom he had exercised authority, 
 that, even if they wanted to do otherwise, they 
 were ashamed to say so. And almost always 
 when, as sometimes happened with Jocelin, they 
 did otherwise without saying anything about it, 
 they came to grief. 
 
 To some people responsibility is as the breath 
 of life, and this was true of Jacques. There 
 were times when, on being joked by his friends 
 about his latest fancy, he would look grave almost 
 to sadness and reply : 
 
 " Ah ! but you know it would be impossible for 
 me, in my present position, to marry; I could 
 not afford the expense of another family." 
 
 And at such moments he thought it mattered 
 a great deal to him, this virtuous abstention 
 from matrimony, but it didn't. 
 
 Jacques had been at the head of his family 
 ever since he was sixteen, when his father began 
 to lose his eyesight; but he had controlled his
 
 32 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 own affairs for a much longer period, and he had 
 them under excellent control. 
 
 Monsieur Dumarais before his blindness an 
 excellent accountant on a large salary had 
 spent two thirds of his waking hours at his desk, 
 and the remaining third in reading his Paris 
 journals and keeping himself thoroughly in touch 
 with the best French literature of the day; so 
 that his young son, motherless from the age of 
 three, had ample opportunity for developing the 
 energetic obstinacy, and the talent for decisive, 
 practical action, which were to distinguish him 
 in later life. 
 
 He was a bookworm, Monsieur Dumarais. As 
 he leaned against his office-desk, there was always 
 a paper-covered book bulging out of his pocket. 
 When he went to and from his day's work, he 
 held the book in his hand with his forefinger be- 
 tween the leaves, and on certain quiet blocks he 
 read as he walked. In summer he irresolutely 
 stopped to rest in the large square near his house, 
 and here some of the children usually lay in wait 
 to decoy him home, after the second Madame 
 Dumarais, having endured the ruin of several 
 good dinners, had been instructed in his habits 
 by Jacques. He pursued a swift, never-ending 
 journey from literature to ledgers and back again, 
 and one day, somewhere midway in this race 
 from desire to necessity, his weary eyes lagged 
 behind his persistent spirit, lagged farther and
 
 JACQUES* OWN WAY 33 
 
 farther, day by day, until finally they never 
 caught up any more. 
 
 Monsieur Dumarais was very bitter. 
 
 "If I had known that this was to happen, 
 I would never have married again," he said 
 to Jacques. He said it again and again as 
 the years passed; it seemed to be the only atone- 
 ment he could make ; but it embarrassed Jacques, 
 who was wont to say, "Ah, bah! " gruffly, and 
 change the subject. 
 
 Just what had been monsieur's motive in mak- 
 ing this second marriage was never quite clearly 
 defined. There were those on the lake shore, that 
 summer when he made his declaration, who in- 
 sisted that madame had set her cap for him most 
 shamefully, fat, sentimental madame. There 
 were others, more charitable, who said that he had 
 taken a wife for the sake of his little son ; and 
 these usually predicted trouble, affirming that 
 the boy was an independent fellow, and had been 
 left to his own devices too long to be made amena- 
 ble to petticoat government at this late date. 
 
 But the predictions of trouble were not veri- 
 fied. The relations between Jacques and his 
 step-mother were marked from the first by peace 
 and good-nature. Madame Dumarais was not 
 one to make trouble. Nothing could have in- 
 duced her to interfere with the inclinations for 
 good or evil of even the most helpless infant in 
 arms, much less the determined will of a vigor-
 
 34 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 ous twelve-year-old boy like Jacques. Madame's 
 most positive emotion was timidity. There was 
 nothing in life of which she was not just a little 
 afraid, no situation before which she did not 
 quail. Little noises made her white or pink; 
 little alarms deprived her of the power of speech. 
 She was afflicted with a chronic faint-hearted- 
 ness, and every flutter of her mind was made 
 manifest to the public eye through the fatty 
 vibrations of her body. And yet a physician 
 would have been reluctant to label this state as 
 nerves, madame's was a simple organism, akin 
 to that of the jelly-fish. 
 
 When she married Monsieur Dumarais she 
 kissed Jacques on both cheeks, large, sprawly 
 kisses with a great deal of loose sound about 
 them, and then she smiled a frightened, depre- 
 catory smile down into his unsentimental gray 
 eyes. It was a part of the ceremony, and he 
 expected it. If his eyes were alert and keen, it 
 was mere habit, and not because he was studying 
 her. He had finished studying her some time be- 
 fore. He knew she was frightened, and he had 
 expected that, too. He was very well acquainted 
 with this step-mother. 
 
 "She will mend my clothes," he reasoned 
 within himself, "and the clothes of my father 
 and Jocelin and Jeanne. That will be pleasant. 
 But she will never say No. Why? She is 
 afraid, but it is not all fear. She is very soft."
 
 JACQUES' OWN WAY 35 
 
 Farther than this, Jacques' metaphysical specu- 
 lations did not lead him, but this was far enough 
 for all practical emergencies. So he continued 
 to make changes in his winter and summer under- 
 clothing at what seasons suited him best, after 
 his father's marriage, as he had done before. He 
 bathed as many times a day in summer, and 
 studied as many lessons in winter, as he chose, 
 and in both cases his choice was up to the maxi- 
 mum limit. He went to the American Univer- 
 sity rather than the Jesuits' College, because he 
 wished to, and, having started in the preparatory 
 department, his English became as accurate as 
 that of his school-fellows, which is not saying 
 much for it, after all. He studied from love of 
 conquest, from necessity of dominating whatever 
 he attacked, and because 'he was overflowing with 
 energy. 
 
 Energy is not usually considered a Creole trait, 
 but Monsieur Dumarais, although a boy when he 
 came to America, was a Parisian of the Parisians ; 
 and young Jacques, being, as it were, the first 
 stop-cock from the source of supply, set free a 
 flow of energetic power more than sufficient in 
 force and volume to run three step-families of 
 the size of the one already in its way. Fortu- 
 nate Jacques ! to be in at the beginning, where 
 one tingled with the rush and the shock of the 
 tearing stream. Farther away, in the days of 
 the third and fourth generations, perhaps the
 
 36 DIANA VICTBIX 
 
 stream might only percolate. Jocelin, for exam- 
 ple, was a third or fourth generation. He felt 
 no rush and tug of energy, no ! as the slow drops 
 percolated they tickled him, and he liked being 
 tickled ; he only lay the stiller to catch the sensa- 
 tion. But Jacques never stayed still. He was 
 a noisy boy. He had a big Ha-ha! just two 
 great laughs that clapped against each other and 
 set in motion the smaller laughters of everybody 
 else who chanced to be near. When he came in 
 from school, he banged his books down, and 
 shouted out the events of the day with a radiant 
 enjoyment that was infectious ; and when he left 
 school and went to work, he continued to behave 
 in the same effervescent manner, transforming 
 the dinner-table into an impromptu cotton ex- 
 change by the very atmosphere which he brought 
 to it. 
 
 The summer that he was sixteen he worked in 
 a cotton-broker's office as under-clerk and errand- 
 boy. Because he wanted to, of course. 
 
 "But to seek work when one has a vacation, 
 and moreover when the weather is hot!" said 
 Jocelin, eying him with a look of troubled 
 aversion. 
 
 "Why not? " said Jacques. He had no capa- 
 city for lolling around the house, smoking cigar- 
 ettes and strumming the piano ; he was not lan- 
 guid, and too tall for his age, and too thin, like 
 Jocelin. He was compactly built, quick in his
 
 JACQUES 1 OWN WAY 37 
 
 motions as in his speech, actively alive. He 
 enjoyed the Cotton Exchange with a healthy, un- 
 moral ardor; it was a place of action, and action 
 was life to him. 
 
 And then, in the middle of the summer, his 
 father had a fright with his eyes, and there was 
 a lightning flash in Jacques' quick mind which 
 left him quivering with an excitement that was 
 half joy, half fear. He had a sudden luminous 
 foreboding of the responsibility to come, and it 
 made him keen to test his strength, and fright- 
 ened with a terror that is courage. It was never 
 Jacques' way to discuss his motives, to enter 
 into long and satisfactory explanations for doing 
 things; and when he announced in the autumn 
 that he was not going back to the University, it 
 was an announcement pure and simple. 
 
 His step-mother cried, " But, Jacques !" and 
 looked helpless, and his father turned slowly 
 white and said, "Why is this, my son? " said it 
 as if he were afraid of the answer. Monsieur 
 Dumarais had had another fright about his eyes. 
 
 The answer was not alarming. Jacques in- 
 tended to be a business man, and he had gotten 
 a good foothold in his present position. The firm 
 liked him; he was popular with the men around 
 the Exchange ; there was a chance of making his 
 way upward, and such chances were not found 
 every day. He could not see how two more 
 years at the University would help him to be a
 
 38 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 better cotton man. In short, he wanted to do it. 
 Why not? And Monsieur Dumarais, with that 
 sick fear cold within him, dared not bring forth 
 his valid, intellectual arguments against the 
 brisk "Why not?" lest he should discover that 
 Jacques had other reasons at his command. 
 * That was twelve years ago, and to-day Jacques 
 was a man on 'Change, with an interest in the 
 profits of the firm. He was the clever man of 
 the firm, and they did not want to do without 
 him; so they gave him an interest to keep him 
 quiet. He was worth more than they gave, and 
 he knew it; but being unable, through lack of 
 money, to go into business for himself, he was, 
 as he darkly expressed it to Jeanne, lying in wait 
 for a capitalist. And little Jeanne laughed with 
 delight, partly because she thought, from Jacques' 
 eyes, that it was a joke, and any joke of his must 
 of course be more enjoyable than the jokes of 
 other people ; but chiefly she laughed because his 
 mocking eyes were looking into her own, and the 
 words were said to her in a whisper of ironic con- 
 fidence; to her, to her ! Reason enough, surely, 
 for the joy in her heart that sent that pretty 
 laugh to her lips ! But nobody knew less about 
 her heart and its whys and wherefores than 
 Jeanne. 
 
 Jacques' other relatives were more or less pas- 
 sive in their submission to his will, but Jeanne 
 demanded to be ruled. It was an active pleasure
 
 JACQUES' OWN WAY 39 
 
 to her to obey Jacques, and, even though she did 
 his behests with tears in her eyes, there was 
 contentment in her soul. To do the thing that 
 Jacques wished her to do ! truly what higher aim 
 could one desire in life ? When he spoke to her 
 the brown eyes, turned wide to him, seemed seek- 
 ing what? Jeanne? But she did not know how 
 to ask herself questions. And Jacques? did 
 he ask himself any? 
 
 Jacques' will, to those who loved it, was, on 
 the whole, a pleasant one. It took Jeanne away 
 from the French Roman Catholic school when she 
 was fifteen, and sent her up town across Canal 
 Street to an English private school, where, if she 
 did not learn much from her books, her shy, 
 pretty manners gained a certain polish which 
 made their very shyness more fascinating, and 
 contact with American girls gave her confidence, 
 if not accuracy, in speaking English. Jacques' 
 will also kept her from making her debut into 
 society as early as Madame Dumarais had taken 
 it for granted that she should. 
 
 "He has some curious ideas, your brother. 
 He becomes more and more American." And 
 madame was not quite clear in her mind as to 
 whether she meant to express disapproval or the 
 contrary by this remark. It never occurred to 
 her, however, to rebel against the "curious ideas," 
 although and this may seem paradoxical 
 madame was less afraid of this noisy, efficient
 
 40 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 step-son than of any other member of her fam- 
 
 % 
 
 Jeanne did not care about the debut, at least 
 not much. The clothes of course would be enter- 
 taining, but Jacques thought nineteen was young 
 enough for a debutante, and naturally, if Jacques 
 thought so, you know ! This was a year ago. 
 Jeanne was nineteen now and winter had arrived, 
 and doubtless she would be allowed to go to all 
 the balls; for the two old maids were coming, 
 and Jacques had said in the letter that they were 
 to have a pleasant time. Jeanne had never been 
 to a ball; that was another of Jacques' ideas: he 
 said balls were not a place for children, even 
 if the children wore high-necked white muslins 
 and sat all the evening in a loge grillee. But 
 occasionally she had misgivings about these 
 Northern women. 
 
 "Dost thou think, Jacques, that, being old 
 maids, they will have a desire to go to balls?" 
 she questioned doubtfully. 
 
 "They will adore balls," Jacques assured her; 
 "thou dost not know the human nature of an old 
 maid, my child." 
 
 This he said looking up at her as he went 
 downstairs the night of the arrival of the guests. 
 He was going to meet them. 
 
 "Au revoir, bebe!" he called, as he walked 
 along the brick passageway to the door. He 
 was thinking: "There will not be any prettier at
 
 JACQUES' OWN WAY 41 
 
 the balls this year. She is indeed beautiful at 
 times." 
 
 And he mentally reviewed her eyes, her nose, 
 her mouth, the color of her hair and the way it 
 grew upon her forehead, dwelling upon each fea- 
 ture, each attribute, in turn, with critical satis- 
 faction. At Canal Street he quickened his pace 
 to a brisk, swinging walk, and his mind turned 
 to more important matters. 
 
 " I shall do this, I shall do that, I shall 
 do the other." 
 
 This was the tenor of his thoughts as he made 
 his way down towards the river-end of the broad, 
 gay street. Plans, combinations, decisions! 
 Jacques had many on hand, all prospering. 
 
 "These are the things that I shall do." 
 . Shall do! Shall do! There was no "if" 
 among his words. 
 
 Ah, the complacent fatness of a contented 
 mind!
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 JACQUES was thinking intently, while he paced 
 the ill-lighted platform before the waiting-room 
 with unconcerned audibleness. He set his chin 
 more firmly and drew his eyebrows close together. 
 
 The night was clear and mild, as nights so 
 often are in New Orleans in December, and pres- 
 ently the train, which was late, would roll in, 
 past the platform, under the open sky. On other 
 nights, when it rained and the train rolled in just 
 the same, Northern visitors felt that it was a very 
 open sky indeed; and as they groped around 
 sloppily between the tracks, they said unfriendly 
 things about the Southern hospitality that dumped 
 its guests out in the mud at such a time, and let 
 them scurry for shelter as best they might. But 
 in fine weather the soft, traditional weather of 
 the South strangers noted only the blue dark- 
 ness and the stars. This is what they would do 
 to-night. 
 
 Jacques paused beside a lamp and looked at 
 his watch; but this attention to external affairs 
 was purely involuntary, for it was not the coming
 
 THE ARRIVAL 43 
 
 of the maiden ladies which caused that thoughtful 
 wrinkle between his brows. 
 
 Some three weeks before, there had come to 
 the city with a party of railroad magnates a 
 young New Yorker, a man of thirty or there- 
 abouts, dilettante, idle, and overburdened with 
 riches. Through somebody on the Cotton Ex- 
 change to whom he had letters, he met Jacques, 
 and took a fancy to him, following him about in 
 the uneasy fashion common to unoccupied men, 
 taking him off to luncheon, and inventing excuses 
 for delaying him on street corners. When the 
 railroad men went off in their private car, and 
 Jacques found Curtis Baird still loitering about 
 the Cotton Exchange, he felt for this wretchedly 
 wealthy young cynic and philosopher something 
 that was at once envy and pity and contempt. 
 But when Baird had for three days ingeniously 
 turned every subject of conversation into a dis- 
 cussion of Jacques' ability and Jacques' pros- 
 pects, and accompanied this discussion by an 
 undercurrent of comment upon his own devil- 
 may - care attitude and lack of occupation, 
 Jacques' mind emitted a second prophetic flash, 
 similar to the one which had inspired him years 
 before, and aghast, he said within himself : 
 
 "Behold! The capitalist!" 
 
 Then that involuntary muscle of the mind which 
 is the instinct of an honorable man reacted with 
 a jerk, and drew Jacques up sharp on the defen- 
 sive.
 
 44 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "If this misanthrope has anything to say to 
 me, he may say it, but if he thinks I 'm the kind 
 of deadbeat that will assist him to say it " 
 
 Here Jacques' thoughts seethed into an emo- 
 tional desire to kick the man who should so dare 
 to impugn his honor. 
 
 But after another week Mr. Baird, having felt 
 his way with all the ironic distrust and self -con- 
 temptuous alertness of the skeptic, came to the 
 point and made his proposition like a gentleman. 
 Small wonder was it that Jacques had little space 
 in his soul for the contemplation of imaginary 
 old maids. He had had the thing on his mind 
 for two days now, and he had kept it close, even 
 from his father. He had not given his answer, 
 and was not to give it for a month, unless he 
 chose ; but as he walked the platform this evening 
 he was trailing air-castles at every step, busi- 
 ness air-castles, of course, crammed full of cotton- 
 futures. 
 
 And then the train rolled in, and he went 
 down across the tracks, his thoughts one blur for 
 the moment, as happens sometimes when one is 
 compelled to make a sudden readjustment of 
 time and place in dropping from dreams to real- 
 ity. Before this readjustment had taken place, 
 Jacques' automatic centres it must have been 
 his automatic centres, for there was no other 
 reason for his remarkable course of action had 
 carried him across the track and brought him
 
 THE ARRIVAL 45 
 
 to a standstill before two women? Yes, of 
 course! but why these two? He raised his hat 
 to one of them with the same precision which had 
 characterized his previous actions, and said : 
 
 "Miss Spenser, I believe? " And then, having 
 arrived at full consciousness, he was about to 
 add, "Pray pardon me, I have made a mistake ! " 
 when he realized that the lady was saying : 
 
 " This is Mr. Dumarais, is it not ? Miss Ben- 
 nett and I had decided that it must be, when we 
 saw you leave the platform." 
 
 For a moment Jacques was stunned. When 
 he had assumed the responsibility of the bags, 
 and was piloting his companions along Canal 
 Street in search of the proper down-town car, he 
 was obliged to fight down a strong inclination to 
 stand still in the middle of the street and laugh ; 
 but he succeeded in finding the car without mak- 
 ing himself conspicuous, and as they jingled down 
 one of the narrow French thoroughfares he was 
 able to collect himself, and recover to some extent 
 from his astonishment. 
 
 "A mule-car, Sylvia!" said Miss Spenser. 
 "The last time we rode in a mule-car we were in 
 Naples." 
 
 She said it with a reminiscent glow in her 
 voice, and Sylvia, without turning, smiled at her 
 out of the darkness in a sad, preoccupied fashion. 
 There was not any blue nor brown in Sylvia's 
 eyes; they were gray, the color of smoke, almost
 
 46 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 black, soft and dusky behind the shadows of the 
 long dark lashes. Jacques had gray eyes, too, 
 but there was a steel sword -flash in them and 
 a sparkle that was blue. Sylvia's eyes never 
 flashed, but the fire of her soul burned, intense 
 and steady, behind the smoke and through the 
 soft darkness. She had a very still face. Some 
 faces are blank from lack of power to receive im- 
 pressions ; but we do not call them still, although 
 they are immovable. Sylvia's face was quiet 
 with the rapt stillness of constant receptivity. 
 She was pale, too, to-night, from the journey, 
 and her friend involuntarily moved nearer to her 
 and drew the wrap more closely about her throat. 
 
 Jacques made the usual commonplace remarks 
 about journeys and fatigue and the weather, until 
 it was time to jerk the bell-strap and stop the 
 car; and in another minute the three were stand- 
 ing on a narrow, unevenly paved sidewalk in a 
 narrow, dark street, down the centre of which the 
 mule-car leisurely jingled. The houses, huddled 
 close together, some high and some low, made 
 a broken line against the sky down both sides of 
 the street; and the balconies jutting out at irregu- 
 lar intervals, and from irregular heights, over the 
 sidewalk projected quaint masses of black shadow 
 into the already self-evident darkness. 
 
 Jacques stood in a grim, arched doorway, be- 
 fore a dingy, ancient double door, fitting a latch- 
 key into an incongruous modern Yale lock.
 
 THE ARRIVAL 47 
 
 From somewhere above, faint sounds of music 
 came down to them, and as one half of the door 
 swung back and let them into a wide brick pas- 
 sageway, these sounds became more distinct and 
 resolved themselves finally into words : 
 
 "Toujours," sang a man's voice wistfully, and 
 again, "Toujours." 
 
 Some one played a pathetic strain on a piano, 
 and the refrain came again, softly, slowly : 
 
 " Je reve aux ^t^s qui demeurent . . . 
 Toujours." 
 
 Then the piano dreamily. 
 
 Broad steps came down from the inside of the 
 house to a door at one side of the passage. This 
 door was not blank and sullen like the one which 
 opened upon the street; it was light, with panes 
 of glass half way down, and had white curtains 
 behind it, looped back to show the wide, shallow 
 stairs. At the other end of the passage there 
 was an open arch, from which hung a severe iron 
 lamp, and beyond, leaves flickered in the dim 
 lamplight. 
 
 While the piano played, the two women tiptoed 
 down to the arch and Jacques followed them. 
 Standing beneath the lamp, they looked into a 
 courtyard, bricked like the passage, and contain- 
 ing several square parterres raised about a foot 
 from the pavement and neatly inclosed by the 
 bricks. A large water-jar stood in one corner 
 of the court, and the latticed galleries of the
 
 48 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 house inclosed the court on two sides, while the 
 blank walls of other houses, of different heights, 
 shut in the two remaining sides. The light from 
 an open window above the arch was reflected 
 upon the blank wall opposite, and through this 
 window the music came quite clearly now, and 
 the singer was beginning again : 
 
 " Ici-bas les levres effleurent 
 Sans rien laisser de leur velours ; 
 Je reve aux baisers qui demeurent 
 Toujours." 
 
 "Sully Prudhomme! " whispered Enid Spenser 
 excitedly, touching Sylvia. 
 
 "He is a favorite with my father," explained 
 Jacques, also in a whisper. 
 
 "Toujours," sang the voice, thrilling with pas- 
 sionate anticipation. 
 
 "But the music?" murmured Enid, look- 
 ing afar off as she tried to recall the melody. 
 
 "My little sister has composed the music," 
 said Jacques simply. "It is she also who plays. 
 The voice is my brother's." 
 
 " Je reve aux baisers qui demeurent 
 Toujours." 
 
 Then, as they listened once more to the accom- 
 paniment, Jacques gave them the piece of infor- 
 mation which he had been desirous of imparting 
 all along. 
 
 "My father is blind," he said; "will you par- 
 don me if I ask you now to go up to him, and
 
 THE ARRIVAL 49 
 
 speak to him each one in turn as I give him your 
 names? He is able to distinguish by the voice." 
 
 "We shall be only too glad to do so," Enid 
 answered, and Sylvia's eyes were wide with pity 
 as her lips smiled assent. 
 
 They went to the glass doors after that and up 
 the stairs, and the voice sang with a low wail of 
 hunger and hopefulness : 
 
 " Ici-bas tous les homines pleurent 
 Leurs amities ou leurs amours ; 
 Je reve aux couples qui demeurent 
 Toujours." 
 
 Ah, the tears and the longing in the sweet 
 voice ! 
 
 " Tou . . . jours." 
 
 They waited outside the parlor door for the re- 
 frain. Hope was strong in that last line: 
 
 " Je rve aux couples qui demeurent 
 Toujours." 
 
 The room which they entered was large, and 
 full of clumsy dark furniture, whose ancient and 
 harmonious dignity was impertinently modernized 
 by fluffy, dangling, bright-colored tissue-paper 
 balls and flowers, and cheap, home-made tidies. 
 Two or three fine old-fashioned portraits shared 
 the walls with plaques, celluloid Christmas cards, 
 and a colored crayon drawing of a lady and an 
 urn, done by madame in her youth. The carpet, 
 once handsome enough of its kind, with a gigantic 
 medallion pattern woven through it in decided
 
 50 DIANA V1CTRIX 
 
 colors, was worn and mellowed now to a real 
 beauty; and a new and gaudy rug, in scarlet and 
 green, lay before the small open grate. 
 
 Jeanne turned on the piano stool and sat there, 
 round -eyed, staring at the new-comers with all her 
 astonished might as Jacques led them across the 
 room to his step-mother. 
 
 Madame blinked a little at Jacques, and re- 
 garded him for a moment with an absolutely 
 vacant countenance as he spoke to her; then, be- 
 coming aware of the two women beside him, she 
 staggered to her feet in a shaky, jellied fashion, 
 turned several shades of pink, and smiled uncer- 
 tainly, her head on one side. 
 
 Jocelin had moved one, two, slow steps aw r ay 
 from the piano, looking at Sylvia. He seemed 
 unconscious of his movement, but he stopped and 
 watched her. It was as if he walked in his sleep 
 and stood still to see a dream pass by. Fortu- 
 nately she was not looking at him ; she had turned 
 away to where Monsieur Dumarais stood beside 
 his chair, waiting with the embarrassed uncer- 
 tainty of the blind. 
 
 "Miss Spenser, may I present my father?" 
 said Jacques. 
 
 Enid's words came from her lips as if they 
 were the clear strokes of a bell. She had remem- 
 bered that monsieur distinguished by the voice. 
 
 "We are so grateful to you for taking us into 
 your home," she began; "we are so happy to be
 
 THE ARRIVAL 51 
 
 here. We thank you for giving us this pleasure, 
 Mr. Dumarais." 
 
 "The pleasure is ours, mademoiselle," returned 
 the old gentleman with an impressive bow. 
 
 "Miss Bennett, my father," Jacques contin- 
 ued. 
 
 Sylvia came a step nearer to the blind man 
 and hesitated. The room was very quiet for a 
 moment, but at last she said : 
 
 "I also care for Sully Prudhomme, Mr. Du- 
 marais. Will you let me talk with you about 
 him some day? I have with me a little new 
 edition of his poems which it might interest you 
 to to hear about. " 
 
 She had meant to say "see," but she had 
 remembered. Jacques realized, with a start, 
 that he had not heard her voice before, a voice 
 like a long sigh. Jocelin was motionless as one 
 rapt in prayer. 
 
 Monsieur put out his hand with an eager, 
 trembling gesture, and Sylvia laid her own in it 
 and looked at him so that it seemed as if she 
 must compel his sight. 
 
 "It will indeed be a happiness to me, made- 
 moiselle," he said, with great simplicity and 
 sweetness. 
 
 By this time Jeanne had sidled up to Jacques 
 and was ready with her shy greeting, remnants 
 of childlike astonishment still lingering in her 
 wide-open eyes. And then it was Jocelin's turn, 
 but Jocelin only bowed very low.
 
 52 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 A period of stiffness followed, during which 
 Enid and Sylvia sat on one of the rosewood and 
 faded damask sofas and chatted politely, until 
 madame, having interpreted the enigmatic hints 
 conveyed by Jacques' gesticulatory eyebrows, 
 arose with a jump and stammered: 
 
 "You you m-rnust have much fatigue; I 
 weel assist you to your rooms." 
 
 Jeanne assisted them also, and Jocelin went 
 down into the courtyard and paced the alleys 
 between the parterres with a cigarette. 
 
 In his dusky corner Monsieur Dumarais sat 
 with a delightful smile of quizzical amusement 
 upon his lips, and when he heard his son ap- 
 proaching the smile grew veritably mischievous; 
 but he said nothing, and Jacques, standing before 
 him, caught the look and burst out with his big 
 laugh. He and his father were the only ones 
 who saw the joke.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 TWO OLD MAIDS 
 
 ENID always had to spend a long time arrang- 
 ing her hair at night; it was such heavy hair, 
 like a mane, burnished bronze, with a big ripple 
 along its length now and then. Enid was tall 
 and broad and strong ; her skin was smooth ; her 
 flesh was firm; her eyes were brown and clear, 
 with golden lights in them, like the lights in her 
 hair. 
 
 She stood before the mirror to-night, her 
 wrapper falling straight down around her, one 
 arm, half bare, holding a mass of clinging hair 
 above her head. She was a beautiful woman. 
 People always knew at once that she was some- 
 body. It was not her physique that produced 
 this impression; she might have been statuesque 
 and still have remained merely one among many 
 handsome parlor ornaments. It was the large, 
 observant, judicial gaze which distinguished her, 
 the look as of one having authority. Her mo- 
 tions, too, expressed that dignified preoccupation, 
 that complete emancipation from self-conscious- 
 ness, which is sometimes the mark of one who has
 
 54 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 taken a stand in the world and has been recog- 
 nized. 
 
 Enid had touched success, and the manifesta- 
 tion of the glory had not departed from her ; she 
 was as yet clothed in an atmosphere that was 
 radiant. It is a wonderful thing to touch success 
 when one is young, a wonderful thing, but per- 
 ilous, there is so much of life still to be lived 
 afterwards. Enid was twenty-eight, and in these 
 days success is very like a miracle at twenty- 
 eight. It means that he who succeeds is unusu- 
 ally clever, or that, for the moment, the world 
 is unusually appreciative. One trembles a little 
 when the world has sudden fits of appreciative- 
 ness, because it is such a cruel world. 
 
 But Enid did not tremble. She seldom in- 
 dulged in uncomfortable forebodings; her mind 
 was intensely but healthily occupied with a num- 
 ber of important matters, none of which pertained 
 directly to herself. She had a long experience, 
 through her friendship with Sylvia, of the kind 
 of mind that discerns the moral, spiritual, and 
 intellectual pitfalls which lie upon every pathway 
 in life, and she had a tender and loving sympathy 
 for all such minds, but she could not allow her- 
 self the time for speculation of that order. Time 
 was very precious to Enid. Perhaps that was 
 why she had accomplished so much in her short 
 life. Perhaps that was why at twenty -eight she 
 was already a figure of importance in her own 
 community.
 
 TH'O OLD MAIDS 55 
 
 Enid had not written a book, no. Nor yet 
 was she a poet. She was a teacher of History 
 and Social Science, she had several private 
 classes among women, and she gave lectures. It 
 was through the lectures that she had become 
 known. They were brilliant pieces of work, and 
 were received with the enthusiasm which was 
 their due. Her very youth helped her in gaining 
 her audiences. It made the reserved, old-fash- 
 ioned people lenient towards her radicalism, 
 while at the same time it gave fresh impetus to 
 the hopes of the radicals. The best people knew 
 Enid's name now, and scholars, professors, and 
 specialists received her with respect as an equal. 
 Deep down within herself Enid took their homage 
 with the humility and prayerful reverence, and 
 also with the skeptical perception of its value as 
 a vanity of vanities, which are the bulwarks of 
 a large soul ; but it helped her, nevertheless, more 
 than she realized, in the doing of her work. 
 
 Her face was vividly awake as she arranged 
 her hair, and now and then her lips moved un- 
 consciously. Finally she flung back the two long 
 heavy tails which she had been braiding, and 
 stood still as if listening, but everything was 
 quiet; so she lowered the gas and moved across 
 the large, square room to Sylvia's door. 
 
 Sylvia was sitting half dressed and very quiet 
 in an armchair. 
 
 "Didn't I just know it?" said Enid, in tones
 
 56 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 of accusation ; " I said, ' She is sitting there not 
 moving a muscle, and she is tired all to little 
 bits.'' Then, with gentle playfulness, "I wish 
 you would get up and scream and throw things 
 and be violent, Sylvia, when you are tired; it 
 would be such a pleasure to me to have you do 
 that, instead of sitting so abnormally still." 
 
 She flung herself down by the armchair and 
 laid one arm across Sylvia's knee. Sylvia patted 
 the arm indulgently and said, after a moment, in 
 her low, musical monotone : 
 
 "The face of the young man who sang haunts 
 me." 
 
 Enid gave a little gasp. "That I should live 
 to hear you say you were haunted by the face of 
 a man ! " she gurgled indistinctly against her 
 friend's knee; and then, lifting her head, "True! 
 he did have the very largest nose I ever saw." 
 
 Sylvia leaned her head against the back of the 
 chair and laughed, a soft, sudden little laugh. 
 
 "I do not remember his nose," she said. "He 
 was looking straight at me, and he had the sad- 
 dest eyes, as if the world were a hurt to him and 
 he asked the reason why." 
 
 "The world is a hurt to a good many of us," 
 said Enid restlessly. 
 
 Sylvia looked distressed. "I don't believe he 
 meant the same kind of hurt," she said hesitat- 
 ingly. "I I wasn't thinking of that kind 
 when I said it."
 
 TWO OLD MAIDS 57 
 
 "No, dear, I know you weren't, I understood," 
 returned Enid; "only it happened to make me 
 think of that kind of hurt. I didn't mean to 
 pervert your words." 
 
 There was a short silence, and then she said 
 suggestively, "Bed, Sylvia?" 
 
 Sylvia bowed herself over the bronze head at 
 her knee, and there was distress in her sombre 
 eyes. 
 
 "I wonder if I have done right?" she ques- 
 tioned. "Are you sure you do not mind? are 
 you very sure? I have taken you away from 
 your work just when people were beginning to 
 care and to know. Enid, why did you ever say 
 you would come with me?" 
 
 "You know the reason why, and it is the best 
 of all reasons; the most valid, the supreme rea- 
 son. Because I because I wanted to. We 
 have talked this over so fully and so many times. 
 You are tired to-night; that is why you come 
 back to it. Besides, you are not taking me away 
 from it;" she stopped a moment, and her face 
 was fixed and solemn; "nothing ever takes me 
 away from it. You are helping to fit me for it. 
 You are broadening my mind. One gets to 
 thinking that the principles which apply in one's 
 own town apply to the universe, and one grows 
 autocratic and insists upon enforcing them. That 
 is narrow-mindedness and ignorance. I realized 
 it with a shock to-night. I 've come upon an
 
 58 DIANA VICTRIK 
 
 entirely new set of conditions, and I don't 
 exactly tremble for my principles, but I feel 
 much more modest about them than I ever did 
 before. You must regard yourself in the light 
 of a rescuer." 
 
 Enid's eyes laughed, but Sylvia's, which had 
 been scanning her face intently, still looked trou- 
 bled. 
 
 "And, moreover," Enid continued, "I do just 
 luxuriate in all this romance and quaintness. I 
 love doing my hair before an ancient pier-glass, 
 and listening to languid young men sing senti- 
 mental love-songs. It is like reading light litera- 
 ture because one's doctor prescribes it, and I do 
 adore light literature when my conscience allows 
 me to indulge in it." 
 
 Sylvia's face grew even less reassured, and she 
 turned it away absently. Enid went on hastily, 
 feeling the mistake in her own tone. 
 
 " Besides, you know when one is actively work- 
 ing, as I was all last winter and this summer, 
 one doesn't get time to take in new ideas; one 
 works the old ones threadbare; and one is in 
 danger of falling behind the times, and losing 
 one's hold on the cause one has been desiring to 
 support. I know I need time for reflection, and 
 if you had n't carried me off I should never have 
 taken the time. And there are so many things 
 I ought to read. I always feel myself a sham 
 when I think of the way I have been lecturing
 
 TWO OLD MAIDS 59 
 
 on Social Science all winter, and the assurance 
 with which I have expounded my views, and 
 when I realize how little I know and how much 
 I ought to know. It is only because socialistic 
 and social-scientific ideas are new, and very little 
 understood by the world in general, that I have 
 been tolerated at all. But," staring reflectively 
 at the floor, "I do think I know more than most 
 of the people I have lectured to; so perhaps 
 it was excusable in me to talk. And now, 
 when I think of how the bottom of my trunk is 
 lined with fat books ! " Enid paused to bring 
 to her imagination that delightful picture "I 
 rejoice in thinking how wise and well-equipped 
 I shall be when I go back. And then, too, I 
 shall be able to test my principles in this entirely 
 new environment." She twisted a little in order 
 to look into Sylvia's half -averted face. "Have 
 faith, dear; it is all for the best. We should 
 never have come here, if it had not been well to 
 come." 
 
 She was aware, after she had said it, that her 
 last remark was of rather too passive an optimism 
 to bring much comfort to a self -accusing soul. 
 
 Sylvia sighed, the faintest little sigh, and lay 
 back in her chair, and the two sat silent for 
 a while. Enid glanced up questioningly once at 
 the pale, still face above her, and then looked 
 towards the clock upon the mantel-shelf, but put 
 down her head again without saying anything.
 
 60 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "Go to bed, dear," said Sylvia at last; "it is 
 getting late. I am not ready to sleep quite yet, 
 truly. Don't insist upon it. All this newness 
 of place and people has waked me up. But I 
 shall not sit up much longer. I promise." 
 
 "I shall do your hair first," replied Enid, get- 
 ting up. 
 
 "Ah, no!" Sylvia cried. "Please not. I 
 did not bring you here to be a maid and to wait 
 upon me." 
 
 "No, you were wise not to," returned Enid: 
 "you would have had to discharge me within a 
 week for insubordination;" and she selected the 
 brush and comb from among the toilet articles on 
 the bureau and advanced towards the back of the 
 armchair, brandishing them with determination. 
 
 "You humiliate me when you perform these 
 menial services for me," protested Sylvia, with 
 a final attempt at displeasure. 
 
 "You humiliate me when you talk about 
 menial services," replied Enid with mocking 
 gravity; "I should think you ought to have de- 
 rived more profit from my socialistic instruction." 
 
 She passed the comb through Sylvia's dark, 
 soft hair, and one or two downy rings fell back 
 again upon the transparent forehead, veined blue 
 at the temples. 
 
 "Now," she continued, "I am going to brush 
 out all the hauntings of that large-nosed young 
 man. This is no time of night for him to be
 
 TWO OLD MAIDS 61 
 
 around here puzzling you with his personality. 
 As for the look in his eyes, I don't believe it 
 goes back any farther than the retina; but I will 
 make one concession, he can sing ! I do not 
 think I ever heard quite such a voice. It was 
 not powerful, but how sweet ! And did you hear 
 the wail in it, or rather under it? " 
 
 Sylvia did not answer, and Enid, accustomed 
 to her silences, went on : -r- 
 
 " He did not say one word, but the other young 
 man was quite a chatterer, wasn't he? And 
 such good English! not a bit of an accent; and 
 such a nice, hearty voice ! I liked him, he seemed 
 so sensible. And did you notice how affectionate 
 he was with the pretty sister? He looked so 
 proud when he introduced her. The idea of a 
 child like that making such music ! She must be 
 a genius. Oh, Sylvia, I am glad we are here! 
 And it will be a very good place for accomplish- 
 ing all the reading I ought to do, and you know 
 I want to write that article for the ' North Ameri- 
 can.' Shall I braid it in one braid to-night? 
 Yes, I think I will." 
 
 Enid glanced at the clock as she talked. 
 
 "I shouldn't be a bit surprised if we were the 
 last ones up in this house," she resumed, after 
 she had separated the hair into three strands. 
 "At any rate, I am certain that Madame Du- 
 marais is fast asleep. Did you see how funny 
 she looked, and how bewildered, when her son
 
 62 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 introduced us? I know she had been napping 
 all through that lovely ballad. I saw the young 
 singer down in the courtyard awhile ago. I went 
 out on the piazza to explore. Did you know that 
 our rooms opened out on a broad piazza inclosed 
 by blinds? Well, they do. Madame Dumarais 
 spoke of it as a gallery, and it is just that. I 
 peeped through the shutters and saw the young 
 man down in the courtyard. He was smoking 
 a cigarette. I know that will be a disappoint- 
 ment to you." 
 
 "How do you know it was not the other one?" 
 asked Sylvia, looking amused. 
 
 "Because he stood near the arch, and the 
 shadow of his nose was on the wall. It was un- 
 mistakable." 
 
 They both laughed in a subdued fashion, and 
 Enid put the brush and comb back on the bureau. 
 
 " I shall give you ten minutes for your prayers, 
 no longer!" she said; "and then I am coming 
 back, and you are going to lie down in that bed, 
 and the light is going to be put out." 
 
 When she returned to carry out her intentions, 
 Sylvia was already lying among the pillows. 
 
 "I think I shall go to sleep in a little while 
 now," she said. "You really do like it here, 
 don't you, Enid? And you think you can work 
 well, don't you? If I thought I was keeping 
 you from working, I should not let you stay one 
 moment. It is wrong enough to be useless in
 
 TWO OLD MAIDS 63 
 
 the world one's self; but if I thought I were com- 
 mitting the crime of keeping you from living, 
 too, Enid?" 
 
 But Enid had her arms about her, and was 
 saying a great many things very softly in the 
 dark.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 JACQUES' SISTER 
 
 "THIS is my winter!" Jeanne had said one 
 morning at the breakfast-table, as she opened the 
 invitation to her first dancing-party; and after- 
 wards, when the Dumarais and their Northern 
 visitors looked back, they always called the time 
 "Jeanne's winter," and they remembered Jeanne 
 as she flitted through it, ecstatic, startled, deli- 
 cately lovely. 
 
 When the shyness had worn off, as much as 
 Jeanne's shyness ever did wear off, she used 
 to run in often upon Enid and Sylvia, crying : 
 
 " Here is another invitation ! That makes the 
 third this morning! It is a tea. Jacques is go- 
 ing to get me a book for my engagements. Will 
 it not be a joke? Veritably, grande dame! " 
 
 Or there would be a smothered knock, and she 
 would tumble into the room with her arms full of 
 half -unwrapped fluffiness and ribbons. 
 
 "See! for the german! And there are to be 
 slippers to match, but they have not arrived. 
 You shall see them." 
 
 And perhaps madame had followed her and
 
 JACQUES' SISTER 65 
 
 would remain standing in the doorway, swaying 
 like an elephant. Now madame, who had no 
 taste whatever in decorating her house, was with- 
 out reproach where the dressing of her daughter 
 was concerned; and Jacques, with his usual com- 
 mon sense, saw it, and in this one matter ac- 
 corded her complete authority. No other act of 
 forbearance on his part could have so stirred the 
 depths of his step-mother's affection, but this 
 one aroused in her pathetically humble soul some- 
 thing that was almost adoration. During that 
 winter, madame experienced more of heaven upon 
 earth than is permitted to most people. She 
 ruminated at shop windows and she pored over 
 fashion-books. Enid and Sylvia did not get very 
 well acquainted with her, nobody ever did get 
 very well acquainted with madame. 
 
 "The real festivities do not begin until after 
 Christmas, you know," Jeanne had explained 
 gravely to Enid one day soon after the arrival 
 of the two women. Enid was sitting in Sylvia's 
 room with one of the fat books on her knees, and 
 Sylvia was lying on the lounge. They had come 
 in from a short walk among the narrow French 
 streets. The weather was close and damp, and 
 there was no sunlight in the square, plain room. 
 Sylvia was as white and apathetic as the day itself. 
 
 "Do you like balls? " asked Jeanne anxiously. 
 She sat at the foot of the bed, with her arms 
 twined upward about one of the posts and her
 
 66 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 head inquiringly sidewise. One foot dangled back 
 and forth. 
 
 Sylvia looked at Enid with an amused smile, 
 and Enid laughed as if something were a joke, 
 and said : 
 
 "Oh, of course! We adore them! " 
 
 Jeanne felt reassured. "Jacques said you 
 would adore them," she announced with a sigh of 
 satisfaction. 
 
 "Your brother is evidently very wise about 
 women," returned Enid, but the irony in her 
 tone was lost upon the little French girl. 
 
 "Jacques is not my brother," she said; "Joce- 
 lin is my brother. Monsieur Dumarais, my 
 father, married maman when I was a very little 
 girl. My name is Castaigne." 
 
 She was not aware of any inconsistency or lack 
 of clearness in her explanation, but Enid turned 
 the words over in her mind a moment before she 
 said : 
 
 "Ah!" and then, "but he is just like a bro- 
 ther to you, after all, a very nice brother." 
 
 "That is what every one says," Jeanne agreed 
 quietly, "but I have not been able to observe 
 that it is true." 
 
 Enid's eyes met Sylvia's in a seemingly absent 
 manner. Jeanne swung her foot, and watched 
 the two friends with the direct, meditative gaze 
 of a child. 
 
 "Come over here by me, Jeanne," said Sylvia
 
 JACQUES' SISTER 67 
 
 after a pause. "I am going to call you Jeanne, 
 if you will let me ; it is such a pretty name, I 
 like to say it." 
 
 "Oh, pray! I shall be charmed!" cried 
 Jeanne, blushing; and she came and sat down 
 beside the lounge. 
 
 "Tell me," Sylvia continued, "did you make 
 the little song I heard you singing this morn- 
 ing?" 
 
 "Which one?" asked Jeanne, "this?" She 
 hummed the words and the melody under her 
 breath : 
 
 " Vous d^sirez savoir de moi 
 D'ou me vient pour vous ma tendresse ; 
 
 Je vous aime, voici pourquoi : 
 Vous ressemblez a ma jeunesse." 
 
 "That one? Yes, I did the music, but it is 
 Sully Prudhomme again. It is a song that 
 Jacques likes." 
 
 " Will you let me see the music of your songs 
 some day?" asked Sylvia. 
 
 "See it?" Jeanne repeated. "But there is 
 nothing to see ! " 
 
 "The notes, I mean. I should like to see how 
 you do it. I have never known any one before 
 who wrote music." 
 
 "Oh!" said Jeanne, and she laughed. "But 
 I never write it! I only play it on the piano 
 and sing it as it comes out. How funny that 
 you thought I wrote it! "
 
 68 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "But, child," gasped Enid, laying the fat book 
 face down on her knee, "you must write it! 
 Why, what are you thinking of ? " 
 
 Jeanne looked bewildered. "It is not neces- 
 sary," she explained; "Jocelin learns them in a 
 short while as I play, and I know them already. 
 They remain." 
 
 "But only think," said Sylvia, "how many 
 other people might hear them and love them, and 
 sing them too, if you would write them down." 
 
 "But I do not know how to do that," Jeanne 
 replied, "and it is just as well, after all, for Joce- 
 lin does not care to have other people sing his 
 songs." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me that, with all those 
 music -thoughts stirring in your brain, you have 
 lived for nineteen years and never wanted to 
 make people listen to them? " said Enid. "Does 
 not something cry out within you, ' Come, hear 
 me'?" 
 
 "I do not know what you mean," said Jeanne, 
 without enthusiasm. 
 
 If she had been a stone wall, she could not 
 have proved more stubborn, more inelastic upon 
 encounter; and yet there she sat, poised as 
 lightly as a flower, courteously, uninterestedly ex- 
 pectant. The baby yellowness had never faded 
 from her hair; her eyes were brownest brown, 
 just as they used to be; but she had grown tall, 
 and was made up of long, youthful curves.
 
 JACQUES' SISTEE 69 
 
 Enid, not yet recovered from the shock of the 
 stone wall, stared at this slender, flexile creature. 
 Sylvia, too, had risen on her elbow. All the 
 inherent and trained New Englandism in the two 
 women stood forth amazed, outraged. To their 
 two minds, that, in however widely different 
 ways, were used to hoard and husband every 
 talent jealously, were used to work their little 
 allotments of appointed or mistaken vocation 
 with never-flagging conscientiousness, harvesting 
 rocks in fortitude and patience year after year, 
 this light dallying with a great gift was incom- 
 prehensible, this irresponsible laziness seemed a 
 crime. 
 
 "Don't you know what ambition is?" asked 
 Enid, when she had found her voice. 
 
 Jeanne pursed up her lips thoughtfully. She 
 had been thinking of something else, and it was 
 difficult to remember the connection of this ques- 
 tion with what had gone before. 
 
 "Jacques is ambitious," she replied; "he has 
 told me so." 
 
 Enid felt baffled, but she leaned forward and 
 took the girl's hand in her own. 
 
 "Look at me. Say this to yourself now, if 
 you have never said it before, which seems in- 
 credible to me. Say this : ' I can write songs, 
 I can make music if I will, I can do what the 
 great masters have done, I can create melody. 
 Some day all the world shall listen when my
 
 70 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 thoughts speak, shall listen as it does to the great 
 ones. I will make it listen ! ' Dream ! dream 
 it, child, if you cannot reason ! Say to yourself, 
 ' If it might be that, after I am dead long years, 
 my name, like theirs, shall bring a glow to the 
 heart of every man who hears it ! ' You do not 
 know how to praise God till you have thought 
 such things." 
 
 "It is through such stirrings, too, such know- 
 ledge of greatness, that God teaches us humility," 
 murmured Sylvia; "the one awakens the other. 
 It is strange that it should be so." 
 
 "The one ought to awaken the other ; I be- 
 lieve it was meant to," assented Enid; "but I 
 do not think it always does, at least, history 
 does not show that it does." 
 
 They were silent, letting their thoughts travel 
 along this side issue; but Jeanne brought them 
 back to the subject in hand. 
 
 "I do not understand why you expect me to 
 take pleasure in thinking about after I am dead," 
 she questioned. " I really should not take pleas- 
 ure in it. How could I ? " 
 
 Enid laughed in spite of herself. "Think, 
 then, of the joy of living and creating beautiful 
 melody ! You played something the other night, 
 Jeanne, that might have been part of an Orato- 
 rio. Think what it means to be given the right 
 to consecrate your life to the perfecting of a great 
 art! Don't you want to do that? "
 
 JACQUES 1 SISTEE 71 
 
 "I do not find it attractive," said Jeanne apol- 
 ogetically; "but I do not doubt that it might be 
 so for any one who liked it," she added with elab- 
 orate politeness. 
 
 Nobody seemed to be able to say anything for 
 some time after this. Enid bent the leaves of 
 her book abstractedly, and Sylvia lay with her 
 eyes closed. It is to be doubted whether, five 
 years later, Enid could have taken the trouble to 
 make this appeal to Jeanne's ambition; she 
 might have learned by that time to be skeptical 
 of genius, and ambition, too. But, as yet, she 
 and Sylvia and Jeanne were all young together, 
 after their various fashions. These Northerners 
 were college-bred, and a college woman is invari- 
 ably younger than other women of her own age. 
 She has been accorded four years more of experi- 
 ment, of freedom from responsibility, in a 
 word, of girlhood. She has not been surprised 
 into matrimony, nor huddled out upon the thick 
 of the struggle for existence. She enters the 
 battle armed with a maturity of power and a 
 naivete of inexperience which make her curiously 
 valiant and impetuous. 
 
 A ray of sunshine came through the gallery 
 shutters and lay, barred and wintry pale, upon the 
 threshold of the open door. Down in the court- 
 yard madame's mocking-bird whistled. Sylvia 
 opened her eyes and smiled at Jeanne. 
 
 "I have remained too long," said Jeanne tim-
 
 72 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 idly; "I have wearied you by talking. You 
 should have sent me away." 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed!" said Sylvia reassuringly. 
 "I love to have you. Do not go." 
 
 But Jeanne was not to be persuaded. As she 
 went along the gallery she sang the last stanza of 
 the song Jacques liked : 
 
 " Je vous tends chaque jour la main, 
 Vous offrant 1'amour qui m'oppresse, 
 
 Mais vous passez votre chemin, 
 Vous ressemblez a ma jeunesse." 
 
 Enid got up and walked around the room. 
 She moved with a slow, swinging step, and yet 
 softly, and she picked up and set down the small 
 objects on the mantel-shelf and bureau in a rest- 
 less manner that belied the deliberation of her 
 tread. 
 
 "I could not have believed such a thing possi- 
 ble," she said at last. "I did not know talent 
 ever came without also the desire to perfect its 
 expression. Her music is exquisite, and she has 
 no more care for it than if it were a tin trumpet." 
 
 "It is something to be released from the de- 
 sire," said Sylvia huskily; "never to want, and 
 want, at the same time doing nothing." 
 
 "I do not believe that there is release from the 
 desire," said Enid gravely ; "one must be born 
 without it, otherwise it remains." She stood 
 beside the lounge and looked down. "When 
 you are well, you will no longer do nothing."
 
 JACQUES' SISTER 73 
 
 "Shall I not?" whispered Sylvia. "What is 
 * well ' ? Something is wrong with me, for I 
 have never known." 
 
 This was a mood that Enid had schooled her- 
 self to endure, but a look of discouragement 
 crossed her face as she pushed a chair to the side 
 of the lounge and sat down. 
 
 "Sylvia," she began gently, "don't you think 
 it is a little foolish in you to talk about never 
 having done things, when you have gone through 
 four years of college life and taken your degree? " 
 
 "And how?" asked Sylvia, with a choke in 
 her voice. "Dragging constantly along the edge 
 of a breakdown. Never ready with a paper when 
 it was due, always asking longer time, always 
 leaving a thing with a sense that it was unfin- 
 ished, because I could see how much better it 
 would have been if I had done it another way; 
 at the end, just catching at the vanishing edges 
 of that degree. How they ever gave it to me 
 1 can't imagine ! I always feel ashamed to own 
 it. It was because I was so young then that the 
 mere fact of staying there gave me hope. Was 
 it fair to lure me on by such a miserable half- 
 achievement and then drop me flat, doing no- 
 thing? Sometimes I get to the point where I 
 can't sentimentalize over divine Love and Justice 
 any longer. I trust it is an occasional relief to 
 God. If you want to comfort me, Enid, don't 
 bring back those weary college days."
 
 74 DIANA V1CTRIX 
 
 "Oh, Sylvia!" said Enid; "Oh, Sylvia!" 
 
 "No, dear, no! I did not mean just that. I 
 did not mean the part that belongs to you, to 
 you and me. I forgot! It is the happiest time 
 in my life when I look back." 
 
 Sylvia laughed tearfully at her own inconsis- 
 tency, and Enid smiled. 
 
 "Then we won't consider college an achieve- 
 ment," she said; "we'll consider all the money 
 you 've spent on me and my schemes since you 've 
 known me. It seems to me most people would 
 regard the establishment of a creche by day and 
 a reading-room by night as something of an 
 achievement. And think of the deserving and 
 undeserving poor that I have trailed up to your 
 door to receive food and five-dollar bills! " 
 
 "No! don't make me think of that!" whis- 
 pered Sylvia. "The activity of other people 
 presses on me like a mountain sometimes and 
 stifles me. It was none of my doing, all that; it 
 was yours, and you know it. The world is so 
 busy, and watching it drains away my power to 
 do anything." 
 
 Enid felt desperate. The doctors had said of 
 Sylvia: "There is no organic disease. Take her 
 to an entirely new environment. Try to rouse 
 her out of her timidity and irresolution without 
 making her conscious that she is being roused." 
 But that was the difficulty. Sylvia's mind was 
 discouragingly wide awake and suspicious; she
 
 JACQUES' SISTER 75 
 
 always divined when you were trying to approach 
 her off her mental guard. This abnormal sensi- 
 tiveness, which was in the beginning one of the 
 causes of her nervous prostration, was also, in its 
 aggravated form, a result of the disease and 
 complicated the cure. 
 
 "Get her interested in something without let- 
 ting her know it," the doctors said. "Get her 
 outside of her own mind. If she could think 
 without considering the fact that she was think- 
 ing, she would be on the road to recovery." 
 
 And Enid left her lectures and classes, resigned 
 from her committees, gave up her scheme of 
 spending the winter in a model tenement, and 
 came, as Sylvia's guest, to New Orleans. She 
 had an unsatisfied theory that friendship must 
 work regeneration ; she did not call it regenera- 
 tion when she thought of it, because she would 
 never have acknowledged, even to herself, that 
 Sylvia needed regenerating, but that was what 
 her theory meant to her. And, watching the 
 invalid day after day, her heart ached as she re- 
 cognized that even the strong friendship between 
 them failed to touch the mainspring of Sylvia's 
 life and set her will in motion. Enid rebelled 
 against this thought, which was hardly a thought 
 as yet, only an undefined dread. She did not 
 believe it was going to be true. She did not see 
 how it ever could be true. She refused to have 
 it so.
 
 76 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 As a woman advances towards thirty unmar- 
 ried, her women-friendships possess more and 
 more a stability, an intensity, which were lacking 
 in the explosively sentimental intimacies of her 
 youth; they are to her instead of many things. 
 And as she passes into the region of the middle- 
 aged, and the world grows more and more work- 
 aday, she may become self-conceited and self- 
 gratulatory enough about her work, but she will 
 thank God for her friends. We all want to 
 mean something to somebody, and the friendships 
 of a single woman satisfy to her this desire, 
 except in certain moods. 
 
 Enid averred once that, with a married woman, 
 husband and children, the particular, the personal 
 relationships, must come first, but that the un- 
 married woman, who consecrates herself to a 
 cause deliberately, gives up the personal claims; 
 it is a part of the sacrifice. Shortly after mak- 
 ing this statement, Enid came South with Sylvia. 
 She sat by the couch now, and her face was grave 
 and insistent. 
 
 "You know I shall always believe that you can 
 do what you would, if you will," she said. 
 
 Sylvia moved uneasily, and turned her eyes 
 away; she did not contradict, she did not say 
 anything. And Enid, remorseful, searched her 
 mind for a change of subject that should not be 
 too obvious and abrupt. Presently she said in 
 a lighter tone :
 
 JACQUES' SISTER 77 
 
 "I fear the true explanation of the abortion of 
 Jeanne's ambition is simply that she is swayed 
 by another emotion which is more powerful. 
 She evidently did not care to regard Monsieur 
 Jacques in the light of a brother, did you notice ? 
 Such a very uninteresting person to fall in love 
 with, too ! Nice, noisy, self-sufficient young man, 
 but without a particle of romance about him." 
 
 "Poor Monsieur Jacques! " said Sylvia. "So 
 the fiat has gone forth against him, and he is 
 labeled ' commonplace '? " 
 
 "I wonder if he is in love with her," mused 
 Enid; "he'd be a delightful person to go out 
 and buy furniture with; he would always be able 
 to get the proper per cent. off. He could drive 
 nails and hang pictures beautifully, but I wonder 
 if he can make love ? Dear me ! what is happen- 
 ing to me that I sit up here in broad daylight, 
 and gossip about love and matrimony like a sen- 
 timental girl of seventeen, when I ought to be 
 reading Socialism ? It is something in the atmos- 
 phere of this place. I shall hold you responsible 
 for my degeneration, Sylvia Bennett." 
 
 Of course she wished the next minute that she 
 hadn't said it. She was wishing twenty times 
 a day that she hadn't said things, but this once 
 she was relieved from embarrassing protests by 
 a hurry and flutter along the gallery, a hasty 
 knock, and the entrance of Jeanne with cards. 
 
 Jeanne watched the reception of the cards with
 
 78 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 the excited constraint of one who has been party 
 to the lighting of a fuse, and now expects a sen- 
 sation. 
 
 "Miss Campion," read Sylvia aloud, without 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 "Miss Campion," repeated Enid, gazing at her 
 card in the stolid and impartial fashion of one 
 who knows not that she is being favored of gods 
 and men. 
 
 "It must be one of the people Cousin Jessie 
 wrote about," said Sylvia. "She insisted on 
 asking two or three to call." 
 
 "She is very important," cried Jeanne, tum- 
 bling over her words, and not yet realizing that 
 her audience had failed to be impressed. "She 
 is very important, and rich and beautiful. She 
 has 1'air grande dame, tout parfait. Jacques has 
 dined at her house. She does not marry, but 
 everybody falls in love with her." 
 
 Enid felt an unworthy desire to test Jeanne by 
 asking if "everybody" included Jacques, but of 
 course she did not do so. 
 
 "I suppose we shall have to go down," said 
 Sylvia in a bored tone, sitting up on the lounge 
 and lifting her hands to her hair. 
 
 "I suppose so," acquiesced Enid with a sigh, 
 and the leaves of the fat book came together with 
 an impatient whack. 
 
 "Thank you, Jeanne."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ROMA CAMPION CALLS 
 
 THEY found out in the short half hour of her 
 visit that she was a worldly woman, ambitious, 
 traveled, fastidious, and discontented. They 
 suspected that she was ignorant and indifferent 
 in socialistic and industrial matters, and that she 
 possessed a steady, painstaking, unintellectual 
 mind. They knew she was, in many ways, the 
 kind of woman they most disapproved of, and 
 they fell in love with her on the spot. 
 
 On her own part she was, from the first, at- 
 tracted towards them. They represented the 
 type of woman which she respected most, knew 
 least, and was curious to know better, the type 
 upon whose model she felt the least courage, 
 and it may be the least intellectual ability, to 
 conform her own life. Aside from this general 
 impression, which she had really gained before- 
 hand from the letter Sylvia's cousin had written, 
 she recognized that they were also interesting as 
 individuals. She was quicker at understanding 
 human nature than she was at understanding 
 books, that is, to put it differently, she might
 
 80 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 not always comprehend a joke, but she could com- 
 prehend thoroughly the man who made the joke. 
 It was chiefly instinct, of course, natural incli- 
 nation ; otherwise she could never have been what 
 she was, the brilliant society woman, as the 
 cant phrase has it, the envy, the despair, the 
 adoration of her world, in whatsoever geogra- 
 phical part of it she chose to shine. But her 
 insight was partly due to training as well: she 
 had been in the world, and, to a considerable 
 extent, of the world, all her life ; whereas she had 
 been taught to use books as polite accessories of 
 the social art, well-bred means of passing the 
 time and of making conversation. 
 
 Enid and Sylvia had never before believed 
 that they could have anything in common with 
 the self-confessed society woman. Occasionally, 
 in their youth, and after their relatives had laid 
 before them, with more than ordinary emphasis, 
 the social exigencies of that station in life to 
 which they were called, they would reluctantly 
 array themselves and sally forth in weariness and 
 trepidation of spirit to what they were pleased to 
 designate contemptuously as "a function; " but 
 these concessions to family tradition were few, 
 and for days after their occurrence they dark- 
 ened, as with a nightmare hideousness, the minds 
 of Enid and Sylvia. For the words "sociable" 
 and "socialistic" are not synonymous. Of late 
 years, however, " the function" which, in bald
 
 ROMA CAMPION CALLS 81 
 
 language, meant to them anxious patronage by 
 a busy hostess, palpable neglect on the part of 
 the young male contingent, and indifference, or 
 half -amused contempt from the popular girls 
 had abated its terrors. This was due, as far as 
 Sylvia was concerned, to the excuse which her 
 ill-health afforded her for refusing invitations, 
 and, in the case of Enid, to her gradual recog- 
 nition and adoption by the sprinkling of the 
 learned and the lionized who saw fit to frequent, 
 and even at times to enjoy, the entertainments 
 provided by their well-meaning but less enlight- 
 ened brethren. Society had therefore become 
 for both women an institution which they were 
 willing to tolerate, but not to admire ; and, while 
 they continued to evince a languid and somewhat 
 melancholy interest in those of their college 
 friends who had drifted into this orthodox way 
 of life, they fought shy of society women in 
 general. 
 
 To-day, however, they had talked to one of 
 these women for half an hour with animated 
 friendliness and distinct enjoyment. The talk 
 had been of that rapid, desultory sort which 
 results upon a first meeting between people who 
 feel immediate friendliness for one another, and 
 which is like nothing so much as a continuous 
 striking of sparks. The transition from subject 
 to subject is swift and unconscious; the minds 
 click against each other at every instant and
 
 82 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 pour forth their thoughts breathlessly, in their 
 haste to prove affinity upon as many points as 
 possible, and thereby justify to themselves this 
 sudden and incautious surrender to impulse. A 
 great deal of conversation can be made in half 
 an hour, if there are no pauses. Moreover, Enid, 
 for one, had, among the reporters who tried to 
 take down her lectures, a reputation for talking 
 with exceptional rapidity. 
 
 From the weather the talk floated on to the 
 town itself; from the town to its society, to 
 society in general; then, of course, for was not 
 Enid there? to the regeneration of society, to 
 the literary propaganda on social questions, to 
 literature itself, to literary people, to amateur- 
 ism, to dilettanteism, and so back to society. 
 Just where the transitions came, no one stopped 
 to consider. 
 
 It was Roma Campion who, in the mysterious 
 fashion best known to herself, eliminated at the 
 outset all stiffness, all constraint, from the inter- 
 view, saying her tentative and tactful social no- 
 things in her unobtrusive, well-bred voice, and 
 looking at her hearer straight the while with 
 deference and interest. Long afterwards Enid 
 concluded that the unquenchable sincerity look- 
 ing out of this worldly woman's eyes was the 
 beginning and the end of the fascination. But 
 that first day Enid did not stop to analyze the 
 fascination; she caught up the small-talk at its
 
 ROMA CAMPION CALLS 83 
 
 first rebound, and carried it forward in a flood of 
 eloquence, transformed and dignified. 
 
 And Sylvia, vibrating beside her, Sylvia, the 
 shy, the reserved, the silent, interrupted again 
 and again, speaking almost eagerly. At the last 
 the right of speech drifted back to Miss Cam- 
 pion, and she invited the two to dine with her 
 and go to the opera the next week, and, standing 
 at the parlor door, she railed a little, albeit with 
 that restraint and coolness which the occasion 
 required, against the dullness and self-compla- 
 cency of her native town. And as they stood on 
 the shallow stairs behind the open glass door and 
 watched her go down the passage to her carriage, 
 which all this while had been quite a serious 
 obstacle in the narrow street, Enid and Sylvia 
 felt for this woman, slightly older than them- 
 selves and already scarred and embittered by the 
 experience of her own folly, a tenderness and 
 enthusiasm which their judgment told them was 
 wholly out of proportion to their knowledge of 
 her character and her deserts. 
 
 And she, leaning back among her cushions, 
 was less bored by life than she had been since 
 she left Paris in October. Her world would 
 have been slow to acknowledge that Roma Cam- 
 pion was capable of enthusiasms; it would have 
 laughed at even a hint of such a thing; it would 
 have changed "enthusiasms " into "fads," and felt 
 that it was displaying considerable knowledge of
 
 84 DIANA VICTE1X 
 
 human nature. But Miss Campion was unusually 
 preoccupied as she drove home. She made no 
 attempt to recognize acquaintances, and this was 
 not her custom. She did not even bow to Curtis 
 Baird as he passed her, swinging along beside 
 young Dumarais, with whom he was going home 
 to dine en famille, and she had been peculiarly 
 gracious to Curtis Baird ever since he had pre- 
 sented his letter of introduction. 
 
 "My lady is in a brown study," he thought, 
 but he said nothing, as Jacques was talking of 
 other things. 
 
 The Dumarais' dinner-table was a noisy one 
 that day. Jacques, by some more than usually 
 clever business transaction, had been able to make 
 himself appear particularly valuable in the eyes 
 of his firm ; and the knowledge that he could, if 
 he chose, assert his independence and withdraw 
 altogether on the first of January filled his soul 
 with glee. 
 
 "And did you go to the cathedral? " he asked 
 Enid, his gray eyes and white teeth flashing a 
 charming smile. 
 
 He liked Enid. She did not burden him with 
 a sense of responsibility. It was still an aston- 
 ishment to him that she obviously never expected 
 him to make an effort to entertain her, but it 
 was a relief as well. He did not know that he 
 entirely approved this frank though unspoken 
 avowal that the attentions of his sex were matters
 
 ROMA CAMPION CALLS 85 
 
 of complete indifference to her ; it was not quite 
 in accord with his ideas of feminine modesty; 
 but, after all, it was convenient when a man 
 came home tired and hungry after a hard day's 
 work. 
 
 "How have you amused yourself? " he contin- 
 ued, prolonging his friendly smile. 
 
 "We did not go to the cathedral this time," 
 she answered; "we waited for a brighter day. 
 Your sister took us to the place where the Ital- 
 ians were murdered, Congo Square, was it 
 Rampart Street?" 
 
 "'Murdered' is good!" observed Jacques, 
 turning upon Enid a mocking but provokingly 
 genial countenance. 
 
 He irritated her, he was -always so self-confi- 
 dent. Sylvia threw her a timid, warning glance 
 across the table; and Curtis Baird let his chin 
 sink against his throat, and looked out at her 
 smilingly from under his drooped eyelids. 
 
 "What term would you substitute?" inquired 
 Enid. 
 
 "When a band of ruffians has murdered the 
 chief of police, citizens find themselves looking 
 at law and order from a new point of view. I 
 should say ' righteously executed ' ! " Jacques de- 
 clared with stern emphasis. His chin was very 
 square. 
 
 "Oh, come, now, Dumarais ! you would 
 n't, would you? " interrupted Mr. Baird in the
 
 86 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 quietest of slow, conversational tones. " Think 
 of the time it takes to say all that, ' right- 
 eously exe-cut-ed ' ! Invent something shorter, 
 
 can't you? Think what it would mean to 
 
 do all that, if a man had an impedi- 
 ment in his speech." 
 
 "Perhaps you would prefer ' murdered ' also? " 
 said Jacques, lifting his eyebrows to the height 
 of their interrogatory possibilities, and speaking 
 with a good-nature that might have been consid- 
 ered alarmingly crisp. 
 
 "No, I shouldn't," replied Baird reflec- 
 tively ; "it is n't a pretty word, ' mur- 
 dered. ' I should feel quite grateful 
 on behalf of the language, if you could 
 supply a better one." 
 
 Mr. Baird 's drawl was by no means the least 
 of his many attractions, ladies said, and they 
 usually added that he had affected it so long, it 
 had ceased to be an affectation. His words were 
 like a string of disconnected freight-cars left to 
 slide along a track through their own momentum, 
 and coupling at unexpected intervals. 
 
 "No! but seriously, you know," began Jacques, 
 "it wasn't murder. They were guilt} r , and they 
 knew it, and everybody knew it, and they de- 
 served all they got. Why! they attacked that 
 man from behind! " 
 
 "Then why did the law acquit them?" It 
 was Enid this time, speaking indignantly.
 
 EOMA CAMPION CALLS 87 
 
 "All! well!" Jacques' tone and shrug 
 implied that, if you were going to ask him to 
 justify the idiosyncrasies of the law, of course 
 there was no use carrying the discussion any 
 farther. 
 
 "You feel that the action was justifiable, then ? " 
 Enid resumed after a pause, which had been elo- 
 quent of disapproval. 
 
 "Justifiable!" exclaimed Jacques. He was 
 not angry, you know; he was only French. 
 "Justifiable! Well, I should rather think! 
 Why, my dear young lady, there was n't a man 
 in this town that would have dared to call his 
 soul his own twenty -four hours afterwards if we 
 hadn't done it. The beggars were so elated, 
 they were ready to murder us in our beds without 
 compunction, every mother's son of us! Yes, I 
 mean it!" he continued, smiling cheerfully once 
 more in response to Enid's unspoken skepticism. 
 
 "Then I don't see, if everybody knew they 
 were guilty, why they didn't hang them," she 
 said. 
 
 "That's just what we did do, as soon as we 
 got a chance! " vociferated Jacques. "We took 
 them out and shot them and strung them up, 
 and then we went home." 
 
 "But it wasn't law," insisted Enid. 
 
 "Maybe it wasn't," retorted Jacques, "but it 
 was justice. Have I got to stand by a law when 
 it is a rotten law? Have I got to submit to a
 
 88 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 court decision that's bought up and paid for? 
 Have I got to bow down to a department of judi- 
 ciary that 's so bribed and corrupted and intimi- 
 dated it hasn't a leg of its own to stand on? 
 No ! because, if I have, I '11 move out ! When a 
 law can't be enforced, something 's wrong, and 
 it 's time for a change. All change comes as an 
 upsetting of law. There never was a change yet 
 that wasn't called unlawful by the old fogies. 
 But are we all to stand still on that account, and 
 never advance? Are we to stifle in our own cor- 
 ruption? I say there 's something higher in this 
 world than what we call law ! " 
 
 He paused, stared fiercely at his antagonist, 
 and then, with a sudden change of expression, 
 beamed upon her indulgently. 
 
 "I beg your pardon!" he said heartily, half 
 laughing; "I forgot I wasn't talking to a man. 
 I pounded it down rather hard, but you see, not 
 being a conservative myself, I don't look at 
 things in just your way." 
 
 To have her own radical generalizations thus 
 cast upon her head, and to be herself catalogued 
 as a conservative, was a new experience for Enid, 
 and it took her a moment to rally from the shock. 
 
 "You'll find him an awful radical, Miss 
 Spenser," said Baird slowly, with an alluring 
 twinkle under his eyelashes; "regular fire-eater 
 Jacques is." 
 
 Down at the end of the table old Monsieur
 
 ROMA CAMPION CALLS 89 
 
 Dumarais turned his ear towards the speaker 
 with a suspicious frown, but Enid only half heard 
 the words, and Jacques did not see the twinkle. 
 
 "Aren't your assertions a little beside the 
 question, Mr. Dumarais?" Enid had gathered 
 together her scattered senses and returned to the 
 charge. "You mistake me when you call me a 
 conservative. I, too, believe what you have just 
 said about change and bad laws. But in this 
 case it does not seem to have been the law which 
 was at fault. If the law had been kept, there 
 would have been no disturbance, at least as I see 
 it ; but your citizens first broke the law by lend- 
 ing themselves to bribery and intimidation, and 
 then broke it again by having resource to mob 
 rule and bloodshed. That appears to me to be 
 the case by your own presentation of the facts." 
 
 "And because we 've made one mistake, you 'd 
 have us keep right on and make another? " said 
 Jacques. "Because we were weak enough, some 
 of us, to be bribed to bring in a verdict of not 
 guilty, when we knew we were perjuring our- 
 selves, you 'd have the rest of us, who were n't 
 such cowards, calmly sit down and let several 
 murderers be turned loose on the community? " 
 
 "I do not see but that it would have been per- 
 fectly just for you to have suffered the conse- 
 quences of that first mistake." Enid spoke with 
 deliberation, because she was not altogether sure 
 of herself.
 
 90 DIANA V1CTRIX 
 
 "And how about the murderers suffering for 
 their behavior?" Jacques demanded. 
 
 "Conscience, you know, Dumarais, don't 
 forget the power of conscience," said Baird, 
 with elaborate solemnity. "Remorse, that 
 sort of thing. Great factor, conscience ! " 
 
 "Great humbug! " retorted Jacques. 
 
 "It seems to me, by that first mistake you 
 voluntarily abandon the right to deal with the 
 murderers," said Enid. 
 
 "Well, as a matter of theory, my dear lady, 
 perhaps we do, but you '11 find this world is n't 
 all a matter of theory; and practical necessity 
 isn't going to let any man see the feasibility of 
 having a murderer running around the streets, 
 no matter how many mistakes he has made in 
 letting that murderer get there. We did it 
 then, and we 'd do it again to-morrow, every man 
 of us, and not turn a hair." 
 
 Jacques, having thus strangled the argument 
 by violence, in this brutal appeal to fact, laid his 
 knife and fork parallel upon his plate and gazed 
 around the table with a complacent air of victory. 
 He thought he had gained his point, as no doubt 
 he had to a certain extent, if silence can be called 
 the end of an argument. And Enid, moved by 
 the distress in Sylvia's eyes, let him think so. 
 
 "But it was an impressive sight!" he said. 
 Having established the validity of his case, to his 
 own satisfaction, he was now ready to describe
 
 ROMA CAMPION CALLS 91 
 
 it in its dramatic character as an incident in his- 
 tory. "I wasn't there when they did the kill- 
 ing"- 
 
 "Come, come, Dumarais, stand up 
 for your colors! Don't be timid, man, 
 you're among friends!" said Baird, with the 
 inevitable drawl. "I have n't found a fellow 
 yet who was there at the time of the 
 killing." 
 
 "Well, I wasn't, this time! No fooling, 
 Baird. I know it 's not often I 'm not on hand, 
 but this is honest truth." 
 
 Mr. Baird persisted in looking incredulous. 
 
 "I got there just about ten minutes after it 
 was done, and you may not believe it, but there 
 was hardly any one left around that place. They 
 dispersed like magic. One of the Italians was 
 hanging against a tree, dead. He had long hair, 
 and, I give you my word, that hair was standing 
 up all over his head, and the ends were waving 
 to and fro in the wind. It was an awful sight!" 
 
 A shiver went around the table. 
 
 "Were you there?" asked Sylvia of Jocelin, 
 who sat next to her and attended to her wants 
 assiduously, but was not talkative. 
 
 "No, mademoiselle," he answered, "I was not 
 here last winter, last year." 
 
 "Why is he so silent?" she thought; "is he 
 timid, or unhappy?" 
 
 He had made a few courteous responses to
 
 92 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 questions at the beginning of the meal, but had 
 remained quiet during the discussion, attentive, 
 for the most part, to his plate, but glancing up 
 with some show of interest when Enid's remarks 
 had proved particularly exasperating to his step- 
 brother. Sylvia found him more difficult of 
 approach than the other members of the family. 
 Her own timidity kept her from at once breaking 
 down the barrier of reverent silence behind which 
 he persistently intrenched himself. His position 
 in the household puzzled her, for whereas Jacques 
 departed each morning punctually at half past 
 eight, and was no more seen till dinner-time, 
 Jocelin came and went irregularly. Sometimes 
 at two o'clock in the afternoon he was playing an 
 accompaniment on the piano in the parlor, and 
 at any time of day he might be found walking 
 about the courtyard smoking a cigarette. Sun- 
 day morning Sylvia inferred from his appearance 
 that he had been out before breakfast, and he 
 ate rapidly, excused himself before the meal was 
 over, and went out again. Jeanne had said, 
 "This is Jocelin 's busy day," and madame had 
 looked less careworn than she usually did when 
 Jocelin had engagements which took him away 
 from the house. 
 
 Sylvia had never before met any man who was 
 so considerate of her comfort. Now it was a 
 door he closed ; again he was suggesting that she 
 might enjoy the fire more if she sat in this other
 
 ROMA CAMPION CALLS 93 
 
 chair. So deft was he in his unobtrusiveness 
 that even Enid, the watchful, did not notice 
 what he was about. But Sylvia could not fail to 
 see, since the little attentions were meant for her. 
 There was a personal and caressing quality in his 
 manner of setting a chair for her which was as 
 insistent in its demand for recognition as were 
 his gentleness and the lonely look in his eyes. 
 
 The dessert was on the table, and Jacques was 
 still describing the putting down of the Italians. 
 
 "That afternoon and the next day they were 
 getting out of town like ants pouring out of an 
 ant-hill. When they couldn't afford to go by 
 train, they walked along the railroad tracks. 
 They say it was a sight to see them back of town. 
 It was the only thing to do, and we did it! " he 
 ended, as if finally closing the subject. 
 
 Enid remained silent. Another item came to 
 Jacques' mind, and he began again: 
 
 "They say that women, ladies even, went down 
 after it was over, to see the place, and, if possi- 
 ble, the men before they were taken down." 
 
 "Oh, no! " cried Sylvia; "not ladies! " 
 
 "I don't know," returned Jacques with a shrug; 
 "I only heard. Curiosity is by no means the 
 least charming characteristic of your sex, made- 
 moiselle. I did not let Jeanne go, for example, 
 but it was said they even went down in car- 
 riages." 
 
 He dwelt on his information with a teasing
 
 94 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 smile, and spoke in a politely bantering tone. 
 He saw that the remarks made his guests indig- 
 nant, and, as one of them had pushed him rather 
 closely in the foregoing argument, he was not 
 sorry to tease her a little. 
 
 The word "carriages" brought to Enid's mind 
 Miss Campion's well-appointed vehicle. Curtis 
 Baird watched her, despite his assumption of 
 indifference, with some interest. This was an 
 excellent opportunity for her to turn Jacques' 
 implications about the vulgar curiosity of women 
 in general against the women of his own city in 
 particular. Would she see it? If she did, she 
 ignored it, at least directly. 
 
 "I met one of your New Orleans women to-day 
 whom I should not think likely to do such a 
 thing," she said quietly. 
 
 She was feeling that her own impetuous liking 
 for the woman would be appropriately disciplined 
 if it should transpire that she could do such a 
 thing, after all. 
 
 "And may I ask who that was? " said Jacques 
 cordially. 
 
 Baird lifted his chin and opened his eyes to 
 their ordinary width this time, as he looked at 
 Enid. He already knew who it was. 
 
 "Her name is very odd and pretty," she re- 
 plied; "Miss Roma Campion." 
 
 "Ah!" said Jacques. He turned and looked 
 full upon her for a moment, with more of interest
 
 ROMA CAMPION CALLS 95 
 
 than he had ever shown. "Is that so?" he 
 added, in a tone that seemed to congratulate her ; 
 "you are fortunate! " 
 
 " And was Miss Campion one of those 
 who went down to to see the remains?" 
 inquired Baird, with more than his customary 
 deliberation. 
 
 Jacques threw back his head with a chuckle. 
 
 "She wasn't here at the time," he said; "it 
 was early in the fall when it happened, you know ; 
 but I should n't venture to be certain of what 
 she might have done if she had been here. It 
 wouldn't be safe." 
 
 Mr. Baird leaned back in his chair and smiled. 
 
 " By the way, " Jacques continued, " I should n't 
 wonder if she passed us coming from here as we 
 were on our way down to dinner. Seems to me 
 I remember her carriage. Did you notice?" 
 
 "Yes, I noticed," said Baird. 
 
 "I was singing in the parlor," said Jeanne 
 eagerly, "and I did not hear her come in, and 
 as I got up to go away she spoke to me." 
 
 "What did she say?" asked Jacques. 
 
 " She said," Jeanne was blushing in the pret- 
 tiest way imaginable, "she said, ' I am sorry I 
 interrupted your song. You must tell Mr. Du- 
 marais that I do not feel inclined to pardon him 
 for not telling me he had a sister who could give 
 such pleasure by her singing.' Then she held 
 out her hand and looked at me, but she is
 
 96 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 adorable, yes! She kept my hand a moment and 
 said, ' I wonder how it is that I have never seen 
 your face? I know I have not, for I must have 
 remembered it. ' ' 
 
 "Ah, ha! " cried Jacques. He looked im- 
 mensely pleased. 
 
 "And I told her, ' I am just out this winter; 
 that may be the reason. ' And she said, ' Really ! ' 
 as if as if it were the most interesting news. 
 Is she not beautiful? And then she said, ' I 
 hope it will be a happy winter; I am quite sure 
 it will be.' Ah, but I wished to embrace her! " 
 
 Curtis Baird's eyes emitted a flash, and then 
 became once more serenely blue and smiling. 
 
 "You may embrace me instead, bebe," laughed 
 Jacques; "you will find me twice as apprecia- 
 tive." 
 
 "Decidedly he is not in love with Jeanne," 
 thought Enid; and with much inconsistency, con- 
 sidering her heroic efforts of the afternoon, she 
 added, "poor little thing! " 
 
 "I went to school with her two little sisters 
 one year," said Jeanne, "before they went away 
 to France to be finished. They were not very 
 nice. They are to come out together next year ; 
 she told me that, too." 
 
 The invitation to the opera was mentioned 
 during the evening, and by degrees it dawned 
 upon Enid and Sylvia that, for some reason, as 
 yet but dimly appreciated by themselves, they
 
 ROMA CAMPION CALLS 97 
 
 were being regarded as more than ordinarily 
 blessed among mortals. As individuals they had 
 manifestly increased in importance within the 
 past twelve hours. 
 
 Enid was not accustomed to owing her impor- 
 tance to any one but herself. She had not real- 
 ized before how habituated she had become to 
 the smile of intelligence which at home was cer- 
 tain to greet the mention of her name. The old, 
 familiar "Miss Enid Spenser? Ah, yes! we all 
 know Miss Spenser through her work, I am 
 most happy," etc., no longer sounded in her ears. 
 There was a blank where this had been, and Enid 
 was disconcerted to find herself noticing this 
 blank, nay, even feeling amazement that it should 
 be there. She held herself at arm's length from 
 herself and taunted her own vanity, but with vexa- 
 tion of spirit. Even this clever Mr. Baird, who 
 came from New York, was apparently at a loss just/ 
 how to place her. His manner indicated that he 
 felt she had done something, but he was waiting 
 to find out what that something was. This nega- 
 tive sort of ignorance of her position, however, 
 she could endure, scorning herself for even notic- 
 ing it. But to be definitely relegated to oblivion, 
 as a conservative, was harder to bear ; and to be 
 lifted into importance through the patronage of 
 a woman, whose highest achievements consisted 
 in dressing well and bruising men's hearts, was 
 hardest of all. She was filled with a sharp aston-
 
 98 DIANA V1CTKIX 
 
 ishment, and the sense that the situation was a 
 humorous one did not afford her the consolation 
 which she felt that it ought. 
 
 The next day Jacques announced that he, too, 
 had received an invitation to dine with Miss 
 Campion and go to the opera afterwards. 
 
 "And so has Baird; so we shall be a jolly 
 party. Do you know I really think Baird is 
 quite gone in that direction? He calls as much 
 as once a week, and she rather singles him out. 
 I 've warned him, but of course it 's no use. I 
 suppose, if I were in love with a lovely woman, 
 I 'd behave just as idiotically as the rest of them." 
 
 Jacques swelled his chest, and pursed his lips 
 sarcastically. It was something for a young man 
 of no fortune to be smiled upon by a woman of 
 position and discrimination. It was something, 
 also, to have been able to endure the smile with- 
 out succumbing to its fascination. Jacques was 
 excusable in feeling that he had cause to con- 
 gratulate himself. 
 
 "I'll see what I can do for Jeanne," he 
 thought. "It might be a very good thing." 
 
 As it happened, however, matters arranged 
 themselves without Jacques' assistance. Sylvia 
 had several days of headache and weakness, and 
 was afraid to use up her strength by going to 
 anything so wearisome as a dinner, or so exciting 
 as the opera. Enid, therefore, wrote regretting 
 for her and explaining the situation ; and a note
 
 ROMA CAMPION CALLS 99 
 
 at once came to Jacques from Miss Campion, 
 asking him if he could bring his sister, and put- 
 ting the matter in the light of a favor, since 
 otherwise her dinner must be one-sided. There 
 were also some graceful expressions of pleasure 
 in having already met Jeanne and heard her sing. 
 Nothing could have been more opportune for the 
 little sister. 
 
 " Oh, I am sorry you cannot go ! so very 
 sorry!" Jeanne cried sympathetically to Sylvia. 
 "But aren't you glad she has invited me, oh, 
 are you not?" She executed an impromptu 
 dance on the green and red hearth-rug as she 
 said it. 
 
 "Now, my child," said Jacques, with enthusi- 
 asm, "live up to this, and you will be the envy 
 of all the girls." 
 
 Jeanne laughed without a particle of malice in 
 her mind against those other girls. To have 
 pleased Jacques was quite enough to make any 
 one happy, at least so she thought. 
 
 "If you will allow me," Jocelin ventured to 
 say on the night before the eventful one, when 
 the others were commiserating Sylvia, and won- 
 dering if it might not have been possible for her 
 to go, after all, " if you will allow me, Miss Ben- 
 nett, I should be glad to go over the opera music 
 to-morrow night, if it would amuse you? And 
 you could follow what they also are enjoying." 
 
 "Yes, he's a dear!" Enid assented the next
 
 100 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 evening as she bade Sylvia good-by; "and it will 
 be nice to know you are hearing the same things. 
 I shall think of it as I listen. But you mustn't 
 let him keep you up too late. I 've noticed that 
 when he begins, he never seems to know when to 
 stop."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA 
 
 THROUGHOUT the day, Sylvia and Jocelin had 
 made a little joke of their going to the opera that 
 evening; and when Sylvia came down to dinner 
 in a pearl-gray gown with the old lace that had 
 been her mother's, soft and full and high about 
 her throat, she found at her place three pale 
 pink roses which Jocelin had gathered from the 
 rosebush in the courtyard. "For if mademoi- 
 selle goes to the opera, assuredly she must have 
 flowers," he said. 
 
 Nor was the dinner as dull an affair as one 
 might have imagined it must be, with Jacques 
 the noisy, and Enid the clever, and Jeanne the 
 merry, away. Ah, no! for Monsieur Dumarais 
 was easily led to talk of his favorites, Hugo, and 
 Sully Prudhomme, and Leconte de Lisle. And 
 he was one who talked with the taste of the poets' 
 thoughts upon his lips. Madame, too, had made 
 a little fete, and the dinner was excellent. It 
 was Jocelin who called attention to the fact that 
 no one but maman could have imparted such a 
 delicious flavor to the sauce piquante, and by the
 
 102 DIANA VICTR1X 
 
 time the dessert was placed on the table maman's 
 strawberry gelatine was not more rosy or unsta- 
 ble than she. 
 
 After the coffee, monsieur went away to smoke 
 his cigar in his own little study, whose walls were 
 lined with the beloved books that he should never 
 read again. He used to pass his hands over the 
 backs of them on the shelves, as one passes one's 
 hand over the hair of a child. Sometimes, of an 
 evening, he would take down a book and put it 
 back again softly, now this one, now that one, 
 saying to himself in a meditative whisper : 
 
 "This is ' Legendes des Siecles, ' second vol- 
 ume ; this is de Musset, ' Les Drames. ' ' 
 
 Sometimes he would sit in his armchair for an 
 hour or more with a book laid open upon his 
 knee, and his cigar held carefully out on one 
 side, so that no ashes nor sparks should drop and 
 soil or burn the precious pages. Not a speck of 
 dust was allowed to rest upon those shelves ; mon- 
 sieur had eyes ' in the ends of his fingers, ' as the 
 saying goes, and he did his own dusting. 
 
 To-night, when he went into the little room, he 
 called out cheerily, " I, too, shall go to the opera 
 this evening; I shall occupy a baignoir; " and he 
 left the door open into the hall. 
 
 Perhaps Jocelin forgot about his cigarette this 
 once, for he did not go down into the courtyard. 
 He tinkered at the fire in the parlor until he had 
 made a broad blaze. He turned down the flame
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA 103 
 
 of the reading-lainp, undoubtedly Jocelin had 
 an eye for effect. The old room assumed uncer- 
 tain, ever- vary ing dimensions in the leaping light 
 and shadow; the tawdry trimmings sank into 
 dai-kness, or shot forth momentarily, now and 
 then, as mere shapeless flashes of color. Joce- 
 lin 's ancestor came and went upon the wall. 
 
 Jocelin pushed an armchair and a hassock 
 where Sylvia could look at the fire, and where 
 he, by glancing sidewise from the piano, without 
 turning his head, could look at Sylvia. 
 
 "You would like a shawl?" he questioned. 
 "No? Then I think the curtain may rise." 
 
 He let his fingers slip along vaguely over the 
 keys for a few moments with the same sort of 
 assurance and nonchalance with which a man 
 accustomed to the water will turn over on his 
 back and float. And the opera had begun. 
 
 Madame came in and out with audible caution 
 several times during the early part of the even- 
 ing, but finally settled down in her chair by the 
 table with "L'Abeille," the newspaper, and went 
 peacefully, and by good fortune noiselessly, to 
 sleep. 
 
 The opera was "Rigoletto." 
 
 " Of course you know these songs will not be 
 correct, mademoiselle; I can only give you the 
 air, transposed to the range of my own voice." 
 
 Jocelin was finding the notes with his fingers 
 as he talked. Sylvia watched him wonderingly
 
 104 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 while he dawdled over the music. It seemed 
 he was in no hurry to begin. "Tinkle, tinkle, 
 tinkle," said the notes. There was a rambling 
 harmony to this lazy preamble, nothing more. 
 Jocelin was slightly round-shouldered; his head 
 drooped forward, and he looked at the keys with 
 eyes that were full of dreams. 
 
 "The world has gone by," thought Sylvia. 
 "It is in a hurry, let it go ! " 
 
 Jocelin quickened his pace delicately : 
 
 " Comrae la plume au vent, femme varie." 
 
 He was beginning with the tenor's song at the 
 wrong end of the opera. He sang it whimsically, 
 somehow, then changed to the soprano solo in the 
 second act; then drifted up and down the piano 
 again, and with a sudden bound was off into the 
 little drinking song, with the "Hupp!" and the 
 uplift at the end. 
 
 "Charming! " cried Sylvia; "encore, encore! " 
 So he sang it again, this time with bewitching 
 abandon, and at the end Sylvia's laugh rippled in 
 and out with the music, up and down the piano, 
 until, with a tragic sweep of octave, he brought 
 the melody round to Rigoletto's song after the 
 betrayal of his daughter, the gay song with the 
 sobs beneath the laughter, and the grief rending 
 and tearing the flimsy make-believe of light-heart- 
 edness. Jocelin dropped his hands from the 
 piano when it was over, and sat still for a moment 
 before he turned and said :
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA 105 
 
 "Shall we change to something else now?" 
 
 Sylvia could only nod. She still saw the piti- 
 ful figure of the broken-hearted old clown; she 
 still heard the wail through the choppy "lull -la - 
 la-a " of his song. 
 
 "Did Enid hear it sung like that? " she won- 
 dered. 
 
 "This is ' La Juive, ' then," he said, and pres- 
 ently sang the cardinal's song. 
 
 "We have the advantage over the other opera 
 people in that we can change our music when- 
 ever we choose, and take it backwards or for- 
 wards or in the middle," said Sylvia; and he 
 nodded and smiled, still playing. 
 
 " ma fille ch^rie, O ma fille ch^rie." 
 
 Jocelin paused, lingered on the notes as if he 
 would begin again, and said, while one hand still 
 droned idly over the keys : 
 
 "That duet is a do you call it milestone? 
 in my life. When I was a little boy, I was 
 singing it one day, and Jacques came out and 
 told me that his father was going to marry my 
 mother." 
 
 There was a short silence. Jocelin still moved 
 his hand upon the keys, but without striking 
 them. 
 
 "Yes?" said Sylvia, in a tone that left him 
 free to be silent or to continue. 
 
 He chose to continue, and, still with head bent
 
 106 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 down and face half turned towards her, but eyes 
 upon his vaguely restless fingers, he said : 
 
 "I was under the bath-house across the lake, 
 and I was singing. I remember it was a gray 
 day, and Jacques came up out of the water and 
 told me that. And I was only ten years old 
 I cried. We were not alike: how could he 
 understand? Jacques is very good to my mother, 
 and to my sister, but we are not congenial; 
 when you say that, it is all said." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and smiled win- 
 ningly upon her for a moment, then turned his 
 eyes back to the keys. 
 
 "Pardon me, mademoiselle; I will return to 
 the music." 
 
 "No, no!" Sylvia hastened to cry out. "At 
 least, of course, do not talk about it if you 
 do not wish to, but I enjoy hearing you tell of 
 your life; it has grown up in such a different 
 atmosphere from my own, it is as interesting to 
 me as a romance." 
 
 So Jocelin twisted around on the piano-stool, 
 and the firelight fell upon his face and sank into 
 his wistful eyes; and, sitting thus, he began to 
 do the thing he knew how to do best, next after 
 his singing, and that was, to talk about himself. 
 
 "It is not much of a life," he said quietly; "it 
 is not what I wanted it to be But that is past 
 now." 
 
 He made an interesting figure with his thin,
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA 107 
 
 brown face, and the red, curved lips beneath the 
 small black moustache, and that pathetic droop 
 to his shoulders, as he sat there before the fire, 
 saying these melancholy words. From the bot- 
 tom of her heart Sylvia pitied him, and this was 
 what he had meant that she should do. 
 
 "But you are young," she ventured; "why is 
 it you speak like that?" And as she said it, she 
 thought of her own life ; and she, too, was young. 
 
 "It is my voice, mademoiselle," he answered; 
 and again, with the quietness that is not sad, but 
 is more sorrowful than sadness, "my voice! " 
 
 "Your voice?" she said perplexedly; "I do 
 not understand. It is a very beautiful voice; 
 surely you must know that? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders half contemptu- 
 ously, as a child might who was offered one 
 sweetmeat and preferred another. 
 
 "When I was a little boy, everybody said, 
 ' He will have a marvelous voice ! ' When I 
 sang, the ladies wept and embraced me and said, 
 ' You have a future before you, my child. ' I 
 did not love anything so much as I loved my 
 voice. I shall never be able to love anything 
 with a greater love. It has always seemed to me 
 that it is presumptuous in me to think that I 
 could love a human being a woman with the 
 holiness, the unselfishness, that the word ' love ' 
 means to me. Others claim that they do it, but 
 how can they hope to?"
 
 108 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 There was a large humility about these simple 
 words that made them worthy of being spoken by 
 a greater saint than Jocelin. His eyes were 
 those of a pure-hearted child as he looked at 
 Sylvia. This was the great charm about Joce- 
 lin, that he believed every word he said to you, 
 at the moment that he said it. 
 
 "My voice was mine," he went on. "That 
 was not an unselfish love, but I loved it. And 
 it has been as a child that grows up full of prom- 
 ise and becomes a disappointment to its father. 
 But a father always loves his child." 
 
 He smiled a whimsical smile that seemed to 
 ask pardon for his fantastic notion, and contin- 
 ued : 
 
 "You admire my voice, mademoiselle, you 
 think it is remarkable, and large, and sufficient 
 to satisfy any one. That is because I know how 
 to use it so well." 
 
 He said this without the faintest shade of self- 
 conceit in voice or manner, and indeed he felt 
 none ; he was merely stating a fact. 
 
 "I have had excellent training. I believe I 
 know how to do with my voice whatever can be 
 done with it, but as a matter of fact it contains 
 only about eight notes. It is a baritone, and 
 a baritone of short range. About eight notes I 
 have ; the rest is what we in French call factice, 
 It is a trick. I am able to make you think I do 
 things which in reality I do not do at all. Because
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPES A 109 
 
 I have learned the art of singing, and because 
 I know my voice, I can do this. In addition, I 
 have no volume. You have heard me sing in 
 a parlor, mademoiselle. If you were to hear me 
 sing in the opera house " He stopped, and 
 his sensitive mouth contracted. Then he said 
 abruptly, "It would be different." 
 
 Sylvia waited while he poked the fire, and she 
 noticed how his hand shook. When he began 
 again, he had tried to resume his quiet, unemo- 
 tional manner : 
 
 "I have not the physique, the strength. I had 
 not the constitution. But I did not know. And 
 I tried." 
 
 There was a tragedy of failure in those few 
 words. His face worked, and he got up and 
 turned his back upon Sylvia, and walked slowly 
 the length of the room. It seemed to her that 
 she must cry out in her pain and pity, but she 
 clenched her hands and sat still. 
 
 "I had spent years of study upon it," he said, 
 coming back and sitting down once more; "I 
 had worked upon the scales, the trills, the exer- 
 cises, until my voice was as flexible, as even, as 
 smooth ! there was not a rough place in it. 
 They gave me the best masters here, and those 
 were very good. I had a little money of my own 
 left from my father, a very little. When I was 
 twenty -two, I had been studying six years; my 
 voice changed early. There was a great singer
 
 110 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 who came here, and I was introduced to her, and 
 she heard me sing. She took a fancy to me. 
 When she went away, I went, too, in her opera 
 company. There was a place for me, by chance. 
 It made niamaii unhappy; she wished me to 
 remain at home. Jacques was very angry; he 
 called me hard names, but he does not appreciate 
 these things. If I had made my name as a great 
 singer, they would have been proud. I knew 
 this, and so I went away, but I did not tell them ; 
 I could not bear to give my mother pain, and 
 they did not know that I had gone until it was 
 the next day." 
 
 These occasional quaint lapses in Jocelin's 
 English only enhanced the ordinary precision of 
 his phrases. Sylvia, listening to him, could not 
 but wonder, now and then, where he had learned 
 the language. His enunciation was utterly dif- 
 ferent from that of Jacques; for while, on the 
 one hand, he had retained distinct traces of 
 accent in his voice, and Jacques only betrayed 
 his French origin at rare intervals by a misplace- 
 ment of emphasis upon syllables, on the other 
 hand he gave his words a roundness, an exact- 
 ness, an almost Bostonian finish, which were en- 
 tirely absent from the speech of his step-brother, 
 who flattened his "a's " like a true Southerner. 
 
 There had been another long pause, during 
 which the frankness with which Jocelin acknow- 
 ledged his running away went far to justifying 
 the act in Sylvia's mind.
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA 111 
 
 " It was in Memphis that I sang. And it was 
 not as large an opera house as ours. There was 
 a fashionable audience, very polite, I only 
 heard one little hiss. But if there had been 
 more hisses, it would have been preferable. She 
 said to me after it was over, ' I was afraid of it. 
 They could not hear you, my friend ; they missed 
 the fine work because of lack of power. It is an 
 exquisite voice, but we must make up our minds 
 to the fact that it is not meant for grand opera. ' 
 She would have had me stay with her. She was 
 fond of me. But I loved my voice better than I 
 loved her. It stifled me to remain with her, and 
 I went away. I had dreamed, and dreamed, and 
 I had labored, building, polishing, finishing that 
 voice. I do not understand why I was born. 
 The failure of my voice was due to faults that 
 were not mine. It is unjust ! The doctors said 
 to me, ' You must take care of yourself, Mr. Cas- 
 taigne; it is an inherited delicacy of constitu- 
 tion. ' I was angry when they told me that, and 
 I said, 'What do they mean?' And I bought 
 a medical book and read their jargon. I think 
 there was one word in it I could comprehend, 
 and that was ' ancestry.' And I thought of that 
 man there on the wall, whose nose I possess. ' I 
 was still away from home ; but he is historical, so 
 I could get a book about him and his sons and 
 his sons' sons. Then I understood ! They had 
 thrown me the rags of their flesh and the dregs
 
 112 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 of their blood, these ancestors; they had sighed 
 a last gasp of genius into my soul. In the North, 
 where I strayed for three years, I learned that 
 these ideas were well known, were ordinary, but 
 to me they were new. When I can sing with 
 art, and more than art, with something that even 
 in my poor voice can hold and stir men's hearts, 
 must I sit down and let that fellow at the opera 
 house come out and sing Kigoletto's song, and 
 bellow, and be heard and praised, because he 
 is not so well born as I, and his strength has not 
 been sapped, and the root of his tree is not rotten 
 and dead? Is it any satisfaction to me to know 
 that I sing it better than he does?" 
 
 There was a hopeless note ringing through his 
 voice and his rapid words. He had forgotten 
 himself for the moment in his grief. 
 
 "I obtained positions in theatrical companies, 
 sometimes in comic opera, to sing, sometimes 
 only to act. I despised it, but there was no 
 hope, and I did not care. I did many wicked 
 things." He had returned to his impassive tone. 
 "I did many wicked things; I did not care. I 
 drank ; I was very dissipated. And all that was 
 not good for my voice ; it is weaker now than it 
 used to be, and less elastic. You tell me it is 
 a beautiful voice now, mademoiselle, but if 
 you had heard it three years ago ! I was desper- 
 ate, and I did not care. And yet I can say 
 this, " he looked at Sylvia with wistful guile-
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA 113 
 
 lessness, "I have never harmed any one but 
 myself." 
 
 Sylvia had been unpleasantly conscious, all 
 along, of the singer who was fond of him, and 
 whom he left because he did not love her as 
 dearly as he loved his voice; and now she felt 
 a sense of relief which inclined her to take, per- 
 haps, a more lenient and humble-minded view of 
 his excesses than was at all necessary under the 
 circumstances. 
 
 Jocelin was not a liar; it was simply that, 
 when he made a statement, the actions in his life 
 which might have contradicted this statement 
 went out from his mind as cleanly as if they had 
 never been. Indeed, for the moment, they were 
 to him as if they were not. He was entirely un- 
 conscious of falsehood in the matter. Moreover, 
 it is perfectly possible that, even while keeping 
 the singer in mind, Jocelin could still, irrespec- 
 tive of the facts of the affair, have made that 
 magnanimous remark. There are so many ways 
 of looking at a thing, you know. What is black 
 on a dove may not show on a crow. This aspect 
 of the case did not occur to Sylvia for two or 
 three years. 
 
 Jocelin had no intention of deceiving Sylvia; 
 on the contrary, he was showing her the self in 
 him that he most believed in, and the simplicity 
 of his confession, "I have been very dissipated," 
 only added to his charm. It was such an un-
 
 114 DIANA VICTIUX 
 
 usual, such a childlike, statement. If he knew 
 this, he did not, therefore, repress it. Jocelin 
 was a queer mixture of naivete and art. The 
 point of division between where he had tried to 
 produce an effect, and where he had produced an 
 effect without trying, was difficult to distinguish. 
 In his pleasures he showed great catholicity of 
 taste, at the present moment his soul asked for 
 no higher bliss than to sit in this quiet, firelit 
 room, and watch this spirit-like Puritan girl, and 
 talk to her of his ideals and his disappointments. 
 But it is equally true that, in the midst of revelry 
 and feasting and wine, his soul turned face about 
 and went joyously the way of all flesh. It is 
 hard to say in which of these roles his grace and 
 charm of childlikeness proved the more effective 
 and dangerous. 
 
 "No, I have never harmed any one but my- 
 self," he repeated shamelessly, and the radiance 
 of candor suffused his liquid eyes. 
 
 "It is a great deal to be able to say that," 
 murmured Sylvia. 
 
 She knew that she ought to initiate him into 
 the ethical problem of his responsibility towards 
 his own soul, but once more she said to herself, 
 "The world is in a hurry, let it go ! " 
 
 Jocelin smiled a lovable, modest smile. He 
 felt very modest, very humble, very repentant, 
 as he confessed his sins to this unspotted, unsus- 
 picious woman. He had sinned, but not yet
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA 115 
 
 often enough for remorse to have begun to bite 
 through the pleasure of repentance. 
 
 "I have been in Philadelphia, New York, Bos- 
 ton, Washington, all the large cities of the North. 
 I learned my English in the theatrical companies. 
 Before that, I had known very little of Ameri- 
 cans. Jacques went to the American University, 
 but I went to a French school. Jacques and I 
 were always different. In New York I got a 
 place in a church, after a time, and I sang at one 
 or two houses in the evenings. People liked my 
 voice; they pay well for that sort of thing; I 
 was beginning to 'take,' as they say in slang. 
 But imagine, mademoiselle! I had not seen my 
 home and my mother, and my little sister, for 
 three years. I was racked with homesickness, 
 that terrible sensation. The choir-master said 
 ' Stay;' he was most anxious, but nothing would 
 induce me to do so. I could not; it was an im- 
 possibilite. Figure to yourself, mademoiselle, 
 the desire. I was miserable, and I returned 
 home." 
 
 "And you mean that you were beginning to 
 gain, to have some success, and you gave it all 
 up?" said Sylvia. 
 
 "But consider that terrible homesickness!" 
 said Jocelin; "I felt that I should die if I did 
 not return. On the whole, I am not doing so 
 badly here. It has taken a long while, but I 
 have a pupil now, and I sing in some choirs. I
 
 116 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 earn a little money, and for the rest, my life 
 is already over. As for that, it never began, it 
 only how do you say? baulked." 
 
 He smiled wistfully over his little joke, and, 
 twisting around on the piano-stool, began to play 
 again softly. 
 
 There were many evenings that winter when 
 Sylvia talked to Jocelin, tried to rouse him, tried 
 to reason with him, but to-night she could not do 
 these things. His moral depression and inactiv- 
 ity were too like her own; they made her feel 
 faint and ashamed, and she wanted to hide her 
 face. Who was she, that she should deem her- 
 self worthy to show him the necessity for struggle 
 and action? The words of rebuke and exhorta- 
 tion which the occasion demanded fell back in 
 her throat and choked her. There was something 
 very like fright in her eyes as she stared into the 
 fire, for she had been twisted around into sitting 
 in judgment upon her own soul, and, with all her 
 introspection and self-reproach, this was some- 
 thing she had not done before. 
 
 The melody flickered and flushed with the 
 fire-shadows, and there was silence for a while 
 between the two quiet, flame-lighted figures, the 
 Puritan and the Creole, who had come along 
 their widely separated paths to the place where 
 two roads meet, and now lay idle at the cross- 
 ways. Back, back, along his road, along the 
 track of his life, and the track of the lives that
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA 117 
 
 had gone to the making and marring of his, far 
 back as you chose to listen, there came a sound 
 of laughter and revel, a clashing of swords, a 
 clinking of wine-cups, a rumble of oaths, and a 
 musical flow of words that were poems. And, 
 looking, you saw, behind and beyond on the road, 
 pale, drink-sodden, passionate faces, and slender 
 white fingers that trembled ; and, backward still, 
 beauty, and pride of bearing, and gay-colored 
 garments. You saw debauch, and chivalry, and 
 brilliant wit, on that road. Genius and Love-of- 
 Pleasure came down all the length of it, sinning 
 together, now one, now the other pursuing, pol- 
 luting, polluted, and languid with passion. And 
 there at the cross-roads Jocelin lay. One leap 
 for him, and he came to the end of it quickly. 
 And there at the cross-roads lay Genius and 
 Love-of-Pleasure, pale, stupid, and sick of each 
 other; but the will to fling off and abandon the 
 one, the other, was gone. 
 
 Look now on the strait and narrow way 
 whence Sylvia came. Gray-garmented figures, 
 demure in their glances and staid in their gait, 
 pass onward. The murmurs of prayers are the 
 poems, the terrible exhortation of preachers is all 
 the sound of riot along this road. In the dead 
 of night, if you walked, you stumbled on kneel- 
 ing figures that knelt the long night through, 
 immovable, wrestling in the spirit. Look on- 
 ward and into the faces of those who travel
 
 118 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 sedately this road. The faces of men are steeled 
 to contemplate the logic of justice and judgment 
 their intellect bids them accept as the end of 
 creation. The faces of mothers are thin and 
 drawn with the terror of bearing children des- 
 tined, perhaps, to go down headlong to destruc- 
 tion. And oh, the faces of children! Turn 
 away and weep! Caution, bewilderment, irreso- 
 lution, totter along by the wayside. 
 
 Sylvia's people came this way. Down this 
 road comes Genius, too, sister to that other, a 
 brilliant, thinking creature with wings of iris. 
 Down this road comes Master Puritan What-is- 
 my-Duty, terrified, shrinking, loving the rainbow 
 Genius, loving and loved in turn, wistfully, 
 sadly, submissively. And between is the width 
 of the roadway, all too narrow for terror and in- 
 decision. Always the roadway lies between, and 
 Genius and What-is-my-Duty tremble along its 
 edges, eying each other, wasting thinner with 
 longing. 
 
 This is the road along which Sylvia, doubting 
 herself, staggered a little space before she lay 
 down at the cross-ways. And over her body, 
 standing one on each side, Genius and What-is- 
 my-Duty look at each other, so tired, so thin! 
 and the will to touch is gone, and the fear of 
 each other is gone, and they do not care. 
 
 Something of all this Jocelin felt and Sylvia 
 thought, in the quaint, dim room where the music
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA 119 
 
 and the shadows mingled. Something of this, 
 but only a dim, vague something, incomplete. 
 And the one mind lapped itself in the pleasure 
 of sitting still in a sympathetic and comprehend- 
 ing silence with a pure woman, and the other 
 mind stiffened with terror at the recognition of 
 its own sympathy with and comprehension of a 
 psychical state which it saw to be the result of 
 sin. 
 
 Madame opened her eyes and peered around 
 sleepily. Sylvia glanced at the clock, and, find- 
 ing the hands at a quarter past eleven, rose and 
 said good-night, and thanked Jocelin for the even- 
 ing. When she had gone, he went down to the 
 courtyard and smoked the long-deferred cigarette. 
 
 An hour later Enid peeped cautiously into 
 Sylvia's room, and, hearing a gentle "Don't be 
 afraid! I'm awake," came in, lit the gas, and 
 sat on the edge of the bed. 
 
 "Such a good time!" she said. "I wished 
 for you. Some of the voices were good, and 
 there was a full house. So many pretty women ! 
 I was introduced to a lot of men, all more or less 
 uninteresting, rather vapid creatures, chit- 
 chatty, you know. But I think they felt I must 
 be worth cultivating, as I was in Miss Campion's 
 box." 
 
 She laughed with a quizzical, shamefaced look, 
 and Sylvia laughed, too. 
 
 "But I quite enjoyed Mr. Dumarais. He has
 
 120 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 gotten over expecting me to flirt or languish, and 
 he is really very good company. We spent two 
 of the intermissions promenading in the foyer, 
 and quarreling violently, first over the Lottery 
 Question, and then over the Italians again. He 
 is not on the Lottery side, not in the least; be- 
 lieves it 's wrong and all that, but calmly says he 
 buys a ticket every month. It is absolutely in- 
 consistent, you know, and I tried to make him 
 see it, and he laughed and said, ' Ah, bah ! ' 
 You couldn't make him reason it out or connect 
 it with the general question. He only smiled 
 and looked amused and superior. There was no 
 making him dissatisfied; he didn't seem to have 
 any moral feeling in the matter at all. It was 
 like the unmoral fairy creatures who never did 
 wrong because right and wrong had not begun 
 to be differentiated for them. I can't understand 
 it. And, Sylvia dear, I wish you could have seen 
 Jeanne ! She has all the pretty, trembling alter- 
 nation between assurance and timidity that goes 
 to make a success in what we call society. I 
 never recognized it so clearly before. She was 
 perfectly bewitching, and all the men, old and 
 young, were hovering round, beaming upon her. 
 Miss Campion said again and again, ' Isn't she 
 charming ! ' and her step-brother was so proud 
 and pleased! There was a glamour about her, 
 and yet it was not in what she said ; her conver- 
 sation had no more thought in it than that of a
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA 121 
 
 well-brought-up child ; but it was so pretty, with 
 that childlike originality about it which appeals 
 to men as feminine. I am so glad that she is to 
 have a happy winter. As we came upstairs, Mr. 
 Jacques put his arm around her and kissed her, 
 and she threw her arms about his neck with a 
 kind of ecstasy and said, ' You were pleased, 
 Jacques, weren't you?' I I Dear little 
 thing! But she isn't the sort of woman that 
 will appeal to him, I 'm afraid. He is much 
 more intellectual than she, even if he is so pig- 
 headed. And did you have a nice evening? Did 
 he sing well? " 
 
 "Beautifully!" said Sylvia. "I do not be- 
 lieve your Kigoletto sang the song after the be- 
 trayal so well." 
 
 "Perhaps not," replied Enid. "Oh, my dear! 
 the funniest thing was the women's chorus, 
 large, fat, aged creatures! Oh, so homely! 
 You should have heard Roma Campion's remarks 
 about them. She has not that regard for the 
 manners and customs of her native place which 
 seems to be inborn in most of the other people 
 we have met here. But I must not keep you 
 awake a minute longer. I am so glad you en- 
 joyed your evening, too. Tell me about it to- 
 morrow. " 
 
 "He told me all about his life, poor man!" 
 whispered Sylvia. "It has been very sad." 
 
 "Well, dear, you mustn't lie awake mourning
 
 122 DIANA VICTE1X 
 
 over it. If it is sad, I 've no doubt he helped to 
 make it so. There! I didn't mean to be unap- 
 preciative. He is a dear, thoughtful young man, 
 and I like him, and I am really sorry for him. 
 But you mustn't stay awake." 
 
 "Don't you think," faltered Sylvia, "that 
 although you have the sorrows of humanity at 
 heart, sometimes you are a little impatient of the 
 sorrows of particular men? " 
 
 "Yes," answered Enid; "I do think so, but 
 not of particular women." 
 
 She laughed as she said this, and, leaning over, 
 kissed her friend. 
 
 "No, I know," said Sylvia penitently; "and 
 I, of all people, ought to be the last to accuse you 
 of not caring for the individual, when I remem- 
 ber what you are constantly doing just for my 
 sake." 
 
 "I shall say ' Ah, bah! ' as Monsieur Jacques 
 does when he wishes to dismiss a subject," said 
 Enid lightly. "And now good-night! " 
 
 Sylvia lay awake another hour. 
 
 "Because he is so like myself," she thought, 
 "because he is tired and discouraged, I must try 
 to help him. As far as I am concerned, my own 
 illness and uselessness in the world need not 
 prevent me from helping him to be useful, if I 
 can. I cannot be anything for myself, but I 
 must try to help him to be something. I can do 
 that, I can try to do that, for he has confided
 
 SYLVIA GOES TO THE OPERA 123 
 
 in me. I must help him. I must. It does not 
 matter about myself; this is only pride, this 
 desire in me to be something. If I had been 
 meant to do anything in the world, I should have 
 tried long ago, just as he tried; he is better than 
 I. Because I have not made an effort, it shows 
 I could not. I wonder if I could really do it if I 
 'if I wonder if Enid is right when she says I 
 could if I would? She believes in the frag- 
 ments I have done. It is all fragments. The 
 days go, and I never begin the blending of the 
 fragments. I wonder if I could ! I want to, 
 oh, I want to ! Oh, I want to ! Why? I wonder 
 if I could ? I wonder if I should fail as he did, 
 if I tried, from lack of power? I think so. I 
 wonder, oh, Enid, I would try, if I thought 
 you were right. I am so tired, and so is he. 
 I '11 let myself alone. I '11 give myself up. I 
 must help him. I will!" 
 
 This thought was the beginning of the salva- 
 tion of Sylvia.
 
 BOOK II 
 
 JEANNE'S WINTER 
 
 " At length burst in the argent revelry, 
 With plume, tiara, and all rich array, 
 Numerous as shadows haunting fairily 
 The brain, new-stuff'd in youth with triumphs gay 
 
 Of old romance." 
 
 JOHN KEATS.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MATRIMONY SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED 
 
 CHRISTMAS came and went, mild and sunny. 
 Le Jour de VAn passed by, and Jeanne's win- 
 ter whirled merrily on towards Twelfth Night 
 and the Carnival, and Jeanne whirled with it. 
 Jacques had nothing to complain of; she was 
 living up to all her social opportunities with a 
 successf ulness that left nothing to be desired; 
 and, truth to tell, Jacques was very proud of her. 
 He used to stand aside with Enid and watch the 
 little sister with paternal satisfaction and amuse- 
 ment as she danced by, looking over her shoul- 
 der to nod .and smile. That little nod and smile 
 were always ready when he chose to look her 
 way. "Are you pleased? Do you approve?" 
 her eyes said to him twenty times in an evening, 
 and sometimes he smiled back "Yes," and some- 
 times he was so busy talking to Enid that he 
 stared straight through the question in the eyes, 
 and only knew, a moment later, that it was 
 Jeanne who had passed by and looked at him. 
 When she pretended to pout and be cross with 
 him, saying, perhaps :
 
 128 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "But, Jacques, you did not dance with me a 
 single time last evening ! " 
 
 He would answer, "Why should I? It is 
 only the girls who do not have many partners 
 who need to be looked after by their brothers. I 
 should have had half a dozen young fellows about 
 my ears last night if I had tried to monopolize 
 you." 
 
 And she would laugh and blush, not more than 
 half appeased, but unwilling to say so, since 
 Jacques always knew best. 
 
 "There is no show for any of the rest of us 
 when Dumarais is around," one of the young 
 men said laughingly once. He said it with the 
 best intentions, under the impression that he was 
 giving pleasure to Jacques; but it put Jacques 
 absurdly out of temper, and he said "Ah, bah! " 
 and scowled, and told the innocent young man 
 not to be an idiot. 
 
 Jacques' business arrangements were still un- 
 settled. His firm, when apprised of his inten- 
 tion to withdraw from them, came forward hand- 
 somely, and made offers which Curtis Baird 
 insisted that he should consider. So January 
 was passing, and Jacques was debating over two 
 offers instead of one, and certain of increasing 
 his income, no matter which one he should decide 
 to accept. Six months ago, a hint that he might 
 hope for success, if he cared to lay siege to the 
 heart of his pretty step-sister, would not have
 
 MATRIMONY SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED 129 
 
 troubled him in the least; he would have dis- 
 missed it with his usual melancholy "I cannot 
 afford to marry." Nay, more than this, six 
 months ago such a hint would have pleased and 
 flattered him. What had happened to him that 
 to-day he should fall into a rage with the well- 
 meaning suggester of such a possibility? To- 
 day, when the financial obstacles to his marriage 
 were removed! 
 
 "It's a shame to set on foot a report like 
 that!" he blustered within himself, thinking the 
 matter over, for it tormented him. "It's a 
 shame ! It does not give a girl half a chance to 
 do well for herself. No fellow is going to pay 
 serious attentions to her, if he thinks she 's al- 
 ready as good as engaged to another man." 
 
 Did you wish her to fall in love with some one 
 else, then, Jacques ? Was it that you considered 
 yourself less desirable as a parti than the numer- 
 ous impecunious young clerks, with seventy -five 
 dollars a month and no prospects, who fluttered 
 foolishly about your step-sister ? Were you con- 
 vinced that some middle-aged club-man would be 
 more desirable as a husband than you? Didn't 
 you want to marry her, Jacques? 
 
 "It would spoil all her fun, if I let such a 
 rumor get about," he reasoned; "it isn't fair to 
 her. She has never seen anything of the world. 
 She doesn't know her own mind. I'll see if I 
 can't arrange to send her North next summer, 
 and give her a taste of something different."
 
 130 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 He could not dismiss the subject from his 
 mind; it ran along as an undercurrent beneath 
 all his decisions and debatings concerning his 
 business arrangements. 
 
 "Hang it all!" he swore at his pertinacious 
 and offending self-consciousness. " A man has n't 
 got to start in and get married just the very 
 minute he 's able to. If I hadn't these offers, I 
 couldn't marry, and there would be an end to it. 
 I don't see why the case should be any different 
 now, or the necessity any more urgent." 
 
 Then he would experience a revulsion of sen- 
 timent, and would call himself a conceited ape 
 for presuming to think that she cared for him in 
 such a way. Wasn't he the same as a brother to 
 her? Hadn't they lived together all their lives? 
 Didn't he really stand to her in the place of a 
 father? She loved him, but didn't he love her? 
 She was no fonder of him than he was of her. 
 And then, perhaps, across a crowded room he 
 would meet the inquiry in her loving brown eyes, 
 and his impatience and irritation would vanish, 
 leaving a strange heartache in their stead, for 
 indeed he was very fond of this little sister. 
 
 "Of course, if I were in love with any one 
 else," he argued, "it would be different, entirely 
 different. But I 'm not, I'm not ! " 
 
 He assured himself of this fact fretfully. "I 'd 
 like to see anybody accuse me of being in love 
 with any one else! "
 
 MATRIMONY SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED 131 
 
 And at this juncture lie usually excused him- 
 self from Enid and went in search of Jeanne, 
 and put his name down for a dance, or took her 
 off to get a glass of punch. 
 
 But there were other times when, talking with 
 Enid, he forgot to watch uneasily for Jeanne's 
 glance ; forgot to declare that he was in love with 
 no one else; forgot everything, except that this 
 handsome woman with the clear voice was the 
 most entertaining and appreciative comrade he 
 had ever had. He began. to compare her with 
 the other women of his acquaintance, and decid- 
 edly to the' detriment of those other women. He 
 began to forget to apologize for talking to her as 
 if she were a man. He began to turn with relief 
 from chatter about Miss This and Mr. That, the 
 details of the newest engagement or the latest 
 ball, and the vapid flippancies that pass for wit, 
 to this serious -minded woman's conversation about 
 life. 
 
 For she was serious-minded, there was no 
 denying it ; but so was Jacques. Society seldom 
 guessed it, because there was not a more ridicu- 
 lous, noisy, nonsensical creature than he when 
 he chose to be ; and hitherto this sort of buffoon- 
 ery, varied with sentimental tete-a-tetes arid flir- 
 tations, had been all that his social world had 
 demanded of him; so he kept the steady worth 
 of himself for business, flinging the froth of his 
 cleverness contemptuously to womankind. And
 
 132 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 yet, with true French contradictoriness, there was 
 no one more gentle, more chivalrous to women 
 than Jacques. It is to be doubted whether 
 he would have been attracted towards Enid, if 
 he had not lived in the house with her; for he* 
 had the conservative Southern man's prejudice 
 against modern women and higher education, 
 and always went out of his way to avoid women 
 with views. Fortunately, or unfortunately (who 
 shall decide which?), he was not permitted to 
 avoid Enid; he was compelled to see her and 
 talk with her day after day. And Enid was a 
 person who wore well. He did not always quar- 
 rel with her ; of tener than not he agreed with her, 
 and delighted in f ollowing out her line of thought, 
 saying: 
 
 "Why, of course, of course, I believe that. 
 Always have." 
 
 The kind of socialistic thought he had gained 
 from Hugo she modernized and developed for 
 him; and when he at last learned that she taught 
 this sort of thing and lectured about it, instead 
 of being shocked and disgusted, as he ought in 
 all consistency to have been, he was radiant with 
 enthusiasm and respect. 
 
 Then, too, the womanly side of Enid came out 
 in her care of Sylvia. The little sacrifices she 
 made, which were really no sacrifices at all, in 
 staying at home when Sylvia was ill or tired, 
 appealed to him. Jacques admired Sylvia, as
 
 MATRIMONY SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED 133 
 
 who did not? And, in common with the rest of 
 humanity, he treated her as something a little 
 finer than mortal clay; but she did not attract 
 him, and, moreover, Jocelin had assumed the 
 right to attend to her small wants. As has been 
 said, Jacques was a person of prejudices, and the 
 people whom Jocelin singled out as objects of 
 favor were likely to lose interest for his step- 
 brother. 
 
 It was a pleasure, after a hard day spent in 
 trying to outdo one's fellow-creatures on the 
 Cotton Exchange, to return home and relax one's 
 mind by a discussion of the brotherhood of man. 
 Men the kind of commonplace, half -educated, 
 eager-f or-a-dollar young men he knew did not 
 talk of things like this. Theories and theorizing 
 were not customary among them; club gossip, 
 newspaper politics, were the things they, the 
 business men, talked about. 
 
 Yes, Enid wore well. And, in addition, it 
 must not be forgotten that she was a handsome 
 woman. 
 
 Meanwhile, what was Enid making of Jacques' 
 evident and growing enjoyment of her society? 
 Did she understand what it meant ? It is useless 
 to attribute to Enid, at twenty-eight, that obtuse - 
 ness towards admirers, that unconsciousness of 
 being loved, with which certain novels, notably 
 those romantic ones translated from the German, 
 insist upon slandering their young and sentimen-
 
 134 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 tal heroines. Enid is too old to come in grace- 
 fully under this canon of romantic fiction. Be- 
 sides, Enid had had too little of this kind of at- 
 tention in her life, and was too much of a woman 
 not to have felt mortified at not attracting it, 
 to be oblivious of its presence now. It flattered 
 her not to have him grow to take an interest in 
 her because of Miss Campion's patronage, but 
 because of her own personality. At the same 
 time, she never meant to give him pain ; she did 
 not believe the feeling would go deep enough 
 for pain. Their attitude towards each other was 
 devoid of all sentimentality; they were merely 
 good comrades; and she took care to give him 
 such an insight into her life, its claims, its activi- 
 ties, its ideals, as should make him clearly under- 
 stand the minimum of attention she could afford 
 to bestow upon him. 
 
 Of the tumult of uncertainty which was grow- 
 ing up in his mind above all, of his feeling 
 about Jeanne, she had not the slightest inkling. 
 How could she have? This was what he was 
 most assiduous in concealing. She saw him jest 
 with the little sister, tease her, put his arm 
 around her; she saw him smile at her in the dance 
 with brotherly interest, and she became more 
 and more convinced that Jeanne's type was not 
 the type of woman he needed for a wife ; and she 
 became more and more sorry for Jeanne, but 
 glad that he did not guess Jeanne's feelings.
 
 MATBIMONY SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED 135 
 
 The last thing that he wished to confess, at pres- 
 ent, was that he guessed Jeanne's feelings. 
 
 "No, I 'm not in love with any one else," quoth 
 Jacques; "and besides, if I were, it wouldn't be 
 any use: she wouldn't have me; she's too much 
 engrossed in other affairs to have time for matri- 
 mony. Poor little girl! If I were to fall in 
 love with somebody else, what a brute I 'd be ! 
 But if I were in love with somebody else, would 
 it be right to marry which ? You are a fool, 
 Jacques, a conceited fool! Does she ever show 
 the slightest jealousy towards your attentions 
 to other women? See her now, dancing with 
 that good-looking young fellow ! Her heart is as 
 light as her little French heels. Mon Dieu ! why 
 does the child look at me like that?"
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUR WOMEN 
 
 NOT the least enjoyable of the many pleasant 
 events of Jeanne's winter were the days spent in 
 Miss Campion's old-fashioned Southern house in 
 the American quarter, a low house, classic with 
 many pillars; a roomy structure, spread prodi- 
 gally over the ground, and set in the midst of 
 a garden. 
 
 Here Miss Campion abode grudgingly for as 
 much as seven months of the year, with her 
 father, her grandmother, two younger brothers, 
 and a staff of colored retainers. Her morning- 
 room opened on two sides, and through three 
 French windows, upon the wide-roofed gallery, 
 and through one door into the great hall, which 
 was also sitting-room and library. In this morn- 
 ing-room she read and embroidered and fretted, 
 and again took heart of grace; she planned her 
 gowns and her little dinners, than which were 
 none in New Orleans more charming; she re- 
 jected her lovers, fascinated her victims, and 
 dominated her little world. When she would she 
 arose and went to Europe, and that meant Paris,
 
 THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUR WOMEN 137 
 
 and that meant shops. When she could, she lin- 
 gered in New York, inventing excuses the 
 weather, the horse-show, the opening night of the 
 Wagner opera for staying away from the pic- 
 turesque house with the fluted and fawn -colored 
 columns, half hidden by the palm shrubs, the 
 sweet olive and jessamine bushes, that grew in the 
 garden, and half smothered by rose-vines along 
 the southwestern exposure, which was the morn- 
 ing-room corner. 
 
 But grandmamma, a charming and stately old 
 lady with white hair a la Pompadour, loved New 
 Orleans, and papa had a bank there, and a plan- 
 tation down the river; so, some time before the 
 first snowstorm arrived in the North, Miss Cam- 
 pion began to loiter unwillingly homeward. 
 
 It was strange, this hatred of the South and all 
 things Southern, in one who was born and bred 
 a Southerner. The companions of her girlhood 
 were convinced that no place in the universe was 
 quite as gay, as hospitable, as tasteful, as New 
 Orleans; that no women were quite as beautiful 
 and bewitching as the Southern women, and no 
 men quite as gallant, as entertaining, as desira- 
 ble, as the Southern men. But this was not Miss 
 Campion's conviction. 
 
 The typical, the ordinary New Orleans girl 
 serenely moves upon her way, convinced that, 
 if New York women are richer and more tailor- 
 made, she has more French chic and charm; and,
 
 138 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 if Bostonians are better educated, she has more 
 intuitive intelligence and wit. She knows all 
 these things because she has read them in books, 
 or else somebody has told her so, somebody 
 who wanted to be agreeable. The term "South- 
 ern girl," used in Northern society, suggests some 
 one who is pretty, piquante, and altogether "good 
 fun." It is a signal for the society men to prick 
 up their ears and look interested. Undoubtedly 
 one is excusable for feeling complacent under 
 such circumstances. That is, if complacency is 
 ever excusable. 
 
 Miss Campion scorned the self-satisfaction, 
 the naive rejoicing in its own charms, which her 
 native city openly displayed. She tried to instill 
 this haughty discontent into her little sisters, but 
 without success; they were proving themselves 
 two as placid, self-satisfied, provincial little crea- 
 tures as ever had been born. 
 
 Miss Campion went forth into the great world 
 of great wealth and great alliances and great 
 scandals, went forth and reigned, saying : 
 "This is power! This is life!" And by and 
 by came home reluctantly to the little world of 
 little wealth and little alliances and little scan- 
 dals, came home, and failed to see that here 
 was simply a distinction without a difference. 
 She dominated her little world, and when she 
 looked upon it, it smiled and prostrated itself 
 obsequiously, and behaved with a servility that
 
 THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUE WOMEN 139 
 
 would have made any right-minded person scorn- 
 ful. And when she looked away, it showed its 
 teeth and spit venom and malice-of-envy. 
 
 And of course opinions differed as to whose 
 fault all this might be. 
 
 She watched the complacent friends of her girl- 
 hood drift away into matrimony, maternity, occa- 
 sionally into divorce. She watched other girls 
 come on the social stage, and drift away in their 
 turn, and she held her own in the presence of 
 younger smiles and fresher faces. And she took 
 satisfaction in her triumph. But as the years 
 passed, the eternity of the thing began to pall 
 upon her ; it grew monotonous, this ever-repeated 
 conquest. What to do next? At thirty she 
 could not see anything that was worth doing ; and 
 yet, when she looked in her mirror, she said : " I 
 must do something soon ! Why does it all bore 
 me so? " 
 
 To a woman of her education and standard, 
 marriage was the only something to be done at 
 the present crisis. Her world had waited on this 
 event for ten years, and she had teased her 
 world, and coquetted with it, and laughed at it, 
 and said: "I will whomsoever I will, when I 
 will. But as yet I will not!" And this was a 
 part of her triumph. But of late it had ceased 
 to be a triumph; it had become an annoyance. 
 
 "Why do you stand expectant?" she fumed; 
 "you bore me! Have done! I will not! "
 
 140 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 And still, in her heart of hearts, she knew that 
 she would. The thing was expected of her. She 
 must! 
 
 She thought of half a dozen men she might 
 have if she would, and she wanted none of them. 
 And about this time Enid and Sylvia came into 
 her life ; Enid and Sylvia, untroubled by lack * 
 of suitors, indifferent to matrimony, women 
 as old as herself, or nearly so, ten times more 
 learned, and withal so childlike, so direct and 
 simple. She turned to them with a hope of sal- 
 vation. Might not she become like them? 
 Might not she do as they were doing? Was not 
 this one way of escape? one way of cheating 
 her world? That was the thing she wanted to 
 do more than all, if she dared, cheat this im- 
 pudent world that presumed to dictate and say 
 "You must!" 
 
 She took more comfort in her friendship with 
 these two women than she had ever before taken 
 in the society of her own sex. Enid and Sylvia 
 kept their sarcasms for generalizations instead of 
 for individuals; they made no personal thrusts 
 which she must be on her guard to parry; they 
 did not seek to wound her by pretending to com- 
 pliment. Their genuine liking, and frankness of 
 friendship, stirred in her heart a tenderness that 
 affected her like a grief; and there were nights 
 when she sobbed herself to sleep with tears as 
 passionate and pathetic as those of a child who
 
 THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUR WOMEN 141 
 
 bears a slight in silence stubbornly, and responds 
 to unlooked-for sympathy with a storm of weep- 
 ing. And she a woman of thirty! 
 
 Her softened mood made her dangerously sus- 
 ceptible to the persistent wooing of Curtis Baird, 
 if she had but known it. 
 
 Her new friends spent long days with her. 
 She took them to drive ; she learned their ways, 
 their pursuits, their enthusiasms, with as much 
 care and slow reflection as she would have be- 
 stowed upon a book. Often Jeanne made one of 
 the party, Jeanne, who seemed to Miss Campion 
 a picture of her own gay, careless youth, ideal- 
 ized, with the ambition left out. She was very 
 tender to Jeanne; she petted her; she made 
 much of her. Curtis Baird liked to sit beside 
 Miss Campion and note the gentle, preoccupied 
 smile which came into her face at sight of the 
 happy little French girl. There were several 
 people watching Jeanne that winter. And 
 Jeanne repaid Miss Campion's kindness by a 
 girlish adoration and no criticism. 
 
 The younger Campion girls, away at school, 
 were growing up cold, self-sufficient little mor- 
 tals, small comfort to their elder sister. 
 
 "I believe Roma is considering this Mr. Baird 
 rather seriously," said Madame Campion to her 
 son. She and her grand-daughter never told 
 each other their affaires de cceur. 
 
 "A fine fellow! " said Mr. Campion, who
 
 142 DIANA VICTR1X 
 
 loved Roma dearly, but was at times perplexed 
 by her caprices. 
 
 And Roma kept her own counsel in the matter, 
 and would not acknowledge to herself, even for 
 a moment, that she meant to accept him. And 
 yet, when the time came, she did. 
 
 Meanwhile she cultivated her new friends, and 
 strove in every way to make them enjoy the social 
 atmosphere in which she moved, watching them 
 curiously to see if they really did enjoy it. 
 
 "And you never expect to marry?" she said 
 once in her direct, attentive way. 
 
 Jeanne, Enid, and Sylvia were sitting in the 
 pretty morning-room, talking, in a more or less 
 desultory fashion, about the future of woman. 
 Enid, to whom this question was addressed, 
 laughed, it was put with such weight and solem- 
 nity. 
 
 "I wouldn't go so far as to take a solemn oath 
 on the subject/' she replied ; "I should be afraid, 
 if I did, I might find that I wanted to some day. 
 Of course, if it ever seemed the right thing to 
 do, I should do it, but I certainly don't want to 
 now. I haven't time; I have too many other 
 things to do, too many other things I would 
 rather do." 
 
 " Really ! " said Miss Campion. This " really " 
 was such an attractive word when she said it! 
 She added, with a certain impatience: "I have 
 been educated with the idea that it showed stu-
 
 THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUR WOMEN 143 
 
 pidity to be an old maid. My little sisters are 
 already beginning to regard me as a grievance ; 
 it is funny to see the superior airs they give 
 themselves when I offer them my opinion. I am 
 afraid I should feel as if I hadn't managed my 
 life cleverly, if I did not marry. I should feel 
 ashamed of myself. Absurd, isn't it, to make 
 such a confession as that? It is refreshing to 
 get your point of view." 
 
 "I have been sorry for married women oftener 
 than for old maids," said Enid curtly. 
 
 Jeanne's eyes opened inquiringly. "You 
 mean they discover they do not love each other? " 
 she asked. "But then, that is not the general 
 rule." 
 
 "My dear little Jeanne, there are many rea- 
 sons why people should not marry each other," 
 said Enid. 
 
 There were times when Jeanne's innocence 
 seemed to her a criminal thing, and she said to 
 herself with a kind of rage : 
 
 " In a year, perhaps less, they will let this guile- 
 less, ignorant, helpless creature marry. They 
 will somehow imagine they have rendered a service 
 to humanity by keeping her as ignorant of life, 
 and as unprepared for it, as if she were still a 
 babe in arms." 
 
 With the child sitting beside her, she dared not 
 rail aloud at this ignorance, but it annoyed her. 
 
 " Perhaps even you might do better than marry,
 
 144 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 Jeanne. You might cultivate that musical talent 
 of yours, you lazy little sprite." 
 
 "Oh, but I don't think so! " laughed Jeanne; 
 "I would rather think Miss Campion's way. I 
 told Jacques what you said about my music that 
 time, and he laughed at me, and said one musi- 
 cian was all we could afford in the family, for 
 they were expensive luxuries." 
 
 She flushed when she had said it, realizing 
 that she had been rather too outspoken about her 
 family affairs, and Miss Campion patted her 
 cheek and said caressingly : 
 
 "If I had a daughter, Jeanne, I should wish 
 her to be just like you." 
 
 Miss Campion had the wise and weary wo- 
 man's sentimental liking for V ingenue. She 
 wouldn't have been one herself, no, not for 
 worlds ! but she liked to think she regretted her 
 own initiation into the realities of life. 
 
 "And so you want this child to give herself 
 seriously to music?" she said, turning to Enid. 
 "Do you think she would be any happier?" 
 
 It was Sylvia who answered the question, say- 
 ing: 
 
 "No, I do not think she would be, after all. 
 Some of us don't do a thing because we want to 
 be happy, at least consciously we don't; but 
 some of us seem to have to do the happy things, 
 we are meant to, and I believe Jeanne was 
 meant to."
 
 THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUR WOMEN 145 
 
 It was not usual for Sylvia to take part in 
 the conversation; she liked best to be silent. 
 This readiness to reply always meant gain in 
 health. 
 
 "Yes," assented Enid, "I really do think so, 
 too, but I can't resist trying to make Jeanne a 
 bit discontented with herself. Very naughty of 
 me, isn't it, Jeanne?" 
 
 "Do you also belong to committees, and give 
 lectures when you are well, as this busy woman 
 does? " asked Koma of Sylvia. 
 
 She had not asked about Sylvia's life before; 
 it had impressed her as an invalid life, a life 
 that leaned upon Enid's stronger vitality and fol- 
 lowed Enid's lead. 
 
 "Sylvia is going to be the literary medium for 
 my efforts," said Enid. "Yes, I will tell. You 
 need not look at me and shake your head. We 
 are a partnership, Sylvia and I. I am the man 
 about town, the planner, the promulgator. Syl- 
 via sits in the counting-room and cashes the 
 checks, and she is to keep the record of events, 
 and lay the affairs of the firm before the public 
 in good literary form. You really don't know 
 anything about Sylvia. I 'm the showy person, 
 but Sylvia takes all my little theories and turns 
 them inside-out before my eyes, and clothes them 
 in metaphor and metre." 
 
 "You write, then?" said Miss Campion 
 eagerly.
 
 146 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 "No!" said Sylvia, gazing imploringly at her 
 communicative friend. 
 
 "She does!" cried Enid. "She has written 
 ever since she could hold a slate-pencil." 
 
 Enid was in a jubilant frame of mind, and her 
 joy bubbled out in these reckless revealings of 
 Sylvia's desires. 
 
 Sylvia was better. The change was a subtle 
 one, but Enid, who knew her well, could be sure 
 of it. It could not be called a physical improve- 
 ment as yet, for the headaches and the weariness 
 were at times intense; but if she lay awake at 
 night, the effects, for some reason, were not so 
 injurious the next day. Enid knew that some 
 interest other than Sylvia's self was at work in 
 Sylvia's mind. What that interest was she did 
 not yet know, but she could see that Jocelin had 
 something to do with it. 
 
 Another symptom of improvement was that 
 Sylvia had scribbled more than once of late ; Enid 
 had caught her at it. When the poor, self -tor- 
 turing, self -distrustful mind could get far enough 
 away from itself to act, this wal always its first 
 action. There was a pile of scraps of paper in 
 Sylvia's desk at home, bits of poems, some fin- 
 ished, some ending at the middle of the first 
 stanza, as if frightened at their own temerity and 
 discouraged with themselves ; bits of disconnected 
 thought in prose ; beginnings of stories, the same 
 story begun a dozen different ways and carried to
 
 THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUR WOMEN 147 
 
 a dozen different lengths of incompleteness. Now 
 the thought that stopped the vacillating pen was, 
 "Have I a right, with my feeble constitution, to 
 tax my strength by doing this thing which makes 
 my head ache? " And, in trying to decide, the 
 headache would increase. Another time she 
 would question, "If I had the gift, would I not 
 write in spite of myself? " And she never seemed 
 to see how hard she was trying to write in spite 
 of herself. Again perhaps she would think, "If 
 it were written this other way, would it not be 
 better?" and she would write and re-write, grow- 
 ing more uncertain of herself and of her work 
 each moment, until she was positively incapable 
 of finishing what she had begun. 
 
 And then would follow days of darkness, in 
 which she resolutely withheld herself from writing, 
 turned from it with terror, wrestled in the night 
 with those sweet and terrible imaginings which 
 came to torture, to tempt her to begin again. 
 
 Sylvia's great-grandfather, it was said, wrote 
 a play in his youth, and went through life with 
 the stern belief that he was to enter into hell-fire 
 in the end. They said he had a beautiful face, 
 and eyes like Sylvia's. And he reared his one 
 son for the ministry, but the gift of the father 
 descended to the son, and the minister's sermons 
 were a snare to his mind, and the beauty of his 
 prayers was to him as the flesh-pots of Egypt; 
 he felt that he delighted in them more than he
 
 148 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 delighted in his God, which is not to be won- 
 dered at when one considers what kind of a God 
 it was, and so he went out of his mind, and 
 people called him "the mad preacher." 
 
 And Sylvia's mother was a pious, pretty little 
 girl, who married a well-balanced, prosperous 
 man, and gave him a son like himself, but more 
 brilliant. Three years after the birth of the 
 boy, Sylvia came and the mother died. 
 
 Even a little improvement in her friend set 
 Enid's heart singing for joy, and made her 
 almost reckless. 
 
 "Some day," she said, "when we both know 
 more about it and have lived in it, Sylvia is 
 going to write the new novel of social regenera- 
 tion. She can't do it yet, because we don't know 
 enough; it hasn't grown into us enough for us to 
 make it real, but the life we get by my working 
 she is going to hold fast in a book and send out 
 to convert mankind." 
 
 Enid said this half laughing, with a kind of 
 mockery at her own and Sylvia's powers, but 
 there was a reality in it that surmounted the fun. 
 This thing was a conviction with her, and all 
 these women knew it. 
 
 "Sylvia, may I tell?" she whispered; "you 
 know you said you would tell yourself some time, 
 and it ought to be soon." 
 
 Then, without waiting for permission, she said 
 with another laugh :
 
 THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUR WOMEN 149 
 
 " While Sylvia is working up her style to the 
 proper pitch for the great undertaking, she does 
 other things." Enid did not tell of all those sad, 
 unfinished scraps of thought. "She does other 
 things, and" 
 
 "And," interrupted Sylvia, reaching out to 
 take Jeanne's hand, and speaking slowly, softly, 
 as was her wont, "if this is to be told, as this 
 naughty person insists, I shall tell it myself. 
 Listen, Jeanne. I made a little verse the other 
 night in bed, and I want you to put it to music, 
 and then I want Monsieur Jocelin to teach you 
 how to write it down. I want him to do it. I 
 think, Jeanne dear, he gets tired and sorrowful 
 sometimes, and, if you were to ask him to teach 
 you, it would please him; we all of us feel better 
 when we keep ourselves busy, you know." 
 
 She glanced involuntarily at Enid and blushed, 
 as if acknowledging that she had been in the 
 wrong in her own idleness. 
 
 "But you are to write it, you know, Jeanne; 
 he is to teach you, not to do it for you." 
 
 Jeanne looked astonished and said nothing. 
 
 "And now let us hear this verse," said Miss 
 Campion. 
 
 So Sylvia gave it : 
 
 " The young Spring came to the world 
 
 And found me, 
 And put her arm around me ; 
 And close, like rose-petals curled 
 Up under a sheath still furled,
 
 150 DIANA V1CTEIX 
 
 My heart at the heart of the young- Spring's heart 
 Beat its music out ; and the world 
 Crowned me." 
 
 Enid's eyes were shining and full of tears, and 
 she went over and put her arms around Sylvia. 
 
 "She never did such a thing before!" she 
 cried eagerly. "She never would say any of her 
 things to any one before, no matter how much 
 they begged." 
 
 And Sylvia smiled at her, with only a shadow 
 of fear in the dark eyes, and said : 
 
 "But if Monsieur Jocelin is to occupy himself 
 in teaching her how to do it, of course I would 
 have to tell about it." 
 
 They all had some of the pretty, flattering 
 speeches to make concerning it, which one makes 
 to one's amateur literary friends, and after a while 
 Jeanne slipped away, carrying with her the lines, 
 which Enid wrote on the back of an envelope, 
 hurriedly, at Sylvia's dictation. 
 
 Then the talk drifted to model tenements and 
 absentee landlordism, and such serious matters, as 
 it had a habit of doing when Jeanne was not by. 
 And Roma was shocked and indignant to find 
 herself called an absentee landlord, and tried to 
 defend her position, without knowing why she w r as 
 called on to defend it, and also without any desire 
 to change her comfortable habits of life. But 
 now and then they stopped their chatter for a 
 moment to listen to the soft, tentative notes of
 
 THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUR WOMEN 151 
 
 the piano across the hall, and the low humming 
 of Jeanne's voice as she experimented with Syl- 
 via's poem. 
 
 Then they would return to the discussion. 
 
 "You say you are bored; you have nothing to 
 do; you cannot be interested in people just be- 
 cause they are people," said Enid to Koma; "but 
 only try it ! Do things without being interested, 
 and perhaps the interest will grow." 
 
 The dead-weight of boredom which had settled 
 down upon this woman seemed a hopeless thing 
 to lift. Enid felt the inefficiency of her own 
 tugs at the burden, and recognized that she was 
 inefficient chiefly because she herself had not yet 
 found out what it meant to be bored. 
 
 "They are interested. They care for life; 
 they are not ennuyees," thought Miss Campion. 
 "I will go to Boston next autumn. I will try to 
 find out what the interest is. Anyway, I need 
 not marry if I do not wish to. Yes, I will study 
 the things they are doing; it will at least be 
 something new. I will visit them in their model 
 tenement in the slums." 
 
 But within ten days she had engaged herself 
 to Curtis Baird.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CARNIVAL 
 
 IN February, when Winter is clasping the North 
 in his tightest and whitest and longest and last 
 embrace, the best days of the year come down to 
 dwell in New Orleans, the fair-weather days of 
 the short Southern spring. They are a kind of 
 Indian summer put the wrong way round of the 
 calendar. Even the Southerners enjoy them, for 
 "there is sure to be a cold snap in March, you 
 know." 
 
 The dew-fresh February air has a taste with 
 a tang to it, and is without the languor and the 
 thick, sultry prophecies of April. The sunshine 
 is just struggling out of its winter pallor; the 
 city is full of people, who stare and smile curi- 
 ously, and try to get snapshots at courtyards and 
 praline -venders. The shop windows are gay with 
 French organdies, with bright-colored silks and 
 gauzes. Newspaper offices, public buildings, even 
 commercial houses, put forth a strange, foreign- 
 looking flag, consisting of three diagonal stripes, 
 purple, yellow, and green, with a large crown in 
 the middle on the yellow stripe. This is the
 
 THE CARNIVAL 153 
 
 royal flag of the King of the Carnival. The news- 
 papers are full of his coming; cablegrams appear 
 in the foreign dispatches announcing the arrival 
 of the Royal Fleet at Suez, Tamatave, Colombo, 
 and other parts equally romantic and remote. 
 Proclamations are published, signed "Bathurst, 
 Lord Chamberlain," commanding all loving and 
 loyal subjects to make ready with rejoicing for 
 the coming of his Majesty Rex, King Rex, 
 as the children call him. Mardi Gras is coming, 
 Mardi Gras is coming! The world, the weather, 
 and the people are all one laugh for joy. 
 
 Early in January, the pompous and magnilo- 
 quent invitations to the balls begin to be distrib- 
 uted by polite but secretive-looking messengers, 
 who carry lists of names, and are careful to make 
 sure they have come to the right house. And 
 later, through the post, the tiny, mysterious 
 dance-cards begin to arrive, the biddings to the 
 favored ones who are elected to dance the first, 
 or the third, or the second, or the fourth dance 
 with such and such a masquer at such and such 
 a ball. 
 
 For ten days before the great day, the Mardi 
 Gras, the fat day of rejoicing, the carnival rages. 
 All galleries overhanging the street must be 
 propped, by order of the law. Rex is careful for 
 the safety of his loving and loyal subjects, and 
 the holiday crowd twists in and out good-na- 
 turedly among the rough timbers and temporary
 
 154 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 pillars, The king must pass the City Hall, and 
 opposite, in the gay green square with its quaintly 
 whitewashed tree -trunks, rows of rough wooden 
 seats are set up, one above the other, circus-fash- 
 ion. 
 
 The first balls of the carnival those which 
 have no preliminary street pageant open with 
 a series of tableaux. After these, crowded close 
 upon one another, come four processions and 
 three balls, all taking place between Monday 
 morning and properly speaking Wednesday 
 morning. 
 
 When this rich and varied programme was 
 unfolded to Enid and Sylvia, they gasped and 
 cried out : 
 
 "We never can go through all that! " 
 
 "You can't, anyway! " said Enid decisively. 
 
 "Ah, don't you be a dragon, now!" said 
 Jacques. "I would n't let her bully me, Miss 
 Sylvia. Of course you can do it. Nobody gets 
 tired in carnival week till it 's all over. You 
 mustn't miss it. You won't see anything like 
 it anywhere else. It 's a magnificent sight and 
 a unique one. Besides, everybody says this will 
 be the most gorgeous carnival we 've had yet. 
 You owe it to yourself not to miss it, after com- 
 ing all this way." 
 
 "Yes, Miss Bennett," drawled Baird; "when 
 Dumarais can go so far as to abandon his cus- 
 tomary modesty and reserve concerning the attri-
 
 THE CARNIVAL 155 
 
 butes of his native town, and indulge in enco- 
 miums of this extreme character, you may trust 
 me there is something in it." 
 
 Everybody laughed, Jacques loudest of all. 
 Curtis Baird had found this outspoken self -ap- 
 preciation one of the charms of the Southern 
 people. 
 
 "They are as pleased as a parcel of children 
 when you praise them," he reflected often, smil- 
 ing to himself. "They perk and prink them- 
 selves, and ask strangers to compliment them on 
 their climate, their hospitality, and their pretty 
 girls, with as much ingenuousness as a baby of 
 six who invites her friends to admire her new 
 silk stockings. It is delightful! I never saw a 
 people, confessedly a society people, so entirely 
 free from ennui. Here they are, throwing them- 
 selves into this preposterous carnival make-believe 
 with the abandon of children at a dancing-school 
 festival. You wouldn't find a Northern city 
 capable of tossing dignity to the winds, and kick- 
 ing up its civic and social heels in this jolly 
 fashion. It takes imagination to do this sort of 
 thing, and that 's what this people has as a peo- 
 ple. It is the Southern temperament, I suppose." 
 
 And Mr. Curtis Baird, with human contradic- 
 toriness, had proceeded to single out for special 
 adoration that Southern woman, of all others, 
 least Southern in speech and tendencies, least 
 imaginative and volatile in temperament, and,
 
 156 DIANA V1CTEIX 
 
 what was more important under the circum- 
 stances, least satisfied with her own city and her 
 own people. It amused him to hear her rail, 
 and he drew her on to say sharp things about 
 New Orleans, its complacency and narrowness. 
 He ought to have been troubled concerning the 
 incompatibility of making New Orleans his home 
 and this scornful, self-willed lady his wife, but he 
 wasn't. He had never had to choose which of 
 two good things he would have; he had always 
 taken both, and he expected to take both in this 
 case. He knew, of course, that Roma had a 
 right to know what her future life promised to 
 be, before she accepted him, and he intended to 
 wait till his business arrangements were formally 
 announced before offering himself to her, but, 
 somehow, he did n't. And when Roma accepted 
 him, on the Sunday before Mardi Gras, she did 
 not know that the dinner he was to give, and 
 which she had helped him to plan, was given in 
 order to announce, to those few most likely to be 
 interested, that he and Jacques Dumarais were 
 going into partnership. 
 
 He felt a little troubled when he went away 
 from her Sunday night, only a little, however, 
 for he had heard women rail before, and had 
 never attached much importance to their vehe- 
 ment expressions of like and dislike. Moreover, 
 he consoled himself by telling her jokingly the 
 next day that after Mardi Gras she might want
 
 THE CARNIVAL 157 
 
 to break her engagement, and she replied, also 
 laughing, that in that case they would not an- 
 nounce it till after the crisis. 
 
 If Baird had been more of a business man, he 
 would have realized the importance of the two 
 steps he was taking, but it did not occur to him 
 that his arrangement with Jacques could in any 
 way hamper his movements. He never had been 
 hampered, and he expected to take his wife away 
 and keep her away as long as she liked. So 
 what few qualms he had, through leaving her so 
 long in ignorance of his plans, were easily stifled. 
 
 He did not find out for some time how angry 
 she was, and how seriously she did debate break- 
 ing that engagement. But she was proud ; she 
 was ashamed to betray to him how little she really 
 loved him, although he was quite aware that 
 she had accepted him chiefly from bewilderment. 
 Finally, as the case was with him, so it was with 
 her ; the exigencies of the situation had very little 
 meaning for her, and in addition she fell into 
 that fatal error of believing that if, after her 
 marriage, she found they really must live in New 
 Orleans, she should be able to persuade him to 
 dissolve the partnership. For of one thing she 
 was fully convinced, that, whatever her own 
 feelings might be towards him, he loved her. 
 
 So she let the matter drift, and made her prep- 
 arations for her wedding. And he, his little 
 panic abated, felt more sure of her than he ought
 
 158 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 to have felt, and made many promises about 
 going to Europe, and spending winters in New 
 York, promises which Jacques, armed with the 
 rectitude of business responsibility, and innocent 
 of any strain in Baird's marital relations, com- 
 pelled him, later, to break. In the end, it was 
 hard to tell whether he or his wife had been most 
 at fault. If she had chosen to break with him 
 after the dinner, she might have done so, but she 
 always said : 
 
 "How could I with any self-respect? " 
 
 This dinner added one more festivity to the 
 burden which their hospitable friends insisted 
 upon imposing on the two Northern women; and 
 Sylvia, longing to show her gratitude for the 
 kindness, tried to insist, with the irresolution 
 and lack of judgment of an invalid, that she 
 should be allowed to see everything. But the 
 dinner proved to be the last straw for Enid, and 
 she took the importunate and obtuse Jacques into 
 a corner and laid down the law to him vigorously. 
 
 "She can't do it, and I don't intend she shall. 
 You don't know anything about what she can 
 stand and what she can't. You are a great, 
 strong, normal man ; you 're so unconscionably 
 healthy that you 're not fit to judge for people 
 who are delicate, and I won't have you exciting 
 her and making her fret." 
 
 "Yes 'm," said Jacques meekly. 
 
 "She is doing very well ; she sleeps better,
 
 THE CARNIVAL 159 
 
 and her appetite is pretty good, and her head 
 does n't bother her more than half the time. 
 And I 'm not going to have her break down and 
 lose the little she's gained, not for all the Mardi 
 Gras in Christendom." 
 
 "Yes 'm," said Jacques. 
 
 "I'm going to everything," Jacques' face 
 brightened, "and you must n't think we do not 
 appreciate your kindness in getting all these in- 
 vitations for us, I know it must be you. But 
 she is not going to everything." 
 
 Here Jacques' ridiculous exaggeration of meek- 
 ness was too much for Enid, and she laughed. 
 
 " And and you may decide which ones you 
 want her to see most, and we '11 try to arrange 
 it." 
 
 So it was finally settled that Sylvia should go 
 to the Atlanteans' Ball, should see the proces- 
 sions, and should have Curtis Baird's dinner, and 
 a peep at Comus. 
 
 "I don't see why you insist on our going to 
 the Atlanteans'," Enid objected, "when you say 
 you have to go out of town that day, and won't 
 be able to take us there." 
 
 "That is only another instance of my self-sac- 
 rificing disposition," explained Jacques. "You 
 will learn to appreciate me after a while. This is 
 a new society, and I hear it is very fine; and 
 besides, you all have dance-cards for that ball." 
 
 "We have for most of the others, too," said
 
 160 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 Enid. "I really think it is very queer that, 
 although you have never had to go off on busi- 
 ness before, you should be obliged to go on that 
 day of all others. Why can't you postpone it?" 
 
 "Impossible!" said Jacques; and then, as if 
 meditating ways and means in his mind, "Per- 
 haps I shall be able to get back by the night 
 train, and I '11 hurry around in time to bring you 
 home." 
 
 Jeanne gave a delightful chuckle, and hugged 
 him and said : 
 
 "Please, Miss Enid, you must go to this one; 
 you will be sorry if you don't! " 
 
 And gradually Enid began to observe that 
 most of the young men she met had engagements 
 out of town or were going to stag dinners on one 
 or other of the mysterious nights, and they all 
 said : 
 
 "You know they poke us off upstairs till after 
 the masquers have had their fun, so what 's the 
 good of going early? " 
 
 And, finding that no one else asked questions, 
 Enid and Sylvia ceased asking them, also. 
 
 Jacques was angelic in smoothing the way for 
 Sylvia. He fully retracted his former insistent 
 statements with unblushing ardor. 
 
 "After all, Miss Sylvia, I wouldn't try to go 
 to Momus, if I were you ; of course it 's one of 
 the prettiest, but if you go to the Atlanteans' 
 you will get a good idea of all those early balls.
 
 THE CARNIVAL 161 
 
 Keep your strength for the dinner. Baird is 
 setting great store by that dinner, and he 's such 
 a good fellow it would be a pity to disappoint 
 him." 
 
 In his own room Jacques said to himself: 
 "Wasn't she just ready to take my head off, 
 though? Awfully handsome. Gee! but does n't 
 she love that girl, yes! " 
 
 Something curiously like tenderness came into 
 his bright gray eyes as he thought about Enid's 
 devotion to her friend. 
 
 Jocelin escorted them to the Atlanteans' Ball. 
 
 Jocelin came in "very handy" about this time, 
 for he belonged to no association, had no stag 
 dinners to attend, and no urgent business engage- 
 ments in the country. Perhaps he would have 
 liked to have, for he was more than ordinarily 
 pessimistic and prone to take a hopeless view of 
 his life. 
 
 "If I could get him to promise to keep himself 
 straight, and to take care of his voice, he would 
 keep his promise," thought Sylvia. 
 
 Jocelin was so gentle, so impressionable, so 
 easily led, and withal so humble! A promise, 
 he said, was a sacred thing. He had never 
 broken a promise, but he did not feel that he 
 could enter lightly into compacts; he had too 
 deep a knowledge of his own nature; he had a 
 dread of making promises, lest he should break 
 them. All this he said in the abstract, and with-
 
 162 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 out reference to any special promise; for when 
 Sylvia tried to particularize, to draw him into 
 a compact, there was no one more obtuse, more 
 evasive, more eel-like in wriggling away from 
 definite agreement, than Jocelin. 
 
 His dislike to committing himself made Sylvia 
 respect him, because she, also, had this same 
 terror of promising to do a thing. But it made 
 her misjudge him, too ; for she drew her conclu- 
 sions from knowledge of her own heart, not Joce- 
 lin's. He took all the pity she chose to give 
 him, but as for living differently, that was 
 another matter. 
 
 A gentle and interesting melancholy pervaded 
 his manner during those carnival days. He 
 walked through the midst of the merry-making 
 with the air of one who tolerates such things for 
 the sake of other people, but who has no personal 
 interest in them. This, at least, was his deport- 
 ment at home and with Sylvia. That he might 
 be different when out of her sight had not crossed 
 her mind. And if he was different, it was not 
 because he meant to deceive. Nobody was ever 
 less a conscious villain than Jocelin. 
 
 So he took the three women to the Atlanteans' 
 Ball, and handed them over to the reception 
 committee, and spent the rest of the evening 
 wandering over the opera house cursing his luck. 
 And the reception committee took Enid and 
 Sylvia and Jeanne, and put them down in the
 
 THE CARNIVAL 163 
 
 seats just under the gallery, where all the other 
 favored young women who were to dance with 
 masquers were seated. The parquet, which had 
 been boarded over for dancing, stretched out 
 ahead to the curtain, and all around the pretty 
 girls such pretty ones, some of them ! were 
 chattering and smiling, and pulling out their 
 gauze sleeves, and nodding to acquaintances, and 
 examining their programmes, and behaving just 
 as pretty girls behave in their best gowns all the 
 world over. Sometimes the words one caught 
 were French, sometimes English. 
 
 " How nice it would be to be called Lu/w, with 
 the accent on the last syllable! " said Enid, refer- 
 ring to an excited, black-haired little debutante 
 who had been talking to Jeanne over the heads of 
 three other people, gesticulating and laughing, 
 and pretending to be in great distress of mind 
 lest her masquer should forget that he had ever 
 sent her an invitation. 
 
 Several "black coats," as they were called, to 
 distinguish them from the Atlanteans, had al- 
 ready come up and put their names down on the 
 lower half of Jeanne's programme. She was to 
 dance all of the masquers' dances, and her less 
 fortunate friends were congratulating her. 
 
 The band played at intervals; Sylvia began to 
 look a little tired; the electric lights around the 
 queen's box shot into being once or twice to make 
 sure of themselves ; and at last the queen and her
 
 164 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 maids appeared, and after a short delay the cur- 
 tain rose on the first tableau. 
 
 "And there are millions and millions of girls 
 who never experience this sort of thing, and 
 never will," thought Enid. 
 
 Until this winter, she had never had the simple 
 joyousness of a society girl's life so clearly put 
 before her. She had begrudged wealth, books, 
 comforts, for her poor people; she had wanted 
 to give them music and art, but she had never 
 before desired for them mere well-bred, civilized, 
 butterfly enjoyment. She thought of her young 
 garment-workers, years older than these girls 
 in experience, but no older as far as birthdays 
 go, and she wanted to turn all these pretty 
 creatures out of the opera house, and let their 
 serious, tired sisters in. The girls Enid knew 
 were the respectable, hard - working poor ones, 
 who liked better things, and could not afford to 
 take cheap amusements, even innocently, because 
 of their own reputations. Enid wanted to give 
 them gay dancing and tableaux for once. She 
 had never known herself so light-minded, so 11011- 
 educative, before. 
 
 The pageant on the stage changed mistily, 
 trap-doors came up, drop-curtains came down, 
 and the happy, light-hearted crowd around said 
 "Oh! "and "Ah!" 
 
 And then the masquers began to stream down 
 from their various posts on the stage, and to
 
 THE CARNIVAL 165 
 
 march two and two around the floor, while the 
 king and queen sat on their thrones at the back 
 of the stage in all the glory of electric lights 
 and tinsel. In another minute the front of the 
 parquet floor was filled with a crowd of quaint, 
 capering figures, Jeanne was disappearing from 
 view on the arm of a great ice -ghost, one of the 
 floor committee was taking Sylvia up to a respect- 
 ful sea-dragon, while a lively nymph with a tri- 
 dent was executing a Highland fling on a line 
 with Enid's vision, and pointing at her and 
 saying: 
 
 "Yes, you ! you ! Come on ! " 
 
 And presently she and the sea-nymph were 
 dancing the Lancers in the same set with Jeanne 
 and Sylvia and Eoma. In the middle of the 
 visiting figure the sea-nymph said, "Oh, I for- 
 got! " and proceeded to pin a gold souvenir 
 brooch on her shoulder, thereby throwing that 
 figure of the Lancers into confusion for eight 
 people, who apparently thought it the greatest 
 joke in the world. When he took her back to 
 her seat, the sea-nymph gave her a lock of his 
 hair, as he expressed it, in the form of a long 
 strand of imitation seaweed twined with pearls. 
 
 Later in the evening, when she and Sylvia 
 were upstairs in a box resting, watching the 
 dancers, and drinking the lemonade which Joce- 
 lin procured, Jacques appeared, grinned in at 
 them, and mopped his face, saying :
 
 166 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 "Wasn't I clever to get here so early? I 
 almost lost my train, and I ran most of the way 
 here from the house." 
 
 Indeed, he looked as if he had, for his face was 
 scarlet and his hair was wet. Later he said : 
 
 " That little sister of mine has had a fine time ; 
 she hasn't been back to her chair once since the 
 masquers came on the floor." 
 
 Enid wanted to ask him how he knew this, if 
 he had only just come in, but she thought it was 
 not quite fair to tease him. 
 
 Jocelin took Sylvia home early, and Jacques 
 and Enid danced, and waited around till Jeanne 
 was ready to go. Once, in their peregrinations 
 over the opera house, they came upon Baird 
 and Miss Campion comfortably ensconced in a 
 baignoire in the "seconde." 
 
 "We're consulting about that dinner," said 
 Baird, with a good-natured smile of dismissal. 
 
 "Yes, so I thought," said Jacques, and he 
 added to Enid as she drew him away : 
 
 "They've begun their housekeeping a little 
 ahead of time. I wonder if she knows why he 's 
 giving that dinner? " 
 
 "I haven't told her," said Enid. 
 
 "I wouldn't give two bits for his chances with 
 her if she does," Jacques remarked decisively. 
 And then they went downstairs again to the 
 floor. 
 
 Mardi Gras, when it came, was a fragrant,
 
 THE CARNIVAL 167 
 
 breezy day, and, although Roma Campion sent 
 her carriage early for Enid and Sylvia, the two 
 women found the streets through which they 
 drove already alive with masquers. There were 
 children in parti-colored garments, darkies in< 
 ticking coats and stove-pipe hats, wagon-loads of 
 men and women with banjos, guitars, concertinas, 
 and Jew's-harps. A wild horde of ragamuffins, 
 bold in their bravery of turkey feathers and red 
 paint, kept the carriage waiting five minutes 
 while they performed a war-dance in the middle 
 of the road. Nobody made any objections, or 
 told them to move on. Miss Campion's impres- 
 sive colored coachman sat upon his box with im- 
 perturbable amiaoleness until the young rascals 
 got ready to clear the way. 
 
 It is not the elite of the city who dress up in 
 masques and run about the streets ; it is the chil- 
 dren and the "people," close kinsmen these. 
 The fancy costumes are not always elegant, the 
 jokes are not always refined, but the gentleness 
 of sweet charity is abroad, and everybody laughs 
 and loves his neighbor. The very policemen on 
 the street corners "smile peace." 
 
 Enid and Sylvia spent a quiet morning in Miss 
 Campion's garden. Curtis Baird was there part 
 of the time, Jacques dropped in for half an hour, 
 other people came and went sociably. Several 
 old ladies, friends of Miss Campion's grand- 
 mamma, sat on the pillared gallery in a row,
 
 168 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 waiting for the procession. When it came, every- 
 body took a chair and ran down across the lawn 
 to the tall iron fence, and everybody, old and 
 young, mounted a chair and hung over the fence, 
 and nodded and waved flirtatiously to the masquers 
 on the floats, and dodged to escape the showers 
 of hard candy. 
 
 After the procession had passed and the lap- 
 luncheon had been served, Enid and Sylvia were 
 taken home through the surging, good-natured 
 crowds to rest before the dinner.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CURTIS BAIRD GIVES A DINNER 
 
 THE dinner had to be an early one on account 
 of the evening festivities; so, promptly at six 
 o'clock, Jacques marshaled his party into Mo- 
 reau's. Not downstairs, where the floor is 
 neatly sanded and the tables are small and white, 
 but above in a private room, where there were 
 enough gas-jets blazing to have illuminated three 
 rooms instead of one, and where there was a table 
 laid for ten, a tablecloth and napkins crimped 
 and crinkled marvelously, and an armchair at 
 every place, because that is the fashion at Mo- 
 reau's. 
 
 Curtis Baird asked Madame Dumarais to honor 
 him by taking the end of the table, and every 
 one sat down with a rustle and a buzz, ma- 
 dame, with monsieur on one side and Jacques on 
 the other; Curtis Baird opposite her with Roma 
 and Jeanne ; Enid next to Jacques, Jocelin next 
 to her, then Roma; Sylvia next to monsieur; and 
 between her and Jeanne a youth of the beard- 
 less, susceptible kind, invited to balance the 
 table, a fact which he was fortunately incapa- 
 ble of grasping.
 
 170 DIANA VICTBIX 
 
 Everybody talked at once. And there were 
 raw oysters, and gumbo file that hung all gluey 
 and thick from the spoon, and was full of oysters 
 and crabs and shrimp, and had to be eaten with 
 rice, of course. And there was court-bouillon of 
 red snapper with any amount of spices in the 
 tomato - sauce. And there was terrapin stew. 
 And there was jambalaya, that was rice and 
 beans and chopped ham and several other things 
 and pepper, especially pepper, all in one deli- 
 cious hodge-podge. And there was woodcock 
 with salad, and everybody knew the salad-dish 
 had been rubbed just once with a piece of garlic, 
 but it was excellent salad notwithstanding. And 
 there was white wine and red, and champagne. 
 And there was biscuit glace in blocks, with ex- 
 actly the same amount of strawberry ice at one 
 end of every block. And finally there was the 
 brulot, which came in a bowl on a platter, and 
 was made of herbs and spices and something al- 
 coholic, and was ladled out into cups. But that 
 was afterwards, and that was the smallest part 
 of the pleasure of it, for first Curtis Baird stood 
 up and said : 
 
 "Friends, I have dwelt among you a little 
 space, and you have called me brother. I have 
 eaten of your jambalaya, and found it good. I 
 have drunk of your filtered rain-water " (there 
 was a shout of derisive laughter from the com- 
 pany), "and that, too, was good. I have"
 
 CUETIS BAIRD GIVES A DINNER 171 
 
 He glanced sidewise down at Roma, lazy mischief 
 lurking in the corner of his eye. She smiled, and 
 her lips said voicelessly : 
 
 "If you like." 
 
 Poor Roma! if she had but known what was 
 to come after ! 
 
 " I have made love to your women, and 
 they have found me not altogether unpleas- 
 ing. I I speak for one of them." (Great ap- 
 plause.) "Friends, I have come to stay. The 
 firm name is ' Baird & Dumarais.' Here's to 
 Jacques ; may he never desire a better partner 
 than myself, ladies always excepted." 
 
 Enid and Monsieur Dumarais had known what 
 was coming, but the rest of the company had 
 expected simply the announcement of the engage- 
 ment, and there was a gasp, and then a clapping 
 and shouting and clinking of glasses. Every- 
 body at one end of the table shook hands with 
 Jacques, and everybody at the other end shook 
 hands with Curtis Baird. Miss Campion's hand 
 was unpleasantly cold, but a rigid society train- 
 ing is worth a good deal in an emergency of this 
 kind. 
 
 After Miss Campion had been toasted, and 
 Mr. Baird, the head waiter came forward, turned 
 down the gas, and applied a lighted match to the 
 brulot, and all the bowl and the platter were 
 set on fire, and there was a many-colored flame 
 playing over the surface of the liquid. Every-
 
 172 DIsiNA VICTRIX 
 
 body said "Ah!" and watched it in silence a 
 moment, till Baird cried : 
 
 " A song, a song ! Miss Castaigne ! Mr. 
 Jocelin!" 
 
 And back and forth across the table Jeanne 
 and Jocelin sang one of the old Creole folk-songs, 
 verse and refrain, verse and refrain, sometimes 
 one voice, sometimes the other, sometimes both 
 together, a queer, crooning, monotonous mel- 
 ody. And the flame in and around the bowl 
 leaped higher and higher. First Jacques fell in 
 with the refrain and the chant, then Roma Cam- 
 pion took it up, then Monsieur Dumarais, 
 backwards and forwards, up and down, crooning, 
 chanting, swaying, till they all stopped, laughing 
 and breathless, and the flame was at its height, 
 leaping and curling madly. 
 
 Then Baird said : 
 
 "Come, Jocelin, give us your best! " 
 
 Jocelin sat to the left of the blazing bowl, 
 Sylvia diagonally opposite to the right of it, and 
 Jocelin tossed his head back and laughed. Mon- 
 sieur Dumarais bent his brows in an involuntary 
 frown, and madame began to crumble a macaroon. 
 Jacques, apparently unconcerned and at ease, 
 nevertheless contrived, without attracting the 
 attention of the company, to make an imperative 
 sign to the waiter behind Jocelin's back. 
 
 It was not loud, that laugh of Jocelin's-, it was 
 only three low ripples, rich and thick in his
 
 CURTIS BAIRD GIVES A DINNER 173 
 
 throat, the kind of sound that flows across a lis- 
 tener's conscience and wipes off the value of the 
 moral law. 
 
 It seemed to Sylvia that her heart turned over 
 in her breast. 
 
 Jocelin's face was a devil's face on the other 
 side of the weird flames, a lean, brown, long- 
 nosed devil, with all the blood of him in that red 
 flower of a mouth beneath the faint black mous- 
 tache, and all the fire of him in his eyes. How 
 they blazed and beckoned, and said, "I am Sin," 
 those eyes! And all the mad lost soul of him 
 was in the sweet, seductive voice. 
 
 He lay back in his chair for a moment, think- 
 ing and humming softly. Sylvia watched the 
 smile on his lips, and Sylvia's soul stirred through 
 her body and felt the flesh of her, and rejoiced, 
 and leaned out of her eyes. 
 
 " Oh, my God ! It is not pity, and I am 
 glad! Jocelin, I am glad! " 
 
 On her own lips a smile trembled to dawn, but 
 she did not know that she smiled, and her eyes 
 had forgotten to look away from Jocelin's face. 
 
 This was how it was when Enid glanced across 
 the table and saw her. The doctor's words came 
 back to Enid. "Get her interested in something 
 outside herself. Make her forget to think that 
 she is thinking." 
 
 Well, the thing was done. 
 
 "I cannot bear it! " wailed Enid in her heart.
 
 174 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 " Was there no other way than this ? It is not 
 true!" 
 
 "Ah! I have it!" said Jocelin. "Madrigal 
 Triste." 
 
 He held his wine-glass aloft, and his hand was 
 unnaturally steady. There was only a little wine 
 in the glass, but the waiter appeared to be ob- 
 livious of the fact. Jocelin 's eyes were wells of 
 light, and his singing voice laughed, while be- 
 neath the gay song, hardly heard, were tears, the 
 devil's tears. 
 
 " Que m'importe que tu sois sage ? " 
 
 he sang. The far-away look of thought went 
 out of his eyes, and he turned to Koma, sitting 
 beside him, and laughed into her face. 
 
 "Damn the fellow! " muttered Curtis Baird. 
 
 But Miss Campion did not notice. She had 
 seen young men in the initial stages of exhilara- 
 tion before. She was thinking of something 
 even more disagreeable. 
 
 " Que m'importe que tu sois sage ? 
 Sois belle ! et sois triste ! Les pleurs 
 Ajoutent un charme au visage, 
 Comme le fleuve au paysage ; 
 L'orage rajeunit les fleurs." 
 
 He sang it to a mocking little melody which 
 Jeanne had composed for some other song. 
 
 " Je sais que ton cceur, qui regorge 
 De vieux amours de'raeine's, 
 Flamboie encor comme une forge, 
 Et que tu couves sous ta gorge 
 Un peu de 1'orgueil des damne's."
 
 CURTIS BATED GIVES A DINNER 175 
 
 After this his voice seemed to leap forward, with 
 no pause between the stanzas, and his eyes turned 
 dreamily was it by accident? to Sylvia. 
 
 " Mais tant, ma chere, que tea rves 
 N'auront pas re'fle'te' 1'Enfer, 
 Et qu'en un cauchemar sans trSves, 
 Songeant de poison et de glaives, 
 Eprise de poudre et de fer," 
 
 " N'ouvrant a chacun qu'avec crainte, 
 De"chiffrant le malheur partout, 
 Te convulsant quand 1'heure tinte, 
 Tu n' auras pas senti I'e'treinte 
 De I'irre'sistible Ue'gout, 
 
 " Tu ne pourras, esclave reine 
 
 Qui ne rn'aimes qu'avec effroi, 
 
 Dans 1'horreur de la nuit maLsaine 
 
 Me dire, 1'ame de cris pleine : 
 ' Je suis ton e"gale, mon Roi ! ' " 
 
 He smiled exultantly and looked around on the 
 company. 
 
 "I think that will do!" said Monsieur Du- 
 marais. Baudelaire was not one of his favorites. 
 
 "Yes, that is the last stanza," observed Joce- 
 lin airily; "I omitted some of them, perhaps you 
 may have noticed." 
 
 "And now, Miss Jeanne," interrupted Baird, 
 fearing lest Jocelin should offer to sing the stan- 
 zas which he had omitted, which were, after all, 
 the least objectionable, "now, Miss Jeanne, 
 where is that new song I heard you practicing 
 not long ago ? "
 
 176 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 "Yes, Jeanne," said Jacques from the other 
 end of the table, "sing the new one; sing Miss 
 Sylvia's song." 
 
 Sylvia blushed, and everybody clapped, and 
 Jocelin smiled across at her, a tender, protecting- 
 smile, an entirely unnecessary smile. 
 
 "I can sing it better standing," said Jeanne, 
 and she arose. 
 
 The flames were beginning to die down a little, 
 but they caught the yellow of her hair and bur- 
 nished it, and sank into her innocent great eyes, 
 and the shadows played about her white young 
 throat. Once again in Jeanne's life her friends 
 were to see her face looking out from flame ; once 
 again, at the end of her winter, the very end, 
 dear Jeanne ! 
 
 "Turn up the gas," said Jacques abruptly; 
 "this song needs light." 
 
 So the brulot and the gas burned together, 
 and Jeanne's rosy color came back to her cheeks 
 in the brightness. She began with a joyous 
 lilt:- 
 
 " The young Spring came to the world 
 
 And found me ! 
 And put her arm around me. 
 
 And close close close like rose-petals curled 
 Up under a sheath a sheath still furled, 
 My heart at the heart of the young Spring's heart 
 
 My heart my heart 
 My heart at the heart of the young Spring's heart 
 
 Beat its music out, 
 
 Beat its music out
 
 CURTIS EAIRD GIVES A DINNER 177 
 
 And the world 
 Crowned me ! crowned me ! 
 
 Crowned me ! 
 
 And the world, and the world 
 Crowned me ! ' ' 
 
 Dear little Jeanne, whom nobody ever crowned, 
 alas, nobody, nobody! 
 
 Her voice rang out in a perfect paean of joyous- 
 ness at the last. And oh, such applause as was 
 heard in that private room at Moreau's! 
 
 Sylvia's health was drunk, and Jeanne's health 
 was drunk, and in the confusion Jeanne found 
 a moment to lean over to Sylvia penitently and 
 whisper : 
 
 "I am sorry we have not had time to write 
 the music yet, Jocelin and I. You do not 
 mind?" 
 
 In the end, at Jacques' suggestion, the gas 
 was turned down again, and in the dim light of 
 the rose and green and golden flames they all 
 stood up, joined hands in a ring around the table, 
 and sang "La Marseillaise" at the very top of 
 their voices. The waiter came in in the midst 
 of it and cried : 
 
 "Messieurs, mesdames, the procession! " 
 
 When they heard him, they picked up any- 
 body's wraps and rushed out of the windows 
 upon the gallery. Enid wanted to get to Sylvia, 
 but Jacques prevented her by almost garroting 
 her with a fascinator and calling in her ear :
 
 178 DIANA VICTIUX 
 
 "Come on! Come on! Don't you hear the 
 music?" 
 
 Jocelin came to Sylvia's side of the table and 
 put a shawl around her gently, and dropped a 
 silk handkerchief over her head. 
 
 "Wait!" he said at the window, and pushed 
 her lightly back with one hand, while with the 
 other he lifted the window-sash higher. She 
 stood almost within his arms for the moment, 
 and she wondered if he felt her heart beat when 
 he touched her. 
 
 "He can never know!" she said to herself, 
 and she cried out against herself to tell him. 
 
 "Ah, bah!" said Jacques, leaning over the 
 gallery; "it is a block off, and it has stopped. 
 We might have finished that last song easily. 
 Where is my father?" 
 
 He dived back into the darkened room. 
 
 "Come out, mon pere, come out and stand by 
 me while I tell you about them ! " 
 
 Monsieur smiled with love and pride. 
 
 "No, my son. I have seen others; I know 
 how they look. Go and enjoy yourself." And 
 then, staying him : 
 
 "Jacques, have you ever spoken to Mademoi- 
 selle Enid of Jocelin? Of what he of how 
 untrustworthy he is?" 
 
 "No!" said Jacques sharply, very sharply; 
 "I do not see the necessity for warning Miss 
 Enid against Jocelin."
 
 CURTIS BAIED GIVES A DINNER 179 
 
 Jacques could not see the gleam of amusement 
 that flashed over his father's face, followed swiftly 
 by a fixed seriousness. 
 
 "Set your mind at rest, my son," he said; "I 
 did not mean that. It is her friend. I cannot 
 see, but many voices speak to me. I sat next to 
 Mademoiselle Sylvia at table just now. She 
 is thrown much with Jocelin, as it happens, and 
 Jocelin is very lovable. I think Mademoiselle 
 Enid should know something of the life of the 
 boy. She will see best how to employ that know- 
 ledge. It is not for us to warn her friend." 
 
 "Jacques! Jacques!" called Curtis Baird. 
 "They are beginning to move again." 
 
 "I will tell her, my father," said Jacques, and 
 went out through the window again to Enid's 
 side. He still felt as if some one had said 
 "Boo! " to him suddenly and made him jump.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 BETWEEN FRIENDS 
 
 CANAL STREET was blazing with illuminations 
 of all colors, the banquettes were massed with 
 people, and the neutral ground in the centre be- 
 tween the two avenues was crowded with lines of 
 mule-cars. Down the street the brilliant pageant 
 moved with majestic slowness, in a cloud of 
 light. The floats swayed slightly, the figures 
 moved gracefully back and forth. The car with 
 Comus upon it passed the restaurant, and Comus 
 bowed and waved. Other cars followed. Dra- 
 gons, giants, Eastern temples, magic gardens, 
 demons, angels, dwarfs, fairies, drifted past. A 
 number of the men on the different floats knew 
 Jacques and spoke to him, and waved to Jeanne. 
 One called out : 
 
 "The third dance is mine, you know!" and 
 threw her a heavy brass armlet hung with jin- 
 gling bangles. 
 
 Another shook his mace at Jacques and 
 said : 
 
 "Nice floor committee you are! Why are n't 
 you down at the opera house? "
 
 BETWEEN FBIENDS 181 
 
 When the last float had passed, there was a 
 rush and a scramble for one's own wraps, and a 
 clattering down the stairs at Moreau's. 
 
 Sylvia was going home with monsieur and 
 madame. 
 
 "Here! we'll put them in the carriage and 
 then run for it; that's the simplest way," said 
 Jacques. 
 
 Jocelin bowed at the carriage door and went 
 off up Canal Street. He was evidently not go- 
 ing to the ball. 
 
 Miss Campion's grandmamma, who, with her 
 glistening white hair and high-bred, clear-cut 
 features, was handsomer than many a younger 
 woman, was to meet the others at the ball and 
 chaperon them. So they started two and two 
 across the crowded street, Baird and Roma, 
 Jacques and Enid, Jeanne and the beardless 
 youth. 
 
 Jacques was a master-hand at getting through 
 a crowd; he had a way of saying "Look out!" 
 in a blood-curdling, fire-engine sort of voice, when 
 he approached a specially dense mass, and, after 
 the scattering to right and left which invariably 
 ensued, he and his companions fled rapidly down 
 the alley thus obligingly opened for them. 
 
 Enid had one masquer's dance, but after that 
 she was free, and she found Jacques waiting for 
 her by the door of the parquet. 
 
 "You are tired," he said quietly; "I will call 
 Jeanne."
 
 182 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "No, don't do that!" she begged. "Let the 
 child enjoy her evening. Her dances are all en- 
 gaged, and Lent begins to-morrow. She will 
 not have another chance for some time." 
 
 So Jacques took her up to the proscenium box 
 in the "seconde," on the opposite side from the 
 Royal Box and above it. 
 
 "Now go away and dance your own dances; I 
 will stay here quietly till Jeanne is ready." 
 
 "I have no dances engaged," he answered; "I 
 am getting to be an old fellow, you know. I 've 
 done this thing so often, the novelty has rather 
 worn off. If you will allow me, I will sit here, 
 too. Don't try to talk!" 
 
 They looked at the gay house and down upon 
 the heads of the swaying dancers. Jeanne's head 
 gleamed there, and once she turned her face 
 straight up at them and smiled. 
 
 "It seems a little strange to me, Mr. Du- 
 marais," said Enid, "that you, with your fond- 
 ness for music and your fondness for Jeanne, 
 should never have insisted upon her turning her 
 musical gift to some account. It might be useful 
 to her some day. One can never tell what straits 
 one may be reduced to ; and if she ever needed it, 
 though I trust she never will, this power of mak- 
 ing songs might help her to turn quite a pretty 
 penny, even though her talent should prove too 
 slight a thing to bring her what we call fame. 
 Her voice, too, is lovely, and and forgive
 
 BETWEEN FRIENDS 183 
 
 me if I seem to meddle, but I am fond of her, 
 and we Boston women, who haven't as many 
 men to depend upon as the girls have down here, 
 learn early the need of being able to take care of 
 ourselves. Jeanne, of course, has you now, but 
 if anything were to happen to you? It seems 
 cruel to leave such a pretty child unprovided for. 
 And if you were to marry? She might find it 
 irksome to be dependent, she isn't your own 
 sister, after all, and even own sisters object to 
 being a burden upon their brothers." 
 
 "I thank you," said Jacques. 
 
 Perhaps, if he had analyzed his sensations, he 
 would have discovered that he was chiefly grate- 
 ful for the fact that she had not taken it for 
 granted that he must marry Jeanne. 
 
 "I thank you. I believe it is quite true that 
 we Southern men, with all our surface chivalry, 
 do not always give our women a fair chance. 
 But," he added, smiling down on the yellow 
 head, "it's the very mischief and Tom Walker 
 to make that butterfly of a creature study. She 
 does n't like it, you know, never did. Jocelin 
 worked at his voice, and she has constancy in 
 her, too, bless her heart ! but it all comes out in 
 loving other people. I don't believe any other 
 brother ever had a more faithful little sister than 
 I have." 
 
 "Oh, you poor, blind, stupid man!" reflected 
 Enid.
 
 184 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 " She and Jocelin are like the two sides of a 
 coin," Jacques continued. "There are the same 
 characteristics in the metal, only they appear 
 differently under the die. And she is the best 
 side. You evidently take it for granted that 
 Jocelin could not step into the breach, if I were 
 put out of the way? " 
 
 Poor Enid was in no mood to say polite and 
 pleasant nothings about Jocelin, but she con- 
 trolled her bitterness and merely replied : 
 
 " He seems to me too delicate in health to be 
 relied upon as a prop in an emergency." 
 
 "A good deal of it is his own fault," said 
 Jacques, "and yet, in a way, I suppose he could 
 not help it. He is maman's favorite, and she 
 did not know how to manage a boy. He was 
 too near my own age for me to be able to inter- 
 fere. I took him out into the courtyard and 
 pummeled him well on one occasion, when we 
 were boys, and he had been rude to my father, 
 but that was the best I could do. And then 
 there was the scandal about the opera singer. 
 He has no pride. Perhaps you have heard that 
 story mentioned? " 
 
 "He confessed it very sweetly to Sylvia, I be- 
 lieve." 
 
 It hurt her to say those words. 
 
 "Humph!" said Jacques, "I'll bet he did. 
 He was ashamed to come home for a while, and he 
 got on pretty well till he got homesick and said
 
 BETWEEN FRIENDS 185 
 
 he must come home. I wrote him he couldn't 
 come, but he drew on me in New York and 
 he came home anyway. At least, that was the 
 way I explained it to maman. I received a 
 letter from a New York man with whom our firm 
 has dealings, and he said, * According to your 
 instructions I have cashed the draft for your 
 brother.' I was thunderstruck! And that day 
 Jocelin arrived in New Orleans. I forced him 
 to tell me. They were not my instructions, but 
 he had signed my name to them. And, under 
 the circumstances, what could I do? Of course 
 I honored the draft for maman 's sake. He said 
 he could not remain there ; he was dying of home- 
 sickness. He has no stamina. The only grace 
 he ever had was his voice, and he has wasted 
 that. I have no sympathy with that sort of 
 thing. But you might as well talk to a canary- 
 bird as to Jocelin." 
 
 Jacques paused, looked down at the dancers, 
 and then turned resolutely to Enid. 
 
 "Mademoiselle, it may be that I am going to 
 displease you by what I say. Like you, I do not 
 wish to meddle. I hope you will pardon me. 
 Jocelin is very gentle, he is lovable, I believe, 
 but he is not capable of making a woman happy." 
 
 Enid instinctively moved her chair so as to 
 bring herself back out of sight of the opera house. 
 She did not look at Jacques ; she sat erect, and 
 her nostrils quivered slightly.
 
 186 DIANA V1CTIUX 
 
 Jacques felt alarmed, but he was not one to 
 pause when he had convinced himself that a thing 
 must be done. 
 
 " Your friend "- 
 
 Her face when he said these two words made 
 him hold his breath for a second, such a flash 
 shot from her eyes, such scorn and anger wreathed 
 about her lips. 
 
 "Your friend," he faltered a second time, 
 "thinks no evil. But she is sensitive. Jocelin 
 is attractive to women. Of course you know her 
 best. Pardon me!" 
 
 Her clear brown eyes seemed to cut straight 
 through him. The majesty of the head upon the 
 splendid throat made him ache. Her white breast 
 rose and fell, but she kept her lips close shut for 
 a long moment, and Jacques began to have a 
 strained, buzzing sensation in his head. 
 
 "I thank you for your solicitude concerning 
 my friend. You honor her by your inferences," 
 she said at last, and the sound of her voice com- 
 pleted the sum of his wretchedness. 
 
 "You mistake me," he answered; "I meant 
 no disrespect to Miss Sylvia." 
 
 "But you tell me your brother is weak, worth- 
 less, a scoundrel, and hint that my friend my 
 friend is attracted towards him." 
 
 "I said he was gentle and lovable." 
 
 " And that my friend is sensitive ! You must 
 be aware, Mr. Dumarais, that your brother's
 
 BETWEEN FRIENDS 187 
 
 faults are much more apparent, even to a dull 
 person, than his virtues are. What is it you 
 expect me to do? Do you think I will insult my 
 friend by telling her that I have no confidence in 
 her judgment and self-control ? You should know 
 me better than to suppose that any one so dear 
 to me as Sylvia would be one to whom I could 
 say such things, to whom it would be necessary 
 to say such things. Yes, it is perfectly true that 
 I know her best. You should have saved your 
 warning, Mr. Dumarais, until you knew me bet- 
 ter. I do not listen patiently to a disparagement 
 of my friend." 
 
 This constant repetition of "my friend" stung 
 Jacques' heart as the blows of a whip. Her 
 beauty, her championship of Sylvia, her ingrati- 
 tude towards him for his well-meant warning, all 
 maddened him. 
 
 "You shall not speak to me like this!" he 
 cried; "you know you are unjust. You know 
 I do not mean to insult you, I, of all people 
 in the world. You turn my words against me. 
 I have made a mistake, but no mistake justifies 
 you in punishing me so cruelly. Am I to be the 
 only one who is to receive no consideration from 
 you ? Is it all for her ? for her, whom not one 
 breath of mine has harmed ? Your friend I your 
 friend! but what of me? Have I not some 
 claim upon the rights of friendship, or do you 
 keep your pity and justice only for your women
 
 188 DIANA V1CTEIX 
 
 friends ? Do you think it has given me pleasure 
 to hurt you ? Would I not rather cut my tongue 
 out than give you pain? And for a mere ima- 
 ginary insult to a woman whom, of all women 
 save you, I should least desire to injure, if only 
 because because you are so fond of her. For 
 only a chimera, you grind me beneath your heel 
 with such contempt! " 
 
 Poor Jacques ! poor Jacques ! 
 
 He was jealous. Enid, in the midst of her 
 own heartache, recognized that and was sorry for 
 him. The sense that he was not to blame smote 
 her with remorse. She knew that she had turned 
 her wrath upon him for the sake of shielding 
 Sylvia, and that he did not deserve it. She 
 knew that she had been perversely cruel, but she 
 had not stopped to think how it might hurt him. 
 And now she tried to make amends. 
 
 "I am sorry I have hurt you," she said gently. 
 "But don't you understand? Don't you under- 
 stand ? It was not quite safe to tell me that the 
 one who is dearest to me in all the world was in 
 danger of giving her love to another, and such 
 a despicable other! " 
 
 "Do you mean it made you jealous?" said 
 Jacques, quieting down, and speaking in a half- 
 derisive tone, as if he felt his question too im- 
 probable to admit of being asked. 
 
 Enid flushed, but she felt that this was no time 
 for half -truths.
 
 BETWEEN FRIENDS 189 
 
 "Yes, I mean just that," she said. 
 
 "But," he replied, looking rather amused, "it 
 is n't the same thing at all. There would n't be 
 any disloyalty in her doing it. Friendship is one 
 thing, love is another. It is my experience that 
 a love affair makes a woman rather more interest- 
 ing to her women friends, gives them some- 
 thing to talk about together. All women expect 
 to marry." 
 
 "I do not expect to," said Enid. "My life 
 has other work in it. And my friend is sufficient 
 for me." 
 
 "You don't expect a man to believe that, do 
 you? " said Jacques. He felt nettled. 
 
 "I expect you to believe it," she answered. 
 "I want you to try to understand it, so you will 
 be able to appreciate why I was so angry just now. 
 If you loved a woman, you would not listen to 
 such an insinuation any more than I do." 
 
 "Your loving a woman and my loving a woman 
 are entirely different matters," said Jacques. 
 
 "You do not understand," she persisted. 
 
 "I understand enough! " he answered bitterly. 
 "You have made part of your meaning very clear, 
 that I am not worth so much as your little 
 finger to you, compared with your friend." 
 
 Enid meant to do the kindest thing, and his 
 vehemence frightened her, so she said: 
 
 "In one way that is quite true." 
 
 He sat still for a moment, and when he spoke 
 his voice was not angry.
 
 190 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "It shall not be true," lie said. 
 
 Just then some one pounded on the door, and 
 Jeanne's voice cried: 
 
 "Jacques! let us in, Jacques! The door 
 has caught on the inside." 
 
 And back upon his mind, like a blow, came 
 the thought : 
 
 "But, if I were in love with somebody else, 
 would it be right to marry which? " 
 
 Jeanne, Curtis Baird, Roma Campion, and the 
 beardless youth trooped into the box. 
 
 "Awfully deaf, you two!" said Baird. "We 
 knocked and knocked." 
 
 "We were discussing our friends," said Enid 
 quietly. Her color was still bright. "That is 
 always an absorbing occupation." 
 
 "Rex is coming, and we thought we could see 
 better up here," Jeanne announced. 
 
 The three women crowded to the front of the 
 box and looked down. They watched the Royal 
 Party move slowly up to the back of the stage. 
 They watched the stately courtesy of Comus and 
 his queen towards the merry monarch who had 
 condescended to grace their festivities with his 
 presence. They watched the Royal Lancers 
 dance with courtly precision and admirable man- 
 agement of mantles and trains. And who shall 
 say how much they saw of it? Even Jeanne? 
 This was the last ball of the season, and Jacques 
 had not offered to dance with her.
 
 BETWEEN FRIENDS 191 
 
 "I shall go now," said Miss Campion; "I am 
 tired," and in truth she looked rather white. 
 
 "We might as well all go," said Jeanne list- 
 lessly. 
 
 They went down together to the foyer and the 
 vestibule, and when they were standing by Miss 
 Campion's carriage, tucking in Miss Campion's 
 grandmamma, upon whose physical strength the 
 ball had apparently made no impression, Curtis 
 Baird said : 
 
 "Now we '11 go home to repent us of our sins." 
 
 "Yes, to repent us of our sins," repeated 
 Jacques dully. "Good-night." 
 
 Jacques always put out the lamp under the 
 arch, so he kissed Jeanne and said : 
 
 "You 're dead tired, bebe; run to bed." And 
 she went upstairs, but Enid lingered with him 
 beneath the lamp and held out her hand. 
 
 "I am sorry we quarreled," she said, looking 
 at him straight out of her sweet, wholesome 
 eyes. "I was rude. I was unjust. I did not 
 mean that our good comradeship had been no- 
 thing to me. It has been a great deal. It has 
 been the happiest " she paused and thought, 
 "no, not the happiest, for Sylvia's new strength 
 makes me happier, however it has come about; " 
 so she corrected herself "one of the happiest 
 things the winter has brought me. I do not want 
 to lose it." 
 
 This would have been an excellent opportunity
 
 192 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 for Jacques to sulk, but Jacques was a gentle- 
 man. 
 
 "It was the thought of losing it which made 
 me so miserable," he said, and he took her prof- 
 fered hand. "When I am unhappy, I lose my 
 temper. It is one of my failings." 
 
 "It is one of mine, too," Enid answered. "I 
 thank you for being so generous." 
 
 "And you also." 
 
 Very late, Sylvia, lying awake, heard some- 
 body coming along the gallery. He came slowly, 
 and once he stumbled. He passed her door, and 
 after he had passed she went over and leaned 
 against it and listened. She heard madame's 
 door open softly just a little way, and she knew 
 that madame was standing watching him, but he 
 did not turn nor stop ; he went on along the gal- 
 lery, and up three steps at the end, and again he 
 stumbled, and turned off to his own room. 
 
 Sylvia lifted her arms above her head, laid 
 them against the door, and pressed her cheek 
 against the smooth panel. 
 
 "How I should loathe myself, if I were his 
 wife ! " she said.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ASH WEDNESDAY 
 
 ASH WEDNESDAY was a warm, pale day; there 
 was no breeze to sway the branches of the big 
 magnolia-tree. The sunlight lay in the court- 
 yard with melancholy quiet. And Jacques, on 
 a bench in a corner, was the stillest thing of all. 
 He sat with his elbows on his knees and his chin 
 in his hands. Enid looked down through the 
 gallery shutters and saw him there, and a quarter 
 of an hour later, when by chance she looked 
 again, he had not moved. She went into her 
 own room and closed the door softly. 
 
 Still Jacques sat in the courtyard, staring at the 
 sunshine on the bricks, repenting of his sins, 
 perhaps ; and if he heard Jeanne come down the 
 passage and stand beneath the arch, at least he 
 did not seem to hear her. 
 
 Jeanne said " O ! " a happy little round O, 
 and Jacques lifted his head and smiled. But the 
 sunshine was just as sad as it had been before, 
 and the great white buds on the magnolia-tree 
 did not stir. 
 
 "Thou art not ill?" said Jeanne. She came
 
 194 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 over to the bench and stood beside him, as a 
 child stands, quite close. 
 
 "No, but there was nothing doing, so I came 
 home." 
 
 He answered her in English. He had fallen 
 into the way of speaking English to her since 
 Enid and Sylvia had lived with them. There 
 seemed to be less intimacy about it. Not that 
 Jacques intended to be less intimate. 
 
 She was taking off her gloves slowly and look- 
 ing down at him. 
 
 "And was last night's ball the best of all?" 
 he asked presently, with something of an effort. 
 
 She sat down, began to pull out the fingers of 
 her gloves, shook her head like a disappointed 
 child, slowly, wistfully, and said : 
 
 "N-n-o!" 
 
 But he paid no attention to the hesitating 
 monosyllable. 
 
 "Do you know, Jacques," she continued, "it 
 was the very last of all the balls, that one, and 
 you never danced with me a single time?" 
 
 "Ah! " said he, smiling, and pretending to be 
 contrite. " Did I not ? That was a great over- 
 sight. Never mind. I will dance two dances 
 with you next year to make up for it. But per- 
 haps by that time there will be some other fellow, 
 and your poor old brother will be left out in the 
 cold. You may not care to dance with him." 
 
 "No!" she cried impulsively, and the tears
 
 ASH WEDNESDAY 195 
 
 came into her eyes as she tried to smile. "You 
 tease, Jacques! Those balls have made me so 
 tired! I don't like to be teased to-day." 
 
 "Eh, bien, non!" he said, and put his arm 
 around her shoulders. 
 
 The knowledge that she was as yet unconscious 
 of the meaning of her own feelings, and that any 
 careless word of his might enlighten her, made 
 him uneasy, frightened, for her sake more than 
 for his own, be it said, for she was dear to him. 
 
 She settled herself against his arm and laid 
 aside her hat, saying contentedly : 
 
 " I have not talked with you tout seul for such 
 a long time! There are so many dinners, and 
 parties, and other people." 
 
 And again he made no comment. He was 
 looking absently at the wall above the water-jar. 
 He was thinking of Enid's face with the light 
 of the lamp upon it. He had been thinking of 
 her face all day, the strength of the mouth, the 
 sweetness of the eyes. 
 
 "Jeanne," he began quite irrelevantly a mo- 
 ment later, "how should you like to learn how 
 to put your songs on paper and see them printed ? 
 How should you like to study harmony and thor- 
 ough-bass, and be a musician?" 
 
 "Study!" said Jeanne. "Oh, Jacques, but 
 didn't I finish studying? All the other girls 
 have left school. No, I don't want to, please, 
 Jacques."
 
 196 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 "It would not be quite the same," he explained; 
 "you should go to Europe " 
 
 "And you? " she asked. 
 
 "I? Oh, I should stay at home and make the 
 money." 
 
 " But, Jacques, you said you could not afford 
 it." 
 
 "That was some time ago. It is different 
 now ; do you not see ? I shall be in business for 
 myself, and I have promise of a good business. 
 The money comes easier than it did. Think, 
 mignonne ! Paris Paris and Berlin and Vi- 
 enna. You shall go if you will." 
 
 "Why do you want me to go?" she asked. 
 
 Such an uncompromisingly plain question! 
 How are you going to answer it, Jacques? See 
 her eyes, how grave they are, and her mouth, 
 how listless! Why did you want her to go, 
 Jacques, after all? 
 
 "Do you not love your music, little one?" he 
 said. "Do you not want to learn to use it well? 
 I think I have been thoughtless. Here is a great 
 gift le bon Dieu has given you, and I have done 
 nothing to help you use it." 
 
 "You have been talking to Miss Enid," she 
 said suspiciously. "Those are the things she 
 says to me." 
 
 "Miss Enid is very wise," Jacques answered, 
 smoothing the fluffy hair. 
 
 She only looked troubled and shook her head.
 
 ASH WEDNESDAY 197 
 
 "Listen, my little sister. It might be that 
 some day you would need money." 
 
 "But you always give me money, Jacques; I 
 do not even have to ask for it." 
 
 "I know, I know, but listen. If I were to 
 die"- 
 
 He was afraid to say "marry." 
 
 She gave a little cry, and flung her arms 
 around his neck. 
 
 "Why do you say such things? When I am 
 so tired after the carnival, and this weather is 
 stifling, and you make me cry. I do not want 
 to go anywhere but here. I should be homesick 
 in another place, in Paris, in Berlin, in Vienna. 
 I will not go, Jacques. Why do you talk about 
 dying ? Is it not enough that this is Ash Wednes- 
 day, and the tears are so close to my eyes?" 
 
 He dried her tears and kissed her, but could 
 not leave the subject alone. 
 
 "It is not fair to you to let you see so little of 
 the world." 
 
 "There are other girls who do not see as 
 much! " she protested. "There is Therese Bonet, 
 she never goes away. And I have been three 
 times to the Pass, and once to Mississippi City, 
 besides that time to Brown's Wells when maman 
 was ill." 
 
 "You will be falling in love with some good- 
 for-nothing fellow here, and only because you 
 have not seen enough of other men," he continued.
 
 198 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 She laughed quite merrily at this. 
 
 "Oh, funny! Do I look like falling in love? 
 No, I shall stay here with you. I do not wish to 
 go away. I will learn how to write Miss Sylvia's 
 song soon. But all that is so slow, Jacques, and 
 I do not want to do it all the time, all the 
 time, nothing else! You are not going to die, 
 Jacques. You do not feel a bit like dying. You 
 only say that to tease me." 
 
 He thought of David Copperfield and Dora, 
 and felt sick. In one way he knew the parallel 
 did not hold good, for he should have nothing to 
 complain of as to dinners and bills if he married 
 this little Creole girl. She was frugal by instinct 
 and education ; she had the true French talent for 
 careful shopping. But was this all that he had 
 a right to expect from marriage? a good din- 
 ner, and after dinner a little wife upon his knee, 
 to be petted, eternally petted ? Only this, 
 when there were other women in the world who 
 were made to walk with a man shoulder to shoul- 
 der? He thought he was tired of deciding all 
 his affairs without help from others. Enid's 
 word "comradeship" rang in his ears. He no 
 longer said, "If I were in love with somebody 
 else." No, he only said, "Which? " 
 
 "Then you will not go?" he asked slowly, as 
 if he were thinking of something else. 
 
 "No, no!" she pouted. And then, with a 
 sudden access of repentance, "If you wish it,
 
 ASH WEDNESDAY 199 
 
 Jacques, I will go. I will study very hard. I 
 will if you wish it, Jacques, Jacques!" 
 
 The tears were coming again. He could not 
 bid her go after that. 
 
 He sent her to her room comforted, and he 
 sat in the courtyard till the sunlight was all drawn 
 up over the walls, and the bricks were growing 
 damp, and the magnolia-tree had rustled once or 
 twice. Then he got up and went into the house. 
 
 Were you trying to buy her off, Jacques? Did 
 you think that that was one way out of it? Did 
 you really think so?
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE COMING OF SPRING 
 
 AND then the end of Jeanne's winter came, 
 and Jeanne died. There was no warning; it was 
 one of those great crashes that shiver unexpectedly 
 through the harmony of God and offend men's 
 minds as a discord. Who would have thought 
 that Jeanne could die? But she did die, sud- 
 denly, terribly, one night in April, on the shore 
 of the lake where she had played in her child- 
 hood, where Jacques had called her "little wife," 
 and carried her about in his arms. 
 
 It was Jacques who had planned that they 
 should all go across the lake and camp out over 
 Sunday in the old house on the beach, so that 
 Enid and Sylvia might have a glimpse of South- 
 ern country before they went home. 
 
 Enid wanted to go home in March, immediately 
 after the carnival, but Sylvia's father wrote that 
 the weather in Boston was atrocious, and as long 
 as Sylvia was really gaining, a fact about which 
 he seemed skeptical, she might as well stay an- 
 other month. So what could Enid do? 
 
 She tried to forget herself in her economy
 
 THE COMING OF SPRING 201 
 
 books as much as possible, for the things that 
 went on outside of her grew more and more diffi- 
 cult to endure. But she had to stay. She had 
 to see the color come to Sylvia's face, and the 
 light to Sylvia's eyes, and stand outside the 
 reason why, she, who had dreamed that it was 
 given to her from God, by right of love, to bring 
 soul's health to her friend; she, whose whole 
 personal life was Sylvia ! And Sylvia said no 
 word. 
 
 She had to watch the result of her own unwis- 
 
 I 
 
 dom, too, her own stupidity, she called it ; she 
 had to see Jacques conscientiously, miserably, 
 striving to sacrifice himself for Jeanne's sake. 
 She reviled herself for being heedless, and her 
 heart ached for Jeanne, poor Jeanne! who was 
 to be given the shell of the thing with only emp- 
 tiness inside. Jacques' face was stern, and his 
 chin was set hard. People thought he was intent 
 upon his business affairs. Once Enid saw him 
 turn away from the little sister with a weariness 
 that had something of loathing in it. But he, 
 too, said no word. 
 
 Finally, she had to witness the painful spec- 
 tacle of a worldly woman coldly preparing to 
 wreck her own life. As it happened, a wreck 
 was averted, but that was not due to Roma Cam- 
 pion. She was ashamed to break her engage- 
 ment, for she generously confessed to herself that 
 this young man with the quizzical blue eyes had
 
 202 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 not consciously deceived her. If he had shown 
 that he felt guilty, she could have freed herself 
 with a good conscience, but she was ashamed 
 to be degraded in his eyes, and she could not 
 make up her mjnd to let him go. Why? Was 
 it pride? Or was it something nobler of which 
 she was as yet unaware ? Perhaps, for in the end 
 the wreck was averted, but there was one while 
 of storm. Enid saw the storm coming, but Roma 
 shut her eyes, bought her gowns, and was cold 
 and brilliant. Sometimes she would put hypo- 
 thetical cases to Enid, as : 
 
 "If a man were to ask you to marry him, and 
 you didn't love him," etc. 
 
 But otherwise she, too, kept her own counsel. 
 
 And nobody was looking for such a thing as 
 death. Life seemed inevitable, painfully long, 
 wretched, and not to be escaped, to all of them 
 just then. To all except Jeanne. Jeanne had 
 so much joy in life ! 
 
 The beach at that side of Lake Pontchartrain 
 is sandy and white, a good safe place for a bon- 
 fire if the wind is right. They couldn't wait for 
 a moon, because Enid and Sylvia were going 
 home in a few days ; so they built a bonfire on 
 Sunday night and sat around it, talking of the 
 summer plans. Curtis Baird had a lodge in the 
 White Mountains, and they were all to "come 
 up" and be with him and "his wife" in August 
 or September.
 
 THE COMING OF SPRING 203 
 
 They separated and wandered off in couples 
 after a while, and madame went up to the house 
 to prepare a late supper. 
 
 "I shall not be able to go," said Jocelin, with 
 pathetic resignation. 
 
 "I think you ought to come back to New York 
 and try to take up the work you left a year ago," 
 said Sylvia. 
 
 Jocelin brightened. He wanted very much to 
 be of that mountain party; it would be a pleas- 
 ure to him, and Jocelin was fond of pleasure. 
 
 "I will consult with Jacques," he said more 
 cheerfully. 
 
 There were several reasons why he would be 
 obliged to consult with Jacques, financial rea- 
 sons. But Sylvia did not know; she only thought 
 it very sweet of him to defer so entirely to his 
 elder brother. She did not know how "little " the 
 money was which, as he had told her, he earned 
 by choir-singing. 
 
 They wandered along the beach slowly. 
 
 Jacques and Enid were sitting on the edge of 
 the bath-house wharf, where it slopes up from 
 the sand. Jeanne was putting brush on the fire. 
 Roma and Curtis Baird had strolled down the 
 wharf. 
 
 Jacques and Enid had their backs turned to 
 Jeanne and the bonfire, and Jacques was say- 
 ing: 
 
 " I should like to ask you something. Do you
 
 204 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 think Jeanne, that is, you are a woman, per- 
 haps you can tell me, I should like to feel sure 
 before I before I " 
 
 He stopped a moment, and she felt sorry for 
 him, but she said nothing, so he began again : 
 
 "She is such a child! You may have heard 
 people laugh about her preference for me, but 
 I am as a brother to her. I should not like to 
 startle her. She might think she must marry 
 me out of gratitude, and that would be such a 
 mistake! Do you think it wise for me to ask 
 her?" 
 
 He wished that Enid would show some distress, 
 some surprise, or confusion. If she had, there 
 would have been no more thought of Jeanne. 
 But Enid said : 
 
 "I think she loves you with all her heart; you 
 only need to speak a word to her, and she will 
 understand herself. That will be the happiest 
 way for her to find out." 
 
 She had never before felt such full respect and 
 pity for this exemplary young man, who was try- 
 ing so hard, so hard, to do his duty. And over 
 by the bonfire Jeanne began to sing, but Enid 
 and Jacques did not turn to look at her, nor did 
 they look at each other. 
 
 "Perhaps it will do no harm to wait a little 
 longer," he said. 
 
 " The young Spring came to the world," 
 
 sang Jeanne.
 
 THE COMING OF SPRING 205 
 
 Poor little deluded prophetess, whose spring 
 never came ! 
 
 " The young Spring came to the world 
 
 And found me, 
 And put her arm around me ; 
 
 And close close close like rose-petals curled 
 Up under a sheath a sheath still furled, 
 My heart at the heart of the young Spring's heart, 
 My heart, . . . My hea a a r-r" 
 
 Oh, the dreadful scream ! 
 
 She had stood with her back to the fire, too 
 close. And the flame swept up from her skirt 
 to her head. She began to run. They always 
 run. And she looked over her shoulder and 
 saw Jacques running towards her, and the only 
 thought that came to her clearly was : " It will 
 burn Jacques!" So she ran faster, that he 
 might not touch her, and she screamed: "No, no, 
 Jacques! You will be burnt! " 
 It chanced that she ran away from the water 
 along the edges of the gardens, and her dress 
 caught on the fences as she passed and tore off in 
 rags and burned there. She had a long start of 
 Jacques, and the flames played about her feet 
 like wings. She made no other sound after the 
 horrible scream and the warning to Jacques, but 
 he behind her was calling to her wildly to stop ! 
 to turn to the water ! to wait ! 
 
 "Jeanne ! Jeanne ! " 
 
 He saw she did not understand him, did not 
 hear him. She was past understanding anything
 
 206 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 then. And as he ran, he knew that his running 
 only made her run faster, but he dared not stop. 
 He knew that, if he stopped, those terrible flames 
 could not be quenched. If he ran he was killing 
 her, and if he stopped he was killing her; and 
 the horror of it was beating up and down in his 
 brain and against the back of his eyes, so that 
 he could not see anything; he only ran on, debat- 
 ing the question as he ran, stop? run? stop? 
 run ? And that was not the worst of it, for back 
 of the knowledge that this was death came the 
 sense that there was nothing more loathsome in 
 life than to be able to have one's own way. 
 He hated all insistent, willful humanity, and 
 himself most of all. And he ran stop? run? 
 stop? 
 
 Ten yards ahead of him, she fell down in a 
 gully, and went out like a torch. Then Curtis 
 Baird, who was a college man and an athlete, 
 ran past Jacques in the darkness, climbed down 
 the gully, and felt about in the water till he found 
 her. 
 
 Jacques lay face down on the sand, writhing, 
 not uttering a sound. And Baird, busy in the 
 ditch, found himself thinking : 
 
 "It is the French excitable temperament. If 
 this thing had happened to Roma, I should have 
 felt as badly as he does, but I should have shown 
 it differently." 
 
 But Enid, standing stonily above the unmanned
 
 THE COMING OF SPRING 207 
 
 creature on the sand, knew that this was remorse 
 and loathing of himself, not love for Jeanne. 
 
 Jocelin sobbed like a child, and would not look 
 at the little sister, would not touch her, crept 
 shudderingiy away when Curtis Baird lifted up 
 the charred something that had been Jeanne, and 
 carried it slowly up the beach and through the 
 garden. For hours Jocelin wept; every fresh 
 turn of thought brought the tears welling to his 
 eyes. Later, when his childlike grief had quieted, 
 the thought came to him that Jeanne could not 
 be with them in the White Mountains the next 
 summer, and then it occurred to him that per- 
 haps, now she was dead, they would not go to 
 the White Mountains. And he wept again. 
 
 Jeanne lived a few hours, if it could be called 
 living, but they were all glad that she never 
 knew anything more. 
 
 Madame, sitting by the table where they had 
 laid the poor body, rocked herself to and fro, and 
 cried, and stared about her helplessly. But the 
 pity of it was that, when Roma Campion had 
 come in ahead of the others to break the news, 
 she had said: "There has been an accident" 
 
 And madame had clung to her, white and 
 flabby, and had gasped, "Not Jocelin? " 
 
 Poor little Jeanne ! Poor little Jeanne ! 
 
 Enid, stunned and weary, thought: "God is 
 very good, for if, after she had become his wife, 
 she had waked up to a knowledge of the empti-
 
 208 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 ness of what he gave her, it would have broken 
 her heart." 
 
 And Roma Campion drew a cloth over the face 
 that had been so lovely, and said to herself : 
 
 "I wish that I had died when I was nineteen, 
 in the midst of the joy of it, even such a death 
 as this. There are so many things that are 
 worse ! " 
 
 And she shuddered, but not for Jeanne. 
 
 Sylvia went away by herself to pray, and in 
 the midst of her prayer the idea came to her that 
 God might have done this thing for the salvation 
 of Jocelin. If she could make Jocelin promise 
 to write Jeanne's music and perpetuate Jeanne's 
 name, for Jeanne's sake! 
 
 "He will do it for her. He is an idealist, 
 and it will appeal to him and keep him steady, 
 and give him a lofty purpose in life. And that 
 will increase the power of his will. He will for- 
 get his own wretchedness." 
 
 A lofty purpose in life! This was Sylvia's 
 idea of the need of Jocelin 's temperament. She 
 thanked God, and prayed for power to make 
 Jocelin give his promise. 
 
 Oh, Jeanne, dear Jeanne ! Was anybody sorry 
 you died? Anybody? 
 
 Monsieur Dumarais groped his way into his 
 son's room, where his son lay like a log on the 
 bed. 
 
 "Do not grieve, Jacques. Do not reproach
 
 THE COMING OF SPBIXG 209 
 
 yourself, my son. She never knew. She was 
 happy always, and you gave her the happiness. 
 She never guessed. And you would have mar- 
 ried her. Do not reproach yourself ! " 
 
 "The Almighty is terrible in his punishments ! " 
 said Jacques. "My God! If I had not rebelled 
 against it, this would not be so horrible now, this 
 being given my own way." 
 
 And monsieur was silent a moment before he 
 said slowly : 
 
 "Do you think you are going to have your own 
 way?"
 
 BOOK III 
 
 ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP 
 
 " Ici bas tous les homines pleurent 
 Leurs amities on leurs amours ; 
 Je rve aux couples qui demeureiit 
 Toujours." 
 
 SULLY PEUDHOMME.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 CURTIS BAIRD'S HAPPY VALLEY 
 
 THERE is a little valley among the mountains 
 of New Hampshire, never mind where, never 
 mind its name, a little valley with a river 
 winding through it, and great wooded hills bub- 
 bling up around, and in the blue beyond, peering 
 up over the hills, two of the real mountains. 
 The village in the valley by the river is one 
 church-spire and a post-office, and the man who 
 makes rubber stamps for post-offices cut the name 
 of the village wrong on the stamp, but it was of 
 no consequence, for they used the stamp just the 
 same. And people who received letters from 
 that village knew that one thing meant another, 
 or, if they didn't and were careless, they ad- 
 dressed their replies wrong and received them 
 back from the Dead -Letter Office after several 
 months. The real name of the village, not the 
 name on the stamp, is the same as the name of 
 the valley mentioned above, or was it mentioned ? 
 However, that also is of no consequence, you 
 would not know it if you were told. Very few 
 people know, and they only tell their intimate 
 friends.
 
 214 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 There is a long, white farmhouse under a hill 
 on the opposite side of the river from the village, 
 and the same summer boarders live in it every 
 summer for generations. There is no bridge 
 across the river nearer than the next town, so 
 people have to ford the river, except when it is 
 too high, and then they have to go seven miles 
 around. When the summer boarders eat a great 
 many blueberries with cream for tea, they dream 
 that the villagers have built a bridge across the 
 river. And that is a terrible nightmare. 
 
 Curtis Baird came down thirty miles through 
 the wilderness from Canada one summer in his 
 college days, and, standing in an open place on a 
 ridge, he saw the valley far below, green and 
 sheltered, with vase-like elms scattered over its 
 meadows and the ribbon river looped about the 
 hills. Curtis Baird had a nice taste for poetry 
 in his college days, and always and forever he 
 had a delicate appreciation of nature ; but as he 
 stood on the bare ledges at the top of the ridge, 
 it took him some time to decide why this lovely 
 intervale sank into his mind as the picture of 
 a marriage festival, why Spenser's marriage 
 hymn seemed translated out of words by the river 
 and the elms and the wind-ripples bending the 
 long grass. The reason, or a part of it, came to 
 him at last through the serene and swan-like 
 curves of the trees, and he remembered how the 
 swans came down the river in the poem. And,
 
 CUBTIS BAIRD'S HAPPY VALLEY 215 
 
 being a college man, he ruminated awhile upon 
 the psychology of the impression and the queer 
 tricks a man's mind will play him. 
 
 "Let us go down and take possession," he said 
 to his chum. 
 
 But of course, when they got down they found 
 that some one had been before them, for the long, 
 white farmhouse was already there, under the 
 hill, and so were the summer boarders, college 
 professors, clever, mild-mannered men of cul- 
 ture, who glanced indifferently at Baird, and 
 thought he would go away quickly to the other 
 side of the mountains, where there were hotels 
 and fashionable things. But they were mis- 
 taken. He stayed, and he came again year after 
 year. He came in the winter, when the two tall, 
 over -peering mountains, the guardians of the 
 valley, were black against the sky and snow- 
 streaked down the length of their ravines ; when 
 the forests on the lower hills were black, with 
 sprinklings of snow along the tops of the pine 
 trees, and the swift river flowed, invisible, be- 
 neath the white and sleeping meadows of the 
 intervale. 
 
 He came in the spring, when the logs were toss- 
 ing, tumbling, sliding, locking, down the swollen 
 river, and the waterfalls were savage, and the 
 bark on the young poplar-trees was green and 
 alive with the new sap that rioted through it. 
 He stayed late in the autumn, till the sunset lights
 
 216 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 on the mountains were fierce copper and blood- 
 red, and the elms in the valley had yellowed and 
 dropped their leaves. 
 
 He built him a snug lodge in a high pasture, 
 with mountains stretching back behind him, and 
 the marriage festival of the intervale forever smil- 
 ing below. And it was a favorite theory with 
 him, not mentioned to his chum, that when he 
 married he should bring his wife here and watch 
 her face to see if she, too, thought of the swans. 
 But she didn't think of them, because, you see, 
 he married Roma Campion, and she had never 
 read that particular poem of Spenser's. 
 
 Curtis Baird was married in June, but it 
 was not until after a honeymoon spent in the 
 Yosemite, and supplemented by a round of vis- 
 its among friends and relatives, that he at last 
 brought his wife up to the primitive lodge over- 
 looking the New Hampshire valley, and then it 
 was late August, quite time for the arrival of 
 Enid and Sylvia, and Jacques and Jocelin. 
 
 Baird had to wrestle with Jacques' Cotton 
 Exchange prejudices in order to make him come, 
 for Jacques said : 
 
 " This is no way to build up a business, to 
 have both partners gallivanting round the coun- 
 try at the same time." 
 
 " Hang the business ! " said Curtis Baird. " Do 
 it by telegraph. Work it through the New York 
 market. Can't you? That old duffer you've
 
 CURTIS BAIRUS HAPPY VALLEY 217 
 
 got at the desk looks steady enough to be trusted 
 with the secrets of a Turkish harem ; and young 
 Brown, or Jones, or whatever his name is, had 
 practice on 'Change before you took him. He 's 
 quite a lively hand at it. Thinks he is, any way. 
 He couldn't wreck us in two weeks." 
 
 "That 's all you know about it," said Jacques. 
 
 "You 're too cautious," Baird persisted. 
 " Here you are working yourself to the bone, and 
 getting yellow and flabby, and all out of condi- 
 tion, and presently the heat '11 knock you over 
 and you '11 die. And here I '11 be, with the busi- 
 ness on my hands, and a fine mess ; for what I 'm 
 expected to do with it in such an emergency the 
 Lord only knows, I don't." 
 
 "I '11 take a run later, when you come back," 
 said Jacques. 
 
 "And spoil all the fun," objected his friend. 
 "You're mopy, Jacques. It has been awfully 
 hard lines on you this spring, I know." 
 
 But he did not know in the least. 
 
 "Awfully hard lines, old fellow. I don't ask 
 you to come for the pleasure you '11 get out of 
 the visit. But that mountain air will tone you 
 up, and make you feel like a different man. 
 We'll be all old friends together; you won't 
 have to bother about entertaining the girls, you 
 know. And my wife '11 be disappointed if you 
 don't, Jacques. She 's really awfully fond of 
 you. And she 's quite set her heart on this little
 
 218 DIANA V1CTR1X 
 
 reunion. You need n't be away more than two 
 weeks, all told, and we '11 get the telegraphic 
 market-reports every day, and the office can send 
 you a dispatch in cipher every night. Come on, 
 old man ! don't be such a Miss Nancy. It 's all 
 nonsense to try to plan a leave when I get back. 
 How do I know when I '11 get back? May be 
 October, may be December. I can't pin myself 
 down to any set time, you know." 
 
 So Jacques promised to go, and forthwith set 
 about training young Brown, or Jones, or what- 
 ever his name was, luring him on with the hope 
 of a "rise" in October. 
 
 Jocelin's going required more tact and diplo- 
 macy. Jocelin had made up his mind that he 
 must go, that nothing was so necessary to his well- 
 being as this journey to the White Mountains. 
 He based the spiritual necessity upon the fact 
 that Sylvia had said to him when she went 
 away : 
 
 " I am going to ask you to make me a promise, 
 when you come North in the summer, a promise 
 for Jeanne's sake and your own sake, and 
 mine." 
 
 The memory of Sylvia's face, as she said these 
 words, remained long in Jocelin's esthetic con- 
 sciousness. He wanted to see her again, just 
 for the pleasure of watching her beautiful eyes. 
 And stronger than this was the desire to be idle, 
 and enjoy Curtis Baird's good wine, and lie out
 
 CUBTIS BAIRD'S HAPPY VALLEY 219 
 
 under the trees for a while with a beautiful world 
 above and around, and no need to work and 
 attend choir-practice, and make untuneful pupils 
 sing the scales. 
 
 The sense of the nearness of a beautiful woman 
 remained always a part of the picture in his mind, 
 but never overshadowed it. Jocelin was a wor- 
 shiper when in Sylvia's presence, but, like some 
 other worshipers, he left his emotion at the door 
 of the sanctuary. Sylvia absent was a pleasant 
 memory, something that he was as yet glad he 
 had not lost the right to look upon again. 
 
 But Jocelin had no money. He was even feel- 
 ing rather pinched for funds just now; he had 
 not Enid's and Sylvia's board to fall back upon 
 when he got himself into a tight place. And 
 therefore it was that, in the latter part of June, 
 he took to loitering in his mother's sewing-room, 
 such a sober, dreary place now that Jeanne's 
 pretty finery no longer littered the chairs and the 
 floor. Jocelin would lounge idly in one of the 
 chairs, snipping up little pieces of black Henri- 
 etta cloth, or pushing the pins up to their heads 
 along the ridges of his mother's symmetrical 
 tomato - pincushion. Sometimes he would say 
 moodily: 
 
 "I can no longer endure this life. It is killing 
 me, this living in the same house with Jacques 
 and eating his bread. I will no longer suffer 
 this degradation. I must go away."
 
 220 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 Then the pulpy organ which the doctors called 
 madame's heart would so comport itself that, 
 for the next fifteen minutes, madame would be 
 all splotchy, and perhaps she would weep a few 
 slow-squeezed tears and say tremulously : 
 
 "Oh, my son, my Jocelin! It is not possible 
 that thou wilt go away from me ! Thou art not 
 so cruel ! And thy sister is dead ! Thou wilt not 
 leave me, too?" 
 
 And Jocelin would proceed to enlarge upon his 
 family pride, his sense of unbearable degrada- 
 tion. He complained at these times of being tied 
 to his mother's apron-strings; he dwelt in mourn- 
 ful retrospect upon the large sums paid by New 
 York millionaires for parlor singers. He even 
 hinted darkly at some tragic event which might 
 transpire if he were forced to remain much longer 
 beneath the same roof with his successful and 
 domineering step-brother. 
 
 At other times Jocelin would sit for an hour or 
 more in the sewing-room, absolutely silent, star- 
 ing wistfully into space, sighing occasionally the 
 softest, most pathetic sighs. 
 
 "Tu ne te portes pas tres bien aujourd'hui, 
 Jocelin?" 
 
 "Oui, Maman, assez bien, comme toujours." 
 
 Jocelin was no more conscious of deliberate 
 scheming than a child is when it wheedles for 
 a cooky. Jocelin wanted this pleasure very much 
 indeed, and it was his nature to do all in his
 
 CUETIS BAIR&S HAPPY VALLEY 221 
 
 power to get what he wanted. It was Jacques' 
 nature, too, for that matter; but Jacques did not 
 want the same things, and went about getting 
 them differently. 
 
 Madame endured this torture for a month. 
 Jocelin did not know it was torture. Perhaps 
 he would not have persisted in it, if he had 
 known. Perhaps. And at last, in July, madame 
 went to Jacques and laid the case before him, 
 dwelling upon Jocelin's ill-health, immense pride, 
 hatred of dependence, desire to redeem himself 
 and prove himself more worthy of respect, in 
 fine, his wish to go to New York and try to win 
 back the position he had been on the way to 
 acquiring two years before. 
 
 Nobody could have put the case better than 
 madame, for nobody ever had less logic than she 
 to bring to bear upon her idolatry. 
 
 "Do you want him to go?" asked Jacques in 
 his quick, decisive way. 
 
 Madame did not want him to go in the least, 
 but he had set his heart upon going, and she 
 was his mother. She pleaded babblingly for his 
 desire. 
 
 He was making himself ill over his uselessness. 
 He was brooding over it, and he was so sensitive, 
 so high-strung ! It might be here madame 
 fidgeted her scissors and avoided Jacques' eyes 
 it might be not so bad if if It was quite 
 evident that Mile. Sylvia was attracted by Joce-
 
 222 DIANA VICTK1X 
 
 lin; he was lovable. Had not rnadanie under- 
 stood that Mile. Sylvia was rich? It might be 
 more of a help to Jacques than an expense, in 
 the end, this journey. 
 
 Jacques' first thought was a pleasant one : "If 
 she married, my own desire might prosper." 
 But he thrust it from him, and said sternly : 
 
 "You have not mentioned this to Jocelin?" 
 
 No, madame had not mentioned it, that is, 
 she thought she had not. 
 
 "Then please do not do so," Jacques com- 
 manded. 
 
 And madame, suddenly recalling an occasion 
 when she had hinted such a possibility to Joce- 
 lin, became clammy with cold perspiration, but 
 did not correct her misstatement. Instead, she 
 veered to another line of appeal. 
 
 Jacques had intended to take Jeanne North 
 this summer; would he not, therefore, use this 
 money for Jocelin ? It would mean no more ex- 
 pense. Jeanne would have been the first to plead 
 for her brother. No doubt she wept now in 
 heaven at the sight of him so pale and discour- 
 aged. If Jacques would allow madame to do this 
 thing as a memorial for Jeanne? Jocelin would 
 die, assuredly, if something were not done. His 
 father was that way, speechless and melancholy, 
 the year before he died. For Jeanne's sake ! 
 
 And so, in memory of Jeanne, Jocelin was 
 sent to perdition at a slightly accelerated pace.
 
 CURTIS BAIR&S HAPPY VALLEY 223 
 
 That mountain air, of which Monsieur Baird 
 spoke favorably, would perhaps prepare Jocelin 
 for his winter of work. And Jacques would keep 
 Jocelin with him as much as he could in the 
 North. 
 
 The tone in which she made that last petition 
 betrayed madame's wretchedness. 
 
 Yes, Jacques would keep his eye on him as 
 
 long as he could. But this must be understood, 
 
 there should be no coming home unless he paid 
 
 his own way. Maman was not to get ill and 
 
 fret. 
 
 All of which maman promised, and further 
 obtained that the money should go to Jocelin 
 from her, for Jocelin was so proud, so sensitive ! 
 If he were aware of this new indebtedness, he 
 would assuredly refuse to go. 
 
 So Jacques and Jocelin went North together, 
 preserving the same degree of camaraderie as 
 might have been displayed by two unfriendly 
 convicts chained to the same ball. They arrived 
 at Baird's lodge about the middle of August. 
 
 Sylvia was already there, having come from 
 her brother's house at Beverly Farms. 
 
 Sylvia's brother's wife was puzzled. She said 
 to her husband : 
 
 "I never did pretend to be able to understand 
 Sylvia, but since she has gotten better, she is 
 more inexplicable than ever. Do you suppose 
 she is in love? "
 
 224 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 And Sylvia's clever brother laughed, and 
 said : 
 
 "No fear of that. Too much Enid." 
 
 Sylvia greeted Jocelin with a remote gentle- 
 ness that made him more worshipful than ever. 
 
 The next day Enid came from a small town 
 in western Massachusetts, where she had been 
 visiting her nearest surviving relative, a maiden 
 aunt, who had sent her through college and re- 
 gretted it ever since. 
 
 "Just a good number," said Curtis Baird. 
 "Three and three. We can go up on the moun- 
 tain top some night and camp. The lean-tos hold 
 three and three comfortably." 
 
 And Enid thought of Jeanne; and that old- 
 fashioned counting-rhyme childi'en say when they 
 want to find out who is "it" came whimsically 
 to her mind : 
 
 " One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, 
 All good children go to heaven." 
 
 Dear Jeanne, left out in heaven !
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 THERE was a total eclipse of the moon that 
 summer in August, three days after the arrival 
 of Curtis Baird's guests. 
 
 "We'll go up the mountain," he said, "and 
 watch it. I 've never seen a total eclipse. Have 
 you, Jacques?" 
 
 Yes, Jacques had seen one once when he was 
 a little boy ; he remembered being routed out at 
 midnight to look at it. Or, no ! he believed that 
 was a comet. Perhaps he had not seen an eclipse, 
 after all. He did not seem to care whether he 
 had seen one or not; he showed remarkably little 
 interest in the phenomenon, that is, remarkably 
 little for him. He was graver than he used to 
 be, and there was the shadow of a permanent 
 wrinkle between his brows. 
 
 Indeed, if Curtis Baird had not been very fond 
 of these friends of his, he might have found them 
 all rather dull company just now. He thought 
 they mourned for Jeanne, and they did to a cer- 
 tain extent; but each one had his or her own 
 private preoccupation, which went deeper than 
 any feeling any one of them had for Jeanne.
 
 226 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 "We'll take them up and give them anight 
 out of doors," Curtis Baird said gently to his 
 wife. "There 's nothing like Nature for a com- 
 forter. A night under the stars sets me up bet- 
 ter than any tonic." 
 
 "Does it?" said Roma, without looking at 
 him. 
 
 "Dear, do you think it 's good to let your mind 
 dwell so much on that little dead girl?" he 
 asked, and added wistfully, "I know you were 
 awfully fond of her." 
 
 "Yes, I was quite fond of her," she answered 
 coolly, "but my mind doesn't dwell upon her 
 very much. The accident was dreadful, but it 
 was all over in such a hurry, you know, and I 
 was some distance away." 
 
 "Don't you like the idea of this camping 
 out? " he asked after a moment. 
 
 And she answered absent-mindedly, "Oh, yes." 
 
 It was only a little mountain, a climb of an 
 hour and a half, but it had an open top and a 
 view, and was well worth doing. At least, so 
 Curtis Baird said. He had to supply enthusiasm 
 for the party, and the role of the enthusiast was 
 a new one for him. 
 
 The air was still and sweet that August day. 
 The small brook pattering across the mountain 
 path was full of water. Jocelin pulled up a 
 long green vine that ran upon the ground and 
 twined it about Sylvia's white woolen cap.
 
 CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN 227 
 
 ""That 's the linnsea, or you may call it the twin- 
 flower, if you like," said Baird. 
 
 They rested often for Sylvia's sake, and be- 
 cause Baird said all good mountaineers went 
 slowly and stopped often. They stopped once in 
 a beech- wood, full of rosy and amethyst lights, 
 bewildering to the town -bred Southerners, and 
 Curtis Baird made Jacques lie down flat and look 
 up at the bright sky through the leafy tracery. 
 
 They stood a moment at the foot of the ledges, 
 and, through an opening in the trees, they had 
 their first sight of the great mountains beyond, 
 twenty miles away, with the late afternoon haze 
 upon them. Then they scrambled up the ledges, 
 laughing over their scramble till they were all in a 
 glow, and by the time they reached the little cairn 
 of stones upon the summit their dullness was gone. 
 
 "That at the far end of the valley is Cherry 
 Mountain," said Curtis Baird. "You can even 
 see the slide down one side of it, do you see ? 
 And there are the great ones." 
 
 They looked a long time at the great ones, four 
 in all, one pointed and sharp on the sky-line, one 
 gently pyramidal, one low and lightly curved, 
 and one, the highest of all, a great billow swell- 
 ing up to the sky. 
 
 Roma Campion had a conventional and com- 
 paratively intimate acquaintance with the Alps, 
 but Jacques and Jocelin came from a flat coun- 
 try ; mountains were new to them.
 
 228 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 Jacques took off his cap, threw back his head, 
 and when, after a moment, he turned his face to 
 Enid for sympathy, he was smiling. There was 
 more of the vivacity of the old Jacques about 
 him than there had been for many a day. 
 
 Jocelin stood on a rock and looked far, far 
 away to those shining mountains, and sang the 
 one hundred and twenty -first psalm. Sylvia had 
 never heard him sing so well. Sweet and full 
 and solemn rose the music, winging from his lips 
 out to those listening hills that lifted up them- 
 selves all bloom-impurpled by the dying sun. 
 
 " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from 
 whence cometh my help. 
 
 " I will lift up mine eyes, I will lift up mine 
 eyes, unto the hills, the hills, from whence cometh 
 my help. 
 
 "My help cometh even from the Lord, from 
 the Lord who hath made heaven, heaven and 
 earth." . . . 
 
 All these people knew Jocelin very well, and 
 they were none of them devoid of a sense of 
 humor, and yet it did not seem to impress them 
 as humorous that Jocelin should stand on the top 
 of a little mountain at sunset and sing the one 
 hundred and twenty -first psalm, sing it with 
 the reverence and the sincerity of a seraph. 
 
 But there was a great deal of humor in the 
 situation, notwithstanding. 
 
 Pink clouds drifted about in the sky, the sun
 
 CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN 229 
 
 went down behind the hills, and the valley far 
 below drowsed in the twilight. 
 
 "I am awfully hungry," said Jacques. 
 
 Curtis Baird made the coffee in a villanous 
 black coffee-pot, Jocelin cut the bread, Roma 
 made sandwiches, Sylvia laid the viands out on 
 a flat rock and trimmed them with leaves. 
 Jacques brought pine and hemlock and spruce to 
 Enid, and watched her make spring-beds in the 
 two open camps. Then they all sat around the 
 flat rock and ate their supper, and watched the 
 mountains and the valley sink away from them 
 into darkness, leaving them shut out from the 
 world, till the large round moon rose on the other 
 side and lifted up the valley a little way out of 
 the abyss and set it smiling silverly, and beck- 
 oned the mountains from the darkness, but only 
 a little way, for they stopped and stood aloof 
 mysteriously, great shadows. 
 
 Curtis Baird unrolled the shawls and camping- 
 blankets, and made his wife put on her jacket. 
 
 "And you have spent nights all alone on the 
 top of this thing?" said Jacques. "What a 
 queer fellow you are! " 
 
 The small supper-fire had gone out, and Baird 
 was piling up great birch logs and putting pine 
 branches on top. 
 
 "Not going to have a fire?" said Jacques 
 uneasily. 
 
 "Of course," returned Baird. "What did you
 
 230 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 suppose? Always have a camp-fire. Takes the 
 chill off in the middle of the night." 
 
 Jacques squared his chin and thrust his hands 
 into his pockets, but said nothing. 
 
 It was a beautiful fire, just between the two 
 open camps, the lean-tos made of stones with 
 boughs laid over for the roofs, open to the fire, 
 the moon, the rain, too, if it chose to come down ; 
 but the clouds were gone, and the moon was sail- 
 ing in a clear sky. 
 
 Three and three they gathered around the 
 crackling flames. 
 
 "We might tell ghost stories?" suggested 
 Baird. 
 
 Jacques gave a stifled exclamation ; it sounded 
 like "My God!" 
 
 "Let 's get away from this ! " he said a moment 
 later in a gasping voice to Enid, who sat next to 
 him, and she arose at once. 
 
 "I we we '11 go and look at the moon for 
 a while," said Jacques to Baird. "Fire 's hot, 
 get a little air." He was still gasping and 
 trying to control his voice as he turned his back 
 on the flames and followed Enid across the rocks. 
 
 "I wouldn't have believed I could be such a 
 fool! " said Curtis Baird slowly. "Poor old fel- 
 low! Roma, why didn't you give me a hint? 
 What an unlucky speech! "
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 JACQUES AND ENID 
 
 THE place where Jacques and Enid went was 
 a broad, sloping ledge covered with a deep lichen, 
 pale green and pale lavender that had turned 
 silver under the moon. The smiling valley was 
 no longer at their feet, for they were on the other 
 side of the mountain. They had come upon the 
 wilderness, and they looked down on thick tree- 
 tops everywhere. Over the edge of the ledge a 
 ravine sank away, black with mystery; and oppo- 
 site, above them, the shoulder of a near mountain 
 loomed huge and austere, the untrodden forests 
 on its sides silent and absolutely still in a moon- 
 begotten sleep. The place was all wildness and 
 solitude. Far below, something crashed in the 
 bushes, and the stillness came again. 
 
 Enid and Jacques sat down on the dry, crisp 
 lichen and looked out over the wilderness. 
 
 "I can't be making a fool of myself like this," 
 said Jacques; "it won't do. But it was the first 
 out-of-doors fire I 'd seen since since And 
 it brought it all back to me." 
 
 Enid said nothing. She was glad to have him
 
 232 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 talk of Jeanne ; she felt safer when he talked of 
 Jeanne, but she was afraid of something else. 
 
 "I miss her," he continued. "I did not know 
 I should miss her so much, but it appears she 
 was everywhere in that old house, and now she 
 is nowhere ! Her hair ! was it not the brightest 
 hair? Once I saw the sunlight against the wall 
 in the courtyard, and for a second I forgot and 
 thought it was her hair. She always came to me 
 when I entered the house. She was my child 
 from the beginning. I miss her, because she 
 was always near, as a child is near." 
 
 "I am glad, glad that you miss her," said 
 Enid. 
 
 They were speaking softly, because the hush of 
 the forests compelled them. Enid discovered 
 that, when Jacques spoke low, his voice was deep 
 and almost gentle. 
 
 "I miss you, too," he said. 
 
 His tone was dangerous, and she hastened to 
 reply with a polite and cheerful inflection. 
 
 "I am very glad of that, also." 
 
 "I felt at first, when she died, as if I were a 
 criminal," he resumed. "It was an entirely new 
 sensation. It was horrible! I believe I must 
 have behaved like a maniac that night. I do not 
 remember. I had been so unsettled, so disturbed, 
 so unhappy, for a long time before. You did 
 not know that?" 
 
 She did not answer. She thought perhaps he
 
 JACQUES AND ENID 233 
 
 would go on without waiting, but he repeated his 
 question wistfully : 
 
 "Did you know?" 
 
 "Yes, I knew." 
 
 v She was so sorry for him, and she was not 
 used to dealing with men. She wished at once 
 that she had said something else, had temporized, 
 had asked him why he thought she ought to know. 
 She was a New England woman and a woman's 
 woman, and her habit of sympathy had betrayed 
 her; for this was no perplexed and over-spent 
 college friend, or woi'king-girl, who needed to be 
 comforted : this was a young man, apparently on 
 the verge of saying intimate and solemn things 
 to her, which she felt she ought not to allow him 
 to say. But how to prevent it now? 
 
 Jacques himself had not planned this conver- 
 sation. He only loved her, and it was in the 
 course of nature that he should tell her so some 
 day. He had not supposed it would be this day, 
 but it apparently was, so he proceeded to fulfill 
 his destiny. 
 
 He fulfilled it with dispatch ; that was Jacques' 
 way. He said tenderly : 
 
 "I love you! I want you to be my wife." 
 
 "That is absurd! " said Enid. 
 
 She answered lightly, but she wanted to laugh 
 and cry. She was twenty-nine years old, and 
 this was the first time any man had ever told her 
 he loved her, had ever asked her to be his wife.
 
 234 DIANA VICTR1X 
 
 This was the great feminine event of her life, and 
 she was deeply moved and excited, but all the 
 answer she had at her command was, "That is 
 absurd! " delivered in a polite, afternoon-tea sort 
 of tone. The hysterical tumult within her made 
 her eyes fill with tears and her lips twitch smil- 
 ingly, but she turned her face from Jacques. 
 
 His eyes flashed. 
 
 "I lost my temper once when you were unjust 
 tome. I shall not now. Why is it absurd ?" 
 
 "Because we live in different worlds." 
 
 "Do we? " He looked bewildered. 
 
 "Yes!" she said. "Yes!" 
 
 "But I love you," said he. 
 
 He said it so sweetly ! There was something 
 so wholesome about him ! She wanted to pat him 
 affectionately, as she would have patted a girl. 
 But the situation demanded another course of 
 action. 
 
 "You would not love me very long," she re- 
 plied. 
 
 "You do not know that." 
 
 "True! I do not know, but I think so." 
 
 "I know," he said, speaking slowly, "that you 
 do not love me. But you like me very much. 
 Is not that true? " 
 
 "Yes, very true." 
 
 "Then do not say No. Let me try to make 
 you love me. I only liked you very much at 
 first, but now I love you. Give me leave to try."
 
 JACQUES AND ENID 235 
 
 "It would not be of any use." 
 
 "You do not know that." 
 
 "Yes, that is one of the things I do know. 
 Listen ! and I will tell you something about my 
 life. You think you understand the real me, 
 but you don't. No, really! Do not be angry." 
 
 He smiled and leaned towards her, looking 
 steadily at her with his determined gray eyes, 
 and saying : 
 
 "When you have finished, however, I shall 
 continue to think just as I do now. I shall con- 
 tinue to love you." 
 
 She had a hopeless feeling that what he said 
 would prove perfectly true, but she shook her 
 head at him with equal determination, smiling in 
 her turn. 
 
 They looked at each other so for a moment, 
 he compelling, she resisting, and that bright 
 smile in the eyes of both. Then Enid turned 
 away with a sense of effort, and weariness of the 
 struggle to come. 
 
 The great sweep and slope of the mountain- 
 side lying beyond the ravine in the moonlight 
 rested her, freed her from the strain of Jacques' 
 insistent human nearness, and she kept her eyes 
 upon it as she talked. The moonlight glistened 
 on her heavy coils of hair and outlined the statu- 
 esque pose of her head and the large, classic cor- 
 rectness of her profile. A glow crept into her 
 face as she talked. She was a pure joy to look
 
 236 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 upon; she would be a warm delight to touch. 
 She forgot to look at Jacques, and it was just as 
 well. 
 
 "I am going down to the city next week to 
 begin to live my life," she said. "I am going 
 down to a little court that opens into a narrow, 
 crooked street, that opens again into a sticky, 
 smelly, crowded thoroughfare. And I am going 
 to live there, or thereabout, all the rest of my 
 life." 
 
 Her voice was very quiet, but there was some- 
 thing more than moonlight shining to make her 
 face so radiant. 
 
 " The people on the floor above me are a widow 
 and her son and daughter; they have lodgers. 
 The people on the floor below are a carpenter 
 and his family. There is a garment-workers' 
 shop in the garret. An actor and his wife and 
 babies live in the cellar. I know the widow 
 and the actor's wife. It is a respectable house, 
 and Sylvia has obtained permission to spend 
 the winter there, so her father has seen to the 
 plumbing." 
 
 Jacques moved restlessly, but Enid kept on. 
 
 "I shall go from there to my teaching, and 
 lecture-classes. Sylvia, if she is well enough, 
 will write. Perhaps," her mouth curved be- 
 witchingly, "perhaps, after a while, if I live 
 long enough and fully enough, I shall write a 
 book of statistics and social theories. I think I
 
 JACQUES AND ENID 237 
 
 can earn something by social essays in the maga- 
 zines now and then. I wanted to do this last 
 winter, but Sylvia needed me first, and I went 
 with her. I wanted to do it this summer, but 
 my aunt, who brought me up, needed me for a 
 little while. Now I am free to live as I was 
 meant to live. I will not be withheld any longer. 
 I do not want to marry you." 
 
 "You could still do your charity work if you 
 married me," said Jacques. "The married wo- 
 men in New Orleans are always busy over that 
 sort of thing." 
 
 "Charity work!" smiled Enid. "I told you 
 we lived in different worlds. This is not charity 
 work that I expect to do; I have no scheme, no 
 plan of action. I shall get up in the morning 
 and go to my work, along with all those others 
 who are earning their living. I shall only live 
 there, that is all. Perhaps in summer I may 
 come sometimes up here to these unpeopled moun- 
 tains. I should like to come, and sit here at 
 night with some one who has never known the 
 meaning of solitude. I should like to come. 
 Ah, is it not beautiful, that mountain wall with 
 its dreaming forests ? I know you do not under- 
 stand what I am trying to tell you ; I know you 
 do not understand, because it is the thing that 
 goes deepest into my heart, and there are no 
 words as deep down as that. How can I make 
 you know the reality of it? The world has spat-
 
 238 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 tered us all over with words, with cant phrases, 
 with sarcasm, and with fulsome flattery. The 
 world has been so officiously eager to explain for 
 us the thing we mean and the worth of the thing 
 that now, when we try to speak, our meaning 
 is veiled, concealed, smothered, by the hideous 
 volubility of facile expression. How can it have 
 any reality for you when you hear only words 
 about it? Listen! I could not live with you in 
 peace and plenty when there were people who 
 swarmed in cellars, and had not the price of a 
 crust of bread among them. And that is a cant 
 expression. Get at the life-meaning, the heart 
 of it, if you can." 
 
 "You should have as much money as I could 
 spare, to give away as you pleased," said Jacques. 
 "You would have more to give away than you 
 have now." 
 
 She smiled ironically. 
 
 "Money that you have made by gambling in 
 cotton futures for other people? Money that 
 you have made by ruining one man in order to 
 surfeit another? Oh, no!" 
 
 " That is all nonsense ! " said Jacques. " I buy 
 and sell cotton for my clients at the best possible 
 advantage for them, and at a fair rate of com- 
 mission. That is business. The firm never spec- 
 ulates. A woman does not understand these 
 things. Business cannot be conducted on senti- 
 mental principles."
 
 JACQUES AND ENID 239 
 
 "If I were a girl," said Enid, "and if I were 
 in love with you, I suppose it would be easy for 
 me to shift the responsibility of these questions 
 upon you, and rely upon your judgment, and my 
 own conviction that you are an honorable man, 
 for that is my conviction." 
 
 His eyes lighted tenderly, and again he leaned 
 towards her, but she continued without looking 
 at him : 
 
 "But a girl's love is not a woman's love; above 
 all, it is not a modern woman's love. I, at thirty, 
 cannot accept your views, adopt your methods, 
 and believe your heresies, as you might be able 
 to teach me to do if I were eighteen, and if I 
 loved you. I have found out my own life-truths, 
 and they do not accord with yours." 
 
 "A husband and a wife are comrades," mur- 
 mured Jacques ; " they modify each other. You 
 should not find me adamant to your convictions 
 if you married me, for I love you." 
 
 "But I don't love you." 
 
 "Not now! Not now! But it is not an im- 
 possibility that you should love me." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Can't you understand? I do not want to 
 marry you. I shall never want to marry you." 
 
 "I want you," said Jacques; "I want you! 
 You have spoiled all other women for me." 
 
 "We do not touch," she answered. "Ldo not 
 see why you love me. A husband and a wife
 
 240 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 confide in each other, live at the heart of each 
 other. But we do not. You, who tell rne I may 
 have money to spend in charity ; you, who expect 
 me to live with you and ignore your methods of 
 supporting me, your methods of dealing with 
 your fellow-men, do you think you get near the 
 heart of my life? Why! My life is just that; 
 it is my fellow-men. And I, see how ignorant, 
 how unappreciative of you I am, for I do not 
 even know what your central effort is, the thing 
 you are striving for. What is the heart of your 
 life?" 
 
 "It is you! " he said simply. 
 
 Her heart jumped, and she sat very still for a 
 moment, then bowed her head upon her knees. 
 When she lifted her face and looked out once 
 again over the ravine, there were tears in her 
 eyes, and they caught the moonlight. 
 
 "I could not make you happy," she began, but 
 he interrupted her with : 
 
 "Let me judge of that! " 
 
 "No, no! There is something else you cannot 
 understand. I do not need you. It is true I 
 have no man friend whom I enjoy as much as I 
 do you, but I have a woman friend who is dearer 
 to me." 
 
 "But I told you once before, that is different," 
 insisted Jacques. 
 
 "Yes, I know you told me," she answered; 
 "but I know my own heart. I share with her
 
 JACQUES AND ENID 241 
 
 thoughts that I have no wish to share with you. 
 I give to her a love surpassing any affection I 
 could teach myself to have for you. She comes 
 first. She is my friend as you can never be, and 
 I could not marry you unless you were a nearer 
 friend than she. You would have to come first. 
 And you could not, for she is first." 
 
 "And this is all that separates us? " said 
 Jacques, in a tone of entire amazement. "Only 
 a woman?" 
 
 "The reason the woman separates us," said 
 Enid, "is because the woman and I understand 
 each other, sympathize with each other, are neces- 
 sary to each other. And you and I are not. 
 It is not simply her womanliness, it is her friend- 
 ship. There might be a man who could give me 
 the inspiration, the equalness of sympathy, I find 
 in her, there might be, some women find 
 such men. But there are not yet enough for all 
 of us." 
 
 Jacques got up and paced the ledge. 
 
 "You you are noble! " he said. 
 
 He came back presently and sat down beside 
 her as before. 
 
 "She is very delicate," he began angrily. 
 "Have you ever thought how alone you would be 
 if she were to die? " 
 
 "She will not die!" whispered Enid. "Oh, 
 she will not die! Not now. She is getting 
 well."
 
 242 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 He did not understand the anguish in her 
 voice, the wretchedness in her eyes, but some- 
 thing made him lean forward and say : 
 
 "If she were to marry?" 
 
 Enid's face grew gray like the rocks of the 
 ledge. She did not turn her eyes away this 
 time ; she kept them fixed stonily on him. 
 
 "Well?" she said. 
 
 And he had no reply to make. 
 
 "I am going to live down among the people 
 who have next to nothing," she resumed after 
 a pause, speaking in a natural voice. "I cannot 
 make you understand by words. Perhaps some 
 time I may make you understand by life. And, 
 for the other, my own private and personal hap- 
 piness, or unhappiness, that you cannot alter, 
 you cannot influence. My sorrow is only sym- 
 bolic of the great world-sorrow, after all. I 
 trust I shall not overestimate any personal grief 
 which may come to me. And I know that the 
 best way to keep myself free from self-pity and 
 morbidness is to live in the presence of a greater 
 sorrow than my own. And then, when I behold 
 the full cup of bitterness the world lifts daily to 
 the lips of God, I trust I shall be ashamed to 
 add the little drop of what, in weaker moments, 
 I call my suffering, to such a dignity of overflow- 
 ing pain. Come, let us walk a little." 
 
 "You know I do not give up now," Jacques
 
 JACQUES AND ENID 243 
 
 reiterated ; u I shall come back after a while, after 
 you have lived as you say. I shall come back 
 to see if I understand, or if I can make you 
 understand." 
 
 "Better not! " she answered.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 MORE WOMAN'S RIGHTS 
 
 " So you and I are to change places, are we, 
 Jocelin?" said Curtis Baird, as the four sat 
 around the fire after the abrupt departure of 
 Jacques and Enid. "You are to turn New 
 Yorker, and I am to take root in Southern soil?" 
 
 "For pity's sake, don't talk about taking 
 root! " exclaimed Roma; "it gives me cold shiv- 
 ers." 
 
 " Queer ! " meditated Baird ; " such a hot place, 
 you know. What are the prospects for New 
 York, Jocelin? Anything definite ?" 
 
 "No," replied Jocelin, with graceful noncha- 
 lance; "I shall look around. I shall visit the 
 choirs." 
 
 "Rather early in the season for soirees, recep- 
 tions, that sort of thing, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes," said Jocelin musingly, as if the ques- 
 tion had no practical connection whatever with 
 the fact of his coming North at this unseasonable 
 moment. "Yes, I believe it is." 
 
 Sylvia had risen, and was looking off towards 
 the valley.
 
 MORE WOMAN'S RIGHTS 245 
 
 " How lovely ! I should like to go and look at 
 it for a while." 
 
 "May I come, mademoiselle? I will bring 
 shawls," said Jocelin. 
 
 " Take that brown blanket with the blue border, 
 in the left-hand camp," said Baird, with some alac- 
 rity. "Better get Roma's steamer-rug, too. The 
 flat ledge where we ate our supper gives the best 
 valley view. That 's right, the gray rug. May 
 want a cushion. Good-by. Half past nine now. 
 Eclipse not till eleven. Look out for Miss Sylvia 
 going down to the ledge, pretty slippery." 
 
 These remarks were addressed snatchily to their 
 retreating figures. When the two were fairly out 
 of sight he said: "Bless you, my children! " with 
 a devoutly gratified expression of countenance, 
 and proceeded to throw birch logs on the fire and 
 make it crackle with pine branches. Then he 
 came and sat down beside his wife, quite close 
 beside her. 
 
 "Jolly, isn't it?" he said. 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 "Don't you like it here, Roma?" 
 
 "Yes," she replied gloomily. 
 
 The fire blazed merrily, lighting up the gay 
 blankets that hung within the two camps. 
 
 "When do we go South?" asked Roma. 
 
 "Why, my dear, I don't know exactly. I 'm 
 afraid we ought not to put it off too long. That 
 energetic Jacques is getting restive. Says he '11
 
 246 DIANA V1CTE1X 
 
 throw up the whole thing if I don't give it some 
 personal attention. Says he can't run it alone; 
 needs somebody in the office, you know. When 
 I try to convince him that I am about as useful in 
 the office as a pug dog, he gets huffy. Says he 's 
 not an object for public charity, and he won't 
 use my money unless I know how it 's being used. 
 Wants to know what I ever went into the part- 
 nership for, anyway." 
 
 "I don't see why you ever did, myself," said 
 Roma, in a voice from the tombs. 
 
 The ironic twinkle in Baird's eyes became 
 more bright, and he stretched himself lazily, full 
 length, before the fire. 
 
 " I had a theory have it still, for that matter 
 that I ought to begin to be an active mem- 
 ber of the community, ought to have interests, 
 you know, occupations, that sort of thing. And 
 there was young Dumarais drudging along, and 
 no thanks from anybody. Seemed as little as I 
 could do, under the circumstances, to give him 
 a lift. Had to do something, you know, and 
 brokerage seemed rather less monotonous than 
 most mercantile pursuits. All that yelling and 
 clawing on 'Change, you know, and the uncer- 
 tainty as to whom you 're going to let into bank- 
 ruptcy next minute. Rather enlivening than 
 otherwise when you feel bored. Don't you think 
 so? I did." 
 
 Roma did not answer his question. He lay
 
 MORE WOMAN'S EIGHTS 247 
 
 looking up at her from beneath his quizzically 
 drooping eyelids, with his elbows on the ground 
 and his chin propped in his hands. And she 
 stared over his head, and said in a disagreeably 
 quiet voice : 
 
 "Then all last winter, while you were visiting 
 me, yon knew you were going to do this, and you 
 kept it from me." 
 
 "Jacques asked me not to mention it," ex- 
 plained Baird. "It was due him to keep it dark 
 till he was ready to announce it.'' 
 
 "And what was due to me?" she asked po- 
 litely. 
 
 "Why, Roma! are you jealous?" 
 
 He leaned on one elbow and laid his other 
 hand on hers, which were clasped in her lap. 
 
 "It is not necessary to flatter yourself that 
 I am jealous," she replied calmly, and he with- 
 drew his hand. "It is ordinarily a matter of 
 indifference to me what confidences you share 
 with Mr. Dumarais and not with me ; but in this 
 case I fail to understand how you justified to 
 yourself the right which you assumed of disposing 
 * thus arbitrarily of my life even before you mar- 
 ried me. One must expect to endure a certain 
 amount of tyranny at the hands of a husband, 
 even in these emancipated days, I suppose; but 
 most certainly before I married you, before I 
 accepted you, I had a right to be consulted on 
 matters relative to my future happiness. You
 
 248 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 had no adequate excuse for imposing restrictions 
 upon my life before my life was yours to order, 
 and concealing these restrictions from me when 
 you asked me to marry you." 
 
 "Disposing of your life! Restrictions!" said 
 Curtis Baird, sitting up and staring at her. 
 "That was the last thing I ever intended." 
 
 She continued to speak without noticing his 
 interruption. 
 
 " I never hesitated to tell you how I hated New 
 Orleans. You were quite aware of it. You even 
 led me on sometimes to rail and deride. And all 
 the while you were planning that I should live 
 there." 
 
 He drew a sharp breath, and looked at her for 
 a moment silently. Then he said : 
 
 "It was stupid of me. But when I asked you 
 to marry me, it did not occur to me that it made 
 any difference whether we lived in New Orleans 
 or Orange River Free State. Seemed only an 
 external circumstance, after all. But I see, now, 
 it was very stupid of me." 
 
 "If you had even told me when you asked 
 me," she continued, with quiet bitterness, "I 
 had no right to know of your affairs before, but 
 I did have then." 
 
 "Would you have refused me if you had 
 known?" he asked. 
 
 And she said nothing. 
 
 "I am sorry I got you into this box," he re-
 
 MORE WOMAN'S BIGHTS 249 
 
 sumed presently. "I never meant to lead you 
 into the thing and not tell you how matters stood. 
 But a man can't always know just what he '11 do 
 when he 's in love. I meant to let you hear 
 about the business arrangement before I asked 
 you, but I lost my head that Sunday night. 
 And then and then it did n't seem as if I 
 should have to stay there much of the time. I 
 thought I could go and come as I as you 
 chose. I didn't know the thing was going to be 
 a hindrance in any way." 
 
 "Neither did I," she said, looking down and 
 speaking very low, very wearily. 
 
 He might have reproached her; he might have 
 told her he had given her a chance to withdraw 
 before it was too late, if she wished to do so, 
 but he could not say such things to her. He got 
 up and brought another log for the fire, and when 
 he sat down he said : 
 
 "I didn't know Dumarais would make such 
 a point of my being on hand. I suppose he is 
 right. It 's no way to treat him, you know. 
 Makes the clerks respect the firm more, and 
 gives things a better look, to have me round. 
 Awful bore, but I 'm afraid we 've got to stand 
 it. I 'm sorry." 
 
 "I don't see why we 've got to stand it," said 
 Roma. "You don't need to keep up the part- 
 nership. If you want the excitement, I don't 
 see why you didn't go into business in Wall
 
 250 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 Street. You can. It isn't necessary to stay 
 down there." 
 
 Curtis Baird stroked his pointed beard. 
 
 "How about Jacques?" he said. 
 
 "I have been taking it for granted that you 
 cared more for my comfort than for that of Mr. 
 Dumarais," she said coolly. "Perhaps I made 
 a mistake." 
 
 He pursed his lips and frowned as he shoved 
 the fire closer together, saying : 
 
 "I can't pension him off, you know; he 's not 
 that kind. And if I 'm any sort of an honorable 
 fellow I 've got to keep to the agreement till the 
 year expires, at the least. No sufficient excuse 
 for dissolving before then." 
 
 She looked indignant. 
 
 "And and you see, a man's got to have 
 capital to run that kind of business; and if I 
 leave Jacques in the lurch at the year's end, 
 I've I've just spoiled his prospects, that's 
 all. I 'd better have left him where he was. He 
 couldn't get in with his old firm again, and it 
 would be an awful rub to have to go back to 
 a salary." 
 
 "He found you; I don't see why he couldn't 
 find somebody else to go in with, just as well." 
 
 The twinkle had died out of Baird 's eyes some 
 time before, but now it came back for a moment 
 as he said : 
 
 "You don't find men like me every day in the
 
 MORE WOMAN'S EIGHTS 251 
 
 week, my dear. I 'm rather exceptional, on the 
 whole." 
 
 But she refused to be amused. 
 
 "I don't see why, if it was capital he wanted, 
 why he is n't contented with that, instead of tak- 
 ing your time, too." 
 
 "You see," Baird tried to explain, "we didn't 
 arrange it that way. I was hungering for occu- 
 pation about that time, and he really does need 
 me on hand sometimes. I rather enjoy it, too. I 
 catch on to the accounts and the technique of the 
 thing quite easily. If only you were satisfied! " 
 
 "I am not satisfied," she said decisively. 
 
 "It was my fault in the very beginning," he 
 acknowledged, "but I did not dream I should be 
 restricted so." 
 
 "I know; you have told me that before," she 
 answered. "But you will not make the only 
 reparation I ask you to make. You will not give 
 up the business." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "I hate the place," she continued. "You 
 should have found out what was expected of you 
 in the firm before you asked me. You should 
 not have taken so many things for granted." 
 
 She forgot that she, too, had taken one thing 
 for granted, namely, that she could make him do 
 as she pleased after she married him. 
 
 "I have been considerable of a fool," he said 
 quietly.
 
 252 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 He did not once reproach her for not confiding 
 in him before she married him. 
 
 "But you will do nothing to remedy it?" 
 
 "No, dear; that is, not till Jacques is steady 
 enough on his feet to stand alone, and that will 
 take some time. He does n't speculate, and it 's 
 uphill work saving money." 
 
 They arose and stood by the fire in silence a 
 moment. Then she faced him, and her eyes 
 flashed as she said sharply : 
 
 "What is to be done about it? " 
 
 They looked at each other steadily without 
 speaking, and read each other's thoughts and a 
 certain disagreeable answer to that question. 
 
 "Except that it 's so horrid vulgar, you know," 
 said Baird quietly. 
 
 She turned away from him, and went to one of 
 the camps, and he followed, arranged a place for 
 her on the spicy fir branches, tucked a blanket 
 around her, and went out to the fire again. 
 
 As she lay under the open lean-to, she could 
 see him sitting by the fire smoking a cigar. He 
 stared into the flames solemnly; occasionally he 
 stroked his beard with meditative deliberateness. 
 Once he passed his hand through his hair with 
 a weary gesture. She felt a lump in her throat 
 when he did that, and she closed her eyes for 
 a few minutes. When she opened them, he was 
 sitting as before, staring through the fire. 
 
 It was his fault, she told herself. Yes, but
 
 MORE WOMAN'S RIGHTS 253 
 
 she had known, she had had time enough to with- 
 draw, she told herself that, too, for she was 
 sincere. Why hadn't she withdrawn? she asked 
 herself half resentfully, half wonderingly, look- 
 ing out at him. He was a handsome man. She 
 liked his being so handsome. He was clever, 
 also. More than once this summer she had felt 
 proud to be his wife ; it had been a new sensation 
 to be proud because of her connection with some 
 one else. And he had not uttered one word of 
 reproach. Roma covered her face with the blan- 
 ket. 
 
 Her eyes looked rather heavy when she came 
 out later, but it was a very prickly blanket.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 JOCELIN AND SYLVIA 
 
 AND down on the flat rock overhanging the 
 valley Sylvia and Jocelin were watching the mist 
 gather itself ghost-like out of the air just above 
 the river and creep downward with the current. 
 They did not speak for a long time. They 
 watched the dark, shadowy mountains. They 
 followed the river, here a gleam of silver, there 
 a shroud of mist. The one light that twinkled 
 in a hollow went out as they gazed. The smiling 
 radiance of the intervale stretched across to the 
 base of the mysterious shadows that stood uncer- 
 tainly against the sky. 
 
 Sylvia seemed a part of the moonlight, a 
 wraith-creature palely shining, very pure. She 
 had never meant flesh and blood to Jocelin, as 
 other women did. He almost wished this were 
 not so to-night. The light flashed into one of 
 the rings she wore, a priceless, antique thing, 
 dull Indian gold and a great flower of emerald- 
 shavings set down into the gold, petalwise, about 
 a rose diamond. It hung loose and heavy upon 
 her slim hand. Jocelin thought of something his
 
 JOCELIN AND SYLVIA 255 
 
 mother had said once, Mile. Sylvia was rich. 
 He would have liked to be able to touch the deli- 
 cate, gem-burdened hand, but he did not want 
 to. 
 
 Jocelin was neither mercenary nor practical; 
 he was only pleasure-loving, and it gave him 
 more pleasure to feel the unapproachable chas- 
 tity, the separateness, of this woman than to 
 think of the delights he might purchase with her 
 millions. There were other women for other 
 uses. Jocelin had the sentimental reverence of 
 the unphilosophic sensualist for innocence. So 
 long as he could gratify his senses at other times, 
 why need he mar the spiritual harmony of this 
 unique experience? The knowledge that he was 
 wiser in sin than she, enhanced for him the exqui- 
 siteness of his self -fostered melancholy. Speak- 
 ing to her of love would mean, if she responded, 
 bringing her to his level, there was nothing 
 new, nothing piquante, in doing that. And, if 
 she did not respond, it would mean disaster, no 
 more moon-maiden, untouched, unconscious, to be 
 worshiped. 
 
 But that remark of his mother's remained with 
 him. If he should succeed ! She was very rich ! 
 It would be comfortable to have money. Women 
 were women after all ; and during the months of 
 his acquaintance with her, he had had a curious 
 feeling that the next time he saw her, the next 
 time he chose to look at her, he should desire
 
 256 DIANA VICTBIX 
 
 her. Perhaps the non-fulfillment of this prophetic 
 impression attracted him quite as much as her 
 innocence. He glanced at her, half -expectant of 
 a familiar sensation and stimulus, and this time 
 also she baffled him. Not a line, not a curve 
 of her, aroused unholy appetite. She sat very 
 still. Her eyes were luminous and thoughtful; 
 her face was pale, pure, and controlled. Would 
 it be worth while, would it be interesting, to try 
 to arouse her? 
 
 "Mademoiselle, you told me, before you went 
 away from the South, that you were going to ask 
 me to make you a promise." 
 
 "And you remembered it? " she said smiling. 
 
 "Yes, I remembered it. I do not forget the 
 things you say to me." 
 
 At the caress of his voice the heart -hunger 
 stirred within her, tempting her, and she moved 
 almost imperceptibly and looked at him. 
 
 "No, I do not forget, because Will you 
 marry me? " he said. 
 
 One little sign from her, and he would touch 
 her. Did not his eyes say so? Very soft they 
 were, those eyes, and sad ; the ecstasy of sadness 
 in their shining depths allured her. She thought 
 of his wretched young life, and the pathos of it 
 made her throat ache. What did it matter if he 
 had sinned? Whose fault was.it that this was 
 so ? Not his ! Not his, with the sin-tainted eyes 
 confessing and unashamed, not his, with the
 
 JOCELIN AND SYLVIA 257 
 
 seraph mouth and the seducer's smile! Would 
 he kiss her if she moved? If she might but 
 touch the brown throat, the soft, short hair! 
 Other women were given these joys. What was 
 sin? Could he help it? She loved him; what 
 did it matter what he had done? Who was she 
 that she should withhold herself from him ? She 
 thought of his naive confession, "I have done 
 many wicked things; I have been very dissi- 
 pated," and its childlike frankness seemed to 
 divest his misdemeanors of their blackness. She 
 thought of those musing words : " It has always 
 seemed to me that it is presumptuous in me to 
 think that I could love a human being, a woman, 
 with the holiness, the unselfishness, that the word 
 4 love ' means to me. Others claim that they do 
 it, but how can they hope to?" 
 
 If he could say this, if he could feel this with 
 the best of him, what did other things matter? 
 Other women gave themselves to men that they 
 loved. Why must she deny herself? He would 
 give her the caresses she might ask; his voice 
 said it, his eyes said it, his lips waited. One 
 little motion, Sylvia; will you make it? See! 
 his eyes are growing sure that you will. 
 
 He will give her what she asks, because she 
 loves him. Yes, she knows this. He will give 
 her her pleasure, and he will take his pleasure, 
 willingly, because she loves him. He will 
 touch her ; he will take her in his arms, here in
 
 258 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 the moonlight on the mountain-top. Ah, the red 
 mouth trembling! His eyes are very certain of 
 what she will do. Too certain, Jocelin; it was 
 not wise. 
 
 His red mouth will burn upon her lips, kissing 
 her. Why will he kiss her if he does not love 
 her? 
 
 Yes, Sylvia, answer the question to your heart, 
 and then show us how low you intend to fall. 
 
 How does she know he does not love her? She 
 knows! Any woman would know. If he did 
 love her, would there be sin black enough to 
 keep them apart? How could there be? Is she 
 willing that he should kiss her? Is she willing 
 that he should take her in his arms, not loving 
 her ? There are women who would be will- 
 ing. What are such women called? Is it to 
 be as low as that, Sylvia, because you love 
 him? 
 
 He is waiting. Look into his eyes! He is 
 very sure of what you will do. Will you? 
 
 "Sit farther off," said Sylvia. "I have some- 
 thing to say to you." 
 
 He bent his head and drew himself away, al- 
 most to her feet. Decidedly, he had aroused 
 her ! And the result was to be more interesting 
 than he had supposed. 
 
 "O voice, O music! do not be a lost soul!" 
 she said, and her own voice was full of the soft, 
 sighing quality of the night wind.
 
 JOCELIX AND SYLVIA 259 
 
 "Go apart from me and make ready our de- 
 fense against the coming of the Judgment Day. 
 Speak for me ! How shall I have need to speak 
 after the Divine Pity has heard the music of your 
 pleading? Tell Him, the Judge, that you have 
 tempted me, that it is accomplished. He will 
 know if I have fallen. I do not know. Tell 
 Him I have gone through the remainder of my 
 life with the taint upon me, rejoicing, not that 
 I have overcome the temptation, but that I have 
 known what it is to desire the things of the flesh. 
 Tell Him I have forsaken irresolution and tasted 
 of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. That 
 which is evil I have looked upon, knowing its 
 name, and henceforth I choose the good. These 
 things you are to tell Him, defending me, and 
 then the terrible thing at the end. Tell Him 
 I do not repent. Ask Him if I must. He will 
 know. Do not lie there with your face against 
 the rock and moan; there is no need of your 
 remorse. I am nearer salvation because of you. 
 But I do not want to repent. It is the taint that 
 is upon me, and perhaps that brings salvation, 
 I do not know." 
 
 She looked down at him as he lay crouched 
 upon the rock, his face hidden against her dress; 
 and when she spoke again, there was an added 
 tenderness in her words : 
 
 " But it is not alone for me that you shall plead 
 when the Day comes, O tired voice, all worn and
 
 260 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 wasted here on earth I What will it matter when 
 we are in heaven and your spirit sings? " 
 
 He moved, and she added hurriedly : 
 
 "Take away your lips from the hem of my 
 gown ! " Then, touched by his obedience : 
 
 "If it comforts you to know it, I grieve, too. 
 But now you are to go away from me. You 
 have well-nigh destroyed your earthly voice; it 
 is time to build a heavenly one in your soul. It 
 has come to me that Jeanne will teach you. 
 That was why she was taken away so young, so 
 lovely, with all her world before her." 
 
 Sylvia was explaining gently, as if to a child. 
 
 "God took her away to give you something to 
 do, and to save your soul alive. It is not very 
 glorious, the writing of little fragile songs that 
 some one else has made. But, alas! I do not 
 think that you are fit for anything glorious now. 
 All Jeanne's music that she used to make has 
 gone to heaven with her, and we on earth can- 
 not do without that music. Bring it back to us ! 
 It is not your name that God means shall be 
 famous; it is Jeanne's. This is the promise you 
 are to make me : You are to save your voice, that 
 you may sing Jeanne's songs; to keep your head 
 clear and your hand steady, that you may write 
 Jeanne's music. For Jeanne's sake, and the 
 world's sake, and mine mine! If the great 
 multitude stands before the throne of the Lamb, 
 singing praise night and day, and your voice is
 
 JOCELIN AND SYLVIA 261 
 
 not there, I do not think God will call that place 
 heaven. And if I die, and enter into a darkness 
 full of groans and terrible cries, and still I hear 
 you, I shall not be in hell. And I shall be ac- 
 cursed ! " 
 
 She stopped with a gasp, as if she found her- 
 self saying more than she had intended to say. 
 
 Jocelin shivered convulsively, and began to 
 sob in an hysterical fashion, unrestrainedly, as 
 a woman might have done. He clung to her 
 gown and pressed it to his lips. Sylvia pulled 
 the skirt away, almost roughly, and stood up on 
 the rock out of his reach, and, as the low, smoth- 
 ered sound of his weeping continued, she turned 
 her back upon where he lay, and flung up her 
 arms with a gesture of despair. Even a spiritual 
 union with him seemed a little flat just then. 
 
 She looked out upon the moonlit valley, her 
 exaltation gone, a sense of chill and disappoint- 
 ment, even of disgust, at her heart. And all 
 this because her own words had made him weep. 
 If Sylvia herself had been endowed with fewer 
 hysterical possibilities, or less self-control, she 
 might not have felt the disgrace of his tears so 
 keenly. 
 
 "Do not be a lost soul!" she said wearily. 
 "Do not be a lost soul! " 
 
 She could think of nothing else to say, and 
 something in her tone it may have been indif- 
 ference checked his crying. He raised him-
 
 262 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 self, and saw her standing with her back to him, 
 and his face grew a dull red. 
 
 Jocelin was neither intellectual nor spiritual, 
 but he was sensitive, and he had an instinct for 
 the dramatic fitness of things. That was why, 
 at the present crisis, he did not speak; he only 
 waited, kneeling on the rock, looking towards 
 her, with shame and terror and self-loathing in 
 his eyes, until she, becoming conscious of the still- 
 ness, turned and saw him. 
 
 "Ah! I hate, hate, hate myself!" he whis- 
 pered fiercely. 
 
 She waited, saying nothing. 
 
 "I promise!" he said, and groaned, and hid 
 his face in his hands. 
 
 Her pity awoke then, with a little of her love, 
 and she said : 
 
 " Sing to me, that I may carry away the mem- 
 ory of your voice, your voice alone, the God- 
 given part of you. Sing, for I do not want to 
 remember other things." 
 
 And again he sang the one hundred and twenty- 
 first psalm. But this time there was no humor 
 in the situation.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 DURING THE WEE SMA' HOURS 
 
 "I SAY, you people, look at that moon! " 
 
 The voice was that of Jacques, uplifted from 
 a vantage-point above the camp, whither he and 
 Enid had wandered. 
 
 "By Jove! So it is! " said Curtis Baird, and 
 he dusted the cigar -ashes off the front of his flan- 
 nel shirt. "Roma!" 
 
 Roma came out from beneath the lean-to with 
 very tired eyes. Her husband glanced at her, 
 took down a blanket that hung in the camp, 
 and saying, "This is the way we do it!" pro- 
 ceeded to wrap it around her lengthwise, Indian 
 fashion. 
 
 "Now crawl up behind the other lean-to! 
 They 're up there, and it 's a good, open-sky sort 
 of place. I '11 bring a blanket for Miss Enid 
 presently. Not cold, are you? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 She liked being taken care of. She liked his 
 being such a gentleman. And she had said such 
 horrid things to him ! 
 
 She found Jacques and Enid sitting on the
 
 264 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 rock above, discussing the moon, which hung in 
 the sky like a bitten cracker. 
 
 "Jocelin! Jocelin! " called Baird, "bring 
 Miss Sylvia up on top. We want you to sing 
 4 See the Pale Moon.' It 's worth seeing." 
 
 And finally the six were gathered together on 
 the rocks, with the wide sky stretching above 
 and around, and the mutilated moon shedding its 
 slowly diminishing brightness upon them. 
 
 They all munched crackers and drank coffee. 
 No, not all, for Enid was a homreopathist and 
 did not approve of coffee. Jacques had tried to 
 convert her to an appreciation of its merits the 
 winter before, but had failed. 
 
 "Why is it that we never have a total eclipse 
 of the moon except when the moon is full? I 
 suppose I learned why once, but I 've forgotten," 
 said Enid. 
 
 "Because that 's the only time the moon is all 
 on hand," volunteered Jacques. 
 
 Baird laughed. "I think it is this way," he 
 said, and proceeded to explain the theory by 
 means of large and small crackers, and a tin cup 
 for purposes of eclipse. 
 
 His wife watched him silently, comparing him 
 with the other two men. He had not the practi- 
 cal business ability of Jacques, nor the artistic- 
 power of Jocelin, but he had more culture than 
 either of them. She remembered how well he 
 had known all the little plants and fungi along
 
 DURING THE WEE SMA' HOURS 265 
 
 the path as they came up the mountain ; how he 
 had spied tiny, woodsy things that none of the 
 others had had eyes to see until he pointed them 
 out. She remembered how he had told her of 
 spending whole days alone in these woods, among 
 these mountains. Alone! It implied a certain 
 purity of soul in him which startled her. She 
 looked at him as he revolved his crackers, that 
 whimsical smile upon his lips, the wayward twin- 
 kle in his eyes. She thought he looked tired, 
 but the others did not seem to notice it. She 
 found herself ruminating upon the idea that he 
 was pleasanter to live with than either of the 
 other men. 
 
 He finished his explanation and ate the crack- 
 ers as an illustration of the ultimate redistribu- 
 tion of matter in the universe. He was so clever I 
 Clever in a way that Jacques and Jocelin could 
 never be. He had a background of general in- 
 formation and general scholarship to draw from, 
 and they had not. 
 
 " What good does it do you ? " inquired Jacques 
 curiously. 
 
 "What?" asked Baird. 
 
 " Why, all these tail-ends of wisdom you cram 
 into that noddle of yours? "' 
 
 Baird laughed. "We can't all be specialists, 
 you know," he answered. "It does me good; it 
 entertains me. I 'm made so that I need a lot of 
 entertaining to make existence worth while."
 
 266 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 "Aren't you fond of any one thing more than 
 another, Mr. Baird?" asked Enid. "Are they 
 all equally pleasant to you?" 
 
 "N-n-o!" he said slowly; " I can't say that 
 they are." 
 
 "So he has a preference, a specialty, after 
 all!" cried Jacques. "Out with it! What is 
 it you 're fondest of? Not cotton brokerage, I 
 know." 
 
 "I beg to be excused," smiled Baird. "Not 
 that I mind unfolding my soul to such a sympa- 
 thetic audience. But my wife is present. She 
 might feel embarrassed at having her name 
 brought into the conversation, you know." 
 
 It was a pretty compliment; Roma liked it. 
 She sat in the shadow behind Enid and Sylvia. 
 The three women had drawn together and the men 
 were facing them. Roma felt herself blushing 
 in the shadow, and realized that to her it was odd 
 to blush at compliments from her own husband. 
 
 "Talking about specialties," said Jacques, 
 "I 've decided to go home to-morrow." 
 
 "Better start now, then," said Baird; "train 
 leaves at quarter after eight in the morning. If 
 you go now," he looked at his watch, "you can 
 take it leisurely through the woods. Rather 
 dark, but if you must! " 
 
 "I take the afternoon train," laughed Jacques. 
 "No joking. I 've got to." 
 
 "Rather sudden, is n't it? "
 
 DURING THE WEE SMA> HOURS 267 
 
 "Yes," Jacques acknowledged. "But I've 
 been thinking it over, and it is best all round." 
 
 "I will go with you," said Jocelin. 
 
 " Hullo ! " ejaculated Baird. " You ' ve no press- 
 ing engagements, young man?" 
 
 "No, but it may be as well for me to be on the 
 scene of action early." 
 
 "Noble sentiment! " This from Baird. 
 
 "I suppose I can depend on you for the first? " 
 Jacques continued to his partner. 
 
 " First of what ? January ? " 
 
 "No, October." Jacques said this in his busi- 
 ness tone. 
 
 "Suppose we say the fifteenth?" suggested 
 Baird with teasing blandness. 
 
 "The fifteenth, then, of October." 
 
 "And if it comes on a Sunday?" murmured 
 the incorrigible Baird. 
 
 "The fifteenth of October," repeated Jacques. 
 
 "Wouldn't Mr. Baird be just as useful if he 
 attended to the business in New York? " inquired 
 Roma, speaking from the shadow. 
 
 " No, madame, " said Jacques. " Candor obliges 
 me to confess that he would not." 
 
 "October is so early, Mr. Dumarais! People 
 always lose the effect of their summer if they go 
 home as early as that. And Curtis is not accli- 
 mated." 
 
 Curtis smiled. 
 
 "I wouldn't be anxious about him," observed
 
 268 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 Jacques; "he's tougher than you think. It 
 won't do him a bit of harm to come home then. 
 If he has tried to make you believe he 's delicate, 
 Mrs. Baird, don't you believe him; he 's only 
 putting on, and trying to get you to plead for 
 him, so he can stay up here and see the leaves 
 turn red. He 's seen them do it for some thirty 
 odd years. Just don't you encourage him in his 
 idle ways, Mrs. Baird." 
 
 It is always nettling to be instructed by an 
 outsider in the manners and foibles of one's par- 
 ents, or children, or husband (even when one 
 has been married to that husband but two months, 
 and has never acknowledged to any particularly 
 deep affection for him). 
 
 "It is I who do not want to go home," said 
 Roma. "Mr. Baird says he must, because it is 
 not fair to leave you down there." 
 
 "And you would save him from rushing into 
 the jaws of death and dengue fever. Ah, yes, 
 madame! I understand. Baird, you 're a lucky 
 fellow." 
 
 "I am afraid it is simply because I do not 
 want to go," persisted Roma. 
 
 "And he is such a brute, he says if he goes, 
 you must! " added Jacques. "Baird, I wouldn't 
 have believed it of you." 
 
 "He 's not a brute at all! " said Roma, impa- 
 tiently, and they all laughed, except her hus- 
 band, who smiled in his own inscrutable fashion.
 
 DURING THE WEE SMA' HOURS 269 
 
 "I hasten to withdraw all explanations and 
 assertions. I am not in this thing. I will retire 
 gracefully while there is yet time," said Jacques. 
 "Let us look at the moon." 
 
 It was almost covered by this time, and they 
 watched in silence until the shadow had crept 
 over the last bright bit of the edge, and the little 
 planet hung above them like a dull, brown- 
 skinned orange. The shadow had brought out 
 the solidity of the moon in a curious manner. It 
 was no longer a flat disk; it was a globe, small, 
 and rounded out in the heavens. The blue-black 
 sky was alive with stars, depths upon depths of 
 stars. This was the month for meteors, and now 
 and again a falling star would trail across the 
 twinkling darkness, appearing out of space and 
 vanishing into it again. 
 
 "Who made a wish that last time?" asked 
 Roma. 
 
 "I did," said Jacques, and he looked at Enid. 
 
 "There goes another! " cried Roma, "but that 
 was too quick. I wonder what we all wished. 
 Would n't it be entertaining to know? " 
 
 "I am perfectly willing to tell mine," said 
 Enid. 
 
 "It would destroy the charm if we told," in- 
 terrupted Sylvia hastily. 
 
 "I '11 bet I can guess what Mrs. Baird wished," 
 said Jacques. 
 
 "What?" demanded Roma.
 
 270 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 '"That you wouldn't have to go home in Octo- 
 ber." 
 
 "I didn't wish that at all." 
 
 "Then there is something you wish for more 
 than staying away from New Orleans?" said 
 Baird. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Are you going to tell him, Mrs. Baird?" 
 teased Jacques. "Wives always tell their hus- 
 bands everything, don't they?" 
 
 "That depends upon the husbands," Roma 
 answered. 
 
 "Bravo!" cried Jacques; "there speaks the 
 modern woman." 
 
 "That isn't modern," declared Enid. "It 
 was just as much a fact before the flood as it is 
 now." 
 
 "I don't believe it was acknowledged so 
 boldly," Jacques insisted. 
 
 "Perhaps not." 
 
 "You don't mean to say you 're trying to re- 
 duce the modern woman to a definition, Jacques? " 
 Baird asked the question. 
 
 "With three to study, one might hope to get 
 at a little of the truth." As Jacques said this, 
 he faced about and stared at the three women 
 with uncompromising directness. 
 
 "We might make a new game," suggested 
 Baird, "and call it ' The Modern Woman, a 
 Characteristic Game.' "
 
 DURING THE WEE SMA.' HOURS 271 
 
 "Capital!" cried Jacques. "We might in- 
 vent the characteristics now. Each man write 
 three, mix them up, and guess who wrote them." 
 
 "We shall do the guessing," said Roma. "If 
 you make game of us, we shall claim equal rights 
 and make game of you." 
 
 "There's one of her characteristics to start 
 on ! " said Jacques. 
 
 The moon was beginning to come out of the 
 shadow. There was a scribbling of lead-pencils 
 upon the backs of envelopes, while the three 
 women, huddled together, conversed in whispers. 
 
 "It is strange!" said Roma; "one is so far 
 away from people! It makes the trees and the 
 rocks seem full of life, as if they were human 
 beings. I feel as if I were on another planet 
 when I look down upon that wide valley full of 
 mist." 
 
 Sylvia murmured something from Shelley, 
 about tall peaks islanded with mist. 
 
 "Let us slip away soon; I want to tell you 
 something," whispered Enid. 
 
 "Not now," Sylvia answered. 
 
 The pencils ceased, and Jacques struck a match 
 in order to see if what he had written was legi- 
 ble. Baird then shuffled the papers, and, by the 
 aid of several matches, read them aloud. 
 
 "She is determined upon having her own way." 
 
 "Mr. Dumarais wrote that one," said Enid 
 promptly.
 
 272 DIAXA 
 
 "Ami why do you think so?" demanded 
 Jacques. 
 
 " Because you are so bent on having your own 
 way yourself." 
 
 "Rule that one out!" Roma cried. "It is a 
 masculine characteristic." 
 
 "Let 's compromise and call it a common attri- 
 bute," suggested Baird. 
 
 "I call it a victory for our side," declared 
 Enid. 
 
 Jacques groaned. 
 
 "She possesses that generosity of mind which 
 has hitherto been accorded to men alone. She is 
 equally large-minded and fair when she is in the 
 right as when she is in the wrong." 
 
 Roma started. 
 
 "Well?" said her husband. 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "Oh, I thought you were going to guess." 
 
 " Nobody ready ?" asked Jacques. 
 
 "I 'm not certain," said Enid; and Sylvia 
 added, "Nor I, but it argues a generous mind on 
 the part of the writer." 
 
 "We might save that one, and come back to 
 it. Here's another: 'It is not of herself that 
 she thinks; she strives that others may be 
 saved.'" 
 
 "Is that Mr. Castaigne?" inquired Sylvia 
 gently. 
 
 "Right! Jocelin, if that characteristic is a
 
 DURING THE WEE SMA' HOURS 273 
 
 reflection of your own mind, Miss Sylvia has 
 paid you a very pretty compliment. You 'd bet- 
 ter get up and make a bow." 
 
 "I do," said Jocelin, and as he stood up he 
 looked off towards the north. 
 
 "Tell me, is it the beginning of the dawn I 
 see? that whiteness ? " 
 
 "Perhaps. It does begin pretty far round 
 sometimes, but it 's rather early now. Let me 
 see ! '' 
 
 Curtis Baird stood up beside Joceliu and looked 
 for some seconds in silence towards the place 
 Jocelin indicated. Then he said, in a quiet 
 voice : 
 
 "It is the Northern Lights." 
 
 The others scrambled hastily to their feet. 
 
 The faint whiteness in the north was growing 
 definite ; it gleamed, it moved. Gradually an arc 
 of light came out against the sky, and along the 
 arc, from left to right, the pale -green luminous 
 shadows began to dance. Up and up they 
 mounted, now great sweeps of light, now pointed, 
 knife-like shafts, now fading fan-rays. There 
 was no color save the pale green that was almost 
 white. There was no sound, save once or twice 
 a faint crackle in the air. The procession of 
 shining ghosts grew taller and taller as it moved 
 along the arc. After a while the pageant faded, 
 as a rainbow fades, mistily, slowly, imperceptibly. 
 Those who had watched it spoke in hushed voices,
 
 274 DIANA V1CTBIX 
 
 and went down softly to the camp. The eclipse 
 was almost over. 
 
 "We shall have a couple of hours for sleep 
 before the dawn begins," said Curtis Baird; "I 
 should advise you to embrace the opportunity if 
 you can."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE DAWN 
 
 SYLVIA lay very still under the lean-to, but 
 she was not asleep. She knew that Enid, beside 
 her, was awake, and she had caught a blink of 
 Roma's eyelids from the farther corner of the 
 little shed. Enid had tried to draw Sylvia away 
 to a quiet place where they could be alone to- 
 gether and talk, but Sylvia was white and quiet 
 and unresponsive, and Enid's habit of consider- 
 ing her friend's welfare made her suppress her 
 own longing for sympathy, and lie down in pa- 
 tient silence upon the sweet pine branches. 
 
 Sylvia could look out and see Jacques and 
 Curtis Baird and Jocelin lying about the camp 
 in picturesque and unconventional attitudes, 
 Jacques, under the other lean-to, changing his 
 position restlessly every few minutes, but always 
 keeping his back turned resolutely to the fire; 
 Curtis Baird, stretched full length on the ground 
 and propped on one elbow, his chin in his hand, 
 staring into the flames once or twice he got 
 up softly and put a log on the fire ; Jocelin, half 
 sitting, half lying, against a blanketed rock 
 asleep. Yes, Jocelin was asleep.
 
 276 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 After a long while Sylvia crept slowly and 
 softly away from Enid's side, and stood up in 
 the open space by the fire. Enid watched her 
 go, and moved slightly, but Sylvia did not turn. 
 And Enid did not follow her. 
 
 "You will hear the birds better if you go over 
 on the wilderness side," whispered Curtis Baird. 
 
 But Sylvia shook her head. As she tiptoed 
 past Jocelin he opened his eyes and smiled, and 
 fell asleep again. And she went on down to the 
 ledge where he and she had sat in the moonlight. 
 The place was full of her words and his sobs. 
 
 The color was beginning to creep back into the 
 trees. The river and all the valley lay hidden 
 asleep beneath the mist. The moon, of palest 
 silver, fading white, looked across to the east 
 where the sky flushed faintly pink. It was a 
 weary moon. The leaves on the young poplar- 
 trees beneath the ledge were absolutely still. Now 
 and again the flute-notes of a thrush came out of 
 the silence and melted back to it. The dawn 
 languor pressed at the heart of life, and the 
 pulse-beats of the world were weak and slow,, 
 
 Sylvia stared down at the wide mist-river. 
 
 "Is it that I do not love him any more?" she 
 asked herself wearily. " No, oh, no ! I want 
 to love him. Jocelin ! " 
 
 She lay down on the rock and looked sidewise 
 over the valley. The mist was turning rosy. She 
 watched it idly. Her exhaustion was too great
 
 THE DAWN 277 
 
 for tears. No, let Jocelin cry like a sick woman 
 if he chose ! 
 
 "O voice ! I wish that you and I were dead ! " 
 she whispered. Her mouth trembled dejectedly. 
 
 "There will never be any one like that again. 
 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from 
 whence cometh my help.' ' 
 
 She looked across to the great mountains com- 
 ing back, pale icy blue in the dawn-light, and 
 for a long time she was so still she seemed to lie 
 asleep, all but her eyes, which were fixed wide 
 open quietly. 
 
 Her spirit had been shaken to its depths that 
 night by the violence of unusual emotions and 
 the swiftness of their transitions. A great temp- 
 tation, a great exaltation, and a great disgust! 
 Despite her inherited moral asceticism, her pam- 
 pered, self-conscious apathy, her hysteria, secretly 
 indulged but unmistakable, these experiences 
 were possible to Sylvia. What was it she had 
 felt when she saw him lying there shaken with 
 sobs? Disgust? Was it? Why not sympathy? 
 Who should have understood his weakness if not 
 she? 
 
 When he gave the promise, impelled by her 
 insistent silence, and when he sang, kneeling on 
 the rock with the shadow of despair still in his 
 eyes, her love began to come back faintly; and in 
 after years that love, fed by her pity, transfigured 
 by her gratitude, became a religion with her.
 
 278 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 But it is to be doubted whether, all her life long, 
 she ever forgave Jocelin those tears. She had 
 shunned the memory of them persistently through- 
 out the night, and now, at the beginning of the 
 new day, she was deliberately thrusting them 
 from her mind, in order to think the best of him. 
 Sylvia was very proud. Perhaps she did not 
 care to remember that the man whom she had 
 loved, and whom she still wanted to love, was so 
 degenerate. 
 
 He had promised! And he had prayed for 
 help! 
 
 She watched the mist, and let that thought sink 
 into her soul, strengthening her. She had fret-* 
 ted in self -distrust ; she had wasted her life in 
 wailing over her own uselessness, and, behold! 
 God had given her a great gift. It seemed she 
 was to save a human soul. Through her will 
 Jocelin had made this promise. What did it 
 matter if she had not human happiness, so Joce- 
 lin had life, and through her? It was enough 
 to be delivered from herself and to deliver him. 
 And while she waited the long, long years, ah! 
 idleness would be unbearable! She must work 
 now. Working meant writing to Sylvia. Writ- 
 ing what? . . . 
 
 That was the way the inspiration came to her, 
 born with the beginning of the new day. Very 
 still she lay, wide-eyed, but the pink color of the 
 dawn fluttered in her cheeks.
 
 THE DAWN 279 
 
 Sylvia's great-grandfather wrote a play once, 
 to his undoing, and her grandfather prayed 
 prayers that were poems. Doubtless all this had 
 something to do with the book that Sylvia wrote. 
 All Jocelin's little foibles went into the book, 
 his weaknesses, his sins. The good and the evil 
 of him were set down with a curious dispassion- 
 ateness, considering that it was Sylvia who wrote 
 the book. It may be that, after all, her love for 
 him had been mainly a matter of imagination. 
 Imagination was always the strongest quality Syl- 
 via possessed. Or it may be that, unconsciously, 
 she did not forgive. 
 
 What help did the hills bring, Sylvia? What 
 did the mountains say to you, that you should 
 smile as you looked out over the valley? Was it 
 the glow of the mist reflected in your eyes, that 
 kindled them? 
 
 The mist? What was the matter with the 
 mist? Something was happening to it. It was 
 coming up swiftly, in a mass, all pink. Flying 
 up ! There was no escaping it. 
 
 Sylvia clung to the moss, awe-stricken, and 
 the pink cloud came up from the valley and shut 
 out all the world, and made a rosy light every- 
 where, and no other thing. 
 
 She heard Enid's voice calling her from a dis- 
 tance: "Sylvia! Sylvia!" 
 
 But she did not answer. She sat still in the 
 midst of the cloud, and she thought:
 
 280 DIANA V1CTR1X 
 
 "Is it outside of me, or is it in my soul, this 
 rosy light?" 
 
 But presently she became aware of voices. 
 Some one quite near her gasped and said : 
 
 "Curtis!" 
 
 There were hasty footsteps, and Curtis Baird 
 said : 
 
 "Ah ! here you are ! " 
 
 The first voice gasped again, and Baird mur- 
 mured : 
 
 "Why! why!" in a pleased tone. "Fright- 
 ened?" 
 
 "What is it, Curtis?" 
 
 "The mist has come up suddenly, because of 
 some shifting of the air-currents, and a sudden 
 change in the temperature. It is unusual, but 
 there's nothing to be alarmed about in it. It 's 
 perfectly explainable according to the laws of 
 physics." 
 
 There was a short pause, and he continued : 
 
 "Look up, dear! It is a lovely light." 
 
 "How did you know where I was? " 
 
 "Oh, I had my eye on you when you left the 
 camp. Did n't you call me ? " 
 
 " Yes ! I I was startled. " 
 
 "Don't move, if you 're comfortable." 
 
 "I I " Such a tearful, muffled voice ! 
 
 "There, there, dear! It has been too much 
 for you. I ought not to have sprung an all-night 
 affair like this on you so soon, when you aren't
 
 THE DAWN 281 
 
 used to the woods and the outdoor life. It has 
 been too exciting. Don't cry ! The dawn 's al- 
 ways a nasty time, anyway. Everything 's below 
 par then, you know. Don't cry! We'll have 
 some hot coffee when this mist blows off, and 
 you '11 feel better." 
 
 "It isn't that," said the muffled voice; "it 
 is n't that at all ! I 'm going South with you." 
 
 "No, no!" he answered. "That 's all right! 
 I 've thought about it. You needn't, you know. 
 You can stay here, and give your two sisters a 
 winter in New York, and I '11 run up, say once a 
 month, for a few days. How 's that? It 's only 
 fair, since I got you into the scrape, that I should 
 suf that I should do what I can to make life en- 
 durable to you. Don't worry about going South. " 
 
 " I 'm not. I ' ve changed my mind. I want 
 to go. I " 
 
 Sylvia heard only incoherent murmurs and 
 protests after that. Jocelin could never have 
 kissed her as Curtis Baird kissed his wife. The 
 thought stung her. Other women could be happy. 
 And the look in Jocelin's eyes when he had asked 
 her to marry him came back to her, and brought 
 the sense of shame, of taint. She should never 
 marry Jocelin, she should never marry any one, 
 because some one was it he or she? had dese- 
 crated the sacrament. 
 
 The mist sank on a sudden, as swiftly as it 
 had risen, and began to waste away in the valley.
 
 282 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 Roma and her husband were behind a neighbor- 
 ing rock, and as they got up to go back to the 
 camp, Roma said : 
 
 "The fifteenth of October does come on Sun- 
 day." 
 
 Some of the far mountains had caught the sun- 
 light, and there was a patch of brightness on the 
 poplar-trees, but the beech-wood and the pines 
 below were still in shadow, and ragged patches of 
 mist frayed out among the treetops. 
 
 The exultation which accompanies an act of 
 creation had given place to sickening weariness. 
 Sylvia came into the camp looking white and 
 almost stern. 
 
 "We were about to send out a search party," 
 said Baird. "Miss Enid felt convinced that you 
 had fallen over a precipice." 
 
 She warmed her hands at the embers of the 
 dying fire, over which Roma was toasting bread. 
 Jocelin came to her, and bent down to warm his 
 hands, also. 
 
 " When I awoke in that shining mist, I thought 
 that I was dead and heaven had come, and I 
 waited for your face," he said. 
 
 She did not answer him, she did not look up, 
 but she put her hand inadvertently into a little 
 flame that woke up out of the embers. 
 
 Jacques was ruefully trying to straighten the 
 coffee-pot, upon which he had unwittingly tram- 
 pled during the mist.
 
 THE DAWN 283 
 
 Enid sat by the lean-to, pretending to eat a 
 piece of toast. Sylvia went over to her, realizing 
 suddenly that she and Enid had said little to 
 each other that night. 
 
 "I have thought of a story," she said softly, 
 "and I must write it. We shall go down and 
 work. I am impatient to begin. I shall work 
 ill the rest of my life, and never, never stop. 
 We shall be very busy, Enid! Let us go down. 
 
 think I shall never leave anything unfinished 
 again." 
 
 After all, was Joeelin's soul to be the only one 
 saved ?
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 JOCELIN GOES FORTH TO CONQUER 
 
 IN the early morning, when all the green things 
 in the woods were still dew-drenched and droop- 
 ing sleepily, the campers straggled down the 
 mountain-side. 
 
 Jocelin went first, singing. 
 
 It was a wonderful thing to hear Jocelin 's 
 sweet voice, so clear and joyous, in the midst of 
 the newly wakened woods. Jocelin sang only 
 glad songs that morning. So lightly he trod the 
 mountain path, he seemed not to feel the earth 
 under his feet. He held his head triumphantly, 
 singing straight before him with rapt gaze, and 
 the melancholy cry in his voice was as the beatific 
 sadness of a purified and pardoned spirit. He 
 sang the happy little songs Jeanne used to make 
 and sing, the love-songs, the tender lullabies, 
 the bits of prayer. He spoke to no one, and he 
 did not look behind. 
 
 "It is like having little Jeanne with us again," 
 said Roma. 
 
 Curtis Baird and Roma came after Jocelin, 
 walking together and saying little, if words 
 count for much.
 
 JOCELIN GOES FORTH TO CONQUER 285 
 
 Enid and Sylvia followed, hand in hand, and 
 for a while they, too, were silent. Enid was 
 thinking of the winter that was coming, and the 
 work that was to be her life. Sylvia was listen- 
 ing to Jocelin, and giving thanks to God for His 
 blessings. Over and over she said to herself: 
 
 "Jocelin has promised! It is I who have been 
 allowed to save him." 
 
 And the joy in her heart was strength. Sylvia, 
 also, was beginning to live. 
 
 Jacques came at the end of the little proces- 
 sion, switching the drops off the wet bushes that 
 leaned into the path. Sometimes, when he looked 
 at Enid, his keen eyes softened; but sometimes, 
 too, his chin grew more square, his mouth more 
 firm, the pose of his head more military and ob- 
 stinate. 
 
 "I believe that fellow is going to amount to 
 something, after all," said Curtis Baird, nodding 
 towards Jocelin. "What a blessing it is for me 
 that I was born with money! Think what I 
 might have come to !" 
 
 "You would not have been like him," asserted 
 his wife. 
 
 Baird smiled as if her remark pleased him, but 
 persisted teasingly : 
 
 "No-o! I haven't his heavenly voice, you 
 know." 
 
 Jocelin began to sing the little song of spring, 
 only one line, then he broke off short and was
 
 286 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 silent a while. Truly Jeanne walked with them 
 down the mountain -side that morning. 
 
 When Jocelin began again, he chose the "Mar- 
 seillaise." Jacques involuntarily followed suit, 
 and stopped abruptly after the first three bars. 
 Curtis Baird hummed the air absent-mindedly 
 for a moment, but his voice soon died away, and 
 he trudged along at his wife's side, his chin sunk 
 upon his chest, his eyes fixed thoughtfully on the 
 ground. Enid came back from her dreams of 
 social reform to the memory of Mardi Gras night. 
 They all walked on abstractedly, seeing visions : 
 
 A long table and a blazing bowl in the centre, 
 and behind the colored flames a face with parted 
 lips, singing. 
 
 Whose was that vision ? 
 
 "I have made love to your women, and they 
 have found me not altogether unpleasing. 
 I speak for one of them." 
 
 Who remembered that? Was it a pleasant 
 memory ? 
 
 They sang the song loudly, merrily, around 
 the table. 
 
 "Your friend is sensitive, Jocelin is lovable, 
 pardon me! " 
 
 Those were biting memories. 
 
 Jocelin sang on alone to the end. When he 
 stopped, his companions awoke once more to the 
 wet, green woods, and the beech-trees with the 
 sunshine up in the tops of them, and morning 
 twilight underneath.
 
 JOCELIN GOES FORTH TO CONQUER 287 
 
 When they rested by the brook, they talked to- 
 gether of the coming winter and their work. It 
 was an inspiration to hear Jocelin tell of his 
 plans, the very tone of his voice bespoke con- 
 secration. He had never before been so humble- 
 minded, so full of hope and energy. Even 
 Jacques, in whom long experience of the enthusi- 
 asms of his step-brother had engendered skepti- 
 cism, unbent and grew almost sympathetic. He 
 thought perhaps Jocelin really did feel more re- 
 sponsibility about succeeding, for his mother's 
 sake, now that he was all she had left. And 
 without doubt this mountain air had done him 
 good, for his voice was stronger than it had been 
 in years. 
 
 Sylvia was the only one who did not talk of 
 what she meant to do; and the others, except 
 Enid, did not notice then, because they had never 
 thought of Sylvia in connection with anything 
 active. She was only rich and delicate. But 
 they remembered it afterwards, when Sylvia's 
 book came out. They remembered, too, how 
 much Jocelin had talked. 
 
 When they came out of the woods into the long 
 pasture behind the lodge, the valley had caught 
 the sunlight, and the great mountains smiled 
 upon Jocelin. 
 
 Was it to be success with him? Was there 
 some one who should save him from himself, after 
 all? 
 
 Bravo, Jocelin!
 
 BOOK IV 
 
 "MAN, OH, NOT MEN!" 
 
 " Man, oh, not men ! A chain of linked thought, 
 Of love and might to be divided not." 
 
 PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MONSIEUR ADVISES 
 
 MONSIEUR DUMARAIS sat in his little book- 
 room with a tiny volume of Daudet in his hand. 
 The old house was very quiet, but monsieur had 
 grown used to that since Jeanne had died and 
 Jocelin had gone away. The piano was never 
 touched now, and no busy, hurrying little feet 
 ran up and down the galleries. Madame's slow, 
 weighty tread and the occasional slipshod patter 
 of a servant were the only sounds of motion 
 through the house all day, until Jacques' brisk, 
 firm step was heard upon the stairs at six o'clock. 
 Monsieur began to watch for that step in the 
 middle of the afternoon. There was always a 
 possibility that Jacques might come home before 
 six, you know. 
 
 He was watching now, in the dark, silent 
 house. Madame had gone to the French Opera 
 matinee. Jacques tormented her into going occa- 
 sionally; he told her it cheered her up. She 
 sometimes came home and shed tears, because the 
 singing made her think of Jocelin ; but Jacques 
 found that most things made her think of Joce-
 
 292 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 lin, and concluded that it was better for her to 
 be reminded of Jocelin's singing than of his other 
 characteristics. 
 
 The early December darkness was already 
 gathering in the corners of the little room. The 
 day was bleak, and madame had had a fire made 
 in the grate before she went out, but it had died 
 down to embers, and the maid had forgotten to 
 attend to it. 
 
 That was Jacques' step, after all! And it 
 could not be more than half past four. Monsieur 
 found himself astonished against his will. Some- 
 thing must have happened. 
 
 "Where is that Aurelia- Josephine-Stephanie- 
 Maria? Why doesn't she keep this fire going?" 
 said Jacques. " Where is maman ?" 
 
 "This last one is Stephanie," replied monsieur. 
 " I heard her talking to the milkman in the alley 
 not long ago. Your maman has gone to the 
 matinee." 
 
 "Of course! I forgot!" 
 
 Jacques put some coal on the fire, sat down, 
 and drummed his hands on his knees. 
 
 "You are at home early, my son." 
 
 "John Harris came into the office to-day," 
 Jacques began, with his usual lack of preamble. 
 "He has just come from New York. He met 
 Jocelin on the street there." 
 
 "Ah?" 
 
 Monsieur had felt convinced that something
 
 MONSIEUR ADVISES 293 
 
 disagreeable was to happen when he heard Jacques 
 on the stairs. 
 
 " Jocelin borrowed a quarter from him." 
 The silence which followed this statement con- 
 demned Jocelin more severely than words could 
 have done. 
 
 "He did not tell me that at first. He asked 
 me if I knew how wretchedly Jocelin was look- 
 ing, and I said no, he had not sent us his photo- 
 graph lately. He told me Jocelin asked about 
 New Orleans, and wept when he spoke of his 
 mother. Harris is a good sort. He said, ' I 
 know geniuses are a trial to the flesh of us ordi- 
 nary mortals in most cases, and I guess your 
 step-brother is no exception to the general rule ; 
 but I thought that well for his mother's 
 sake you might like to know how matters stood 
 with him. I gathered from his remarks that he 
 had not kept you thoroughly informed.' And 
 then he eyed me for a second and blurted out, 
 ' Tell you what, Dumarais, that fellow 's in an aw- 
 ful bad way. Looks as if he 'd die any minute. ' ' 
 After a pause Jacques continued : 
 "I suppose I shall have to hunt him up and 
 bring him home." 
 
 "Did this young man know his address?" 
 asked Monsieur Dumarais. 
 
 "No. Maman sends to the general post-office." 
 
 "If I had known what I was bringing upon 
 
 you, I should never have married," said monsieur.
 
 294 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "Ah, bah!" said Jacques. 
 
 "When your mother hears this, it will make 
 her ill." 
 
 "There is no need that she should hear it. I 
 shall say I am going North, and while there I 
 shall look up Jocelin. When I am there, I can 
 write that he is coming home with me for a vaca- 
 tion." 
 
 "Oh, my son, you are a very good son to me 
 and to her." 
 
 "Why not? " said Jacques. 
 
 "You will have some difficulty in finding him." 
 
 " Perhaps. I shall go to his last address, 
 that was eight months ago, is it not? Harris 
 saw him in some little street off the Bowery. I 
 can always apply to the police. Perhaps he will 
 be dead in the mean while." 
 
 There was a hopeful inflection in Jacques' 
 voice as he suggested this possibility, but he was 
 not hard-hearted, he was only extremely upright. 
 After a moment he added : 
 
 "A quarter ! If it had been twenty -five dol- 
 lars, I should not have cared." 
 
 He crossed the little room, took down a book, 
 put it up again, walked back to the fire, and 
 stood by the mantel-piece, shoving the toe of his 
 boot between the bars of the grate. 
 
 "There was no more bad news? " 
 
 "No. It is to be hoped that Providence will 
 consider that sufficient for one twenty-four hours."
 
 MONSIEUR ADVISES 295 
 
 "You leave soon? " 
 
 "I think so. In a day or two. I must see 
 maman about my trunk." 
 
 "Your mother has gone to Madame Chassard's 
 after the matinee." 
 
 Jacques laughed. 
 
 "We shall have more of the charms of Made- 
 moiselle Felicie for dinner in that case. Truly, 
 I am a heavy responsibility to maman. It re- 
 quires great agility to elude her attempts to make 
 me a married man. Ha, ha ! She is a nice little 
 girl, Mademoiselle Felicie, but maman will have 
 to comprehend that we do not conduct our affairs 
 as they did when she was young. I refuse dis- 
 tinctly to be proposed for." 
 
 "You are right; she is a nice little girl, that 
 Mademoiselle Felicie," observed Monsieur Du- 
 marais with peculiar quietness. "She reminds 
 me of Jeanne. Of course she is not gifted, she 
 does not sing, but, on the whole, that would be 
 too painful. In some ways I believe she is more 
 efficient than our Jeanne. Ah, that dear child ! 
 I do not cease missing her." 
 
 "Nor I," said Jacques, glancing uneasily at 
 his father. "Nor I." 
 
 The delinquent Stephanie came down the hall, 
 glanced in at the door with a perturbed counte- 
 nance, and, seeing the ruddy fire and also the 
 young master of the house, fled before a rebuke 
 could be administered.
 
 296 DIANA V1CTBIX 
 
 "That girl is no good," said Jacques. 
 
 "I know, my son; but your mother at her age 
 begins to find the housekeeping more of a bur- 
 den. She can no longer maintain the same rigor 
 with these creatures that she used to. They take 
 advantage. It needs a younger woman." 
 
 There was another silence which Jacques tried 
 not to find significant. 
 
 "I think, while I am in the North, I will run 
 up to Boston, and call on Miss Sylvia and Miss 
 Enid," he remarked presently in a low voice. 
 "I told them they might expect to see me again 
 in about a year." 
 
 Monsieur arose, and came and stood beside his 
 son, laying his hand upon the young man's shoul- 
 der. For a long time the two remained thus, 
 without speaking, but at last Jacques said in the 
 same low voice : 
 
 "Well, my father?" 
 
 " Perhaps I should say nothing, my son ; it is 
 not necessary that you should listen, however." 
 
 "Oh, no! I shall be glad to hear," Jacques 
 answered, but his tone was listless. 
 
 "Why is it that you set your heart upon the 
 impossible woman, Jacques? She is of the race 
 of Jeanne d'Arc, this Northern girl, in her voice, 
 her bearing, her beliefs. That kind is not to be 
 possessed by one man; she belongs to a cause, to 
 the people. If one insists upon falling in love 
 with such women, one must be content to assume
 
 MONSIEUR ADVISES 297 
 
 towards them the attitude of a Dante; they will 
 not permit any other. Fortunately, they are the 
 exceptions." 
 
 "Not as much as you think. There are dozens 
 of them in the North. She told me so herself. 
 They are increasing every day," said Jacques 
 moodily. 
 
 "Perhaps! perhaps!" said monsieur, sooth- 
 ingly. "Of course I do not go out; I do not 
 see the world. But there!" with a compre- 
 hensive gesture towards his beloved book-shelves 
 "there you do not find the Frenchman telling 
 you that Jeanne d'Arc is the general type. And 
 the Frenchman knows his world and his women." 
 
 "Ah, France! that is different," said Jacques. 
 "But France is not the world. Of course the 
 Frenchwomen are not like that, with their educa- 
 tion." 
 
 "Nor the New Orleans women," added his 
 father. 
 
 "Nor the New Orleans women," Jacques as- 
 sented. "But neither are they all the world." 
 
 "But she would be obliged to live here, my 
 son. I tell you I am right. It may be, as you 
 say, that all the women are beginning to be ex- 
 ceptions to the rule ; I do not know. But of this 
 I am sure, that this one woman could never come 
 here and keep this house, and mend your clothes, 
 and bring your children into the world. 
 
 "No! She would die, or the house would ex-
 
 298 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 plode. I am more inclined to think that it is 
 the house which would explode. If I speak with 
 force, it is because I wish to see you happy. I 
 say again, such women are not to be married. 
 Worship them, yes! Adore them! And when 
 you do marry, you will love your wife the more 
 tenderly, and be a better husband to her, because 
 you have endured the discipline of a purely ideal 
 and spiritual emotion. Understand me, my son! 
 She is adorable, that woman. I do not say that 
 there are women more worthy to be loved than 
 she, but I say there are women who will make 
 better wives. And one does not need to go North 
 to seek them; there are many here." 
 
 "Oh, hordes of them! " cried Jacques. "Ma- 
 man discovers at least two or three new ones 
 every week, and Mrs. Baird introduced me to six 
 in one evening, when she gave her bal poudre." 
 
 "I repeat, they are to be worshiped, the great, 
 the universal women, but that is a different affair 
 from a wife. It is not the same kind of affec- 
 tion." 
 
 "I have not said that I should marry any- 
 body," said Jacques, "or worship her either. 
 And here is maman. It will be just as well to 
 change the subject." 
 
 Madame entered, puffing slightly. 
 
 "You home, Jacques? But it is not as late as 
 that, no?" 
 
 "I am going to New York the day after to- 
 morrow," said Jacques.
 
 MONSIEUR ADVISES 299 
 
 "Then you will surely find Jocelin? " 
 
 Madame sat down in a chair and began to cry, 
 and to talk English. She had lately conceived 
 the idea that Jacques was more easily persuaded 
 by English than by French. 
 
 "It is now eight monsse an ee will naut say 
 nossing of wat ee do. Ma po' boy! It is ees 
 prride, Jacques. You mus' insiss that ee accep' 
 somesing. An' every night I drream that ee is 
 daid." 
 
 "I shall see him and find out how he is suc- 
 ceeding. I may be able to persuade him to take 
 a vacation and come home to visit us." 
 
 "Ah-h-h!" 
 
 Madame cast herself against Jacques, and be- 
 came as a fountain of tears upon his shoulder. 
 
 "You will have the small flat trunk brought 
 down from the attic, maman. It needs a new 
 lock. And you will see to the packing of my 
 dress suit. I shall go to Boston, also, and I 
 expect to call on Miss Sylvia and Miss Enid." 
 
 Jacques moved towards the door as he said 
 this. 
 
 "Ah, that reminds me! " said madame eagerly. 
 "I have a message. Wait, Jacques. You will 
 want to hear. I have a message for you from 
 Mademoiselle Felicie. She says " 
 
 "Very well, later! At dinner it will do," he 
 called from the stairs. "I cannot stop now."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 JACQUES' BROTHER 
 
 JOCELIN had made that promise with perfect 
 genuineness of desire and purity of intention. 
 The difficulty with him was that he felt no re- 
 sponsibility about keeping it. 
 
 Sylvia said : 
 
 "He holds a promise sacred. He has told me 
 so, and his unwillingness to give his word lightly 
 proves that. If I can persuade him to make me 
 a promise, he will keep it." 
 
 She believed this to be true of him, partly be- 
 cause it was true of herself, and partly because 
 he was such an admirable actor. 
 1 The keeping of promises had been a religious 
 tradition in Sylvia's family for generations. 
 When her ancestors broke faith, they either died 
 at once or went crazy. But this had not been 
 the case with the ancestors of Jocelin; for, in- 
 stead of dying themselves, they usually fought 
 a duel over the lie, and killed the other party, 
 y They were excellent swordsmen. 
 
 New York was not the place for Jocelin; it 
 contained too much pleasure to the square inch.
 
 JACQUES' BROTHER 301 
 
 His childlike temperament was too simple, too 
 impressionable, to do aught save clutch at every 
 fresh delight that came within its reach. The 
 city was dull, as far as music was concerned, in 
 August, September, and October, and he might 
 have spent these first three months of his sojourn 
 there in writing out Jeanne's music. He could 
 not have explained why he did not do this, but 
 the fact remained that it was not done. He 
 knew he had promised to write those little songs, 
 but the promise and the performance had no con- 
 nection in his mind. 
 
 Curtis Baird had given him letters of introduc- 
 tion to various people who were likely to need 
 music at their fashionable evenings or afternoons, 
 and, by the middle of December, Jocelin had an 
 engagement to sing at the house of one of these 
 people during a reception. He arrived early, 
 and charmed the hostess by his exquisite South- 
 ern manner, but unfortunately he was not asked 
 to sing till rather late, and he spent the interval 
 in the supper-room. He came to the piano with 
 flaming eyes and a delightfully wicked smile. 
 He tossed aside his roll of music, said he would 
 play his own accompaniment, and, after one of 
 his characteristically dreamy preludes, began a 
 lively French song. He sang only the first 
 stanza, because the son of the house happened to 
 have heard that song before elsewhere, and knew 
 what was coming next. Jocelin wanted to finish
 
 302 
 
 it; he laughed obstinately in the face of the 
 young host, and tried to keep his hands on the 
 keys, but was finally persuaded to desist. 
 
 He obtained no more such engagements that 
 winter. 
 
 Madame sent her boy money from time to time, 
 and he earned a little for himself, spasmodically, 
 by singing in third-class theatres and music-halls. 
 His letters were vague and unsatisfactory, and in 
 the early summer he wrote that it would be safer 
 to address his mail to the general post-office, as he 
 was likely to change his lodgings often. After 
 this the letters came seldom, and madame no 
 longer showed them to Jacques and monsieur. 
 
 "Of course, if he won't come home, why, he 
 won't," Jacques said to his father. "But if he 's 
 sick, we can't leave him up there to die. Mon 
 dieu, no ! " 
 
 So, one cold Wednesday morning in December, 
 Jacques was loitering about the New York post- 
 office, making himself as inconspicuous as he 
 could under the circumstances, and keeping a 
 watchful eye upon the delivery window. He had 
 ascertained that his step-mother wrote to Jocelin 
 on Sundays, and he concluded that Jocelin, in 
 the hope of getting money, would come for the 
 letters with some promptness. He spent most of 
 the day near the post-office, but no Jocelin ap- 
 peared. In the afternoon he hunted up the house 
 corresponding to his step-brother's last address,
 
 JACQUES' BROTHER 303 
 
 and found it to be a crowded tenement with sev- 
 eral families on each floor. After he had made 
 many inquiries, a woman in the cellar volunteered 
 a few remarks : 
 
 "Did ee have a nose? Aw no! I ain't forgot 
 that gent ! He skipped out las' June. No pay ! 
 An' the ole Moriarty woman wot took 'im on 
 trust, she went drunk free days. Her mad was 
 up high. Bad lot, was n't ee? I know 'd they 'd 
 be after him. Them Moriartys? I dunno. The 
 ole man got the Island." 
 
 Fearing that he had been imprudent to leave 
 the post-office, Jacques went back to it in the 
 evening, but had no success ; and it was not until 
 Thursday afternoon that Jocelin walked up to 
 the delivery window, received his letter, and 
 slouched away. He was thin and bent, and he 
 looked at no one. 
 
 Jacques followed him, not because he was 
 ashamed to speak to him in the open street, but 
 because he knew Jocelin 's emotional possibilities, 
 and did not care to precipitate a scene. He had 
 no difficulty in following him unnoticed through 
 the crowded, narrow streets, and at last, on a 
 specially squalid block, the remarks of the juve- 
 nile populace began to indicate that Jocelin was 
 near home. Two or three children greeted him 
 with the words of a popular song, slightly al- 
 tered : 
 
 "Where did you get that nose? 
 Where did you get that nose? "
 
 304 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 And one small boy, sitting on the doorstep of the 
 house which Jocelin entered, said, in derisive 
 tones : 
 
 "Oh, no! he ain't no Jew! Look at dat beak! 
 Oh, no!" 
 
 But Jocelin only shoved him aside, went in, 
 and closed the door. 
 
 The house looked particularly quiet and un- 
 pleasant. The shutters were bowed or closed, 
 and there was a dirty sign, "Room for Rent," in 
 a window on the first floor. Jacques walked 
 past and came back, and the small boy, observ- 
 ing him, cried : 
 
 " 'Ere y' are ! This is yer place ! Wark right 
 up! She 's expectin' yer! " 
 
 "Do you live here?" asked Jacques. 
 
 "Bet yer life I don't!" said the small boy. 
 "Ho, ho!" 
 
 Jacques felt in his pocket suggestively. 
 
 "Do you happen to know on which floor that 
 young man lives who came in here just now? " 
 
 "Top," said the boy concisely. "He 's de 
 skirt-dancer's young man. Ain't he a bute? " 
 
 Then, looking down at the quarter which 
 Jacques gave him, and back again knowingly at 
 Jacques, 
 
 "I say, does the guv'ment pay for this yer 
 inquiry? On the quiet? Are yuh? " 
 
 "No," replied Jacques; "nothing of the sort. 
 Are you sure it 's the top floor?"
 
 JACQUES' BEOTHER 305 
 
 "Aw, who yuh bluffin"? " said the boy, still 
 obstructing the doorway. "I bet yuh a quarter 
 yuh take 'im off in de patrol! " And he held up 
 Jacques' recent benefice. 
 
 "You '11 lose your money if you do," said 
 Jacques. "Run along; I 'm in a hurry!" and 
 he swung the young prodigal out of the way and 
 entered the house. 
 
 On the second floor a door opened as he passed, 
 and a woman's voice said: 
 
 "Was it me you wanted to see?" 
 
 He answered, "No, madame," and continued 
 up the stairs. Another man was coming down, 
 and, by the light from the doorway below, Jacques 
 saw that he was young and comparatively well- 
 dressed. On the fourth floor there were three 
 doors, and Jacques knocked upon one of them at 
 random. Another opened, and an old woman 
 poked her head out. 
 
 "Is there a young man, a Frenchman, living 
 on this floor?" said Jacques. 
 
 "I guess so," she muttered, and pointed to the 
 third door. 
 
 He knocked on this one, and, receiving no an- 
 swer, opened it and stepped into the room, the 
 head of the old woman remaining at the crack of 
 her own door until he had disappeared. 
 
 Jocelin sat all hunched together in a rocking- 
 chair by the window, and when he saw Jacques, 
 he neither moved nor spoke. He seemed to have
 
 306 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 outlived surprise and shame. He looked at his 
 step-brother as apathetically as if seeing him 
 were an every -day occurrence. There was a girl 
 lying across the untidy bed, and, when she real- 
 ized that a man stood in the doorway, she sat up, 
 adjusting her hairpins, and said : 
 
 "I told you some one knocked at that door." 
 
 The room was hazy with smoke and full of a 
 stale, evil smell. The floor was littered with 
 torn play-bills and ends of cigarettes. In the 
 midst of this grimy wretchedness Jacques' pros- 
 perity stood out arrogantly. Even he was aware 
 of it, and it oppressed him. That any one be- 
 longing to him should have been capable of fall- 
 ing so low filled him with wondering sorrow, and, 
 for the first time, Jocelin's weakness and incapa- 
 city seemed to be more misfortunes than faults. 
 There was neither anger nor severity in Jacques' 
 heart. He felt the uselessness of blame, of any- 
 thing now save pity. 
 
 "Well?" he said. 
 
 "I cannot sing," said Jocelin. "My throat is 
 burnt out. My voice is dead." 
 
 And Jacques knew then that Jocelin's heart 
 was broken. 
 
 "I cannot sing," he repeated. 
 
 There was no despair in his words ; despair is 
 active, and Jocelin had outlived activity. His 
 voice was dead. 
 
 Jacques' throat tightened and he said: "Never
 
 JACQUES' BROTHER 307 
 
 mind! Never mind! " in a lame, ineffective man- 
 ner. 
 
 "Don't you believe him, now; he's only got 
 a cold," said the girl 011 the bed, speaking in a 
 soothing tone, and winking and making signs to 
 instruct Jacques that he must humor the invalid, 
 and acquiesce in this view of the case. 
 
 "Are you the skirt-dancer?" asked Jacques. 
 
 "I am that same," she answered, and she 
 swung her legs nonchalantly against the side of 
 the bed. 
 
 Her hair was blondined and all disheveled and 
 dead-looking. Her face was thin and streaked 
 with paint. 
 
 "I ain't the skirt-dancer. The four hundred 
 ain't heard of me yet, but I 'm gettin' there." 
 
 Jacques went over to the side of the bed and 
 spoke to her in a low tone : 
 
 "He seems to me a very sick man. How long 
 has he been this way?" 
 
 "Pshaw! He's all right! He's like that 
 when the opium's wearing off, that 's all." 
 
 She answered with an assumption of bravado, 
 but there was anxious questioning in her eyes as 
 she looked at Jacques. 
 
 "How long has he been with you?" 
 
 "Six months, I guess. It ain't my fault!" 
 she added bridling. "His voice wasn't no more 
 than a squeak then. He 'd 'a' went to hell a 
 darned sight quicker if I hadn't took care of 
 him!"
 
 308 DIANA YICTRIX 
 
 Jacques stood near her for a few moments, 
 thinking, and then crossed over to Jocelin. There 
 was one other chair in the room, a rickety thing 
 with no back; this he drew up beside his step- 
 brother and sat down in it, laying his hand on 
 Jocelin's knee to attract his attention. 
 
 "Tell me, Jocelin, how are you ill? Have 
 you a cough? " 
 
 Jocelin looked at him vacantly for a moment, 
 as if collecting his thoughts, and then he said : 
 
 "I 've got everything that 's bad." 
 
 "Don't you believe him ! It ain't true," said 
 the girl. There was a sob in her voice. 
 
 "Do you want to come home?" Jacques asked 
 gently. 
 
 "I think I would rather die than do anything 
 else," replied Jocelin listlessly. 
 
 "Who are you?" said the girl to Jacques. 
 She left the bed and came to Jocelin. 
 
 "I am his brother." 
 
 She looked at him, turned her back, and 
 walked over to the window. She leaned her 
 arms, crossed, up against the dingy panes and 
 pressed her forehead against them, and stayed 
 there with her back to the two men. 
 
 "Get your hat, and come with me to a doctor," 
 Jacques coaxed. "He will fix you up and get 
 you in shape to travel, and then we will go home. 
 Maman is waiting for you, Jocelin. She told 
 me to beg you to come home. Never mind about
 
 JACQUES' BROTHER 309 
 
 the work ; when you are well again, we can think 
 about that. We will see what the doctor says, 
 and when you are ready to travel we will go. 
 Come! Get your hat! Where is it? " 
 
 Jocelin arose mechanically, and the girl by the 
 window whirled round. 
 
 "That 's the way you do, is it?" she cried, in 
 a high, excited voice. "As soon as your fine 
 relations are ready to take you up, off you go! 
 What do you care about me? I 'm nothing! " 
 
 "Where did I put my hat?" said Jocelin, 
 wandering bewildered about the room. 
 
 "I might 'a' knowed! I might 'a' knowed! 
 But I 'm a born fool! " 
 
 While she raged and cried, Jacques watched 
 her gloomily. She loved this half -imbecile piece 
 of humanity that tottered up and down the room. 
 Women always loved Jocelin. There was that 
 singer-woman ten years ago. There was Sylvia 
 Bennett, Jacques had always believed that she 
 had a liking for Jocelin at one time. He thought 
 of Enid, and he felt ill-used and alone. There 
 was injustice somewhere. 
 
 He did not remember Jeanne. 
 
 Jocelin finally picked up his hat, which had 
 been lying on the bed all the while, and Jacques 
 went up to the girl and held out his hand. 
 
 "I thank you for being kind to him. I believe 
 you have been, and his mother will be grateful. 
 If you care at all about him, you see how ill he
 
 310 DIANA VICTR1X 
 
 is, and how bad it is for him to be here. Please 
 take this for his mother's sake, because you were 
 good to him." 
 
 He held out a roll of bills. 
 
 "I never did that yellin', and all that row, for 
 no money," she said sullenly. "I'm fond of 
 him. He had little ways with him, soft and 
 quiet, and no more harm in him than a kid. 
 I 'in goin' to miss lookin' after him. My Lord ! " 
 
 She drew her hand across her eyes and turned 
 away. 
 
 "Still, I think you 'd better take the money," 
 said Jacques. 
 
 "Well, maybe I better had," she answered in- 
 differently, and held out her hand. 
 
 He gave the money to her, and went towards 
 the door, where Jocelin already stood. 
 
 "Ain't you goin' to say good-by cat, dog, nor 
 nothin' ? " asked the girl. 
 
 "Tell her good-by ! " whispered Jacques, touch- 
 ing his step-brother. 
 
 "Good-by! " said Jocelin. 
 
 They heard her sobbing as they went down the 
 stairs, at least Jacques heard her.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SYLVIA BEGINS TO BE SOMEBODY 
 
 THAT same December, Sylvia's book was ac- 
 cepted. 
 
 She received the precious letter from the pub- 
 lishers in the noon mail, and Enid, coming home 
 to luncheon at one o'clock, found her walking 
 up and down the room, indulging at intervals in 
 a short, delighted laugh. Beneath sorrow and 
 weariness Sylvia grew painfully silent and still, 
 but when joy came to her she found that she 
 must move and speak, and she felt as if she were 
 a stranger to herself. 
 
 She had had two or three little sketches and 
 several short poems accepted during the year, 
 and all the while she had been at work upon the 
 book. Her tenacity of purpose filled Enid with 
 wonderment. She was at work all the time, and 
 working did her good. She seemed to dread 
 being idle, to be afraid to stop one instant. The 
 advantages of those years of vacillating effort, of 
 writing and re-writing, of polishing and chang- 
 ing, showed themselves at once in her style. She 
 did not have to waste time in getting command
 
 312 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 of her instrument. Now that she had something 
 to say, she found herself ready to say it. 
 
 Her book was the story of a man who made a 
 failure of his life. When she began to write it, 
 she had not intended that he should fail, he 
 was an artist, not a singer, but she grew inter- 
 ested in his development, and somehow she could 
 not seem to make him do anything except fail. 
 The book was unreal, illogical, otherwise, and 
 Sylvia's appreciation of art made her at last con- 
 sent that the hero should fail, rather than the 
 book. 
 
 Enid read the story, chapter by chapter, as it 
 was written, and found the young artist similar, 
 in many respects, to Jocelin, but she did not say 
 so. The plot, however, had nothing to do with 
 Jocelin ; that belonged entirely to Sylvia's imagi- 
 nation. The young artist was extremely dissi- 
 pated, and, at the same time, devoted himself to 
 painting scenes from the life of Christ, especially 
 crucifixions. Worn out by excesses, he became 
 insane, imagined first that he was Satan, and 
 had committed the unpardonable sin, and after- 
 wards, by a sudden transition, became convinced 
 that he was the Christ, and starved himself to 
 death by trying to carry out the forty days' fast. 
 It was a daring piece of work, and Sylvia felt 
 desperate over it many times, but would not listen 
 to Enid's pleadings that she should let such un- 
 healthy speculation alone. The part of the book
 
 SYLVIA BEGINS TO BE SOMEBODY 313 
 
 that Enid found most incomprehensible was the 
 character-study of the heroine. She could under- 
 stand why Sylvia should be able to portray the 
 artist, and why she should, by her very heredity, 
 be interested in morbid psychological investiga- 
 tion ; but this heroine, this subtle combination of 
 intellect and sensuality, the artist's Magdalen, 
 how could Sylvia understand such a creature, and 
 where had she ever seen her? 
 
 Sylvia only said : 
 
 "She is real, then? You feel her? " 
 
 The publishers suggested modifications. They 
 felt that the English-speaking public was not 
 yet able to endure some of Sylvia's epithets, and 
 they could not quite consent to such a detailed 
 account of the second part of the insanity. They 
 thought that a treatment by suggestion would be 
 stronger; they feared that the majority of read- 
 ers might consider the present treatment rather 
 blasphemous. This idea astonished the devout 
 and reverent Sylvia, and she was convinced that 
 the publishers were mistaken in their judgment of 
 the public taste, but she agreed with them that 
 suggestion might be stronger than detailed de- 
 scription. The main point was that, with these 
 modifications, the book was accepted. 
 
 Enid came home to luncheon tired that day, 
 but when she saw Sylvia's face she forgot her- 
 self. 
 
 "Read it! " said Sylvia, thrusting the precious
 
 314 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 letter into her hands, and, after a moment, in a 
 rapturous, wondering tone : 
 
 "I have begun to be somebody !" 
 
 Her eyes filled with light. 
 
 It was Jocelin who had helped her to achieve 
 this success! 
 
 The thought startled her, and, frightened at 
 her own excitement, she turned and walked away 
 from Enid. 
 
 Poor Enid ! who had dreamed once that when 
 this day came, Sylvia would say to her : 
 
 "It is because of you. You have brought me 
 back to health. It is because I love you that I 
 have been able to do this. It is your help, your 
 encouragement, your faith in me, that have 
 brought me to a realization of my power." 
 
 She had known for a year that Sylvia would 
 never say this to her. She had schooled herself 
 to the knowledge that this was one of the things 
 she must do without, but she missed it now, be- 
 cause it had been a part of her dream of the hap- 
 pening. 
 
 After the night on the mountain-top, Sylvia 
 had said to her : 
 
 "I have succeeded in making Mr. Castaigne 
 promise not to throw away his talents in future. 
 He is going to write and edit Jeanne's songs." 
 
 Enid waited for her to tell more, thinking : 
 
 "After a while, when she has forgotten him a 
 little, when she realizes that her life and her
 
 SYLVIA BEGINS TO BE SOMEBODY 315 
 
 are more to her than any man, she will tell 
 me about it." 
 
 But Sylvia never told anything more, and Enid 
 knew it was because she had not "forgotten him 
 a little." And to-day, when her eyes were full 
 of smiling light, she had turned away from Enid. 
 
 They sat down to their luncheon with the letter 
 on the table between them, and they read snatches 
 of it aloud to each other between mouthfuls. 
 
 "How did your morning go?" asked Sylvia, 
 when they had arrived at crackers and New York 
 cream-cheese, and knew the contents of the letter 
 by heart. 
 
 Enid's expression changed. 
 
 "Do not let us talk about my morning," she 
 said, with a weary smile. 
 
 She was silent for some time, playing with her 
 napkin-ring, while Sylvia waited, gravely watch- 
 ing her. 
 
 Enid's face had lost its shining look of triumph 
 during the two years which had passed since her 
 winter in New Orleans. It was an older face 
 now, and grave, but more than ever interesting. 
 The beautiful lines of the mouth and chin ex- 
 pressed, even more strongly than they used to, 
 her high courage and faith and indomitable will, 
 but there was a new look in the eyes; they were 
 beginning to tell the story of renunciation. 
 
 The two years had been difficult ones. She 
 had been able to put her radical theories, to a
 
 316 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 certain extent, into practice; she had been able 
 to prove that, for herself at least, her social de- 
 mocracy was a practical and possible thing; but 
 the elusive element called success, the uplifting- 
 consciousness of achievement, had gone out of 
 her life, and she knew that, in the old delight- 
 ful way, it was never coming back, for something 
 in herself which had responded to it was gone 
 also. 
 
 When she came back to Boston after her win- 
 ter in the South, she found that she had ceased 
 to be a novelty and an infant prodigy. The fad- 
 dists had forgotten her and were running after 
 new lions, theosophic ones about this time. 
 Interest in social and industrial questions had 
 increased, but lecturers on those questions had 
 also multiplied. She found the learned men, the 
 pure scholars, in their same state of scientific 
 inertia, weighing possibilities, perfecting defini- 
 tions, seeking new points of view. Enid was a 
 scholar, too; her mind rejoiced in dialectics, and 
 dealt brilliantly with problem and theory; but 
 there was something in her besides the scholar, 
 something that warred with the scholarly impulse. 
 She always wanted to put her theories into action, 
 to see them working. She never waited to look 
 at them from all their points of view. She told 
 a very learned and uncertain man once that, if 
 she waited to do this, she should do nothing else, 
 as points of view belonged to the infinities of the
 
 SYLVIA BEGINS TO BE SOMEBODY 317 
 
 Creator. The learned man spoke of her after 
 that as brilliant but not sound. 
 
 The great mass of ordinary, well-to-do, unin- 
 tellectual humanity, absorbed in many and varied 
 interests, found her singleness and constancy of 
 purpose something of a bore. 
 
 The working-men, like their learned brethren, 
 also distrusted her. They received her advances 
 kindly, letting her know that they believed she 
 meant well, but that they had no confidence in her 
 judgment on practical issues. Her very scholar- 
 ship and facility of speech proved a hindrance 
 to her, for often those whom she wanted to con- 
 vince and instruct could not follow her words, and 
 did not know what she was talking about. 
 '- In the various settlements with which she allied 
 herself she was cordially welcomed. Among in- 
 dividuals she made many personal friends, who 
 adored her and told her all their sorrows; but it 
 is a little wearisome to listen eternally to the 
 other person's grievance, and there were days 
 when Enid cried out against this constant demand 
 for sympathy. 
 
 In her better moods, she realized and acknow- 
 ledged that the giving was not all on her side, 
 and she was grateful for the help which she re- 
 ceived from these friends, the silent lessons in 
 patience, endurance, self-sacrifice, cheerfulness, 
 the training, as Enid laughingly expressed it, 
 in the use of words of one syllable.
 
 318 LIANA VICTHIX 
 
 "I am a better teacher than I used to be," she 
 would say. "My Back Bay school girls under- 
 stand their history and political economy as they 
 never did before, and it is because my friends in 
 the other part of the city are giving me a free 
 normal course of instruction in the art of simple 
 and accurate explanations." 
 
 But to-day she had had a discouraging expe- 
 rience. She played with the napkin-ring till the 
 little maid, the daughter of the carpenter who 
 lived on the floor below, came in and removed 
 the dishes with a daintiness and dispatch which 
 bespoke somebody's good training. 
 
 "Was it the strike?" asked Sylvia. 
 
 Enid nodded. 
 
 "They think I have deserted them. I could 
 not make them understand. I could not hold 
 them when I spoke to them. They were grim 
 and unresponsive. Two or three of the ones who 
 know me well came up afterwards, and the pa- 
 thetic part of it was the way they tried to show 
 they were sorry for me personally, although they 
 felt I had not been fair to them. They made 
 excuses for me to myself, and one of them cried 
 and begged me not to mind. They say I advo- 
 cated the strike at first. Oh, Sylvia! one girl 
 said she never would have gone into it if it had 
 not been for me. And yet I told them in the 
 beginning how weak and new their organization 
 was. It is all a muddle. There was a labor
 
 SYLVIA BEGINS TO BE SOMEBODY 319 
 
 agitator at the meeting, one of the fierce, violent 
 kind, and he had those poor, tired women almost 
 in hysterics. He understood my position better 
 than they did. He knew where I was right. 
 But whenever I tried to corner him he would not 
 argue, he would only burst forth in invective. 
 And I understood his position, too. We frater- 
 nized on several points, but he would not let them 
 give up the strike; and in the end, although I 
 could see they were a little uncertain, they chose 
 -to follow him, not me. It was natural that they 
 should. He is one of them ; he has had to fight 
 the same sort of oppression they are fighting 
 now." 
 
 She got up with a little laugh and walked to 
 the window. 
 
 " Nobody trusts me, Sylvia, nobody tries to 
 help, nobody cares," she said. 
 
 "Present company, etc., I suppose," Sylvia 
 remarked, smiling and following her across the 
 room. 
 
 "Oh, yes, of course," she answered, and stood 
 still, looking down into the street. 
 
 The next moment she turned round suddenly,- 
 and her face was decidedly flushed. 
 
 "Mr. Dumarais is coming here to call," she 
 announced, and the unusualness of her remark 
 made the forced calmness of her tone absurd. 
 
 "How do you know?" cried Sylvia staring.
 
 320 DIANA V1CTRIX 
 
 " Because he is on the other side of the street ; 
 I saw him, and he saw me." 
 
 Enid picked up her hat and jacket, walked 
 rapidly to her own bedroom, which opened into 
 the little parlor, went in and closed the door be- 
 hind her with a hasty bang. 
 
 "I wonder if Jocelin is with him ? " said Sylvia ; 
 and she sat down, pressing the publisher's letter 
 against her eyes, because the room seemed to be 
 turning round.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 JOCELIN, SAVIOR! 
 
 AT first the New York physician made guarded 
 statements about Jocelin's inherited delicacy of 
 constitution, looking at Jacques curiously the 
 while, as if trying to discover, from the relation 
 between these two young men, just how far it was 
 prudent to be explicit. But when he gathered 
 from Jacques' manner that plain speaking was 
 expected of him, he said some very plain things 
 in language both medical and colloquial. 
 
 Jocelin sat still meanwhile, apparently hearing 
 but little that was said. The physician advised 
 keeping him in New York at a private hospital 
 for a couple of weeks. By that time rest, good 
 food, and freedom from temptation would have 
 put him in a better condition to travel, and his 
 appearance would be less of a shock to his mo- 
 ther. 
 
 This proposition suited Jacques, who had been 
 considering how he should go to Boston if he 
 must watch Jocelin every minute. So the matter 
 was arranged, and Jacques wrote a letter to his 
 step-mother, telling her that her boy was not
 
 322 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 well, and the doctor said he must be taken care 
 of for some time. He warned her that Jocelin 
 must not be spoken to about his voice, but sug- 
 gested that she might have the piano tuned. 
 
 Jocelin protested against the private room in 
 the hospital. 
 
 "I will not stay here!" he cried. "Where 
 are my cigarettes? I will not remain." 
 
 He wept and wrung his hands. He abused 
 Jacques. Finally he sat down sullenly, and the 
 look of hopelessness came back to his face. The 
 next time he spoke he seemed confused. 
 
 "You always have your own way," he said to 
 Jacques, as if he were seeking some lost connec- 
 tion of thought in his mind. "You do as you 
 like." 
 
 "You don't know," said Jacques, moodily. 
 "I don't have my own way as much as you think. 
 Stay here only a little while, till I come back, 
 and then we '11 go home. Shake hands, Jocelin ! 
 we '11 turn over a new leaf, you and I, eh, my 
 brother?" 
 
 And Jocelin wept and mumbled, but gave his 
 trembling hand obediently. 
 
 Then Jacques went to Boston to find Enid. 
 And her, also, he found in the slums. When he 
 began to notice that he was once more in narrow, 
 ill - smelling streets, with children everywhere 
 under his feet, the memory of Jocelin 's barren, 
 smoke-filled room and the haggard skirt-dancer
 
 JOCELIN, SAVIOR! 323 
 
 caiue back to him with a wave of disgust, and he 
 felt sick. Presently the thought occurred to him 
 that Enid was down here in the midst of this 
 wretchedness, and he grew angry, very angry in- 
 deed, with Enid, it is to be supposed, since no 
 one else could be held responsible for the choice 
 of her present abode. 
 
 When he entered the court in which she lived, 
 the "Blind Alley," as he apostrophized it, he 
 could not but notice that, although dingy, it was, 
 comparatively speaking, quiet and respectable. 
 Several small children stared at him and impeded 
 his steps, but said nothing. There were muslin 
 curtains at the three windows on the second floor 
 of one house, and, as Jacques considered them 
 from the other side of the street, Enid appeared 
 at the middle window. He had been in a bad 
 temper a moment before, but at sight of her he 
 forgot everything except that he had come to find 
 her and she was here. He lifted his hat, smiled 
 up at her, and crossed the street. 
 
 The carpenter's wife 'on the first floor said 
 she'd "see," and returned after a few moments 
 with the information that he might walk right 
 up, "second floor, third door to the left." 
 
 Enid and Sylvia welcomed him cordially, and 
 Enid felt herself blushing again when he shook 
 hands with her. It was flattering that he had 
 really come back as he said he should. He looked 
 so well! so capable! His eyes were on a level
 
 324 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 with her own, and smiled at her with such a 
 frank and wholesome delight that her color grew 
 still rosier. His hair was already beginning to 
 turn gray on the temples, and it gave him a 
 rather distinguished appearance. 
 
 They sat down and beamed upon one another 
 speechlessly for a moment, as people will who 
 have not met for some time. Then Enid said, 
 smiling : 
 
 " Well, how do you like our little slum ? Do 
 you approve? " 
 
 "I approve of the inside, yes!" he answered, 
 looking around at the pretty room with its many 
 books and pictures, its cosy window-seat and 
 cheerful wood -fire. 
 
 " You are incorrigible ! " laughed Enid. " Will 
 you make no other concessions?" 
 
 "I approve of the inhabitants of the room, 
 minus some of their convictions," he said teas- 
 ingly. 
 
 "I foresee a discussion," said Sylvia, "and I 
 move we rule convictions out of the conversation 
 until Mr. Dumarais has told us something about 
 New Orleans. How is Mrs. Baird?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ! how is Eoma ? " cried Enid. " Tell 
 us about her. She writes, but her letters are so 
 full of ' Curtis, ' we never find out anything about 
 herself. Curtis is an admirable young man, we 
 all know that, but a little of him goes a long way 
 in a letter."
 
 JOCELIN, SAVIOR! 325 
 
 Jacques laughed. 
 
 "Just as hard on us as she ever was, isn't she, 
 Miss Sylvia?" he said, and proceeded to chatter 
 merrily about Roma and her husband, about mon- 
 sieur, madame, the old house, about himself 
 a little, in answer to their questions. And, of 
 course, he had to hear of Sylvia's book, which 
 information he received in the polite, unapprecia- 
 tive fashion of the unliterary man. Sylvia thought 
 that when she mentioned the name of her publish- 
 ers he must surely awaken to the fact that she 
 had written something worth while, but, strange 
 to say, the celebrated firm-name had apparently 
 no meaning for this benighted young stock -broker. 
 He only said "Ah!" vaguely, and made a tame 
 little joke about numbering an author no, he 
 said authoress among his friends. He seemed 
 much more interested in trying to find out what 
 Enid had been doing, but she gave him scant 
 satisfaction about herself. 
 
 Sylvia arose after a while and went to a table 
 near the door of her own room. Standing there, 
 idly ruffling the pages of a magazine, she said : 
 
 "And Mr. Jocelin? You have not told us 
 anything about him. How is he?" 
 
 There was a short, expressive silence. Jacques 
 had anticipated this question, and had decided 
 that he might as well tell the plain truth. 
 
 "Perhaps the less said about Jocelin the bet- 
 ter, mademoiselle," he replied briefly.
 
 326 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 Enid turned towards Sylvia with a numb feel- 
 ing. What was Jacques thinking about to say 
 such a thing? What would Sylvia do? Sylvia 
 was standing by the table waiting for Jacques to 
 continue. She had not even changed color ; her 
 face was quietly sympathetic and expectant. 
 
 Enid had reckoned without Sylvia's pride. 
 
 "New York has been too much for him," 
 Jacques resumed. "I always knew it would be, 
 but they would n't listen to me. It was hardly 
 his fault. He never had any moral stamina. 
 He is all gone, every way. No good! Never 
 will be any good! " 
 
 "His voice? " asked Sylvia, and her own voice 
 did not tremble. 
 
 "He said to me, ' My voice is dead! ' and, I 
 give you my word, I felt as if it were a person 
 that had died. He destroyed it, and now it is 
 partly that thought which is killing him. Such 
 a voice as he had, that boy ! I remember, when 
 he was little, how he used to sing and sing! He 
 was never anything but voice all his life." 
 
 "He is ill, then?" said Sylvia, opening the 
 door of her study. 
 
 Her calmness had disarmed Jacques, and he 
 spoke now quite freely. Enid could have stran- 
 gled him. 
 
 " 111, perhaps it would be better to say worn 
 out. The doctor says it is a wonder that he has 
 lasted this long. He began to go down as soon
 
 JOCELIN, SAVIOR! 327 
 
 as he went to New York. He is there now at 
 a hospital. I am going to take him home with 
 me. I am sorry to be the bearer of such sad 
 news, mademoiselle; you and Jocelin were always 
 such good friends." 
 
 "Yes," she said, "we were. It is indeed sad 
 news. How grieved his mother will be ! I am 
 very sorry. Enid, I am going to my room for 
 a while, and I will leave you and Mr. Dumarais 
 to revive old times by fighting over your convic- 
 tions. Perhaps I shall write to the publishers 
 to make an appointment with them. I believe 
 we decided it would be wise to accept the royalty 
 offer, rather than the other one, did we not?" 
 The door closed behind her. 
 
 She shot the bolt softly, and sat down before 
 her flat desk in the middle of the room. At first 
 her most clearly defined feeling was one of dull 
 amazement at herself. Did she really not care ? 
 - For a year and a half Sylvia had been im- 
 mersed in active, definite work; her mind and 
 intellect had been sternly bent to the accomplish- 
 ment of a certain task; and in the interval her 
 tormented and overtaxed emotional centres had 
 profited by their long rest. They no longer re- 
 sponded indiscriminately to hysteric excitations; 
 they had become, on the whole, more self-respect- 
 ing; and of this Sylvia was not conscious, having 
 tampered so little with them of late. 
 
 When the first dullness had lessened, she began
 
 328 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 to be aware that the reason she ought to be sorry, 
 the reason she wanted to be sorry, was because 
 he had broken his promise ; and gradually there 
 stirred the realization that she had been of no 
 Xise to him, that she had never helped him. The 
 humiliating thought crept in upon her pride and 
 awakened it, and, on a sudden, the self-control 
 had broken down before a torrent of grief and 
 shame. 
 
 She had believed that God had intrusted to 
 her the saving of a soul. To her ! Oh, folly ! 
 It was not true. It never had been true. This 
 was a just punishment for her pride and vain- 
 glory. Who was she that she should presume to 
 believe she had been elected to save a soul? She 
 was not any use, after all. He had forgotten as 
 soon as he went away from her. He was dying, 
 Jacques said, dying because he had worn himself 
 out. And she had thought she could save him ! 
 
 She made no sound. She sat with her chin in 
 her hands and her lips set, and the great tears 
 rolled down her face unchecked through her fin- 
 gers. She was aware of curious contradictions 
 in her consciousness. She knew, now that the 
 shock had come, that all these months she had 
 been dreaming that some day he would come back 
 to her and say, "I have conquered!" But she 
 knew, too, that she had expected this failure, that 
 she was not surprised. It was strange, but she 
 had been believing both these incompatible things
 
 JOCELIN, SAVIOR! 329 
 
 for more than a year, that he would make him- 
 self worthy of her, and also that he would fail. 
 It was only a half disappointment. 
 
 " I was so sure of myself for a while ! I worked ; 
 I believed I was worth something to somebody, 
 but it was not true. I knew he could not; I 
 knew it all along. The man in the book could 
 not. Oh, I wish I had made the man in the 
 book conquer ! I wish somebody had conquered ! 
 Jocelin ! Jocelin ! ' ' 
 
 Her Puritan sense of individual responsibility 
 would not allow her to excuse him altogether. 
 She could not say, as some might have said : " It 
 was not his fault; he could not help it!" She 
 believed he could have made a choice, and she 
 knew he only drifted. She thought of his eyes 
 as he knelt on the rock in the moonlight and 
 promised to take up his cross and endure and 
 work. She heard his voice again, singing, as he 
 had sung when he went down the mountain in 
 the early morning. He was very young to be 
 "all worn out," younger than she, he was only 
 twenty-eight. Perhaps another woman might 
 have held him, might have lifted him. But she, 
 Sylvia, was of no use. Perhaps, if she had mar- 
 ried him, she might have lifted him. But this 
 i feminine fallacy merely glanced through her mind, 
 A it is losing its hold upon the women of her 
 generation. She knew that marriage would not 
 have helped Jocelin. No, even remorse could
 
 330 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 not sting her, and she wished that it might. If 
 only she had done him a wrong, she might hate 
 herself for his sake. But he had suffered no ill 
 from her. 
 
 Jacques said he was "no good; " he had begun 
 to go down as soon as he went to New York. 
 She spread out her hands before her, as if to keep 
 some one away. She remembered how he stum- 
 bled past her door Mardi Gras night. She re- 
 membered how he looked at her when they sat 
 alone together on the mountain. 
 
 Why had he ever lived? Why did God per- 
 mit such a man to exist and to be loved? She 
 covered her face. A man who only drifted, down, 
 down ! What had he done except sing, and wear 
 his voice out? 
 
 She clasped her hands on the desk, and stared 
 down at the papers and letters. 
 
 It was cruel to let him come into the world 
 just to wear himself out. What was he good 
 for? Something, surely? 
 
 The letter from the publishers lay on top of 
 the other papers, and it caught her eye. She 
 lifted it slowly, hesitatingly, a look almost of fear 
 coming into her face. 
 
 What was he good for? Three hours ago, 
 who said, "It is Jocelin who has made me what 
 I am, who has set free my power? " Did she 
 remember that, as she sat with the letter uplifted, 
 and the startled, pondering look in her eyes?
 
 JOCELIN, SAVIOR '. 331 
 
 One evening, long- ago, Jocelin had played lit- 
 tle inconsequent melodies on the piano, and sung 
 little whimsical songs, and she had said to her- 
 self, "The world is in a hurry, let it go I " Be- 
 fore she met this man, she had never rested, 
 never relaxed ; she was always tired from trying 
 to keep up with the hurrying world. He had 
 beguiled her into stopping a moment to take 
 breath, and she had caught hold of life. She 
 had said to herself that evening, "I must help 
 him to be something, it does not matter about 
 myself. I will give myself up. I must help 
 him. I will!" And after that she had begun 
 to grow stronger, to forget herself, and to have 
 confidence, unconsciously, in her own judgment. 
 She had begun to write. 
 
 Was it she who had been appointed a savior of 
 souls ? Or Jocelin ? 
 
 They would say that he was never anything 
 but voice, that he had never accomplished any- 
 thing. And yet she owed her moral health to 
 him. 
 
 There was another night when she had said 
 that he must plead for her before the Judge. 
 Yes! When he stood there, shamed and weak 
 and stained with sin, should she not stand beside 
 him and say, "For himself he cannot speak. 
 Let him say a word for me. I am his success. 
 Nobody knows but me. He himself does not 
 know. I did not know, even I, until he left me
 
 332 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 alone. And then I said I would stand firm, that 
 he might say he had done what he could. I have 
 made a little success. It is not much, but it 
 belongs to him." 
 
 Were these the things that Sylvia thought? 
 Who can tell? 
 
 Was it that she did not love him enough, or 
 that she loved him too well, to loosen her grasp 
 upon life? 
 
 There were no more tears, and her face grew 
 calm and gentle. Perhaps she was doing w T hat 
 her race had always delighted in, dogmatizing 
 concerning the intentions of the Almighty? Be 
 that as it may, it gave her peace. 
 
 After a while she prayed a strange prayer in a 
 whisper : 
 
 "Lord, when Thou dost bid Jocelin to stand 
 forth at the Last Day, set Thou also my secret 
 sins beside his open faults, in the light of Thy 
 countenance, that all men may see." 
 
 Then she wrote a business letter to her pub- 
 lishers.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 "IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED" 
 
 SYLVIA'S matter-of-fact parting speech aston- 
 ished Enid, but was sufficiently reassuring to 
 allow her to think about her own affairs, and she 
 found herself somewhat disconcerted at being 
 thus abruptly left alone with Jacques. She won- 
 dered uneasily what would happen, but she might 
 have saved herself the trouble, for only the direct 
 and definite could happen where Jacques was 
 concerned. 
 
 "You see I have come back," he said. 
 
 She tried to smile as if this remark were a 
 mere commonplace, but with his frank eyes upon 
 her, and the unmistakable meaning in them, her 
 attempt was a failure. 
 
 "Tell me of your life," he continued. "What 
 have you done this year and a half? Has the 
 philanthropy prospered? " 
 
 " Please do not use that maudlin word ' philan- 
 thropy,' " she protested. 
 
 He laughed good-naturedly. 
 
 "Tell me about the things you have done," he
 
 334 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 reiterated. "Pardon me if I use incorrect terms; 
 I am Southern and unenlightened, you know ! " 
 
 She gave him a lame, dispirited account of her 
 days, of her many committees and classes. She 
 recited perfunctorily the programme of the Labor 
 Union to which she belonged. She told him 
 about some of the people who lived in the little 
 court. She even touched lightly upon industrial 
 questions and her unfortunate position in the 
 present strike. All that she said seemed to her 
 flat; and she knew that to this young cotton- 
 broker, accustomed to rapid action and decisive 
 results, her tale of beginnings, of cautious experi- 
 ments, of unfinished systems, and half-developed 
 theories which might not prove their usefulness 
 and efficiency for several generations, seemed a 
 recital of useless efforts towards a fanciful Uto- 
 pia. 
 
 She ended with as little enthusiasm as she had 
 begun, and waited indifferently for him to speak. 
 
 He had been studying her face while she talked, 
 as if he found something new there. 
 
 "Are you happy?" he asked, still scanning 
 her curiously. 
 
 The question roused her, and she drew back 
 her head and gazed at him with startled eyes, as 
 if considering before she answered : 
 
 "Yes, very happy! " 
 
 Her voice was quiet and assured. 
 
 He continued to watch her, and waited, as if
 
 IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED 335 
 
 expecting her to think better of her reply, but 
 she went on presently : 
 
 " Happiness is not necessarily mirth and laugh- 
 ter and jokes, and ease and luxury, and" 
 
 " And sympathy ?" he added. 
 
 She winced, and was angry that he should have 
 detected this flaw in her narrative. 
 
 "I have Sylvia!" she said proudly, and held 
 her head very erect. But her lips quivered. 
 
 He lifted his eyebrows, and tapped one foot 
 impatiently on the floor. 
 
 "And Mademoiselle Sylvia, has she the same 
 aversion to matrimony? If not, it would be un- 
 fortunate." 
 
 Enid gave him a glance that ought to have an- 
 nihilated him on the spot, and, turning her head 
 away to the window, did not deign to reply. 
 
 He got up then and came and stood beside her 
 chair, looking down, his hands in his pockets. 
 
 "You think I do not care for the things you 
 care for," he said wistfully. "But that is not 
 true. If I tease sometimes, that does not mean 
 that I care for you less deeply. These are very 
 beautiful theories that you have. They are noble, 
 like you. If I cannot see always that they are 
 practical, that is partly because I have lived a 
 long time in the world of action, and I know that, 
 if you don't down the world, the world will down 
 you. It is an ugly thing to know, yes! Your 
 way ought to be the true way, your beautiful
 
 336 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 dream. But experience makes me skeptical. 
 Nevertheless, I should like to help you. I will 
 never laugh, and when you are tired, I think 
 you are tired sometimes, and when your people 
 are ungrateful and the theory is slow in working, 
 I will I will" - 
 
 His voice was full of pleading, and, instead of 
 finishing his sentence, he laid one hand gently on 
 her shoulder, but she turned such troubled eyes 
 on him he took the hand away again and put it 
 back in his pocket. 
 
 "I believe in you!" he said. "I will stand 
 by you in all that you do. You shall teach me 
 to understand. You shall make friends with all 
 the little shop people in French-town. We will 
 give them afternoon teas and let them bring their 
 children. Why not there as well as here? Lis- 
 ten! You are generous, you are reasonable. I 
 cannot see that, under the present industrial sys- 
 tem, I conduct my business other than as an hon- 
 orable man. It is considered a legitimate busi- 
 ness. Moreover, I have a family to take care of, 
 a father, a mother, and now Jocelin, who will 
 be more and more an expense until he dies. I 
 have no right to give up my business for the sake 
 of a chimera. What would become of those who 
 are dependent upon me and who cannot work? 
 Perhaps some day, who knows? I might be able 
 to retire. I am not greedy ; I do not anticipate 
 being all my life a stock -broker. I promise that
 
 IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED 337 
 
 you shall not have the business to complain of 
 any longer than it will take me to lay by a com- 
 petence. I believe in you ! It will not be diffi- 
 cult, therefore, to make me believe in your theo- 
 ries. Come down there, and teach us the efficacy 
 of that eight-hour day, and that trade union. 
 We do not work so rapidly on these lines; we 
 need some one to wake us up." 
 
 She did not move, and he could not see her 
 face, but her silence gave him courage. 
 
 "That old house is so quiet! There are no 
 voices in it all day long. Your heart would ache 
 if you could see how dull it is. My father is 
 lonely and maman frets. I come in at night to 
 dinner, and there are only memories of people to 
 greet me. And I live over all those days of our 
 Jeanne's winter. Do you remember them? And 
 you are everywhere. I speak to you again, and 
 quarrel with you, and read aloud from those thick 
 books. I want you! Come and make a home 
 for me ! It is no home now ; it is only a dingy 
 house where two old people live with a man who 
 is lonely. You shall do as you like with the 
 rooms. Come and make them look like this one, 
 as if you lived in them. When the world and 
 > your people hurt you, I will not hurt you ; I will 
 believe in you. Give me the right to comfort 
 you!" 
 
 How low he spoke ! And he waited, standing 
 beside her, for his answer.
 
 338 UIANA VICTRIX 
 
 Poor Enid! It was cruel to come to you then, 
 when you were weary, and a few kind words made 
 you hungry for more. Home had such a sweet 
 sound I And he was an upright man, a good 
 son. 
 
 "Go away! please go away! " she said tremu- 
 lously. 
 
 "No! " he whispered. "No! Is not the year 
 and a half enough ? Have you not learned your 
 world ? I have waited so long ! Do not send me 
 away now! And oh, the dear eyes, the dear 
 eyes! Who has brought that look into them? " 
 
 Her answer was a sob, just one long sob with- 
 out any tears. She pressed her hands tightly 
 together in her lap, and looked up at him while 
 he spoke. 
 
 "I shall work all my life, so that you may 
 never be sorry you came to me. I will not be 
 impatient; I will not ask you to come at once. 
 No; it is better to wait a few months. It will 
 not be pleasant while Jocelin is there." 
 
 "Jocelin!" 
 
 Thoughts began to race through Enid's mind. 
 What was this she was doing ? Jocelin ! 
 
 " He is ill. In fact he is a little touched in 
 the upper story. He will be worse before the 
 end, and I know maman will never be persuaded 
 to put him anywhere else as long as he lives. 
 No, I would not bring you there while he is in 
 the house. I will be patient "
 
 IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED 339 
 
 "No, no! Hush! " she cried, standing up sud- 
 denly and waving him away. "You are mis- 
 taken! What are you saying? I do not want 
 to! I never wanted to! I did not know what I 
 was doing! I was tired, and you are a good 
 friend, but I do not love you well enough oh, 
 no! not nearly well enough! Leave my people? 
 My work? Leave Sylvia? Above all, I could 
 not think of leaving Sylvia now." 
 
 She was so excited she forgot how plainly she 
 spoke, but he was too disappointed to understand 
 her allusion. 
 
 "For a moment, because I was tired, I thought 
 I wanted your your home. But I do not ! 
 Why, of course I do not, really ! I am not do- 
 mestic the way some women are. I should n't 
 like to keep house and sew and and some- 
 times I think I should, and but it would bore 
 me. I should hate it! Sylvia and I share the 
 responsibility here, and the maid works faith- 
 fully. There are only a few rooms. We have 
 time for our real work, but a wife would n't 
 have. And, oh! I couldn't be just a wife ! I 
 don't want to ! Please go away ! I have chosen 
 my life and I love it. I do not mind the rebuffs 
 and the distrust. With my best self I do not 
 mind them. Believe me, my happiness lies this 
 way, and I am very pleased in my life. I do not 
 need your pity. Forgive me for having hurt 
 you ! Your love has made my life more full ; it
 
 340 DIANA VICTEIX 
 
 has crowned my womanhood. But even if I had 
 consented to-day, I should have come to my senses 
 to-morrow and broken my engagement. Oh ! " 
 she exclaimed, as the full meaning of her narrow 
 escape burst upon her, "how dreadful it would 
 have been if I had married you ! " 
 
 The remark was not complimentary, and the 
 expression on Jacques' face brought her back to 
 a saving realization of her conduct. 
 
 " Go away now and find a woman who will be 
 a better wife! I do not love you, don't you 
 see? Else I might feel you needed me more 
 than my work or Sylvia." 
 
 When he had gone, she sat on the window-seat 
 trembling nervously. Jocelin was dying, and 
 Sylvia belonged to her. She need not be lonely 
 *any longer, at least not more lonely than many 
 women. And her work ! Oh, the thought of 
 being deprived of that ! With only his love in 
 return, his love and his amiable domestic tyranny ! 
 
 Her courage was coming back, and the reac- 
 tion from her previous despondency had set in. 
 She began to think vigorously and hopefully once 
 more. 
 
 Sylvia found her sitting alone in the twilight. 
 
 "Mr. Dumarais has gone? " 
 
 "Yes, he said he would come in to-morrow 
 and say good -by! He leaves by the night train." 
 
 They were silent, thinking each of her own 
 trouble, till Enid said :
 
 IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED 341 
 
 " We shall have to be very good to each other 
 the older we grow, we two lonely old maids, 
 shan't we, Sylvia? " 
 
 Sylvia, put on her guard by the pathos in 
 Enid's voice, and thinking of her own loneliness, 
 moved away to the fire and replied : 
 
 "We always are good to each other, aren't 
 we? At least you are good to me. You must 
 not feel blue about that strike, Enid." 
 
 "Oh, I don't any more! Some day, Sylvia, 
 I want to tell you something." 
 
 "Yes, dear!" Sylvia was gazing absently at 
 the fire. She did not say "What is it?" nor 
 "Why not tell me now?" She did not mean to 
 be unsympathetic, but she had had a difficult 
 afternoon.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SYLVIA UNDERSTANDS 
 
 "I HAVE business which keeps me here till to- 
 morrow," Jacques had said; "I will call in the 
 afternoon and tell Miss Sylvia good-by." 
 
 And as he walked down the little court the day 
 after his interview with Enid, he was burning 
 with a desire to give "Miss Sylvia" a piece of 
 his mind. 
 
 Fortune favored him, for he met Enid coming 
 away from the tenement. She had a private 
 class the next hour, and felt relieved at being 
 able to say good-by to Jacques formally on the 
 street. She said Sylvia was expecting him. 
 
 Jacques had never known Sylvia well. He 
 had always thought her a trifle sentimental, and 
 he was particularly scornful of sentimentality. 
 Moreover, she had tolerated Jocelin, which ar- 
 gued a certain weakness in her, at least in 
 Jacques' opinion. He had always taken pains to 
 be scrupulously, unfeelingly polite to her ; where- 
 fore Sylvia, who was sensitive, divined that he 
 had some grudge against her, and wondered, 
 when she thought about him, which was not
 
 SYLVIA UNDERSTANDS 343 
 
 often, what the reason for his dislike might be. 
 He took for granted, knowing the close relation 
 between the two women, that Sylvia was aware 
 of his attitude towards Enid, and, although to a 
 certain extent he resented this, he did not wholly 
 disapprove, since it gave him an opportunity for 
 a frankness of speech which, in his present in- 
 jured frame of mind, he was loath to forego. 
 
 "What a pity!" said Sylvia genially, when 
 she opened the door in answer to his knock; 
 " Enid has just gone out ! She will be so sorry 
 to have missed you ! But perhaps you can stay 
 till she comes back?" 
 
 Jacques looked at her in grim silence, and in- 
 wardly anathematized the duplicity of woman. 
 
 "I met her in the street," he said solemnly, 
 when he had passed into the room and divested 
 himself of his overcoat. 
 
 "Ah, I am glad ! " smiled Sylvia. "Take that 
 other chair, Mr. Dumarais ; you will find it more 
 comfortable. Our little apartment was so essen- 
 tially feminine after we furnished it that we 
 bought the large armchair in order to give an 
 air of masculine protection to the rooms. Father 
 always flees to it as to a refuge when he comes 
 to see us." 
 
 Jacques took the proffered chair with unsmil- 
 ing dignity, and seated himself at one side of 
 the fire opposite Sylvia, who had drawn up a 
 rocking-chair and was busying herself with some 
 embroidery.
 
 344 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "You are making Boston a flying visit, Mr. 
 Dumarais," she said, with exasperating cheerful- 
 ness. 
 
 "I see no reason why I should remain longer,' 1 
 he answered bitterly. "The sooner I go, the 
 pleasanter it will be for all parties." 
 
 She looked up from her work in surprise and 
 waited for him to explain, but he had shut his 
 lips together and was staring at her defiantly. 
 
 "I am sorry if your business here has not been 
 successful," she ventured. 
 
 "Mademoiselle, I do not see the necessity for 
 our keeping up a farcical pretense of ignorance 
 concerning a situation with which we are both 
 thoroughly acquainted," he said, with haughty 
 incisiveness. "If I have not been successful, it 
 is because your influence has proved too powerful 
 against me. You fill her life, she says, so that 
 she has no need of the other kind of love. It 
 is a thing improbable, but she says it is true. 
 Evidently I do not understand women. And she, 
 she will not understand me when I try to explain 
 the difference. You have a loyal friend, made- 
 moiselle. I waited a long time, a year and a 
 half, and life has not been easy for her. And 
 you, whom she cares for, have you tried to 
 make it easier, as I wanted to do ? But my wait- 
 ing makes no difference; she says you need her, 
 and that seems to be sufficient." 
 
 He had risen, and his next words were stern :
 
 SYLVIA UNDERSTANDS 345 
 
 " Do you also be loyal ! for I say that the time I 
 is not far off look in her eyes and see ! when 
 she shall need, not you, not you, the woman 
 friend alone,, but husband and little children. 
 See that you be all these to her then! If you 
 can ! Yes, if you can ! For, when that day 
 comes, and she has not her need, I do not know 
 in whose heart will lie the deepest bitterness, -. 
 in hers, or mine, or yours !" 
 
 For the moment, Sylvia was startled out of all 
 power of speech. Her lips moved, but no sound 
 came from them. She could only motion to him 
 to be seated. 
 
 He sat down again, as if it made little differ- 
 ence to him what he did, and contemplated the 
 fire moodily, waiting for her to speak. Poor 
 Sylvia! her whirling thoughts made her dizzy. 
 She remembered so many things now which she 
 had not taken the trouble to understand before. 
 
 A year and a half ago ! 
 
 Her throat contracted so that she gave a little 
 gasp, and Jacques, thinking she meant to speak, 
 lifted his head, but her eyes were looking at him 
 appealingly through tears; he saw she could not 
 trust her voice, and he lowered his eyes without 
 comment. Did not he suffer also? 
 
 "I must say something to stop this silence!" 
 she thought nervously. 
 
 There was much that she did not understand, 
 and he thought Enid had told her all about it.
 
 346 DIANA VICTBIX 
 
 She would wait and find out, but now she could 
 set him straight about one fact: he was under 
 a queer misapprehension concerning Enid's mo- 
 tive for refusing him. 
 
 "Mr. Dumarais" (her low musical voice trem- 
 bled at first), "Mr. Dumarais, you make a 
 grievous mistake when you say that Enid does 
 not marry because of me. Indeed, indeed you 
 do! And, for Enid's sake, I cannot let you go 
 away harboring such a thought of her. All indi- 
 viduals hold a second place with Enid, because of 
 her work. This has been true ever since I have 
 known her. Even when we were young girls 
 together in college, theories, humanity, came first 
 with her, and personal friends second. I used 
 to rebel against the preoccupation then, the ap- 
 parent indifference with which she sacrificed her 
 friends to her work. But now I I" Sylvia 
 faltered here, uncomfortably aware of one of the 
 reasons for no longer rebelling "but now I am 
 older, and I know that I honor her more than I 
 ever did before. And I believe that her way of 
 life is right for her. I wish there were more 
 of us who could set aside our own selfish sorrows, 
 as she sets aside hers, and lose ourselves in the 
 needs of other people." 
 
 "She said you needed her," repeated Jacques 
 stubbornly. "Her work! I do not quarrel 
 with her work ! I have told her that she shall do 
 it just as she always has."
 
 SYLVIA UNDERSTANDS 347 
 
 "But she couldn't! " Sylvia interrupted. "A 
 married woman has other duties. Enid is free 
 now; even her teaching, by which she earns her 
 living, is along the same line with her social and 
 industrial work. You think it is my fault. You 
 will not be convinced, and I am sorry, but indeed 
 I am not to blame. If she had to choose between 
 giving me up and carrying out her theories, she 
 would give me up, and I would wish it so." 
 
 "Oh, yes! I am not denying that you could 
 give her up," said Jacques. 
 
 She colored. 
 
 "You are cruel, Mr. Dumarais! It is true 
 / that I do not love her as she deserves to be loved, 
 but perhaps you do not either. She is worthy of 
 a very great love ; no one knows that better than 
 I. I thank you for confiding in me to-day; I 
 thank you for rousing me to a sense of my duty, 
 and to a knowledge of how dearly I do love her, 
 for you have done that. And, for the other 
 things you said, do not imagine that a woman, 
 vjbvery woman, who elects to remain unmarried, 
 does not take those things into consideration 
 when she makes her choice. We are not young 
 gjirls, Enid and I; we understand what we give 
 up as well as what we gain. Do not be afraid 
 of that! Believe me, I have not tried to come 
 between you. Do not be angry, Mr. Dumarais ! 
 There are not many women like her ; she cannot 
 belong just to you, or just to me ; she must be- 
 long to the world."
 
 348 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 He was standing up again as he said : 
 "Mademoiselle, you can understand, perhaps, 
 that I am not in a mood to look at things from 
 
 O 
 
 a gay point of view; therefore pardon me if I 
 seem to you ungracious. I come here and I find 
 her working for people who do not understand, 
 in the face of adverse criticism. I find her weary ; 
 I find her more beautiful than ever. And I 
 would shelter her; I would give her a home, and 
 money, and sympathy. But she says you need 
 her." 
 
 " If she loved you, she might realize that yours 
 was the greater need, Mr. Dumarais ! " 
 
 Enid herself had told him that, and he knew it 
 was true. 
 
 "But," Sylvia reiterated, "it is her work that 
 stands between you and her; it is not I." 
 
 And still he shook his head obstinately. But 
 he apologized for any seeming rudeness of which 
 he might have been guilty. 
 
 "Poor fellow! " Sylvia thought, as she watched 
 him hurrying down the bleak little court. "It 
 would have been absurd for Enid to have married 
 him. I wonder why he couldn't see it? He felt 
 very much abused. But I know he is mistaken 
 about her motive for not marrying. I know he 
 is ! With all their polish, what a nai've charm of 
 childlike directness these Frenchmen have." 
 
 Her eyes grew sad, and she turned listlessly 
 away from the window.
 
 SYLVIA UNDERSTANDS 349 
 
 Enid prolonged her absence intentionally, but 
 came home at last to a smiling and penitent 
 Sylvia, who looked into her face and shook her 
 gently, saying :- 
 
 "I '11 overlook it this once; but the next time 
 you rush off and leave me alone with your rejected 
 lovers, I shall conclude that you have designs 
 upon my life, and I shall depart by way of the 
 fire-escape." 
 
 Enid blushed and stammered, but Sylvia put 
 her arms around her and whispered : 
 
 "He thought I knew all about it, and he told 
 me it was my fault, and he lectured me on my 
 duty. My dear, dear ! I have been very, very, 
 ah ! I hope I have not been cruel ! I never 
 meant to be. I was preoccupied, and self-cen- 
 tred, and " 
 
 " I should like to know what he means by com- 
 ing here and presuming to take you to task!" 
 cried Enid, with considerable indignation. 
 
 "I told him he was mistaken, dear!" said 
 Sylvia. "I told him it was not my fault. Your 
 work kept you from marrying him. But he 
 was unhappy, and I could not seem to convince 
 him." 
 
 She was taking off Enid's hat and cloak now. 
 
 " He took it very hard, poor fellow ! And he 
 was amazingly frank with me." 
 
 She laid the cloak on a chair, and turned back 
 to Enid.
 
 350 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "I did not tell him I did not know about it," 
 she said, and the color rushed into her face ; " I 
 thought you would rather he did not know that. 
 And, besides, I suppose it was pride, but 1 
 could not. So I let him talk." 
 
 "Thank you, dear!" said Enid softly. And 
 after a few minutes, during which they stood side 
 by side before the fire without looking at each 
 other, "I have always meant to tell you as soon 
 as you were not too busy to listen. You know 
 that, don't you?" 
 
 "Yes, I know. It was my fault. Yes" (very 
 quietly), "you need not protest; it was my fault. 
 Do you want to tell me now ? I should like to 
 hear." 
 
 Enid nodded, and they settled themselves for 
 a talk, Sylvia in the great chair, and Enid on 
 the hearth-rug with her arm across Sylvia's 
 knee. 
 
 " I began to know how he felt on the night of 
 Curtis Baird's dinner " 
 
 Sylvia moved uneasily. She had made a little 
 discovery herself that same night. 
 
 "We had a quarrel in the opera-box at the 
 ball." 
 
 It was Enid's turn to shift her position now, 
 remembering the cause of that quarrel. No, she 
 must not say what it was about. Sylvia might 
 feel forced to say things which she did not care 
 to say.
 
 SYLVIA UNDERSTANDS 351 
 
 "I think he had not realized it himself till 
 then, and I did not let him see that I noticed the 
 difference." 
 
 "It is strange," mused Sylvia, "but I always 
 thought he was in love with Jeanne. I thought 
 that was one of the reasons why we were all so 
 sorry Jeanne died. Oh, poor little child ! " 
 
 "She never found out," said Enid, "and he 
 well, no, I don't suppose I do know what he 
 would have done. However, it doesn't matter 
 now." 
 
 She leaned her head against Sylvia's knee, and 
 was silent a few moments. 
 
 "It was on the mountain-top that he asked me 
 to marry him. I tried to tell you that night, but 
 you were too tired. And afterwards, when I 
 had wanted to talk to you alone several times, 
 you said ' perhaps there were some things we 
 ought not to speak of even to each other. ' ' 
 
 "Oh!" cried Sylvia. 
 
 It was a sharp sound, full of pain, and she 
 leaned down, her arms around Enid's neck, her 
 face hidden in Enid's hair. 
 
 "I did not understand," she said. "I 
 thought " - 
 
 But she did not go on to explain what she had 
 thought. She changed the sentence. 
 
 "I was preoccupied." 
 
 "Yes, I hoped you would let me tell you some 
 day."
 
 352 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "You refused him, then, Enid? Or was it 
 only a postponement? " 
 
 "No, I refused him positively, but he was per- 
 sistent, and said he should come back. I tried 
 to tell him about my work and the life that I 
 must lead, but you must know how difficult that 
 was, when he was so completely out of touch. 
 And at last, when he continued to be obstinate, 
 I told him about you." 
 
 "About me?" 
 
 "Yes! That I had no need of him, because 
 you shared my life as he could never share it. 
 That you were first, and therefore he could not 
 be first." 
 
 ^ "Enid! Enid, dear!" 
 
 \ "Why, yes! You know you are more to me 
 than he could ever be. We are congenial, we 
 understand each other, but he and so many other 
 men live in a different world from ours. Some- 
 thing more than mere proximity is necessary, in 
 these days, to make men and women fall in love 
 with each other ; we are not as susceptible as we 
 \ used to be." 
 
 "Of course I don't mean," she continued after 
 a patise, addressing the fire and smiling suddenly, 
 "I don't mean that a common purpose and a 
 common work are sufficient. There are a num- 
 ber of young men here who share my views and 
 willingly cooperate with me. To be sure, they 
 are most of them clergymen who don't intend to
 
 SYLVIA UNDERSTANDS 353 
 
 marry, but that doesn't make any difference; it 
 would be so delightfully improper of me if I 
 could fall in love with one of them, or even sev- 
 eral, but I can't. The fact remains that you 
 come first. You are my friend. I have so many 
 friends, I cannot count them. And he, the im- 
 possible he, would have to be the first friend on 
 the list, which cannot be, since that is your 
 place." 
 
 She lowered her voice and added : 
 
 "It is twelve years now did you know it? 
 since we began to be friends." 
 
 Sylvia held her closer, and looked over her 
 head into the fire, saying nothing. 
 
 "How I used to build air-castles when we were 
 girls ! Do you remember ? I used to say we 
 would work together, vindicating our theories of 
 democracy and industrial economy, you by writ- 
 ing, I by living. And, lo! the dream is upon 
 us, and we knew it not. The dream is going 
 to last all our lives long now, Sylvia. Do you 
 mind? " 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "We don't get up and laugh and dance be- 
 cause the dream has come true. But that must 
 be because we think it would not be dignified to 
 do so, as I am thirty and you are twenty-nine. 
 Yes, doubtless that is the only reason." 
 
 She smiled and clasped her hands around her 
 knees, still looking into the fire.
 
 354 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 "When my mother was thirty, she had lived 
 her life. I remember she said to me, and I was 
 only ten, ' I have lived a long time, Enid, a long 
 time.' She was very tired before she died. But 
 to-day, when one is thirty, one has only begun to 
 live, and the long time is all to be. I am not 
 complaining, Sylvia; there will be results some 
 day, there are results now. It is the best kind 
 of result to be the right woman in the right place, 
 and that is what I am. And that is what you 
 are, too. You will taste the thing that I have 
 tasted, presently; men call it success, and it is 
 very sweet." 
 
 "I know," said Sylvia. "Father will be so 
 proud, and rather astonished, not shocked, I 
 hope. And Fred will be amused, but gratified. 
 And Fred's wife will give me a luncheon, what 
 a trial that will be ! And if the book is a suc- 
 cess, a number of people will look at me curiously 
 whenever I am introduced to them, and young, 
 would-be authors will send me manuscripts to be 
 criticised. And if it is a great success, perhaps 
 I shall have friendly greetings from some of the 
 really great people." 
 
 "You have an excellent imagination, my dear! 
 but you need not take that lofty tone, for you 
 will enjoy these things when they come, even if 
 you do know them all beforehand." 
 
 "Yes, I know that, also! " said Sylvia. 
 
 "Can you carry your fancy a little farther and
 
 SYLVIA UNDERSTANDS 355 
 
 picture us at seventy-five, wearing caps, your 
 literary style labeled old-fashioned, my convic- 
 tions branded conservative by the rising genera- 
 tion? " 
 
 "Yes, that, too!" smiled Sylvia. 
 
 "When people begin to call me conservative," 
 said Enid, "I shall know that I have accom- 
 plished something." 
 
 "Enid!" Sylvia said, speaking with effort, 
 " I told Mr. Dumarais that, if it came to giving 
 up your work or me, you would give me up. 
 Was not that true?" She did not like to say, 
 "I hope it is true." 
 
 "Yes!" Enid answered slowly, "because you 
 would always belong to me, in my heart. No 
 amount of giving up could prevent that. That 
 is one of the satisfactions of having a friend. I 
 do not seem too cold or transcendental, do I, 
 dear ? We need not discuss such a mournful sub- 
 ject. I am not put to the test of giving you up. 
 I am allowed to keep you and the work also. I 
 am very blessed in my life, and I told him so, 
 but he could not understand. Nevertheless, it 
 was finally settled yesterday. And, Sylvia, I am 
 going to confess something very wicked now, 
 even though I have refused him, I can't help 
 taking a little satisfaction in the fact that he 
 loved me. It means something to be loved by 
 such a good man. And, no other man ever 
 found me interesting in that way before. I am
 
 356 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 glad such a thoroughly fine and upright man 
 should wish to marry me, even if I don't approve 
 of his convictions." 
 
 She laughed a little over that last word, and 
 Sylvia, thinking of her own lover, the man in 
 whose proposal of marriage there had been no 
 honor, felt cold, but forced a smile.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A BOOK AND A BABY 
 
 SYLVIA'S book came out in the spring, and 
 the "author's copies" arrived at the tenement 
 one bright April day when the barren court was 
 yellow with sunshine. The voices of children 
 fluttered up through the open window all around 
 Sylvia, where she knelt on the floor, with her 
 precious books in a row on the window-seat be- 
 fore her. She had thrust Enid laughingly away 
 from them, saying : 
 
 "No, no! You must not see them yet! Not 
 till I have chosen yours." 
 
 And there she had knelt in silence ever since, 
 touching the pretty volumes caressingly, putting 
 now this one, now that one, at the head of the 
 row, turning the pages deftly, as if she were 
 handling velvet, or, with hands clasped, brood- 
 ing above the entire collection, her face trans- 
 formed by meditative wonder. 
 
 "It takes you an unconscionably long time to 
 choose mine," laughed Enid from the depths of 
 the arm-chair, which she had ostentatiously placed 
 with its back to the window-seat. "Aren't they
 
 358 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 all alike ? I have a very interesting letter here 
 from Roma, and I am longing to read it to you; 
 but you have banished me from the books, and 
 now I do not even dare to seek solace in talking 
 of other things. The letter is extremely interest- 
 ing, not to say exciting." 
 
 "Tell me about it," said Sylvia. "I can listen 
 and look at the books, too." 
 
 "I doubt it," returned Enid. "However, since 
 you insist, Jacques is reported engaged to one of 
 this season's debutantes, a Felicie somebody, I 
 can't make out the last name." 
 
 Sylvia wheeled around suddenly, and, meeting 
 only the blank expanse of the back of the arm- 
 chair, arose and went and leaned over the top of 
 it. Enid looked up backwards, and smiled reas- 
 suringly. 
 
 "Roma says she cannot vouch for the truth of 
 this, as she herself has not been going out this 
 winter; but Curtis thinks there is some founda- 
 tion for it, although he does not believe it has 
 gone to the length of an engagement. There are 
 two more pages about what Curtis thinks. Shall 
 we skip that for the present? They don't bear 
 very pertinently upon the subject in hand. You 
 can read them to yourself afterwards, if you 
 like." 
 
 "Enid," Sylvia had come around to the side 
 of the chair, "you are sure you are not sorry? " 
 
 "That Jacques is perhaps engaged? "
 
 A BOOK AND A BABY 359 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 "No, dear!" Enid spoke softly, and there 
 was great sweetness in her clear eyes as she 
 lifted them. "No, dear! I knew he would 
 marry, didn't you? I shall be glad when 
 i he does. The world's sons need to be fathered 
 by just such vigorous, straightforward, healthy 
 minded and bodied men. Of course, if he had 
 remained unmarried for my sake, I should have 
 felt honored, humbled, too, by such devotion; 
 but even Dante, in his adoration for Beatrice, 
 you remember, did not go to such lengths of ab- 
 stinence as that. Men don't. To me, it does 
 not argue inconstancy." 
 
 "I wonder," Sylvia murmured, "if she is like 
 you? This other girl, I mean." 
 
 "No! " said Enid, with sudden emphasis. 
 
 The color came into her face, and she lifted 
 her head with a quick, proud little motion. 
 
 "He would not do that! She will not be like 
 me." 
 
 And then, more gently : 
 
 "I think she is probably like Jeanne. And he 
 will love her dearly, remembering Jeanne, and 
 he will be very good to her." 
 
 Sylvia sat down on the arm of the chair and 
 drew Enid to her. 
 
 "I am going to put you in my next book, did 
 you know it? " she said. 
 
 "Oh, no!" smiled Enid, shaking her head.
 
 360 
 
 "I should not go well in a book; I 'm too old, 
 and there 's nothing romantic about me ; I'm 
 stodgy." 
 
 "I know better!" Sylvia contradicted her, 
 and, after a pause, mischievously, "Shall I make 
 you marry him in the book? " 
 \ "Yes, if you like! It would be quite as true 
 to life as the other way, and the public are more 
 used to it. But some times, Sylvia, I don't 
 ^marry, even in books." 
 
 They did not say anything for a while, but at 
 last Sylvia broke the silence. 
 
 "Was that the only news in Roma's letter?" 
 
 "No! Let me see! Oh, yes! She says it is 
 only a question of a short time with poor Joce- 
 lin." 
 
 It was always Enid, not Sylvia, who appeared 
 embarrassed at the mention of Jocelin's name. 
 
 " She says no one sees him now but his mother 
 and a man-nurse whom Jacques has kept all 
 winter. It is the saddest thing I know of, that 
 life." 
 
 "Anything else?" inquired Sylvia. 
 
 "Yes! The news with which the letter opens, 
 but I have saved it till the end. Roma has a 
 little girl!" 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "Guess what she is going to name her?" 
 
 "Jeanne?" 
 
 Enid's face fell.
 
 j; 
 
 A BOOK AND A BABY 361 
 
 "No! I never thought of that. I wonder 
 why she did not name her Jeanne? " 
 
 "Dear little Jeanne!" said Sylvia. "And 
 Roma was so fond of her ! It hurts me to think 
 that in a little while there will not be even the 
 memory of her on earth. I wish that some one 
 might bear her name and know her life." 
 
 "She's going to call the baby Enid, and she 
 wants me to be its godmother," said Enid in a 
 low tone. 
 
 " My dear ! my dear ! how lovely ! I 'm so 
 happy!" 
 
 "So am I!" said Enid wistfully. "I can't 
 help feeling glad to think there is one little life 
 in the world which I have some claim upon, which 
 I can do things for. I suppose I should feel very 
 much bored and bothered if I had to take care of 
 
 baby every day, but, somehow, I 'm glad this 
 one will have my name. And she says such dear 
 things about my having given her her highest 
 ideal of what a woman ought to be. Here, read 
 it, if you like! It makes me blush. Still, I 
 think I shall write and suggest Jeanne." 
 
 "You will do nothing of the kind," said Sylvia 
 hastily. "It would not be polite. You need the 
 comfort of that baby more than Jeanne does. 
 I 'd rather it 'should have your name. Perhaps 
 Roma will have another one, and we can remind 
 her of Jeanne then." 
 
 Sylvia had gone to the window-seat as she said
 
 362 DIANA VICTRIX 
 
 these words, and now she returned with a copy 
 of the novel in her hand. 
 
 "You will have to be godmother to this child, 
 too," she said shyly. 
 
 And Enid opened the book and gave a little 
 cry. 
 
 It was dedicated to her.
 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A. 
 
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 University of California Library 
 
 Los Angeles 
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