THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Robert Koshland 
 

Diana is^^^^^-ss^-g^ 
 of the Crossways ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 -* * if -* -^ by George Meredith 
 
 Chicago and New York ♦ « * 
 
 Rand, McNally & Company 
 

 .^ 
 
 
 GIFI 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE. 
 
 Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of \( 
 our century there is frequent mention of a lady then be- 
 coming famous for her beauty and her wit: "an unusual 
 combination," in the deliberate syllables of one of the writers, 
 who is, however, not disposed to personal irony when speak- , 
 ing of her. It is otherwise in his case: and a general fling 
 at the sex we may deem pardonable, for doing as little harm 
 to womankind as the stone of an urchin cast upon the bosom 
 of mother Earth; though men must look some day to have 
 it returned to them, which is a certainty; and, indeed, full 
 surely will our idle-handed youngster, too, in his riper sea- 
 son, be heard complaining of a strange assault of wanton 
 missiles, coming on him he knows not whence: for we are 
 all of us distinctly marked to get back what we give, even 
 from the thing named inanimate nature. 
 
 The "Leaves from the Diary of Henry Wilmers" are 
 studded with examples of the dinner-table wit of the time, 
 not always worth quotation twice; for smart remarks have 
 their measured distances, many requiring to be a hrule pour- 
 point, or within throw of the pistol, to make it hit; in other 
 words, the majority of them are addressed directly to our 
 muscular system, and they have no effect when we stand 
 beyond the range. On the contrar}^, they reflect somberly 
 on the springs of hilarity in the generation preceding us — 
 with due resen-e of credit, of course, to an animal vivacious- .i 
 ness that seems to have wanted so small an incitement. Ouf 
 old yeomanry farmers, returning to their beds over ferny 
 commons under bright moonlight from a neighbor's harvest- 
 home, eased their bubbling breasts with a ready roar not 
 unakin to it. Still the promptness to laugh is an excellent 
 progenitorial foundation for the wit to come in a people; and 
 
 M899;i56 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWATS. 
 
 undoubtedly the diarial record of an imputed piece of wit is 
 witness to the spouting of laughter. This should comfort 
 us while we skim the sparkling passages of the "Leaves." 
 When a nation has acknowledged that it is as yet but in the 
 fisticujff stage of the art of condensing our purest sense to 
 golden sentences, a readier appreciation will be extended to 
 the gift, which is to strike, not the dazzled eyes, the unan- 
 ticipating nose, the ribs, the sides, and stun us, twirl us, 
 hoodwink, mystify, tickle and twitch, by dexterities of lingual 
 sparring and shuffling, but to strike roots in the mind, the 
 ^esperides of good things. 
 .y We shall then set a price on the "unusual combination." 
 
 i/A witty woman is a treasure; a witty Beauty is a power. 
 
 \ Has she actual beauty, actual wit? — not simply a tidal ma- 
 V^ terial beauty that passes current any pretty flippancy or stag- 
 
 \ gering pretentiousness? Grant the combination, she will 
 appear a veritable queen of her period, fit for homage; at 
 , least meriting a disposition to believe the best of her in 
 the teeth of foul rumor; because the well of true wit is 
 Jtruth itself, the gathering 6£ the^Tecfous^drop^'Cf^'TTgEir" 
 reason, wisdom's lightning; and no soul possessing and dis- 
 pensing it can justly be a target for the world however well- 
 armed the world confronting her. Qur temporary world, 
 that Old Credulity and stone-hurling urchin in one, sup- 
 poses it possible for a woman to be mentally active up to the 
 point of spiritual clarity and also fleshly vile; a guide to 
 life and a biter at the fruits of death; both open mind 
 and hypocrite. It has not yet been taught to appreciate a 
 quality certifying to sound citizenship as authoritatively as 
 acres of land in fee simple, or coffers of bonds, shares, and 
 stocks, and a more imperishable guarantee. The multitude 
 of evil reports which it takes for proof are marshaled against 
 her without question of the nature of the victim, her tempt- 
 ress beauty being a sufficiently presumptive delinquent. It 
 does not pretend to know the whole, or naked body, of the 
 facts; it knows enough for its fumy dubiousness; and except- 
 ing the sentimental of men, a rocket-headed horde, ever at 
 the heels of fair faces for ignition, and up starring away at 
 a hint of tearfulness; excepting further by chance a solid 
 champion man, some generous woman capable of faith in 
 the pelted solitary of her sex, our temporary world blows 
 direct East on her shivering person. The scandal is warrant 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 7 
 
 for that; the circumstances of the scandal emphasize the 
 warrant. And how clever she is! Cleverness is an attribute 
 of the selecter missionary lieutenants of Satan. We pray 
 to be defended from her cleverness: she flashes bits of speech 
 that catch men in their unguarded corner. The wary stuff 
 their ears, the stolid bid her best sayings rebound on her 
 reputation. Nevertheless the world, as Christian, remembers 
 its professions, and a portion of it joins the burly in morals 
 by extending to her a rough old charitable mercifulness; bet- 
 ter than sentimental ointment, but the heaviest blow she has 
 to bear, to a character swimming for life. 
 
 That the lady in question was much quoted the Diaries 
 and Memoirs testify. Hearsay as well as hearing was at 
 work to produce the abundance; and it was a novelty in 
 England, where (in company) the men are the pointed talk- 
 ers and the women conversationally fair Circassians. They 
 are, or they know that they should be; it comes to the same. 
 Happily our civilization has not prescribed the veil to them. 
 The mutes have here and there a sketch or label attached 
 to their names: they are "strikingly handsome"; they are 
 "very good-looking"; occasionally they are noted as "ex- 
 tremely entertaining": in what manner, is inquired by a 
 curious posterity, that in so many matters is left unendingly 
 to jump the empty and gaping figure of interrogation over 
 its own full stop. Great ladies must they be, at the web 
 of politics, for us to hear them cited discoursing. Henry ^/ 
 Wilmers is not content to quote the beautiful Mrs. Warwick' 
 — he attempts a portrait. Mrs. Warwick is "quite Grecian." 
 She might "pose for a statue." He presents her in carpen- 
 ter's lines, with a dab of school-box colors, effective to those 
 whom the Keepsake fashion can stir. She has a straight 
 nose, red lips, raven hair, black eyes, rich complexion, a 
 remarkably fine bust, and she walks well, and has an agreeable 
 voice; likewise "delicate extremities." The writer was created 
 for popularity had he chosen to bring his art into our literary 
 market. 
 
 ' Perry Wilkinson is not so elaborate; he describes her in*^ 
 his "Recollections" as a splendid brune, eclipsing all theL 
 blondes coming near her; and, "what is more, the beautiful f 
 creature can talk." He wondered, for she was young, newy 
 to society. Subsequently he is rather ashamed of his won- 
 
8 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 derment, and accounts for it by "not having known she was 
 Irish/' She "turns out to be Dan Merion's daughter." 
 
 We may assume that he would have heard if she had any 
 whiff of a brogue. Her sounding of the letter E a trifle 
 scrupulously is noticed by Lady Pennon: "And last, not 
 least, the lovely Mrs. Warwick, twenty minutes behind the 
 dinner-hour, and r-r-really fearing she was late." After 
 alluding to the soft influence of her beauty and ingenuous- 
 ness on the vexed hostess, the kindly old marchioness adds, 
 that it was no wonder she was late, "for Just before starting 
 from home she had broken loose from her husband for good, 
 and she entered the room absolutely houseless!" She was 
 not the less "astonishingly brilliant." Her observations were 
 often "so unexpectedly droll I laughed till I cried." Lady 
 Pennon became, in consequence, one of the staunch supporters 
 of Mrs. Warwick. 
 
 Others were not so easily won. Perry Wilkinson holds a 
 balance when it goes beyond a question of her wit and beauty. 
 Henry Wilmers puts the case aside, and takes her as he 
 finds her. His cousin, the clever and cynical Dorset Wilmers, 
 whose method of conveying his opinions without stating them 
 was famous, repeats on two occasions, when her name appears 
 in his pages, "handsome, lively, witty"; and the stressed 
 repetition of calculated brevity, while a fiery scandal was 
 abroad concerning the lady, implies weighty substance — the 
 reservation of a constable's truncheon, that could legally 
 have knocked her character down to the pavement. We 
 have not to ask what he judged. But Dorset Wilmers was 
 a political opponent of the eminent Peer who yields the 
 second name to the scandal, and politics in his day flushed 
 the conceptions of men. His short references to "that War- 
 wick-Dannisburgh affair" are not verbally malicious. He 
 gets wind of the terms of Lord Dannisburgh's will and testa- 
 ment, noting them without comment. The oddness of the 
 instrument in one respect may have served his turn; we 
 have no grounds for thinking him malignant. The death of 
 his enemy closes his allusions to Mrs. Warwick. He was 
 growing ancient, and gout narrowed the circle he whirled 
 in. Had he known this "handsome, lively, witty" apparition 
 as a woman having political and social views of her own, 
 he would not, one fancies, have been so stingless. Our 
 England exposes a sorry figure in his Eeminiscences. He 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 9 
 
 struck heavily, round and about liim, wherever he moved; 
 he had by nature a tarnishing eye that cast discoloration. 
 His unadorned harsh substantive statements, excluding the ad- 
 jectives, give his Memoirs the appearance of a body of facts, 
 attractive to the historic Muse, which has learnt to esteem 
 those brawny, sturdy giants marching club on shoulder, inde- 
 pendent of henchmen, in preference to your panoplied knights 
 with their puffy squires, once her favorites, and wind-filling 
 to her columns, ultimately foimd indigestible. 
 
 His exhibition of his enemy. Lord Dannisburgh, is of the 
 class of noble portraits we see swinging over inn-portals, 
 grossly unlike in likeness. The possibility of the man's 
 doing or sajdng this and that adumbrates the improbability: 
 he had something of the character capable of it, too much 
 good sense for the performance. We would think so, and 
 still the shadow is round our thoughts. Lord Dannisburgh 
 was a man of ministerial tact, official ability. Pagan moral- 
 ity; an excellent general manager, if no genius in statecraft. 
 But he was careless of social opinion, unbuttoned, and a 
 laugher. We know that he could be chivalrous towards 
 women, notwithstanding the perplexities he brought on them, 
 and this the Dorset-Diary does not show. 
 
 His chronicle is less mischievous as regards Mrs. Warwick 
 than the paragraphs of Perry Wilkinson, a gossip present- 
 ing an image of perpetual chatter, like the waxen-faced street- 
 advertisements of light and easy dentistry. He has no be- 
 lief, no disbelief; names the pro-party and the con; recites 
 the case, and discreetly, over-discreetly; and pictures the 
 trial, tells the list of witnesses, records the verdict: so the 
 case went, and some thought one thing, some another thing: 
 only it is reported for positive that a miniature of the in- 
 criminated lady was cleverly smuggled over to the jury, and 
 juries sitting upon these cases, ever since their bedazzlement 
 by Phryne, as you know .... And then he relates an 
 anecdote of the husband, said to have been not a bad fellow 
 before he married his Diana; — and the naming of the Goddess 
 reminds him that the second person in the indictment is 
 now everywhere called "the elderly shepherd"; — but imme- 
 diately after the bridal-bells this husband became sour and 
 insupportable; and either she had the trick of putting him 
 publicly in the wrong or he lost all shame in playing the 
 churlish domestic tyrant. The instances are incredible of a 
 
10 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 ; gentleman. Perry Wilkinson gives ns two or three: one 
 ^ on the authority of a personal friend who witnessed the scene 
 ;' at the Warwick whist-table, where the fair Diana would let 
 t loose her silvery laugh in the intervals. She was hardly 
 out of her teens, and should have been dancing instead of 
 fastened to a table. A difference of fifteen years in the ages 
 of the wedded pair accounts poorly for the husband's con- 
 duct, however solemn a business the game of whist. We 
 read that he burst out at last, with bitter mimicry, "Yang, 
 yang, yang!" and killed the bright laugh — shot it dead. 
 She had outraged the decorum of the square table only 
 while the cards were making. Perhaps her too-dead ensuing 
 silence, as of one striving to bring back the throbs to a slain 
 \ bird in her bosom, allowed the gap between the wedded pair 
 J to be visible, for it was dated back to prophecy as soon as 
 ( the trumpet proclaimed it. 
 
 But a multiplication of similar instances, which can serve 
 
 no other purpose than that of an apology, is a miserable 
 
 vindication of innocence. The more we have of them the 
 
 darker the inference. In delicate situations the chatterer is 
 
 noxious. Mrs. Warwick had numerous apologists. Those 
 
 trusting to her perfect rectitude were rarer. The liberty 
 
 she allowed herself in speech and action must have been 
 
 trying to her defenders in a land like ours; for here, and 
 
 \ able to throw its shadow on our giddy upper circle, the rigor 
 
 I of the game of life, relaxed though it may sometimes appear, 
 
 /*would satisfy the staidest whist-player. She did not wish 
 
 f it the reverse, even when claiming a space for laughter, "the 
 
 breath of her soul," as she called it, and as it may be felt 
 
 in the early youth of a lively nature. She, especially, with 
 
 her multitude of quick perceptions and imaginative avenues, 
 
 her rapid summaries, her sense of the comic, demanded this 
 
 aerial freedom. 
 
 We have it from Perry Wilkinson that the union of the 
 divergent couple was likened to another union always in a 
 court of law. There was a distinction; most analogies will 
 furnish one; and here we see England and Ireland changing 
 their parts, until later, after the breach, when the English- 
 man and Irishwoman resumed a certain resemblance to the 
 yoked islands. 
 
 Henry Wilmers, I have said, deals exclusively with the 
 wit and charm of the woman. He treats the scandal as we 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 11 
 
 might do in like manner if her story had not to he told. 
 But these are not reporting columns; very little of it shall 
 trouble them. The position is faced, and that is all. The 
 position is one of the battles incident to ^vomen — their hardest. 
 It asks for more than justice from men, for generosity, our 
 civilization not being yet of the purest. That cry of hounds 
 at her disrobing by Law is instinctive. She runs, and they 
 give tongue; she is a creature of the chase. Let her escape 
 unmangled, it will pass in the record that she did once 
 publicly run, and some old dogs will persist in thinking her 
 cunninger than the virtuous, which never put themselves in 
 such positions, but ply the distaff at home. Xever should 
 reputation of woman trail a scent! How true! and true also 
 that the w^omen of waxwork never do; and that the women 
 of hap^Dy marriages do not; nor the women of holy nun- 
 neries; nor the women lucky in their arts. It is a test of 
 the civilized to see and hear, and add no yapping to the 
 spectacle. / 
 
 Thousands have reflected on a Diarist's power to cancel 
 our Burial Service. Not alone the cleric's good work is 
 upset by him, but the sexton's as well. He howks the graves, 
 and transforms the quiet worms, busy on a single poor peace- 
 able body, into winged serpents that disorder sky and earth 
 with a deadly flight of zig-zags, like military rockets, among 
 the living. And if these are given to cry too much, to havej 
 their tender sentiments considered, it cannot be said that 
 history requires the flaying of them. A gouty Diarist, a sheer 
 gossip Diarist, may thus, in the bequest of a trail of remi- 
 niscences, explode our temples (for our very temples have 
 powder in store), our treasuries, our homesteads, alive with 
 dynamitic stuff; nay, disconcert our inherited veneration, 
 dislocate the intimate connection between the tugged flaxen 
 forelock and a title. 
 
 No similar blame is incurred by Henry Wilmers. No blame 
 whatever, one would say, if he had been less copious, or not 
 so subservient, in recording the lady's utterances; for though 
 the wit of a woman may be terse, quite spontaneous, as hers 
 assuredly was here and there, she is apt to spin it out of a 
 museful mind, at her toilette, or by the lonely fire, and some- 
 times it is imitative; admirers should beware of holding 
 it up to the withering glare of print; she herself, quoting 
 an obscure maxim-monger, says of these lapidary sentences 
 
12 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 that they have merely "the value of chalk-eggs, which lure 
 the thinker to sit/' and tempt the vacuous to strain for the 
 like, one might add; hesides flattering the world to imagine 
 itself richer than it is in eggs that are golden. Henry Wil- 
 mers notes a multitude of them. The talk fell upon our 
 being creatures of habit, and how far it was good; she said, 
 "It is there that we see ourselves crutched between love grown 
 old and indifference ageing to love." Critic ears not present 
 at the conversation catch an echo of maxims and aphorisms 
 overchannel, notwithstanding a feminine thrill in the irony 
 of "ageing to love." The quotation ranks rather among the 
 testimonies to her charm. 
 
 She is fresher when speaking of the war of the sexes. 
 For one sentence out of many, though we find it to be but 
 the clever literary clothing of a common accusation: ''Men 
 may have rounded Seraglio Point: they have not yet doubled 
 Cape Turk.'' 
 
 It is war, and, on the male side, Ottoman war; her ex- 
 perience reduced her to think so positively. Her main per- 
 sonal experience was of the social class which is primitively 
 venatorial still, canine under its polish. 
 
 She held a brief for her beloved Ireland. She closes a dis- 
 cussion upon Irish agitation by sajdng rather neatly: ''You 
 have taught them it is English as well as common human 
 nature to feel an ifiterest in the dog that has titten you.'' 
 
 The dog periodically puts on madness to win attention. 
 We gather then that England, in an angry tremor, tries him 
 with water-gruel to prove him sane. 
 
 Of the Irish priest (and she was not of his retinue), when 
 he was deemed a revolutionary, Henry Wilmers notes her 
 saying: "Be in tune with him; he is in the key-note for 
 harmony. He is shepherd, doctor, nurse, comforter, anec- 
 dotist, and fun-maker to his poor flock; and you wonder they 
 see the burning gateway of their heaven in him? Conciliate 
 the priest." 
 
 It has been partly done, done late, when the poor flock 
 have found their doctoring and shepherding at other hands; 
 their "bulb-food and fiddle," that she petitioned for, to keep 
 them from a complete shaving off their patch of bog and 
 scrub soil, without any perception of the tremendous trans- 
 atlantic magnification of the fiddle, and the splitting discord 
 of its latest inspiriting jig. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 13 
 
 And she will not have the consequences of the "weariful 
 old Irish duel between Honor and Hunger judged by bread- 
 and-butter juries/' 
 
 She had need to be beautiful to be tolerable in days when 
 Englishmen stood more openly for the strong arm to main- 
 tain the Union. Her troop of enemies was of her summoning. 
 
 Ordinarily her topics were of wider range, and those of a 
 woman who mixed hearing with reading, and observation 
 with her musings. She has no doleful ejaculatory notes, of 
 the kind peculiar to women at war, containing one-third of 
 speculative substance to two of sentimental — a feminine plea 
 for comprehension and a squire; and it was probably the 
 reason (as there is no reason to suppose an emotional cause) 
 why she exercised her evident sway over the mind of so 
 plain and straightforward an Englishman as Henry Wilmers. 
 She told him that she read rapidly, "a great deal at one 
 gulp," and thought in flashes — a way with the makers of 
 phrases. She wrote, she confessed, laboriously. The desire 
 to prune, compress, overcharge, was a torment to the ner- 
 vous woman writing under a sharp necessity for payment. 
 Her songs were shot off on the impulsion; prose was the 
 heavy task. ^To be pointedly rational," she said, "is a 
 greater difficulty to me than a fine delirium." She did not 
 talk as if it would have been so, he remarks. One is not 
 astonished at her appearing an "actress" to the flat-minded. 
 But the basis of her woman's nature was pointed flame. In 
 the fullness of her history we perceive nothing histrionic. 
 Capricious or enthusiastic in her youth, she never trifled with 
 feeling; and if she did so with some showy phrases and occa- 
 sionally proffered commonplaces in gilt, as she was much 
 excited to do, her moods of reflection were direct, always 
 large and honest, universal as well as feminine. / 
 
 Her saying that "A woman in the pillory restores the/ 
 original bark of brotherhood to mankind," is no more than 
 cry of personal anguish. She has golden apples in her apron. 
 She says of life: ''Wien I fail to clierish it in every filer 
 the fires within are waning,^^ and that drives like rain to 
 the roots. She says of the world, generously, if with taper- 
 ing idea: "From the point of vision of the angels, this ugly 
 monster, only half out of slime, must appear our one con- 
 stant hero." 
 
14 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 It can be read maliciously, but abstain. 
 
 She says of Eomance: ^^Tlie young who avoid that region 
 escape the title of I'ool at the cost of a celestial crown," Of 
 Poetry: "Those that have souls meet their fellows there/' 
 
 The excerpts italicized are from Henry Wilmers. 
 
 Her summary of the agency of Credit and Debit is humanely 
 malicious, but recalls her father to remind us of the comic 
 sparkle he would have informed it with: "They are reserved 
 to tickle the primary relations of men and men, suggesting 
 a maturer." 
 
 Of these primary relations: "We are connected with the 
 original tendency of men to eat one another, by mounted 
 stages, by linked ties; and at any instant to blink the fact 
 or stop refining on the appetite is dangerous to civilization, 
 as it is to the thrones of rulers when they forget that the 
 world grows from molars/' 
 
 The sentence wants more working to line the thought; or, 
 if you will, the thought to nib expression. There is a broad 
 thought, significant of an attitude of mind opposed to the 
 sentimental — the melodists upon life and the world — con- 
 cerning whom she says acutely, "They have the bad trick of 
 dosing subjects proper to the intellect with sensational va- 
 pors;" and so they set a sensual world in motion, as much 
 under guidance as a smoke beneath winds. The sentimental 
 people, in her phrase, '^fiddle harmonics on the strings of 
 sensualism/' to the delight of a world gaping for marvels 
 of musical execution rather than for music. For our world 
 is all but a sensational world at present, in maternal travail 
 of a soberer, a braver, a brighter-eyed. Her reflections are 
 thus to be interpreted, it seems to me. She says, "The 
 vices of the world's nobler half in this day are feminine." 
 We have to guard against "half-conceptions of wisdom, hys- 
 terical goodness, an impatient charity" — against the element- 
 ary state of the altruistic virtues, distinguishable as the sick- 
 ness and writhings of our egoism to cast its first slough. 
 Idea is there. The funny part of it is our finding it in books 
 of fiction composed for payment. Manifestly this lady did 
 not "chameleon" her pen from the color of her audience; 
 she was not of the uniformed rank and file marching to 
 drum and fife as gallant interpreters of popular appetite, 
 and going or gone to soundlessness and the icy s^^^des. She 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 15 
 
 worked with her head for payment, she admitted; yet in 
 translucent conscience. She notes in one place how "A 
 brown cone drops from the fir-tree before my window, a 
 nibbled green from the squirrel. Service is our destiny in 
 life or in death. Then let it be my choice living to serve 
 the living, and be fretted uncomplainingly. If I can assure 
 myself of doing service I have my home within.^' 
 
 Touches inward are not absent: "To have the sense of the 
 eternal in life is a short flight for the soul. To have had it 
 is the soul's vitality." 
 
 And also: "Palliation of a sin is the hunted creature's 
 refuge and final temptation. Our battle is ever between 
 spirit and flesh. Spirit must brand the flesh that it may 
 live." 
 
 You are entreated to repress alarm. She was by prefer- 
 ence light-handed; and her saying of oratory, that "It is 
 always the more impressive for the spice of temper which 
 renders it untrustworthy," is light enough. 
 
 On politics she is rhetorical and swings; she wrote to spur 
 a junior politician: "It is the first business of men, the school 
 to mediocrity, to the covetously ambitious a sty, to the dullard 
 his amphitheatre, arms of Titans to the desperately enter- 
 prising, Olympus to the genius." 
 
 What a woman thinks of women is the test of her nature. 
 She saw their existing posture clearly, yet believed, as men 
 disincline to do, that they grow. She says, that "In their 
 judgments upon women men are females, voices of the pres- 
 ent (sexual) dilemma." They desire to have "a still woman, 
 who can make a constant society of her pins and needles." 
 They create by stoppage a volcano, and are amazed at its 
 eruptiveness. "We live alone, and do not much feel it till 
 we are visited." Love is presumably the visitor. Of the 
 greater loneliness of women she says: "It is due to the pre- 
 scribed circumscription of their minds, of which they become 
 aware in agitation. Were the walls about them beaten down 
 they would understand that soHtariness is a common human 
 fate and the one chance of growth, like space for timber." 
 As to the sensations of women after the beating down of 
 the walls, she owns that the multitude of the timorous would 
 yearn in shivering affright for the old prison-nest, according 
 to the sage prognostic of men; but the flying of a valiant 
 
16 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 few would form a vanguard. And we are informed that the 
 beginning of a motive life with women must be in the head, 
 equally with men (by no means a truism when she wrote). 
 Also that "men do not so much fear to lose the hearts of 
 thoughtful women as their strict attention to their graces." 
 The present market is what men are for preserving: an ob- 
 servation of still reverberating force. Generally in her char- 
 acter of the feminine combatant there is a turn of phrase, 
 like a dimple near the lips, showing her knowledge that she 
 was uttering but a tar^- measure of the truth. She had always 
 too much lambent humor to be the dupe of the passion where- 
 with, as she says, "we lash ourselves into the persuasive speech 
 distinguishing us from the animals." 
 
 The instances of her drollery are rather hinted by the 
 Diarists for the benefit of those who had met her and could 
 inhale the atmosphere at a word. Drolleries, humors, re- 
 puted witticisms, are like odors of roast meats, past with the 
 picking of the joint. Idea is the only vital breath. They 
 have it rarely, or it eludes the chronicler. To say of the 
 great erratic and forsaken Lady A * * * * , after she had 
 accepted the consolations of Bacchus, that her name was 
 properly signified in asterisks, "as she was now nightly an 
 Ariadne in heaven through her God," sounds to us a round- 
 about, with wit somewhere and fun nowhere. Standing at 
 the roast we might have thought differently. Perry Wilkin- 
 son is not happier in citing her reply to his compliment on 
 the reviewers' unanimous eulogy of her humor and pathos: 
 the "merry clown and poor pantaloon demanded of us in 
 every work of fiction," she says, lamenting the writer's com- 
 pulsion to go on producing them for applause until it is 
 extremest age that knocks their knees. We are informed by 
 Lady Pennon of "the most amusing description of the first 
 impressions of a pretty English simpleton in Paris;" and 
 here is an opportunity for ludicrous contrast of the French 
 and English styles of pushing flatteries — "piping to the 
 charmed animal," as Mrs. Warwick terms it in another place: 
 but Lady Pennon was acquainted with the silly woman of the 
 piece, and found her amusement in the "wonderful truth" 
 of that representation. 
 
 Diarists of amusing passages are under an obligation to 
 paint us a realistic revival of the time, or we miss the relish. 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 17 
 
 The odor of the roast, and, more, a slice of it, is required, 
 unless the humorous thing be pretematurally spirited to walk 
 the earth as one immortal among a number less numerous 
 than the mythic Gods. "He gives good dinners," a candid 
 old critic said, when asked how it was that he could praise 
 a certain poet. In an island of chills and fogs, coelum crebis 
 imbriius ac nehulis foedum, the comic and other perceptions 
 are dependent on the stirring of the gastric juices. And such 
 a revival by any of us would be impolitic, were it a possible 
 attempt, before our systems shall have been fortified by 
 philosophy. Then may it be allowed to the Diarist simply 
 to relate, and we can copy from him. 
 
 Then, ah! then, moreover, will the novelist's Art, now 
 neither blushless infant nor executive man, have attained its 
 majority. We can then be veraciously historical, honestly 
 transcriptive. Eose-pink and dirty drab will alike have passed 
 away. Philosophy is the foe of both, and their silly cancel- 
 ling contest, perpetually renewed in a shuffle of extremes, 
 as it always is where a phantasm falseness reigns, will no 
 longer baffle the contemplation of natural flesh, smother no 
 longer the soul issuing out of our incessant strife. Philosophy 
 bids us to see that we are not so pretty as rose-pink, not so 
 repulsive as dirty drab; and that, instead of everlastingly 
 shifting those barren aspects, the sight of ourselves is whole- 
 some, bearable, fructifjdng, finally a delight. Do but perceive 
 that we are coming to philosophy, the stride toward it will 
 be a giant's — a century a day. And imagine the celestial 
 refreshment of having a pure decency in the place of sham; 
 real flesh; a soul born active, wind-beaten, but ascending. 
 Honorable will fiction then appear; honorable, a fount of life, 
 an aid to life, quick with our blood. Why, when you behold it 
 you love it — and you will not encourage it? — or only when 
 presented by dead hands? Worse than that alternative dirty 
 drab, your recurring rose-pink is rebuked by hideous revela- 
 tions of the filthy foul; for nature will force her way, and if 
 you try to stifle her by drowning she comes up, not the fairest 
 part of her uppermost! Peruse your Realists — really your 
 castigators for not having yet embraced philosophy. As she 
 grows in the flesh when discreetly tended, nature is unim- 
 peachable, flower-like, yet not too decoratively a flower; you 
 must have her with the stem, the thorns, the roots, and the 
 fat bedding of roses. In this fashion she grew, says historical 
 
18 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 fiction; thus does she flourish now, would say the modern 
 transcript, reading the inner as well as exhibiting the outer. 
 And how may you know that you have reached to philo- 
 \ sophy? You touch her skirts when you share her hatred of 
 I the sham decent, her derision of sentimentalism. You are 
 i one with her when — ^but I would not have you a thousand 
 / years older! Get to her, if in no other way, by the senti- 
 mental route: — that very winding path, which again and 
 again brings you round to the point of original impetus, 
 where you have to be unwound for another whirl; your 
 point of original impetus being the grossly material, not at 
 all the spiritual. It is most true that sentimentalism springs 
 from the former, merely and badly aping the latter; — ^fine 
 flower, or pinnacle flame-spire, of sensualism that it is, could 
 it do other? — and accompanying the former it traverses tracts 
 of desert, here and there couching in a garden, catching 
 with one hand at fruits, with another at colors; imagining 
 a secret ahead, and goaded by an appetite sustained by sheer 
 gratifications. Fiddle in harmonics as it may it will have 
 these gratifications at all costs. Should none be discover- 
 able, at once you are at the Cave of Despair, beneath the 
 funereal orb of Glaucoma, in the thick midst of poniarded, 
 slit-throat, rope-dependent figures, placarded across the bosom 
 Disillusioned, Infidel, Agnostic, Miserrimus. That is the sen- 
 timental route to advancement. Spirituality does not light 
 it; evanescent dreams are its oil-lamps, often with wick askant 
 ^ in the socket. 
 
 A thousand years! You may count full many a thousand 
 by this route before you are one with divine philosophy. 
 Whereas a single flight of brains will reach and embrace her; 
 give you the savor of Truth, the right use of the senses, 
 Eeality's infinite sweetness; for these things are in phil- 
 osophy; and the fiction which is the summary of actual Life, 
 the within and without of us, is, prose or verse, plodding or 
 soaring, philosophy's elect handmaiden. To such an end let 
 us bend our aim to work, knowing that every form of labor, 
 even this flimsiest, as you esteem it, should minister to 
 growth. If in any branch of us we fail in growth, there is, 
 you are aware, an unfailing aboriginal democratic old monster 
 that waits to pull us down; certainly the branch, possibly the 
 tree; and for the welfare of Life we fall. You are acutely 
 conscious of yonder old monster when he is mouthing at you 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 19 
 
 in polities. Be wary of him in the heart; especially be wary 
 of the disrelish of brainstuff. You must feed on something. 
 Matter that is not nourishing to brains can help to constitute 
 nothing but the bodies which are pitched on rubbish-heaps. 
 Brainstuff is not lean stuff; the brainstuff of fiction is internal 
 history, and to suppose it dull is the profoundest of errors; 
 how deep you will understand when I tell you that it is 
 the very football of the holiday-afternoon imps below. They 
 kick it for pastime; they are inteUigences perverted. The 
 comic of it, the adventurous, the tragic, they make devilish, 
 to kindle their Ogygian hilarity. But sharply comic, adven- 
 turous, instructively tragic, it is in the interwinding with 
 human affairs, to give a flavor of the modern day reviving 
 that of our Poet, between whom and us yawn Time's most 
 hollow jaws. Surely we owe a little to Time, to cheer his 
 progress; a little to posterity, and to our country. Dozens 
 of writers will be in at yonder yawning breach if only perusers 
 will rally to the philosophic standard. They are sick of the 
 woodeny puppetry they dispense, as on a race-course, to the 
 roaring frivolous. Well, if not dozens, half-dozens; gallant 
 pens are alive; one can speak of them in the plural. I ven- 
 ture to say that they would be satisfied with a dozen for 
 audience, for a commencement. They would perish of inani- 
 tion, unfed, unapplauded, amenable to the laws perchance for 
 an assault on their last remaining pair of ears, or heels, to hold 
 them fast. But the example is the thing; sacrifices must be 
 expected. The example might, one hopes, create a taste. A 
 great modern writer, of clearest eye and head, now departed, 
 capable in activity of presenting thoughtful women, thinking 
 men, groaned over his puppetry — that he dared not animate 
 them, flesh though they were, with the fires of positive brain- 
 stuff. He could have done it, and he is of the departed! 
 Had he dared he would (for he was Titan enough) have raised 
 the Art in dignity on a level with History, to an interest sur- 
 passing the narrative of public deeds as vividly as man's 
 heart and brain in their union excel his plain lines of action 
 to eruption. The everlasting pantomime, suggested by Mrs. 
 "Warwick in her exclamation to Perry Wilkinson, is derided, 
 not unrighteously, by our graver seniors. They name this 
 Art the pasture of idiots, a method for idiotizing the entire 
 population which has taken to reading; and which soon dis- 
 covers that it can write likewise, that sort of stuff at least. 
 
..--^0 DIAiNA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 \ The forecast may be hazarded, that, if we do not speedily 
 \ embrace philosophy in fiction, the Art is doomed to extinc- 
 tion under the shining multitude of its professors. They 
 are fast capping the candle. Instead, therefore, of objurga- 
 ting the timid intrusions of philosophy, invoke her presence, 
 I pray you. History without her is the skeleton-map of 
 events: Fiction a picture of figures modeled on no skeleton - 
 anatomy. But each, with philosophy in aid, blooms, and is 
 humanly shapely. To demand of us truth to nature, exclud- 
 ing philosophy, is really to bid a pumpkin caper. As much 
 as legs are wanted for the dance, philosophy is required to 
 make our human nature credible and acceptable. Fiction 
 implores you to heave a bigger breast and take her in with 
 this heavenly preservative helpmate, her inspiration and her 
 essence. There is a peep-show and a Punch's at the corner 
 of every street, one magnifying the lace-work of life, another 
 the ventral tumulus, and it is these for you, or dry bones, if 
 you do not open to philosophy; so that we may follow the 
 Diarist, transcribe from knowledge, show you flesh-facts, 
 truer than the bone — fragrant with truth! and paint for you 
 the woman and the man, infuse blood to the hero, blood, 
 brains to the veiled virginal doll, the heroine. You have to 
 teach your imagination of the feminine image you have set 
 up to bend your civilized knees to, that it must temper its 
 fastidiousness, shun the grossness of the over-dainty. Or to 
 speak in the philosophic tongue, you must turn on yourself, 
 resolutely track and seize that burrower, and scrub and 
 cleanse him; by which process, during the course of it, you 
 will arrive at the conception of the right heroical woman for 
 you to worship: and, if you prove to be of some spiritual 
 stature, you may reach to an ideal of the heroical feminine 
 type for the worship of mankind, an image as yet in poetic 
 outline only, on our upper skies. 
 
 "So well do we know ourselves, that we one and all deter- 
 mine to know a purer," says the heroine of my columns. 
 Philosophy in fiction tells, among various other matters, of 
 the perils of this intimate acquaintance with a flattering 
 familiar in the "purer" — a person who more than ceases to 
 be of use to us after his ideal shall have led up men from 
 their flint and arrowhead caverns to intereommunicative day- 
 light. For, when the fictitious creature has performed that 
 service of helping to civilize the world, it becomes the most 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWiAYS. (21 
 
 dangerous of delusions, causing first the individual , to de- 
 spise the mass, and then to join the mass in crushing the 
 individual. Wherewith let us to our story, the froth being 
 out of the bottle. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 AN IRISH BALL. 
 
 In the Assembly Eooms of the capital city of the Sister 
 Island there was a public ball, to celebrate the return to 
 Erin of a British hero of Irish blood, after his victorious 
 Indian campaign; a mighty struggle splendidly ended; and 
 truly could it be said that all Erin danced to meet him; but 
 this was the pick of the dancing, past dispute the pick of 
 the supping. Outside those halls the supping was done in 
 Lazarus fashion, mainly through an excessive straining of 
 the organs of hearing and vision, which imparted the readi- 
 ness for more, declared by physicians to be the state inducing 
 to sound digestion. Some one spied the figure of the hero at 
 a window and was fed; some only to hear the tale chewed the 
 cud of it; some told of having seen him mount the steps; 
 and sure it was that at an hour of the night, no matter when, 
 and never mind a drop or two of cloud, he would come down 
 them again, and have an Irish cheer to freshen his pillow. 
 For 'tis Ireland gives England her soldiers, her generals too. 
 Further away, over field and bogland, the whiskies did their 
 excellent ancient service of watering the dry and drying the 
 damp, to the toast of "Lord Larrian, God bless him; he's an 
 honor to the old country!" and a bit of a sigh to follow, 
 hints of a story, and loud laughter, a drink, a deeper sigh, 
 settling into conversation upon the brave Lord Larrian's 
 deeds, and an Irish regiment he favored — had no taste for 
 the enemy without the backing of his ''boys." Not he. Why, 
 he'd never march to battle and they not handy; because 
 when he struck he struck hard, he said. And he has a wound 
 on the right hip and two fingers off his left hand: has bled 
 for England, to show her what Irishmen are when they're 
 well treated. 
 
 The fine old warrior standing at the upper end of the long 
 saloon, tall, straight, gray-haired, martial in his aspect and 
 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 decorations, was worthy to be the flag-pole for enthusiasm. 
 His large gray eyes lightened from time to time as he ranged 
 them over the floating couples, and dropped a word of inquiry 
 to his aide, Captain Sir Lukin Dunstane, a good model of a 
 cavalry officer, though somewhat a giant, equally happy 
 with his chief in passing the troops of animated ladies under 
 review. He named as many as were known to him. Review- 
 ing women exquisitely attired for inspection, all variously 
 and charmingly smiling, is a relief after the monotonous 
 regiments of men. Ireland had done her best to present the 
 hero of her blood an agreeable change: and he too expressed 
 a patriotic satisfaction on hearing that the faces most admired 
 by him were of the native isle. He looked upon one that 
 came whirling up to him on a young officer's arm and swept 
 off into the crowd of tops, for a considerable while before he 
 put his customary question. She was returning on the spin 
 when he said: 
 
 "AYho is she?" 
 
 Sir Lukin did not know. "She's a new bird; she nodded 
 to my wife; I'll ask." 
 
 He maneuvered a few steps cleverly to where his wife re- 
 posed. The information he gathered for the behoof of his 
 chief was, that the handsome creature answered to the name 
 of Miss Merion; Irish; aged somewhere between eighteen 
 and nineteen; a dear friend of his wife's, and he ought to 
 have remembered her: but she was a child when he saw her 
 last. 
 
 "Dan Merion died, I remember, about the day of my sail- 
 ing for India," said the General. "She may be his daughter." 
 
 The bright cynosure rounded up to him in the web of the 
 waltz, with her dark eyes for Lady Dunstane, and vanished 
 again among the twisting columns. 
 
 He made his way, handsomely bumped by an apologetic 
 pair, to Lady Dunstane, beside whom a seat was vacated for 
 him; and he trusted she had not over-fatigued herself. 
 
 "Confess," she replied; "you are perishing to know more 
 than Lukin has been able to tell you. Let me hear that you 
 admire her: it pleases me; and you shall hear what will 
 please you as much, I promise you. General." 
 
 "I do. Who wouldn't?" said he, frankly. 
 
 '^She crossed the Channel expressly to dance here to-night 
 at the public ball in honor of you." 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 2^ 
 
 "Where she appears, the first person falls to second rank, 
 and accepts it humbly." 
 
 "That is grandly spoken." 
 
 "She makes everything in the room dust round a blazing 
 jewel." 
 
 "She makes a poet of a soldier. Well, that you may un- 
 derstand how pleased I am, she is my dearest friend, though 
 she is younger than I, as may be seen; she is the only friend 
 I have. I nursed her when she was an infant; my father and 
 Mr. Dan Merion were chums. We were parted by my mar- 
 riage and the voyage to India. We have not yet exchanged 
 a syllable: she was snapped up, of course, the moment she 
 entered the room. I knew she would be a taking girl; how 
 lovely, I did not guess. You are right, she extinguishes the 
 others. She used to be the sprightliest of living creatures, 
 and to judge by her letters that has not faded. She's in the 
 market. General." 
 
 Lord Larrian nodded to everything he heard, concluding 
 with a mock doleful shake of the head. *^My poorest sub- 
 altern!" he sighed, in the theatrical but cordially melancholy 
 style of green age viewing Cytherea's market. 
 
 His poorest subaltern was richer than he in the where- 
 withal to bid for such prizes. 
 
 "What is her name in addition to Merion?" 
 
 "Diana Antonia Merion. Tony to me, Diana to the world." 
 
 "She lives over there?" 
 
 "In England, or anywhere; wherever she is taken in. She 
 will live, I hope, chiefly with me." 
 
 "And honest Irish?" 
 
 "Oh, she's Irish." 
 
 "Ah!" The General was Irish to the heels that night. 
 
 Before further could be said the fair object of the dialogue 
 came darting on a trip of little runs, both hands out, all her 
 face one tender sparkle of a smile; and her cry proved the 
 quality of her blood: "Emmy! Emmy! my heart!" 
 
 "My dear Tony! I should not have come but for the hope 
 of seeing you here." 
 
 Lord Larrian rose and received a hurried acknowledgment 
 of his courtesy from the usurper of his place. 
 
 "Emmy; we might kiss and hug; we're in Ireland. I 
 burn to! * But you're not still ill, dear? Say no! That Indian 
 
24 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 fever must have gone. You do, look a dash pale, my own; 
 you're tired/' 
 
 "One dance has tired me. Why were you so late?" 
 
 "To give the others a chance? To produce a greater im- 
 pression by suspense? No and no. I wrote you I was with 
 the Pettigrews. We caught the coach, we caught the boat, 
 we were only two hours late for the ball; so we did wonders. 
 And good Mrs. Pettigrew is pinning somewhere to complete 
 her adornment. I was in the crush, spying for Emmy, when 
 Mr. Mayor informed me it was the duty of every Irishwoman 
 to dance her toes off, if she'd be known for what she is. 
 And twirl! a man had me by the waist, and I dying to find 
 you." 
 
 "Who was the man?" 
 
 "Not to save these limbs from the lighted stake could I 
 tell you." 
 
 "You are to perform a ceremonious bow to Lord Larrian." 
 
 "Chatter first! a little!" 
 
 The plea for chatter was disregarded. It was visible that 
 the hero of the night hung listening and in expectation. He 
 and the Beauty were named to one another, and they chatted 
 through a quadrille. Sir Lukin introduced a fellow Harro- 
 vian of old days, Mr. Thomas Redworth, to his wife. 
 
 "Our weather-prophet, meteorologist," he remarked, to set 
 them going: "you remember, in India, my pointing to you 
 his name in a newspaper-letter on the subject. He was gen- 
 erally safe for the cricketing days." 
 
 Lady Dunstane kindly appeared to call it to mind, and 
 she led upon the theme — queried at times by an abrupt "Eh?" 
 and "I beg pardon," for manifestly his gaze and one of his 
 ears, if not the pair, were given to the young lady discours- 
 ing with Lord Larrian. Beauty is rare; luckily is it rare, or 
 judging from its effect on men, and the very stoutest of them, 
 our world would be internally a more distracted planet than 
 we see, to the perversion of business, courtesy, rights of prop- 
 erty, and the rest. She perceived an incipient victim, of the 
 hundreds she anticipated, and she very tolerantly talked on: 
 "The weather and women have some resemblance, they say. 
 Is it true that he who reads the one can read the other?" 
 
 Lord Larrian here burst into a brave old laugh, exclaim- 
 ing, "Oh! good!" 
 
 Mr. Eedworth knitted his thick brows. *^ beg pardon ! Ah! 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 25 
 
 women! Weather and women? No; the one point more va- 
 riable in women makes all the difference." 
 
 "Can you tell me what the General laughed at?" 
 
 The honest Englishman entered the trap with promptitude. 
 "She said: — who is she, may I ask you?" 
 
 Lady Dunstane mentioned her name. 
 
 Daughter of the famous Dan Merion? The young lady 
 merited examination for her father's sake. But, when re- 
 minded of her laughter-moving speech, Mr. Redworth bun- 
 gled it; he owned he spoilt it, and candidly stated his inabil- 
 ity to see the fun. "She said, St. George's Channel in a 
 gale ought to be called St. Patrick's — something — I missed 
 some point. That quadrille tune, the Pastourelle, or some- 
 thing . . . ." 
 
 "She had experience of the Channel last night," Lady Dun- 
 stane pursued, and they both, while in seeming converse, 
 caught snatches from their neighbors, during a pause of the 
 dance. 
 
 The sparkling Diana said to Lord Larrian, "You really de- 
 cline to make any of us proud women by dancing to-night?" 
 
 The General answered: "I might do it on two stilts; I 
 can't on one." He touched his veteran leg. 
 
 "But surely," said she, "there's always an inspiration com- 
 ing to it from its partner in motion, if one of them takes 
 the step." 
 
 He signified a woeful negative. "My dear young lady, 
 you say dark things to gray hairs!" 
 
 She rejoined: "If we were over in England, and you fixed 
 on me the stigma of saying dark things, I should never 
 speak without being thought obscure." 
 
 "It's because you flash too brightly for them." 
 
 "I think it is rather the reminiscence of the tooth that once 
 received a stone when it expected candy." 
 
 Again the General laughed; he looked pleased and warmed. 
 "Yes, that's their way, that's their way!" and he repeated 
 her words to himself, diminishing their importance as he 
 stamped them on his memory, but so heartily admiring the 
 lovely speaker that he considered her wit an honor to the 
 old country, and told her so. Irish prevailed up to boiling- 
 point. 
 
 Lady Dunstane, not less gratified, glanced up at Mr. Red- 
 worth, whose brows bore the knot of perplexity over a strong 
 
26 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 stare. He, too, stamped the words on his memory, to see 
 subsequently whether they had a vestige of meaning. Ter- 
 rifically precocious he thought her. Lady Dunstane, in her 
 quick sympathy with her friend, read the adverse mind in his 
 face. And her reading of the mind was right, wrong alto- 
 gether her deduction of the corresponding sentiment. 
 
 Music was resumed to confuse the hearing of the eaves- 
 droppers. 
 
 They beheld a quaint spectacle: a gentleman, obviously an 
 Englishman, approached, with the evident intention of re- 
 minding the Beauty of the night of her engagement to him, 
 and claiming her, as it were, in the lion's jaws. He advanced 
 a foot, withdrew it, advanced, withdrew; eager for his prize, 
 not over enterprising; in awe of the illustrious General she 
 entertained — presumably quite unaware of the pretender's 
 presence; whereupon a voice was heard: "Oh! if it was minu- 
 etting you meant before the lady, I'd never have disputed 
 your right to perform, sir." For it seemed that there were two 
 claimants in the field, an Irishman and an Englishman; and 
 the former, having a livelier sense of the situation, hung aloof 
 in waiting for her eye; the latter directed himself to strike 
 bluntly at his prey; and he continued minuetting, now rap- 
 idly blinking, flushed, angry, conscious of awkwardness and a 
 tangle, incapable of extrication. He began to blink horribly 
 under the raillery of his rival. The General observed him, but 
 as an object remote and minute, a fly or gnat. The face of 
 the brilliant Diana was entirely devoted to him she amused. 
 
 Lady Dunstane had the faint lines of a decorous laugh on 
 her lips as she said: "How odd it is that our men show to 
 such disadvantage in a ball-room. I have seen them in 
 danger, and there they shine first of any, and one is proud 
 of them. They should always be facing the elements or in 
 action." She glanced at the minuet, which had become a pet- 
 rified figure, still palpitating, bent forward, an interrogative 
 reminder. 
 
 Mr. Eedworth reserved his assent to the proclamation of 
 any English disadvantage. A whiff of Celtic hostility in the 
 atmosphere put him on his mettle. "Wherever the man is 
 tried," he said. 
 
 "My lady!" the Irish gentleman bowed to Lady Dunstane. 
 "I had the honor . . , Sullivan Smith ... at the 
 Castle . . ," 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 27 
 
 She responded to the salute, and Mr. Sullivan Smith pro- 
 ceeded to tell her, half in speech, half in dots most luminous, 
 of a civil contention between the English gentleman and him- 
 self as to the possession of the loveliest of partners for this par- 
 ticular ensuing dance, and that they had simultaneously made 
 a rush from the Lower Courts, namely, their cards, to the 
 Upper, being the lady; and Mr. Sullivan Smith partly founded 
 his preferable claim on her Irish descent, and on his ac- 
 quaintance with her eminent defunct father — one of the ever- 
 radiating stars of his quenchless country. 
 
 Lady Dunstane sympathized with him for his not intrud- 
 ing his claim when the young lady stood pre-engaged, as well 
 as in humorous appreciation of his imaginative logic. 
 
 "There will be dancing enough after supper," she said. 
 
 "If I could score one dance with her I'd go home supper- 
 less and feasted,'' said he. "And that's not saying much among 
 the hordes of hungry troopers tip-toe for the signal to the 
 buffet. See, my lady, the gentleman, as we call him; there 
 he is working his gamut perpetually up to da capo. Oh! 
 but it's a sheep trying to be wolf; lie's sheep-eyed and he's 
 wolf-fanged, pathetic and larcenous! Oh, now! who'd believe 
 it! — the man has dared ... I'd as soon think of com- 
 mitting sacrilege in a cathedral!" 
 
 The man was actually, to quote his indignant rival, "breach- 
 ing the fortress," and pointing out to Diana Merion "her name 
 on his dirty scrap of paper": a shocking sight when the lady's 
 recollection was the sole point to be aimed at, and the only 
 umpire. "As if all of us couldn't have written that, and 
 hadn't done it!" Mr. Sullivan Smith groaned disgusted. He 
 hated bad manners, particularly in cases involving ladies; and 
 the bad manners of a Saxon fired his antagonism to the race; 
 individual members of which he boasted of forgiving and em- 
 bracing, honoring. So the man blackened the race for him, 
 and the race was excused in the man. But his hatred of bad 
 manners was vehement, and would have extended to a fellow- 
 countryman. His own were of the antecedent century, there- 
 fore venerable. 
 
 Diana turned from her pursuer with a comic woeful lifting 
 of the brows at her friend. Lady Dunstane motioned her fan, 
 and Diana came, bending head. 
 
 "Are you bound in honor?" 
 
 "I don't think I am. And I do want to go on talking with 
 
28 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 the General. He is so delightful and modest — my dream of a 
 true soldier! — telling me of his last big battle, bit by bit, to 
 my fisliing." 
 
 "Put off this person for a square dance down the list, and 
 take out Mr. Eedworth — Miss Diana Merion, Mr. Redworth: 
 he will bring you back to the General, who must not totally 
 absorb you, or he will forfeit his popularity." 
 
 Diana instantly struck a treaty with the pertinacious advo- 
 cate of his claims, to whom, on his relinquishing her, Mr. 
 Sullivan Smith remarked: "Oh! sir, the law of it, where a 
 lady^s concerned! You're one for evictions, I should guess, 
 and the anti-human process. It's that letter of the law that 
 stands between you and me and mine and yours. But you've 
 got your conge, and my blessing on ye!" 
 
 "It was a positive engagement," said the enemy. 
 
 Mr. Sullivan Smith derided him. "And a pretty partner 
 you've pickled for yourself when she keeps her positive en- 
 gagement!" 
 
 He besought Lady Dunstane to console him with a turn. 
 She pleaded weariness. He proposed to sit beside her and 
 divert her. She smiled, but warned him that she was Eng- 
 lish in every vein. He interjected: "Irish men and English 
 women! though it's putting the cart before the horse — the 
 copper pennies where the gold guineas should be. So here's 
 the gentleman who takes the oyster, like the lawyer of the 
 fable. English is he? But we read, the last shall be first. 
 And English women and Irish men make the finest coupling 
 in the universe." 
 
 "Well, you must submit to see an Irish woman led out by 
 an English man," said Lady Dunstane, at the same time in- 
 forming the obedient Diana, then bestowing her hand on Mr. 
 Redworth to please her friend, that he was a schoolfellow of 
 her husband's. 
 
 "Favor can't help coming by rotation, except in very ex- 
 traordinary circumstances, and he was ahead of me with you, 
 and takes my due, and 'twould be hard on me if I weren't 
 thoroughly indemnified." Mr. Sullivan Smith bowed. "You 
 gave them just the start over the frozen minute for conversa- 
 tion; they were total strangers, and he doesn't appear a bad 
 sort of fellow for a temporary mate, though he's not perfectly 
 sure of his legs. And that we'll excuse to any man leading out 
 8uch a fresh young beauty of a Bright Eyes — like the stars of 
 
DIANA OF THE CR09SWAYS. 29 
 
 a winter's night in the frosty season over Columkill, or where 
 you will, so that^s in Ireland, to be sure of the likeness to 
 her/' 
 
 "Her mother was half English." 
 
 "Of course she was. And what was my observation about 
 the coupling? Dan Merion would make her Irish all over. 
 And she has a vein of Spanish blood in her; for he had. 
 And she's got the color — but you spoke of their coupling — 
 or I did. Oh! a man can hold his own with an English roly- 
 poly mate; he's not stifled. But a woman hasn't his power of 
 resistance to dead weight. She's volatile, she's frivolous, a 
 rattler and gabbler — haven't I heard what they say of Irish 
 girls over there? She marries, and it's the end of her spark- 
 ling. She must choose at home for a perfect harmonious part- 
 ner." 
 
 Lady Dunstane expressed her opinion that her couple 
 danced excellently together. 
 
 "It'd be a bitter thing to see, if the fellow couldn't dance, 
 after leading her out!" sighed Mr. Sullivan Smith. "I heard 
 of her over there. They call her the Black Pearl, and the 
 Irish Lily — ^because she's dark. They rack their poor brains 
 to get the laugh of us." 
 
 "And I listen to you," said Lady Dunstane. 
 
 "Ah! if all England — half! a quarter, the smallest piece 
 of the land were like you, my lady, I'd be loyal to the finger- 
 nails. Now, is she engaged? — when I get a word with her?" 
 
 "She is nineteen, or nearly, and she ought to have five good 
 years of freedom, I think." 
 
 "And five good years of serfdom I'd serve to win her!" 
 
 A look at him under the eyelids assured Lady Dunstane 
 that there would be small chance for Mr. Sullivan Smith, 
 after a life of bondage, if she knew her Diana, in spite of his 
 tongue, his tact, his lively features and breadth of shoulders. 
 
 Up he sprang. Diana was on Mr. Eedworth's arm. "No 
 refreshments," she said; and "this is my refreshment," taking 
 the seat of Mr. Sullivan Smith, who ejaculated, 
 
 "I must go and have that gentleman's name." He wanted 
 a foe. 
 
 "You know you are ready to coquette with the General at 
 any moment, Tony," said her friend. 
 
 "Yes, with the General!" 
 
 "He is a noble old man." 
 
30 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "Superb. And don't say ^old jnan/ With his uniform and 
 his height and his gray head he is like a glorious October day 
 just before the brown leaves fall/' 
 
 Diana hummed a little of the air of Planxty Kelly, the 
 favorite of her childhood, as Lady Dunstane well remem- 
 bered, and they smiled together at the scenes and times it 
 recalled. 
 
 "Do you still write verses, Tony?" 
 
 "I could about him. At one part of the fight he thought 
 he would be beaten. He was overmatched in artillery, and 
 it was a cavalry charge he thundered on them, riding across 
 the field to give the word of command to the couple of regi- 
 ments, riddled to threads, that gained the day. That is life 
 — when we dare death to live! I wonder at men, who are 
 men, being anything but soldiers! I told you, madre, my 
 own Emmy, I forgave you for marrying because it was a 
 soldier." 
 
 "Perhaps a soldier is to be the happy man. But you have 
 not told me a word of yourself. What has been done with 
 the old Crossways?" 
 
 "The house, you know, is mine. And it's all I have: ten 
 acres and the house, furnished, and let for less than two 
 hundred a year. Oh! how I long to evict the tenants! They 
 can't have my feeling for the place where I was born. They're 
 people of tolerably good connections, middling wealthy, I sup- 
 pose, of the name of Warwick, and, as far as I can understand, 
 they stick there to be near the Sussex Downs, for a nephew, 
 who likes to ride on them. I've a half engagement, barely 
 legible, to visit them on an indefinite day, and can't bear the 
 idea of strangers masters in the old house. I must be driven 
 there for shelter, for a roof, some month. And I could make 
 a pilgrimage in rain or snow just to dote on the outside of it. 
 That's your Tony." 
 
 "She's my darling." 
 
 "I hear myself speak! But your voice or mine, madre, it's 
 one soul. Be sure I am giving up the ghost when I cease to 
 be one soul with you, dear and dearest! No secrets, never a 
 shadow of a deception, or else I shall feel I am not fit to live. 
 Was I a bad correspondent when you were in India?" 
 
 "Pretty well. Copious letters when you did write." 
 
 "I was shy. I knew I should be writing to Emmy and an- 
 other, and only when I came to the flow could I forget him. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 31 
 
 He is very finely built: and I dare say lie has a head. I read of 
 his deeds in India and quivered. But he was just a bit in the 
 way. Men are the barriers to perfect naturalness, at least, 
 with girls, I think. You wrote to me in the same tone as ever, 
 and at first I had a struggle to reply. And I, who have such 
 pride in being always myself!" 
 
 Two staring semi-circles had formed, one to front the Hero, 
 the other the Beauty. These half-moons imperceptibly dis- 
 solved to replenish, and became a fixed obstruction. 
 
 "Yes, they look," Diana made answer to Lady Dunstane's 
 comment on the curious impertinence. She was getting used 
 to it, and her friend had a gratification in seeing how little 
 this affected her perfect naturalness. 
 
 "You are often in the world — dinners, dances?" she said. 
 
 "People are kind." 
 
 "Any proposals?" 
 
 "Nibbles." 
 
 "Quite heart-free?" 
 
 "Absolutely." 
 
 Diana's unshadowed bright face defied all menace of an 
 eclipse. 
 
 The block of sturdy gazers began to melt. The General 
 had dispersed his group of satellites by a movement with the 
 Mayoress on his arm, construed as the signal for procession to 
 the supper-table. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH AND THE EXTERIOR 
 OF MR. SULLIVAN SMITH. 
 
 "It may be as well to take Mr. Redworth's arm; you will 
 escape the crush for you," said Lady Dunstane to Diana. "I 
 don't sup. Yes, go! You must eat, and he is handiest to 
 conduct you." 
 
 Diana thought of her chaperon, and the lateness of the 
 hour. She murmured, to soften her conscience, "Poor Mrs. 
 Pettigrew!" 
 
 And once more Mr. Eedworth, outwardly imperturbable, 
 was in the maelstrom of a happiness resembling tempest. He 
 talked, and knew not what he uttered. To give this matchless 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 girl the best to eat and drink was liis business, and he per- 
 formed it. Oddly, for a man who had no loaded design, mar- 
 shaling the troops in his active and capacious cranium, he fell 
 upon calculations of his income, present and prospective, while 
 she sat at the table and he stood behind her. Others were 
 wrangling for places, chairs, plates, glasses, game-pie, cham- 
 pagne: she had them; the lady under his charge to a certainty 
 would have them; so far good; and he had seven hundred 
 pounds per annum — seven hundred and fifty, in a favorable as- 
 pect, at a stretch. . . . 
 
 "Yes, the pleasantest thing to me after working all day is 
 an opera of Carini's," he said, in full accord with her taste, 
 *'and Tellio for tenor, certainly." 
 
 A fair enough sum for a bachelor: four hundred personal 
 income, and a prospect of higher dividends to increase it; 
 three hundred odd from his office, and no immediate prospects 
 of an increase there; no one died there, no elderly martyr for 
 the advancement of his juniors could be persuaded to die; 
 they were too tough to think of retiring. Say seven hun- 
 dred and fifty . . . eight hundred, if the commerce of the 
 country fortified the bank his property was embarked in; or 
 eight-fifty; or nine, ten. . . . 
 ^^ "I could call him my poet also,'' Mr. Redworth agreed with 
 / ., her taste in poets. "His letters are among the best ever writ- 
 ^ ten, or ever published: the raciest English I know. Frank, 
 straight out — capital descriptions. The best English letter- 
 writers are as good as the French — You don't think so? — in 
 / their way, of course. I dare say we don't sufficiently cultivate 
 "" O the art. We require the supple tongue a closer intercourse of 
 ( society gives." 
 
 Eight or ten hundred. Comfortable enough for a man in 
 chambers. To dream of entering as a householder on that sum, 
 in these days, would be stark nonsense, and a man two re- 
 moves from a baronetcy has no right to set his reckoning on 
 deaths; if he does, he becomes a sort of meditative assassin. 
 But what were the Fates about when they planted a man of 
 the ability of Tom Redworth in a Government office! Clearly 
 they intended him to remain a bachelor for life. And they 
 sent him over to Ireland on inspection duty for a month, to 
 have sight of an Irish beauty. . . . 
 
 "Think war the finest subject for poets?" he exclaimed. 
 "Flatly, no; I don't think it. I think exactly the reverse. It 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. S3 
 
 brings out the noblest traits in human character? I won't 
 own that even. It brings out some; but under excitement, 
 when you have not always the real man. Pray don't sneer 
 at domestic life. Well, there was a suspicion of disdain. Yes, 
 I can respect the hero, military or civil: with this distinction, 
 that the military hero aims at personal reward " 
 
 "He braves wounds and death," interposed Diana. 
 
 "Whereas the civilian hero " 
 
 "Pardon me, let me deny that the soldier-hero aims at a per- 
 sonal reward," she again interposed. 
 
 "He gets it." 
 
 "If he is not beaten." 
 
 "And then he is no longer a hero." 
 
 "He is to me." 
 
 She had a woman's inveterate admiration of the profession 
 of arms. Mr. Eedworth endeavored to render practicable an 
 opening in her mind to reason. He admitted the grandeur 
 of the poetry of Homer. We are a few centuries in advance 
 of Homer. We do not slay damsels for a sacrifice to pro- 
 pitiate celestial wrath, nor do we revel in details of slaughter. 
 He reasoned with her; he repeated stories known to him of 
 civilian heroes, and won her assent to the heroical title for 
 their deeds; but it was languid, or not so bright as the deeds 
 deserved, or as the young lady could look; and he insisted on 
 the civilian hero, impelled by some unconscious motive to 
 make her see the thing he thought, also the thing he was — 
 his plain mind and matter-of-fact nature. Possibly she caught 
 a glimpse of that. After a turn of fencing, in which he was 
 impressed by the vibration of her tones when speaking of 
 military heroes, she quitted the table, saying, "An argument 
 between one at supper and another handing plates is rather 
 unequal, if eloquence is needed. As Pat said to the constable 
 when his hands were tied, 'You beat me with the fists, but my 
 spirit is towering and kicks freely.' " 
 
 Eight hundred? a thousand a year, two thousand, are as 
 nothing in the calculation of a householder who means that 
 the mistress of the house shall have the choicest of the fruits 
 and flowers of the Four Quarters; and Thomas Eedworth had 
 vowed at his first outlook on the world of women that never 
 should one of the sisterhood coming under his charge com- 
 plain of not having them in profusion. Consequently he was 
 a settled bachelor. In the character of disengaged and unas- 
 
34 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 piling philosophical hachelor he reviewed the revelations of 
 her character betrayed by the beautiful virgin devoted to the 
 sanguine coat. The thrill of her voice in speaking of soldier- 
 heroes shot him to the yonder side of a gulf. Not knowing 
 why, for he had no scheme, desperate or other, in his head, 
 the least affrighted of men was frightened by her tastes, and 
 by her aplomb, her inoffensiveness in freedom of manner and 
 self-sufhciency — sign of purest breeding; and by her easy, 
 peerless vivacity, her proofs of descent from the blood of Dan 
 Merion — a wildish blood. The candor of the look of her eyes 
 in speaking, her power of looking forthright at men, and look- 
 ing the thing she spoke, and the play of her voluble lips, the 
 significant repose of her lips in silence, her weighing of the 
 words he uttered for a moment before the prompt apposite 
 reply, down to her simple quotation of Pat, alarmed him; he 
 did not ask himself why. His manly self was not intruded on 
 his cogitations. A mere eight hundred or thousand per an- 
 num had no place in that midst. He beheld her quietly se- 
 lecting the position of dignity to suit her: an eminent mili- 
 tary man, or statesman, or wealthy nobleman: she had but to 
 choose. A war would offer her the decorated soldier she 
 wanted. A war! Such are women of this kind ! The thought 
 revolted him, and pricked his appetite for supper. He did 
 service by Mrs. Pettigrew, to which lady Miss Merion, as she 
 said, promoted him, at the table, and then began to refresh 
 in person, standing. 
 
 "Malkin! that's the fellow's name," he heard close at his 
 ear. 
 
 Mr. Sullivan Smith had drained a champagne-glass, bottle 
 in hand, and was priming the successor to it. He cocked his 
 eye at Mr. Eedworth's quick stare. "Malkin! And now 
 we'll see whether the interior of him is gray, or black, or 
 tabby, or tortoiseshell, or any other color of the Malkin breed." 
 
 He explained to Mr. Eedworth that he had summoned Mr. 
 Malkin to answer to him as a gentleman for calling Miss Me- 
 rion a jilt. "The man, sir, said in my hearing she jilted him, 
 and that's to call the lady a jilt. There's not a point of differ- 
 ence, not a shade. I overheard him. I happened by the bless- 
 ing of Providence to be by when he named her publicly jilt. 
 And it's enough that she's a lady to have me for her champion. 
 The same if she had been an Esquimaux squaw. I'll never live 
 to hear a lady insulted." 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 35 
 
 "You don't mean to say you're the donkey to provoke a 
 duel!" Mr. Eedworth burst out gruffly, through turkey and 
 stuffing. 
 
 "And an Irish lady, the young Beauty of Erin!" Mr. 
 Sullivan Smith was flowing on. He became frigid; he politely 
 bowed: "Two, sir, if you haven't the grace to withdraw the 
 offensive term before it cools and can't be obliterated." 
 
 "Fiddle! and go to the deuce!" Mr. Eedworth cried. 
 
 "Would a soft slap o' the cheek persuade you, sir?" 
 
 "Try it outside, and don't bother me with nonsense of that 
 sort at my supper. If I'm struck, I strike back. I keep my 
 pistols for bandits and law-breakers. Here," said Mr. Red- 
 worth, better inspired as to the way of treating an ultra of 
 the isle: "touch glasses: you're a gentleman, and won't dis- 
 turb good company. By-and-by." 
 
 The pleasing prospect of by-and-by renewed in Mr. Sul- 
 livan Smith his composure. They touched the foaming glasses: 
 upon which, in a friendly manner, Mr. Sullivan Smith pro- 
 posed that they should go outside as soon as Mr. Eedworth 
 had finished supper — quite finished supper: for the reason 
 that the term "donkey" affixed to him was like a minster cap 
 of schooldays, ringing bells on his top-knot, and also that it 
 stuck in his gizzard. 
 
 Mr. Eedworth declared the term to be simply hypothetical. 
 "If you fight you're a donkey for doing it. But you won't 
 fight." 
 
 "But I will fight." 
 
 "He won't fight." 
 
 "Then for the honor of your country you must. But I'd 
 rather have him first, for I haven't drunk with him, and it 
 should be a case of necessity to put a bullet or a couple of 
 inches of steel through the man you've drunk with. And 
 what's in your favor, she danced with ye. She seemed to 
 take to ye, and the man she has the smallest sugar-melting 
 for is sacred if he's not sweet to me. If he retracts!" 
 
 "Hypothetically, No." 
 
 "But supposititiously?" 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "Then we grasp hands on it. It's Malkin or nothing!" said 
 Mr. Sullivan Smith, swinging his heel moodily to wander in 
 search of the foe. How one sane man could name another a 
 
36 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 donkey for fighting to clear an innocent young lady's repu- 
 tation passed his rational conception. 
 
 Sir Lukin hastened to Mr. Eedworth to have a talk over 
 old school days and fellows. 
 
 "I'll tell you what/' said the civilian, "there are Irishmen 
 and Irishmen. I've met cool heads and long heads among 
 them, and you and I knew Jack Derry, who was good at 
 most things. But the burlesque Irishman can't be caricatured. 
 IsTature strained herself in a fit of absurdity to produce him, 
 and all that Art can do is to copy." 
 
 This was his prelude to an account of Mr. Sullivan Smith, 
 whom, as a specimen, he rejoiced to have met. 
 
 "There's a chance of mischief," said Sir Lukin. "I know 
 nothing of the man he calls Malkin. I'll inquire presently." 
 
 He talked of his prospects and of the women. Fair ones, 
 in his opinion, besides Miss Merion were parading; he sketch- 
 ed two or three of his partners with a broad brush of epithets. 
 
 "It won't do for Miss Merion's name to be mixed up in a 
 duel," said Eedworth. 
 
 "Not if she's to make her fortune in England," said Sir 
 Lukin. "It's probably all smoke." 
 
 The remark had hardly escaped him when a wreath of 
 metaphorical smoke, and fire, and no mean report, startled 
 the company of supping gentlemen. At the pitch of his 
 voice Mr. Sullivan Smith denounced Mr. Malkin in presence 
 for a cur masquerading as a cat. 
 
 "And that is not the scoundrel's prime offense. For what 
 d'ye think? He trumps up an engagement to dance wdth a 
 beautiful lady, and, because she can't remember, binds her to 
 an oath for a dance to come, and then, holding her prisoner 
 to'm, he sulks, the dirty dog-cat goes and sulks, and he won't 
 dance and won't do anything but screech up in corners that 
 he's jilted. He said the word. Dozens of gentlemen heard the 
 word. And I demand an apology of Misterr Malkin — or 
 . . . .! And none of your guerrier nodding and bravado, 
 Misterr Malkin, at me, if you please. The case is for settle- 
 ment between gentlemen." 
 
 The harassed gentleman of the name of Malkin, driven to 
 extremity by the worrying, stood in braced preparation for 
 the English attitude of defense. His tormentor drew closer 
 to him. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSS WAYS. 37 
 
 "Mind, I give you warning, if you lay a finger on me I'll 
 knock you down," said he. 
 
 Most joyfully Mr. Sullivan Smith uttered a low melodious 
 cry. "For a specimen of manners, in an assembly of ladies 
 and gentlemen. ... I ask ye!" he addressed the ring 
 about him, to put his adversary entirely in the wrong before 
 provoking the act of war. And then, as one intending gently 
 to remonstrate, he was on the point of stretching out his 
 finger to the shoulder of Mr. Malkin, when Eedworth seized 
 his arm, saying: "I'm j-our man: me first: you're due to me." 
 
 Mr. Sullivan Smith beheld the vanishing of his foe in a 
 cloud of faces. Now was he wroth on patently reasonable 
 grounds. He threatened Saxondom. Man up, man down, 
 he challenged the race of short-legged, thickset, wooden-pated 
 curmudgeons: and let it be pugilism if their white livers 
 shivered at the notion of powder and ball. Eedworth, in the 
 struggle to haul him away, received a blow from him. '^And 
 you've got it! you would have it!" roared the Celt. 
 
 "Excuse yourself to the company for a misdirected effort," 
 Redworth said; and he observed generally: "No Irish gentle- 
 man strikes a blow in good company." 
 
 "But that's true as Writ! And I offer excuses — if you'll 
 come along with me and a couple of friends. The thing has 
 been done before by torchlight — and neatly." 
 
 "Come along, and come alone," said Redworth. 
 
 A way was cleared for them. Sir Lukin hurried up to 
 Redworth, who had no doubt of his ability to manage Mr. 
 Sullivan Smith. 
 
 He managed that fine-hearted, but purely sensational, fellow 
 so well that Lady Dunstane and Diana, after hearing in some 
 anxiety of the hubbub below, beheld them entering the long 
 saloon amicably, with the nods and looks of gentlemen quietly 
 accordant. 
 
 A little later. Lady Dunstane questioned Redworth, and 
 he smoothed her apprehensions, delivering himself, much to 
 her comfort, thus: "In no case would any lady's name have 
 been raised. The whole affair was nonsensical. He's a capi- 
 tal fellow of a kind, capable of behaving like a man of the 
 world and a gentleman. Only he has, or thinks he has, like 
 lots of his countrymen, a raw wound — something that itches 
 
 to be grazed. Champagne on that! Irishmen, 
 
 as far as I have seen of them, are, like horses, bundles of 
 
38 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 nerves; and you must manage them, as you do with all ner- 
 vous creatures, with firmness, but good temper. You must 
 never get into a fury of the nerves yourself with them. Spur 
 and whip they don't want; they'll be off with you in a jiffy if 
 you try it. They want the bridle-rein. That seems to me 
 the secret of Irish character. We English are not bad horse- 
 men. It's a wonder we blunder so in our management of such 
 a people." 
 
 "I wish you were in a position to put your method to the 
 proof," said she. 
 
 He shrugged. "There's little chance of it!" 
 
 To reward him for his practical discretion she contrived that 
 Diana should give him a final dance: and the beautiful girl 
 smiled quickly responsive to his appeal. He was, moreover, 
 sensible in her look and speech that he had advanced in her 
 consideration to be no longer the mere spinning-stick, a young 
 lady's partner. By which he humbly understood that her 
 friend approved him. A gentle delirium enfolded his brain. 
 A householder's life is often begun on eight hundred a year: 
 on less: on much less: — sometimes on nothing but resolution 
 to make a fitting income, carving out a fortune. Eight hundred 
 may stand as a superior basis. That sum is a distinct point 
 of vantage. If it does not mean a carriage and Parisian mil- 
 linery, and a station for one of the stars of society, it means at 
 any rate security; and then, the heart of the man being 
 strong and sound. . . . 
 
 "Yes," he replied to her, 'TL like my experience of Ireland 
 and the Irish; and better than I thought I should. St. George's 
 Channel ought to be crossed oftener by both of us." 
 
 ^Tm always glad of the signal," said Diana. 
 
 He had implied the people of the two islands. He allowed 
 her interpretation to remain personal, for the sake of a creep- 
 ing deliciousness that it carried through his blood. 
 
 "Shall you soon be returning to England?" he ventured to 
 ask. 
 
 "I am Lady Dunstane's guest for some months." 
 
 "Then you will. Sir Lukin has an estate in Surrey. He 
 talks of quitting the service." 
 
 "I can't believe it!" 
 
 His thrilled blood was chilled. She entertained a sentiment 
 amounting to adoration for the profession of arms! 
 
 Gallantly had the veteran general and hero held on into the 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 39 
 
 night, that the festivity might not be dashed by liis departure; 
 perhaps, to a certain degree, to prolong his enjoyment of a 
 flattering scene. At last Sir Lukin had the word from him., 
 and came to his wife. Diana slipped across the floor to her 
 accommodating chaperon, whom, for the sake of another five 
 minutes with her beloved Emma, she very agreeably persuaded 
 to walk in the train of Lord Larrian, and forth they trooped 
 down a pathway of nodding heads and curtsies, resembling 
 oak and birch trees under a tempered gale, even to the shed- 
 ding of leaves, for here a turban was picked up by Sir Lukin, 
 there a jeweled ear-ring by the self-constituted attendant, Mr. 
 Thomas Eedworth. At the portico rank a wakening cheer,, 
 really worth hearing. The rain it rained, and hats were form- 
 less, as in the first conception of the edifice, backs were damp, 
 boots liquidly musical, the pipe of consolation smoked with 
 difficulty, with much pulling at the stem, but the cheer arose 
 magnificently, and multiplied itself, touching at the same mo- 
 ment the heavens and Diana's heart — at least, drawing them 
 together; for she felt exalted, enraptured, as proud of her 
 countrymen as of their hero. 
 
 "That's the natural shamrock, after the artificial!" she heard 
 Mr. Redworth say, behind her. 
 
 She turned and sent one of her brilliant glances flying 
 over him, in gratitude for a timely word well said. And she 
 never forgot the remark nor he the look. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CONTAINING HINTS OF DIANA'S EXPERIENCES AND OF 
 WHAT THEY LED TO. 
 
 Ajortnight-afte£jJlis_meiQQiah1 e ball the principal actors 
 of "BotF^exes had crossed the Channel back to England, and 
 old Ireland was left to her rains from above and her un- 
 drained bogs below; her physical and her mental vapors; her 
 ailments and her bog-bred doctors; as to whom the governing 
 countrj^ trusted they would be silent or discourse humorously. 
 
 The residence of Sir Lukin Dunstane, in the county of Sur- 
 rey, inherited by him during his recent term of Indian serv- 
 ices, was on the hills, where a day of Italian sky, or better, a 
 
40 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 day of our breezy southwest, washed from the showery night, 
 gives distantly a tower to view, and a murky web, not without 
 color — the ever-flying banner of the metropolis, the smoke of 
 the city's chimneys, if you prefer plain language. At a first 
 inspection of the house Lady Dunstane did not like it, and it 
 was advertised to be let, and the auctioneer proclaimed it in 
 his dialect. Her taste was delicate; she had the sensitiveness 
 of an invalid: twice she read the stalking advertisement of 
 the attractions of Copsley, and hearing Diana call it "the 
 plush of speech" she shuddered; she decided that a place 
 where her husband's family had lived ought not to stand forth 
 meretriciously spangled and daubed, like a show-booth at a 
 fair, for a bait; though the grandiloquent man of advertising 
 letters assured Sir Lukin that a public agape for the big and 
 gaudy mouthful is in no milder way to be caught: as it is 
 apparently the case. She withdrew the trumpeting placard. 
 Eetract we likewise ^'banner of the metropolis." That plush 
 of speech haunts all efforts to swell and illuminate citizen- 
 prose to a princely poetic. 
 
 Yet Lady Dunstane herself could name the bank of smoke, 
 when looking north-eastward from her summer-house, the flag 
 of London; and she was a person of the critical mind, well able 
 to distinguish between the simple metaphor and the supero- 
 bese. A year of habitation induced her to conceal her dislike 
 of the place in love: cat's love, she owned. Here, she con- 
 fessed to Diana, she would wish to live to her end. It seemed 
 remote, where an invigorating upper air gave new bloom to 
 her cheeks; but she kept one secret from her friend. 
 
 Copsley was an estate of nearly twelve hundred acres, ex- 
 tending across the ridge of the hills to the slopes north and 
 south. Seven counties rolled their backs under this command- 
 ing height, and it would have tasked a pigeon to fly within an 
 hour the stretch of country visible at the Copsley windows. 
 Sunrise to right, sunset leftward, the borders of the grounds 
 held both flaming horizons. So much of the heavens and of 
 earth is rarely granted to a dwelling. The drawback was the 
 structure, which had no charm, scarce a face. "It is written 
 that I should live in barracks," Lady Dunstane said. The 
 color of it taught white to impose a sense of gloom. Her cat's 
 love of the familiar inside corners was never able to embrace 
 the outer walls. Her sensitiveness, too, was racked by the pre- 
 sentation of so pitiably ugly a figure to the landscape. She 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 41 
 
 likened it to a coarse-featured country wench, whose clean- 
 ing and decorating of her countenance makes complexion grin 
 and ruggedness yawn. Dirty, dilapidated, hung with weeds 
 and parasites, it would have been more tolerable. She tried the 
 effect of various creepers, and they were as a staring paint. 
 What it was like then she had no heart to say. 
 
 One may, however, fall on a pleasurable resignation in ac- 
 cepting great indemnities, as Diana bade her believe, when 
 the first disgust began to ebb. "A good hundred over there 
 would think it a paradise for an asylum:" she signified Lon- 
 don. Her friend bore such reminders meekly. They were 
 readers of books of all sorts — political, philosophical, econo- 
 mical, romantic; and they mixed the diverse readings in 
 thought, after the fashion of the ardently youthful. Romance 
 affected politics, transformed economy, irradiated philosophy. 
 They discussed the knotty question. Why things were not 
 done, the things being confessedly to do; and they cut the 
 knot. Men, men calling themselves statesmen, declined to 
 perform that operation, because, forsooth, other men objected 
 to have it performed on them. And common humanity de- 
 clared it to be for the common weal! If so, then it is clearly 
 indicated as a course of action: we shut our eyes against logic 
 and the vaunted laws of economy. They are the knot we cut; 
 or would cut, had we the sword. Diana did it to the tune of 
 Garryowen or Planxty Kelly. for a despot! The cry was 
 for a beneficent despot, naturally: a large-minded benevolent 
 despot. In short, a despot to obey their bidding. Thoughtful 
 young people who think through the heart soon come to this 
 conclusion. The heart is the beneficent despot they would be. 
 He cures those miseries; he creates the novel harmony. He 
 sees all difficulties through his own sanguine hues. He is the 
 musical poet of the problem, demanding merely to have it 
 solved that he may sing: clear proof of the necessity for solv- 
 ing it immediately. 
 
 Thus far in their pursuit of methods for the government of 
 a nation, to make it happy, Diana was leader. Her fine ardor 
 and resonance, and, more than the convincing ring of her 
 voice, the girl's impassioned rapidity in rushing through any 
 perceptible avenue of the labyrinth, or beating down ob- 
 stacles to form one, and coming swiftly to some solution, — 
 constituted her the chief of the pair of democratic rebels in 
 questions that clamored for instant solution. By dint of 
 
42 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 reading solid writers, using the brains they possessed, it was 
 revealed to them gradually that their particular impatience 
 came perhaps of the most earnest desire to get to a comfortable 
 termination of the inquiry — the heart aching for mankind 
 sought a nest for itself. At this point Lady Dunstane took 
 the lead. Diana had to be tugged to follow. She could not ac- 
 cept a "perhaps" that cast dubiousness on her disinterested 
 championship. She protested a perfect certainty of the single 
 aim of her heart outward. But she reflected. She discovered 
 that her friend had gone ahead of her. 
 
 The discovery was reached, and even acknowledged, before 
 she could persuade herself to swallow .the repulsive truth. 
 self! self! self! are we eternally masking in a domino that re- 
 veals your hideous old face when we could be most positive 
 we had escaped you? Eternally! the desolating answer 
 knelled. Nevertheless the poor, the starving, the overtaxed 
 in labor, they have a right to the cry of Now! now! They 
 have; and if a cry could conduct us to the secret of aiding, 
 healing, feeding, elevating them, we might swell the cry. As 
 it is, we must lay it on our wits patiently to track and find the 
 secret; and meantime do what the individual with his poor pit- 
 tance can. A miserable contribution! sighed the girl. Old 
 Self was perceived in the sigh. She was haunted. 
 
 After all, one must live one's life. Placing her on a lower 
 pedestal in her self-esteem, the philosophy of youth revived 
 her; and, if the abatement of her personal pride was dispirit- 
 ing, she began to see an advantage in getting inward eyes. 
 
 "It's infinitely better I should know it, Emmy — I'm a rep- 
 tile! Pleasure here, pleasure there, I'm alwaj^s thinking of 
 pleasure. I shall give up thinking and take to drifting. 
 Neither of us can do more than open purses; and mine's lean. 
 If the old Crossways had no tenant it would be a purse all 
 mouth. And charity is haunted, like everything we do. Only 
 I say with my whole strength — yes, I am sure, in spite of the 
 men professing that they are practical, the rich will not move 
 without a goad. I have and hold — you shall hunger and covet, 
 until you are strong enough to force my hand — that's the 
 speech of the wealthy. And they are Christians. In name. 
 Well, I thank Heaven I'm at war with myself." 
 
 "You always manage to strike out a sentence worth re- 
 membering, Tony," said Lady Dunstane. "At war with our- 
 selves means the best happiness we can have," 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 It suited her, frail as her health was, and her wisdom striv' 
 ing to the spiritual of happiness. War with herself was far 
 from happiness in the bosom of Diana. She wanted external 
 life, action, fields for energies, to vary the struggle. It fretted A 
 and rendered her ill at ease. In her solitary rides with Sir / \ 
 Lukin through a long wint fiju^se aeon - s h e appalled t hat ex- — * — ^ 
 cellent bu'f^^JTJnVentionally-minded gentleman by starting, nay I 
 supporting, theories next to profane in the consideration of a \ 
 landowner. She spoke of Reform: of the Repeal of the Corn 
 Jjaws as the simple beginnliig of the^gfants due to the people. 
 She had her ideas, of course, from that fellow Redworth, an 
 occasional visitor at Copsley; and a man might be a donkey 
 and think what he pleased, since he had a vocabulary to back 
 his opinions. A woman. Sir Lukin held, was by nature a 
 mute in politics. Of the thing called a Radical woman he 
 could not believe that she was less than monstrous: "with a 
 nose," he said; and, doubtless, horse teeth, hatchet jaws, slat- 
 ternly in the gown, slipshod, awful. As for a girl, an unmar- 
 ried, handsome girl, admittedly beautiful, her interjections, 
 echoing a man, were ridiculous, and not a little annoying now 
 and then, for she could be piercingly sarcastic. Her vocabu- 
 lary in irony was a quiverful. He admired her and liked her 
 immensely; complaining only of her turn for unfeminine top- 
 ics. He pardoned her on the score of the petty difference 
 rankling between them in reference to his abandonment of 
 his profession, for here she was patriotically wrong-headed. 
 Everybody knew that he had sold out in order to look after his 
 estates of Copsley and Dunena, secondly; and, in the first 
 place, to nurse and be a companion to his wife. He had left 
 her but four times in five months; he had spent just three 
 weeks of that time away from her in London. No one could 
 doubt of his having kept his pledge, although his wife oc- 
 cupied herself with books and notions and subjects foreign to 
 his taste — his understanding, too, he owned. And Redworth 
 had approved of his retirement, had a contempt for soldiering. 
 "Quite as great as yours for civilians, I can tell you," Sir Lu- 
 kin said, dashing out of politics to the vexatious personal sub- 
 ject. Her unexpressed disdain was ruffling. 
 
 "Mr. Redworth recommends work: he respects the working 
 soldier," said Diana. 
 
 Sir Lukin exclaimed that he had been a working soldier; 
 he was ready to serve if his country wanted him. He directed 
 her to anathematize peace, instead of scorning a fellow for 
 
Q> 
 
 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 doing the duties next about him; and the mention of peace 
 fetched him at a bound back to politics. He quoted a dis- 
 tinguished Tory orator, to the effect that any lengthened term 
 of peace bred maggots in the heads of the people. 
 
 "Mr. Eedworth spoke of it: he translated something from 
 Aristophanes for a retort," said Diana. 
 
 "Well, we're friends, eh?" Sir Lukin put forth a hand. 
 
 She looked at him surprised at the unnecessary call for a 
 show of friendship; she touched his hand with two tips of her 
 fingers, remarking, "I should think so, indeed." 
 
 He deemed it prudent to hint to his wife that Diana Merion 
 appeared to be meditating upon Mr. Eedworth. 
 
 "That is a serious misfortune, if true," said Lady Dun- 
 stane. She thought so for two reasons: Mr. Eedworth gen- 
 erally disagreed in opinion with Diana, and contradicted her 
 so flatly as to produce the impression of his not even sharing 
 the popular admiration of her beauty; and, further, she hoped 
 for Diana to make a splendid marriage. The nibbles threat- 
 ened to be snaps and bites. There had been a proposal, in an 
 epistle, a quaint effusion, from a gentleman, avowing that he 
 had seen her and had not danced with her on the night of 
 the Irish ball. He was rejected, but Diana groaned over the 
 task of replying to the unfortunate applicant, so as not to 
 wound him. "Shall I have to do this often, I wonder?" she 
 said. 
 
 "Unless you capitulate," said her friend. 
 
 Diana's exclamation: "May I be heart-free for another ten 
 years!" encouraged Lady Dunstane to suppose her husband 
 quijja-fiaistaten:-^ 
 
 (In the spring Diana went on a first pilgrimage-ta her old 
 hohreT-^fitfe Cross ways, and was kindly entertained by the 
 uncle and aunt of a. treasured nephew, Mr. Augustus Warwick. 
 She rode with him on the Downs. A visit of a week human- 
 ized her view of the intruders. She wrote almost tenderly of 
 her host and hostess to Lady Dunstane; they had but "the one 
 fault of spoiling their nephew." Him she described as a "gen-, 
 tlemanly official," a picture of him. His age wa^^hiiiyricmr? 
 He seemed "fond of her scenery." Then her pen swept over 
 the Downs like a flying horse. Lady Dunstane thought no 
 more of the gentlemanly official. He was a barrister who 
 did not practice: in nothing the man for Diana. Letters came 
 from the house of the Pettigrews, in Kent; from London; from 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. ( 45 
 
 Halford Manor, in Hertfordshire; from Lockton Grange, in 
 Lincolnshire: after which they ceased to he the thrice weekly, 
 and, reading the latest of them. Lady Dunstane imagined a 
 flustered quill. The letter succeeding the omission contained 
 no excuse, and it was brief. There was a strange interjection, 
 as to the wearifulness of constantly wandering, like a leaf off 
 the tree. Diana spoke of looking for a return of the dear 
 winter days at Copsley. That was her station. Either she 
 must have had some disturbing experience, or Copsley was dear 
 for a Eedworth reason, thought the anxious peruser. Musing, 
 dreaming, putting together divers shreds of correspondence, 
 and testing them with her intimate knowledge of Diana's 
 character. Lady Dunstane conceived that the unprotected 
 beautiful girl had suffered a persecution, it might be an insult. 
 She spelt over the names of the guests at the houses. Lord 
 Wroxeter was of evil report: Captain Eampan, a turf captain, 
 had the like notoriety. And it is impossible in a great house 
 for the hostess to spread her aegis to cover every dame and 
 damsel present. She has to depend on the women being dis- 
 creet, the men civilized. "How brutal men can be!" was one 
 of Diana's incidental remarks, in a subsequent letter, relating 
 simply to masculine habits. In those days the famous ances- 
 tral plea of "the passion for his charmer" had not been alto- 
 gether socially quashed down among the provinces, where the 
 bottle maintained a sort of sway, and the beauty which in- 
 flfimed the sons of men was held to be in coy expectation of 
 violent effects upon their boiling blood. There were, one 
 hears that there still are, remnants of the pristine male, who, 
 if resisted in their suing, conclude that they are scorned, and 
 it infuriates them; some also whose "passion for the charmer" 
 is an instinct to pull down the standard of the sex, by a bully 
 imposition of sheer physical ascendancy, whenever they see it 
 flying with an air of gallant independence; and some who dedi- 
 cate their lives to a study of the arts of the Lord of Reptiles, 
 until they have worked the crisis for a display of him in person. 
 Assault or siege, they have achieved their triumphs; they have 
 dominated a frailer system of nerves, and a young woman 
 without father, or brother, or husband to defend her, is cry- 
 ingly a weak one, therefore inviting to such an order of he- 
 roes. Lady Dunstane was quick-witted and had a talkative 
 husband; she knew a little of the upper social world of her t / 
 
 time. She was heartily glad to have Diana by her side again. Iaj-x-a/^ 
 
46 BMNA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 Not a word of any serious experience was uttered. Only 
 on one occasion, while they conversed, something being men- 
 tioned of her tolerance, a flush of swarthy crimson shot over 
 Diana, and she frowned, with the outcry, ''Oh! I have dis- 
 covered that I can be a tigress!" 
 
 Her friend pressed her hand, saying, "The cause a good 
 one!" 
 
 "Women have to fight." 
 
 Diana said no more. There had been a bad experience of 
 her isolated position in the world. 
 
 Lady Dunstane now indulged a partial hope that Mr. Eed- 
 worth might see in this unprotected beautiful girl a person 
 worthy of his esteem. He had his opportunities, and evi- 
 dently he liked her. She appeared to take more cordially to 
 him. She valued the sterling nature of the man. But they 
 were a hopeless couple, they were so friendl}^ Both ladies 
 noticed in him an abstractedness of look, often when convers- 
 ing, as of a man in calculation; they put it down to an ambi- 
 tious mind. Yet Diana said then, and said always, that it was 
 he who had first taught her the art of observing. On the 
 whole, the brilliant marriage seemed a fairer prospect for her; 
 how reasonable to anticipate. Lady Dunstane often thought, 
 when admiring the advance of Diana's beauty in queenli- 
 ness, for never did woman carry her head more grandly, more 
 thrillingly make her presence felt; and if only she had been 
 an actress, showing herself nightly on a London stage, she 
 would before now have met the superb appreciation, melan- 
 choly to reflect upon! 
 
 Diana regained her happy composure at Copsley. She had, 
 as she imagined, no ambition. The dullness of the place con- 
 veyed a charm to a nature recovering from disturbance to its 
 clear smooth flow. Air, light, books, and her friend, these 
 good things she had; they were all she wanted. She rode, she 
 walked, with Sir Lukin or Mr. Eedworth, for companion; or 
 with Saturday and Sunday guests, Lord Larrian, her declared 
 admirer, among them. "Twenty years younger!" he said to 
 her, shrugging, with a merry smile drawn a little at the 
 corners to sober sourness; and she vowed to her friend that she 
 would not have had the heart to refuse him. "Though," said 
 she, "speaking generally, I cannot tell you what a foreign ani- 
 mal a husband would appear in my kingdom." Her expe- 
 rience had wakened a sexual aversion, of some slight kind, 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSS WAYS. M7 7 
 
 enough to make her feminine pride stipulate for perfect inde- 
 pendence, that she might have the calm out of which imagina- 
 tion spreads wing. Imagination had become her broader life, 
 and on such an earth, under such skies, a husband who is not 
 the fountain of them certainly is a foreign animal: he is a 
 discordant note. He contracts the ethereal world, deadens 
 radiancy. He is gross fact, a leash, a muzzle, harness, a hood, 
 whatever is detestable to the free limbs and senses. It amused 
 Lady Dunstane to hear Diana say, one evening when their 
 conversation fell by hazard on her future, that the idea of a 
 convent was more welcome to her than the most splendid mar- 
 riage. "For,^' she added, "as I am sure I shall never know 
 anything of this love they rattle about and rave about, I shall 
 do well to keep to my good single path; and I have a warning 
 within me that a step out of it will be a wrong one — for me, 
 dearest!" 
 
 She wished her view of the yoke to be considered purely 
 personal, drawn from no examples and comparisons. The ex- 
 cellent Sir Lukin was passing a great deal of his time in Lon- 
 don. His wife had not a word of blame for him; he was a re- 
 spectful husband, and attentive when present; but so uncer- 
 tain, owing to the sudden pressure of engagements, that Diana, 
 bound on a second visit to The Crossways, doubted whether 
 she w^ould be able to quit her friend, whose condition did not 
 allow of her being left solitary at Copsley. He came never- 
 theless a day before Diana's appointed departure on her round 
 of visits. She was pleased with him, and let him see it, for 
 the encouragement of a husband in the observance of his du- 
 ties. One of the horses had fallen lame, so they went out for 
 a walk, at Lady Dunstane's request. It was a delicious after- ^^ , 
 noon of spring, with the full red disk of sun dropping behind ' vj*' \J 
 the brown beech-twigs. She remembered long afterward the^] ^T 
 sweet simpleness of her feelings as she took in the scent of -.3, 
 wild flowers along the lanes and entered the woods — jaws of 
 another monstrous and blackening experience. He fell into 
 the sentimental vein, and a man coming from that heated 
 London life to these glorified woods might be excused for do- 
 ing so, though it sounded to her just a little ludicrous in him. 
 She played tolerantly second to it; she quoted a snatch of 
 poetry, and his whole face was bent to her, with the petition 
 that she would repeat the verse. Much struck was this giant 
 ex-dragoon. Ah! how fine! grand! He would rather hear that 
 
48 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 than any opera: it was diviner! "Yes, the best poetry is/' she 
 assented. "On your lips/' he said. She laughed. "I am not 
 a particularly melodious reciter." He vowed he could listen 
 to her eternal^, eternally. His face, on a screw of the neck 
 and shoulders, was now perpetually three-quarters fronting. 
 Ah! she was going to leave. "Yes, and you will find my re- 
 turn quite early enough," said Diana, stepping a trifle more 
 briskly. His fist was raised on the length of the arm, as if in 
 invocation. "JSTot in the whole of London is there a woman 
 worthy to fasten your shoe-buckles! My oath on it! I look; 
 I can't spy one." Such was his flattering eloquence. 
 
 She told him not to think it necessary to pay her compli- 
 ments. "And here, of all places!" They were in the heart of 
 the woods. She found her hand seized — her waist. Even then, 
 so impossible is it to conceive the unimaginable even when 
 the apparition of it smites us, she expected some protesting 
 absurdity, or that he had seen something in her path. What 
 did she hear? And from her friend's husband! 
 
 If stricken idiotic, he was a gentleman; the tigress she had 
 detected in her composition did not require to be called forth; 
 half-a-dozen words, direct, sharp as fangs and teeth, with the 
 eyes burning over them, sufficed for the work of defense. 
 "The man who swore loyalty to Emma!" Her reproachful re- 
 pulsion of eyes was unmistakable, withering; as masterful as 
 a superior force on his muscles. "What thing had he been 
 taking her for? She asked it within: and he of himself, in a 
 reflective gasp. Those eyes of hers appeared as in a cloud, 
 with the wrath above: she had the look of a goddess in anger. 
 He stammered, pleaded across her flying shoulder — Oh! horri- 
 ble, loathsome, pitiable to hear! .... "A momentary 
 
 aberration her beauty .... he deserved 
 
 to be shot! .... could not help admiring .... 
 quite lost his head . . . . on his honor! never again!" 
 
 Once in the roadway, and Copsley visible, she checked her 
 arrowy pace for breath, and almost commiserated the de- 
 jected wretch in her thankfulness to him for silence. Noth- 
 ing exonerated him, but at least he had the grace not to beg 
 secrecy. That would have been an intolerable whine of a pol- 
 troon, adding to her humiliation. He abstained 5 he stood at 
 her mercy without appealing. 
 
 She was not the woman to take poor vengeance. But, oh! 
 she was prof ooindly humiliated, shamed through and through. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 49 
 
 The question, Was I guilty of any lightness — anything to bring 
 this on me? would not be laid. And how she pitied her 
 friend! This house, her heart's home, was now a wreck to 
 her: nay worse, a hostile citadel. The burden of the task of 
 meeting Emma with an open face crushed her like very guilt. 
 Yet she succeeded. After an hour in her bedchamber she 
 managed to lock up her heart and summon the sprite of act- 
 ing to her tongue and features; which ready attendant on the 
 suffering female host performed his liveliest throughout the 
 evening, to Emma's amusement and to the culprit ex-dra- 
 goon's astonishment; in whom, to tell the truth of him, her 
 sparkle and fun kindled the sense of his being less criminal 
 than he had supposed, with a dim vision of himself as the 
 real proven donkey for not having been a harmless dash more 
 so. But, to be just as well as penetrating, this was only the 
 effect of her personal charm on his nature. So it spurred him 
 a moment when it struck this doleful man that to have secured 
 one kiss of those fresh and witty sparkling lips he would en- 
 dure forfeits, pangs, anything save the hanging of his 
 culprit's head before his Emma. Eeflection washed him 
 clean. Secrecy is not a medical restorative, by no means a 
 good thing for the baffled amorously-adventurous cavalier, 
 unless the lady's character shall have been firmly established 
 in or over his hazy wagging noddle. Eeflection informed him 
 that the honorable, generous, proud girl spared him for the 
 sake of the house she loved. After a night of tossing, he rose 
 right heartily repentant. He showed it in the best manner, 
 not dramatically. On her accepting his offer to drive her 
 down to the valley to meet the coach, a genuine illumination 
 of pure gratitude made a better man of him, both to look at 
 and in feeling. She did not hesitate to consent; and he had 
 half expected a refusal. She talked on the way quite as 
 usual, cheerfully, if not altogether so spiritedly. A flash of 
 her matchless wit now and then reduced him to that abject 
 state of man beside the fair person he has treated high cava- 
 lierly, which one craves permission to describe as pulp. He 
 was utterly beaten. 
 
 The sight of Eedworth on the valley road was a relief to 
 them both. He had slept in one of the houses of the valley, 
 and spoke of having had the intention to mount to Copsley. 
 Sir Lukin proposed to drive him back. He glanced at Diana, 
 still with that calculating abstract air of his, and he was ral- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 lied. He confessed to being absorbed in railways, new lines of 
 railways projected to thread the land and fast mapping it. 
 
 "You've not embarked money in them?" said Sir Lukin. 
 
 The answer was, "I have; all I possess." And Redworth 
 for a sharp instant set his eyes on Diana, indifferent to Sir 
 Lukin's bellow of stupefaction at such gambling on the part 
 of a prudent fellow. 
 
 He asked her where she was to be met, where written to, 
 during the summer, in case of his wishing to send her news. 
 
 She replied, "Copsley will be the surest. I am always in 
 communication with Lady Dunstane." She colored deeply. 
 The recollection of the change of her feeling for Copsley suf- 
 fused her maiden mind. 
 
 The strange blush prompted an impulse in Eedworth to 
 speak to her at once of his venture in railways. But what 
 would she understand of them, as connected with the mighty 
 stake he was playing for? He delayed. The coach came at 
 a trot of the horses, admired by Sir Lukin, round a corner. 
 She entered it, her maid followed, the door banged, the horses 
 trotted. She was off. 
 
 Her destiny of The Crossways tied a knot, barred a gate, 
 and pointed to a new direction of the road on that fine spring 
 morning, when beech-buds were near the burst, cowslips yel- 
 lowed the meadow-fiats, and skylarks quivered upward. 
 
 For many long years Redworth had in his memory, for a 
 comment on procrastination and excessive scrupulousness in 
 his calculating faculty, the blue back of a coach. 
 
 He declined the vacated place beside Sir Lukin, promising 
 to come and spend a couple of days at Copsley in a fortnig^it 
 -^Saturday week. He wanted, he said, to have a talk with 
 Lady Dunstane. Evidently he had railways on the brain, 
 and Sir Lukin warned his wife to be guarded against the 
 speculative mania, and advise the man, if she could. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME 
 TOO LATE. 
 
 On the Saturday of his appointment Redworth arrived at 
 Copsley, with a shade deeper of the calculating look under 
 his thick brows habitual to him latterly. He found Lady 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 51 
 
 Dunstane at her desk, pen in hand, the paper untouched; 
 and there was an appearance of trouble about her somewhat 
 resembhng his own, as he would have observed had he been 
 open-minded enough to notice anything, except that she was 
 writing a letter. He begged her to continue it; he proposed 
 to read a book till she was at leisure. 
 
 "I have to write, and scarcely know how," said she, clear- 
 ing her face to make the guest at home, and taking a chair 
 by the fire; "I would rather chat for half an hour." 
 
 She spoke of the weather — frosty, but tonic; bad for the 
 last days of hunting, good for the farmer and the country, let 
 us hope. 
 
 Eedworth nodded assent. It might be surmised that he 
 was brooding over those railways in which he had embarked 
 his fortune. Ah! those railways! She was not long coming 
 to the wailful exclamation upon them, both to express her 
 "personal sorrow at the disfigurement of our dear England, 
 and lead to a little, modest, offering of a woman's counsel 
 to the rash adventurer; for thus could she serviceably put 
 aside her perplexity awhile. Those railways! When would 
 there be peace in the land? Where one single nook of shelter 
 and escape from them! And the English, blunt as their 
 senses are, to noise and hubbub, would be reveling in hisses, 
 shrieks, puffings, and screeches, so that traveling would be- 
 come an intolerable aiffiction. "I speak rather as an in- 
 valid," she admitted; "I conjure up all sorts of horrors, the 
 whistle in the night beneath one's windows, and the smoke 
 of trains defacing the landscape; hideous accidents too. 
 They will be wholesale and past help. Imagine a collision! 
 I have borne many changes with equanimity, I pretend to a 
 certain degree of philosophy, but this mania for cutting up the 
 land does really cause me to pity those who are to follow us. 
 They will not see the England we have seen. It will be 
 patched and scored, disfigured .... a sort of barbar- 
 ous Maori visage — England in a New Zealand mask. You may 
 call it the sentimental view. In this case I am decidedly sen- 
 timental; I love my country. I do love quiet, rural England. 
 Well, and I love beauty; I love simplicity. All that will be 
 destroyed by the refuse of the towns flooding the land — ^bar- 
 ring accidents, as Lukin says. There seems nothing else to 
 save us." 
 
 Eedworth acquiesced. "Nothing." 
 
w. 
 
 52 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "And you do not regret it?" he was asked. 
 
 "J^ot a bit. We have already exchanged opinions on the 
 subject. Simplicity must go, and the townsman meet his 
 equal in the countryman. As for beauty, I would sacrifice 
 that to circulate gumption. A bushelful of nonsense is talked 
 pro and con; it always is at an innovation. What we are now 
 doing is to take a longer and a quicker stride — that is all." 
 
 "And establishing a new field for the speculator?" 
 
 "Yes, and I am one; and this is the matter I wanted to dis- 
 cuss with you. Lady Dunstane," said Eedworth, bending for- 
 ward, the whole man devoted to the point of business. 
 
 She declared she was complimented; she felt the compli- 
 ment, and trusted her advice might be useful, faintly remark- 
 ing that she had a woman's head; and "not less" was implied 
 as much as "not more," in order to give strength to her pros- 
 pective opposition. 
 
 All his money, she heard, was down on the railway table. 
 He might, within a year, have a tolerable fortune; and, of 
 course, he might be ruined. He did not expect it; still he 
 fronted the risks. "And now," said he, "I come to you for 
 counsel. I am not held among my acquaintances to be a 
 marrying man, as it is called." 
 
 He paused. Lady Dunstane thought it an occasion to 
 praise him for his considerateness. 
 
 "You involve no one but yourself, you mean?" Her eyes 
 shed approval. "Still the day may come .... I say 
 only that it may; and the wish to marry is a rosy coloring 
 . . . . equal to a flying chariot in conducting us across 
 difficulties and obstructions to the deed. And then one may 
 have to regret a previous rashness." 
 
 These practical men are sometimes obtuse; she dwelt on 
 that vision of the future. 
 
 He listened, and resumed: "My view of marriage is, that 
 no man should ask a woman to be his wife unless he is well 
 able to support her in the comforts, not to say luxuries, she 
 is accustomed to." His gaze had wandered to the desk; it 
 fixed there. "That is Miss Merion's writing," he said. 
 
 "The letter?" said Lady Dunstane, and she stretched out 
 her hand to press down a leaf of it. "Yes; it is from he*"." 
 
 'T.S she quite well?" 
 
 "I suppose she is. She does not speak of her health." 
 
 He looked pertinaciously in the direction of the letter, and 
 
DIANA OF THE CR09SWAYS. 53 
 
 it was not rightly mannered. That letter, of all others, was 
 covert and sacred to the friend. It contained the weightiest 
 of secrets. 
 
 "I have not written to her," said Redworth. 
 
 He was astonishing: "To whom? To Diana? You could 
 very well have done so, only I fancy she knows nothing, has 
 never given a thought to railway stocks and shares; she has 
 a loathing for speculation." 
 
 "And speculators too, I dare say." 
 
 "It is extremely probable." Lady Dunstane spoke with an 
 emphasis, for the man liked Diana, and would be moved by 
 the idea of forfeiting her esteem. 
 
 "She might blame me if I did anything dishonorable." 
 
 "She certainly would." 
 
 "She will have no cause." 
 
 Lady Dunstane began to look, as at a cloud charged with 
 remote explosions; and still for the moment she was unsus- 
 pecting. But it was a flitting moment. When he went on, 
 and very singularly droning to her ear: "The more a man 
 loves a woman the more he should be positive, before asking 
 her, that she will not have to consent to a loss of position, 
 and I would rather lose her than fail to give her all — not be 
 sure, as far as a man can be sure, of giving her all I think 
 she's worthy of;" then the cloud shot a lighting flash, and the 
 doors of her understanding swung wide to the entry of a great 
 wonderment. A shock of pain succeeded it. Her sympathy 
 was roused so acutely that she slipped over the reflective re- 
 buke she would have addressed to her silly delusion concern- 
 ing his purpose in speaking of his affairs to a woman. 
 Though he did not mention Diana by name, Diana was clearly 
 the person. And why had he delayed to speak to her? Be- 
 cause of this venture of his money to make him a fortune, for 
 the assurance of her future comfort! Here was the best of 
 men for the girl, not displeasing to her; a good, strong, trust- 
 worthy man, pleasant to hear and to see, only erring in being a 
 trifle too scrupulous in love; and a fortnight back she would 
 have imagined he had no chance; and now she knew that the 
 chance was excellent in those days, with this revelation in 
 Diana's letter, which said that all chance was over. 
 
 ^The courtship of a woman," he droned away, "is in my 
 mind not fair to her until a man has to the full enough to 
 sanction his asking her to marry him. And if he throws all 
 
54 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 he possesses on a stake .... to win her — give her 
 what she has a right to claim, he ought .... Only at 
 
 present the prospect seems good He ought, of 
 
 course, to wait. Well, the value of the stock I hold has dou- 
 bled, and it increases. I am a careful watcher of the market. 
 I have friends — brokers and railway directors. I can rely on 
 them.'' 
 
 "Pray," interposed Lady Dunstane, "specify — ^I am rather 
 in a mist — ^the exact point upon which you do me the honor 
 to consult me.'' She ridiculed herself for having imagined 
 that such a man would come to consult her upon a point of 
 business. 
 
 "It is," he replied, "this; whether, as affairs now stand 
 with me — ^I have an income from my office, and personal 
 property .... say between thirteen and fourteen hun- 
 dred a year to start with — whether you think me justified in 
 asking a lady to share my lot?" 
 
 "Why not? But will you name the lady?" 
 
 "Then I may write at once? In your judgment 
 
 Yes, the lady. I have not named her. I had no right. Be- 
 sides, the general question first, in fairness to the petitioner. 
 You might reasonably stipulate for more for a friend. She 
 could make a match, as you have said . ..." he mut- 
 tered of "brilliant" and "the highest"; and his humbleness of 
 the honest man enamored touched Lady Dunstane. She saw 
 him now as the man of strength that she would have selected 
 from a thousand suitors to guide her dear friend. 
 
 She caught at a straw, "Tell me, it is not Diana?" 
 
 "Diana Merion!" 
 
 As soon as he had said it he perceived pity, and he drew 
 himself tight for the stroke. "She's in love with some one?" 
 
 "She is engaged." 
 
 He bore it well. He was a big-chested fellow, and that ex- 
 cruciating twist within of the revolution of the wheels of the 
 brain snapping their course to grind the contrary to that of 
 the heart was revealed in one short lift and gasp, a compres- 
 sion of the tremendous change he underwent. 
 
 "Why did you not speak before?" said Lady Dunstane. 
 Her words were tremulous. 
 
 "I should have had no justification." 
 
 "You might have won her!" She could have wept; her 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. ( 55 1 
 
 j 
 
 sympathy and her self-condolence under disappointment at 
 Diana's conduct joined to swell the feminine flood. 
 
 The poor fellow's quick breathing and blinking reminded 
 her of cruelty in a retrospect. She generalized to ease her 
 spirit of regret, by hinting it without hurting: "Women really 
 are not puppets. They are not so excessively luxurious. It 
 is good for young women in the early days of marriage to 
 rough it a little." She found herself droning, as he had done. 
 
 He had ears for nothing but the fact. 
 
 "Then I am too late!" 
 
 "I have heard it to-day." 
 
 "She is engaged! Positively?" 
 
 Lady Dunstane glanced backward at the letter on her desk. 
 She had to answer the strangest of letters that had ever come 
 to her, and it was from her dear Tony, the baldest intimation 
 of the weightiest piece of intelligence which a woman can 
 communicate to her heart's friend. The task of answering it 
 was now doubled. "I fear so, I fancy so," she said, and she 
 longed to cast eye over the letter again, to see if there might 
 possibly be a loophole behind the lines. 
 
 "Then I must make my mind up to it," said Redworth. 
 "I think I'll take a walk." 
 
 She smiled kindly. "It will be our secret." 
 
 "I thank you with all my heart. Lady Dunstane." 
 
 He was not a weaver of phrases in distress. His blunt re- 
 serve was eloquent of it to her, and she liked him the better; 
 could have thanked him, too, for leaving her promptly. 
 
 When she was alone she took in the contents of the letter 
 at a hasty glimpse. It was of one paragraph, and fired its 
 shot like a cannon with the muzzle at her breast: 
 
 "My Own Emmy, — I have been asked in marriage by Mr. 
 Warwick, and have accepted him. Signify your approval, 
 for I have decided that it is the wisest thing a waif can do. 
 We are to live at The Crossways for four months of the year, 
 so I shall have Dada in his best days and all my youngest 
 dreams, my sunrise and morning dew, surrounding me; my 
 old home for my new one. I write in haste, to you first, burn- 
 ing to hear from you. Send your blessing to yours in life and 
 death, through all transformations, — Toky." If 
 
 That was all. Not a word of the lover about to be deco- 
 rated with the title of husband. No confession of love, nor 
 
56 DIlANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 a single supplicating word to her friend, in excuse for tlie 
 abrupt decision to so grave a step. Her previous description 
 of him, as a "gentlemanly official" in his appearance, con- 
 jured him up most distastefully. True, she might have made 
 a more lamentable choice; a silly lordling, or a hero of scan- 
 dal; but, if a "gentlemanly official" was of stabler mold, he 
 failed to harmonize quite so well with the idea of a creature 
 like Tony. Perhaps Mr. Eedworth also failed in something. 
 Where was the man fitly to mate her? Mr. Eedworth, 
 however, was manly and trustworthy; of the finest Saxon type 
 in build and in character. He had great qualities, and his ex- 
 cess of scrupulousness was most pitiable. 
 
 She read, "The wisest thing a waif can do." It bore a 
 sound of desperation. Avowedly Tony had accepted him 
 without being in love. Or was she masking the passion? No; 
 had it been a case of love she would have written very differ- 
 ently to her friend. 
 
 Lady Dunstane controlled the pricking of the wound in- 
 flicted by Diana's novel exercise in laconics where the fullest 
 flow was due to tenderness, and dispatched felicitations upon 
 the text of the initial line, "Wonders are always happening." 
 She wrote to hide vexation beneath surprise; naturally be- 
 traying it. "I must hope and pray that you have not been 
 precipitate." Her curiosity to inspect the happiest of men, 
 the most genuine part of her letter, was expressed coldly. 
 When she had finished the composition she perused it, and 
 did not recognize herself in her language, though she had 
 been so guarded to cover the wound her Tony dealt their 
 friendship, in some degree injuring their sex. For it might 
 now, after such an example, verily seem that women are in- 
 capable of a translucent perfect confidence; their impulses, 
 caprices, desperations, tricks of concealment, trip a heart- 
 whole friendship. Well, to-morrow, if not to-day, the trip- 
 ping may be expected! Lady Dunstane resigned herself sadly 
 to a lowered view of her Tony's character. This was her un- 
 conscious act of reprisal. Her brilliant beloved Tony, daz- 
 zling but in beauty and the gifted mind, stood as one essen- 
 tially with the common order of women. She wished to be 
 settled, Mr. Warwick proposed, and for the sake of living at 
 The Crossways she accepted him; she, the lofty scorner of 
 loveless marriages! who had said — how many times! — that 
 nothing save love excused it! She degraded their mutual 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 57 
 
 high standard of womankind. Diana was in eclipse full three 
 parts. The hulk of the gentlemanly official she had chosen 
 obscured her. But I have written very carefully, thought 
 Lady Dunstane, dropping her answer into the post-hag. She 
 had, indeed, been so careful that, to cloak her feeling, she had 
 written as another person. Women with otiose husbands have 
 a task to preserve friendship. 
 
 Redworth carried his burden through the frosty air at a 
 pace to melt icicles in Greenland. He walked unthinkingly, 
 right ahead, to the red West, as he discovered when pausing 
 to consult his watch. Time was left to return at the same 
 pace and dress for dinner; he swung round and picked up 
 remembrances of sensations he had strewn by the way. She 
 knew these woods; he was walking in her footprints; she 
 was engaged to be married. Yes, his principle, never to ask 
 a woman to marry him, never to court her, without bank- 
 book assurance of his ability to support her in cordial com- 
 fort, was right. He maintained it, and owned himself a 
 donkey for having stuck to it. Between him and his excellent 
 principle there was war, without the slightest division. 
 Warned of the danger of losing her, he would have done the 
 same again, confessing himself donkey for his pains. The 
 principle was right, because it was due to the woman. His 
 rigid adherence to the principle set him belaboring his 
 donkey-ribs, as the proper due to himself. For he might 
 have had a chance, all through two winters. The oppor- 
 tunities had been numberless. Here, in this beech Avood; 
 near that thornbush; on the juniper slope; from the corner 
 of chalk and sand in junction, to the corner of clay and 
 chalk; all the length of the wooded ridge he had reminders 
 of her presence and his priceless chances; and still the stand- 
 ard of his conduct said No, while his heart bled. 
 
 He felt that a chance had been. More sagacious than Lady 
 Dunstane, from his not nursing a wound, he divined, in the 
 abruptness of Diana's resolution to accept a suitor, a sober 
 reason, and a fitting one, for the wish that she might be set- 
 tled. And had he spoken? — If he had spoken to her she 
 might have given her hand to him, to a dishonorable brute! 
 A blissful brute! But a worse than donkey. Yes, his prin- 
 ciple was right, and he lashed with it, and prodded with it, 
 drove himself out into the sour wilds where bachelordom crops 
 
58 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 noxious weeds without a hallowing luminary, and clung to it, 
 bruised and bleeding though he was. 
 
 The gentleness of Lady Dunstane soothed him during the 
 term of a visit that was rather like purgatory sweetened by 
 angelical tears. He was glad to go, wretched in having gone. 
 She diverted the incessant conflict between his insubordinate 
 self and his castigating, but avowedly sovereign, principle. 
 Away from her he was the victim of a flagellation so dire that 
 it almost drove him to revolt against the lord he served, and 
 somehow the many memories at Copsley kept away. Sir 
 Lukin, when speaking of Diana's "engagement to that fellow 
 Warwick," exalted her with an extraordinary enthusiasm, ex- 
 ceedingly hard for the silly beast who had lost her to bear. 
 For the present the place dearest to Eedworth of all places on 
 earth was unendurable. 
 
 Meanwhile the value of railway investments rose in the 
 market, fast as asparagus-heads for cutting; a circumstance 
 that added stings to reflection. Had he been only a little 
 bolder, a little less the fanatical devotee of his rule of mascu- 
 line honor, less the slave to the letter of success 
 
 But why reflect at all? Here was a goodly income approach- 
 ing, perhaps a seat in Parliament; a station for the airing 
 of his opinions — and a social status for the wife now denied to 
 him. The wife was denied to him; he could conceive of no 
 other. The tyrant-ridden, reticent, tenacious creature had 
 thoroughly wedded her in mind; her view of things had 
 a throne beside his own, even in their differences. He per- 
 ceived, agreeing or disagreeing, the motions of her brain, as 
 he did with none other of women; and this it is which stamps 
 character on her, divides her from them, up-raises and en- 
 spheres. He declined to live with any other of the sex. 
 
 Before he could hear of the sort of man Mr. Warwick was 
 — a perpetual object of his quest — the bridal bells had rung, 
 and Diana Antonia Merion lost her maiden name. She be- 
 came the Mrs. Warwick of our footballing world. 
 
 Why she married she never told. Possibly, in amazement 
 at herself subsequently, she forgot the specific reason. That 
 which weighs heavily in youth, and commits us to desperate 
 action, will be a trifle under older eyes, to blunter senses, a 
 more enlightened understanding. Her friend Emma probed 
 for the reason vainly. It was partly revealed to Eedworth 
 by guess-work and a putting together of pieces, yet quite lunu- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 59 
 
 nously, as it were by touch of tentacle-feelers, one evening 
 that he passed with Sir Lukin Dunstane, when the lachrymose 
 ex-dragoon and son of Idlesse had rather more than dined. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE COUPLE. 
 
 Six months a married woman, Diana came to Copsley to in- 
 troduce her husband. They had run over Italy; "the Italian 
 Peninsula," she quoted him in a letter to Lady Dunstane; and 
 were furnishing their London house. Her first letters from 
 Italy appeared to have a little bloom of sentiment. Augustus 
 was mentioned as liking this and that in the land of beauty. 
 He patronized art, and it was a pleasure to hear him speak 
 upon pictures and sculptures; he knew a great deal about 
 them. "He is an authority." Her humor soon began to play 
 round the fortunate man, who did not seem, to the reader's 
 mind, to bear so well a sentimental clothing. His pride was 
 in being very English on the Continent, and Diana's instances 
 of his lofty appreciations of the garden of art and nature, and 
 statuesque walk through it, would have been more amusing 
 if her friend could have harmonized her idea of the couple. A 
 description of "a bit of a wrangle between us" at Lucca, where 
 an Italian post-master, on a journey of inspection, claimed a 
 share of their carriage and audaciously attempted entry, was 
 laughable, but jarred. Would she some day lose her relish for 
 ridicule and see him at a distance? He was generous, Diana 
 said; she saw fine qualities in him. It might be that he was 
 lavish on his bridal tour. She said he was unselfish, kind, 
 affable with his equals; he was cordial to the acquaintances 
 he met. Perhaps his worst fault was an affected supercilious- 
 ness before the foreigner, not uncommon in those days. "You 
 are to know, dear Emmy, that we English are the aristocracy 
 of Europeans." Lady Dunstane inclined to think we were; 
 nevertheless, in the mouth of a "gentlemanly official" the 
 frigid arrogance added a stroke of caricature to his deport- 
 ment. On the other hand, the reports of him gleaned by Sir 
 Lukin sounded favorable. He was not taken to be preter- 
 naturally stiff, nor bright, but a ^oodish sort of fellow; good 
 
60 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 horseman, good shot, good character. In short, the average 
 EngHshman, excelling as a cavalier, a slayer, and an orderly 
 subject. That was a somewhat elevated standard to the 
 patriotic Emma. Only she would never have stipulated for 
 an average to espouse Diana. Would he understand her, 
 and value the best in her? Another and unanswered ques- 
 tion was. How could she have condescended to wed with an 
 average? There was transparently some secret not confided 
 to her friend. 
 
 He appeared. Lady Dunstane's first impression of him re- 
 curred on his departure. Her unanswered question drummed 
 at her ears, though she remembered that Tony's art in lead- 
 ing him out had moderated her rigidly judicial summary of 
 the union during a greater part of the visit. But his re- 
 quiring to be led out was against him. Considering the sub- 
 jects, his talk was passable. The subjects treated of politics, 
 pictures, continental travel, our manufactures, our wealth, 
 and the reasons for it — excellent reasons well-weighed. He 
 was handsome, as men go; rather tall, not too stout, precise 
 in the modern fashion of his dress, and the pair of whiskers 
 encasing a colorless depression up to a long, thin, straight 
 nose, and closed lips indicating an aperture. The contraction 
 of his mouth expressed an intelligence in the attitude of the 
 firmly negative. The lips opened to smile, the teeth were 
 faultless; an effect was produced, if a cold one — the colder 
 for the unparticipating northern eyes; eyes of that half 
 cloud and blue which make a kind of hueless gray, and are 
 chiefly striking in an authoritative stare. Without contra- 
 dicting, for he was exactly polite, his look signified a person 
 conscious of being born to command; in fine, an aristocrat 
 among the "aristocracy of Europeans." His differences of 
 opinion were prefaced by a "Pardon me," and pausing smile 
 of the teeth; then a succinctly worded sentence or two, a 
 perfect settlement of the dispute. He disliked argumenta- 
 tion. He -said so, and Diana remarked it of him, speaking as 
 a wife who merely noted a characteristic. Inside his boun- 
 dary he had neat phrases, opinions in packets. Beyond it, 
 apparently, the world was void of any particular interest. 
 Sir Lukin, whose boundary would have shown a narrower 
 limitation had it been defined, stood no chance with him. 
 Tory versus Whig, he tried a wrestle, and was thrown. They 
 agreed on the topic of wine. Mr. Warwick had a fine taste 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 61 
 
 in wine. Their after-dinner sittings were devoted to this 
 and the alliterative cognate theme, equally dear to the gal- 
 lant ex-dragoon, from which it resulted that Lady Dunstane 
 received satisfactory information in a man's judgment of him. 
 "Warwick is a clever fellow, and a thorough man of the world, 
 I can tell you, Emmy.'' Sir Lukin further observed that he 
 was a gentlemanly fellow. "A gentlemanly official!" Diana's 
 primary dash of portraiture stuck to him, so true it was! As 
 for her, she seemed to have forgotten it. Not only did she 
 strive to show him to advantage by leading him out; she 
 played second to him, subserviently, fondly; she quite sub- 
 merged herself, content to be dull if he might shine; and her 
 talk of her husband in her friend's blue-chamber boudoir of 
 the golden stars, where they had discussed the world and 
 taken counsel in her maiden days, implied admiration of his 
 merits. He rode superbly; he knew Law; he was prepared 
 for any position; he could speak really eloquently; she had 
 heard him at a local meeting. And he loved the old Cross- 
 ways almost as much as she did. "He has promised me he 
 will never ask me to sell it," she said, with a simpleness that 
 could hardly have been acted. 
 
 When she was gone, Lady Dunstane thought she had worn 
 a mask, in the natural manner of women trpng to make the 
 best of their choice; and she excused her poor Tony for the 
 artful presentation of him at her own cost. But she could 
 not excuse her for having married the man. Her first and 
 final impression likened him to a house locked up and empty; 
 a London house conventionally furnished and decorated by 
 the upholsterer, and empty of inhabitants. How a brilliant 
 and beautiful girl could have committed this rashness was 
 the perplexing riddle; the knottier because the man was idle. 
 And Diana had ambition; she despised and dreaded idleness 
 in men. Empty of inhabitants even to the ghost! Both 
 human and spiritual were wanting. The mind contemplating 
 him became reflectively stagnant. 
 
 I must not be unjust! Lady Dunstane hastened to ex- 
 claim at a whisper that he had at least proved his appreciation 
 of Tony, whom he preferred to call Diana, as she gladly re- 
 membered; and the two were bound together for a moment 
 warmly by her recollection of her beloved Tony's touching 
 little petition: "You will invite us again?" and then there 
 had flashed in Tony's dear dark eyes the look of their old love 
 
eS DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 drowning. They were not to b^ thought of separately. She 
 admitted that the introduction to a woman of her friend's 
 husband is crucially trying to him; he may well show worse 
 than he is. Yet his appreciation of Tony in espousing her 
 was rather marred by Sir Lukin's report of him as a desper- 
 ate admirer of beautiful women. It might be for her beauty 
 only, not for her spiritual qualities! At present he did not 
 seem aware of their existence. But, to be entirely just, she 
 had hardly exhibited them or a sign of them during the first 
 interview; and, sitting with his hostess alone, he had seized 
 the occasion to say that he was the happiest of men. He said 
 it with the nearest approach to fervor she had noticed. Per- 
 haps the very fact of his not producing a highly favorable 
 impression should be set to plead on his behalf. Such as he 
 was, he was himself no simulator. She longed for Mr. Eed- 
 worth's report of him. 
 
 Her compassion for Redworth's feelings, when beholding 
 the woman he loved another man's wife, did not soften the 
 urgency of her injunction that he should go speedily, and see 
 as much of them as he could. "Because," she gave her 
 reason, "I wish Diana to know she has not lost a single friend 
 through her marriage, and is only one the richer." 
 
 Eedworth buckled himself to the task. He belonged to 
 the class of his countrymen who have a dungeon-vault for 
 feelings that should not be suifered to cry abroad, and into 
 this oubliette he cast them, letting them feed as they might, 
 or perish. It was his heart down below, and in no voluntary 
 musings did he listen to it to sustain the thing. Grimly 
 lord of himself, he stood emotionless before the world. Some 
 worthy fellows resemble him, and they are called deep- 
 hearted. He was dungeon-deep. The prisoner underneath 
 might clamor and leap; none heard him or knew of him; 
 nor did he ever view the day. Diana's frank, "Ah, Mr. Eed- 
 worth, how glad I am to see you!" was met by the calmest 
 formalism of the wish for her happiness. He became a guest 
 at her London house, and his report of the domesticity there, 
 and notably of the lord of the house, pleased Lady Dunstane 
 more than her husband's. He saw the kind of man accur- 
 ately, as far as men are to be seen on the surface; and she 
 could say assentingly, without anxiety; "Yes, yes," to his re- 
 marks upon Mr. Warwick, indicative of a man of capable 
 head in worldly affairs, commonplace beside his wife. The 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 /' e) 
 
 noble gentleman for Diana was yet unborn, they tacitly agreed. 
 Meantime one must not put a mortal husband to the fiery 
 ordeal of his wife's deserts, they agreed likewise. "You may 
 be sure she is a constant friend," Lady Dunstane said for his 
 comfort; and she reminded herself subsequently of a shade of 
 disappointment at his imperturbable rejoinder: "I could cal- 
 culate on it." For, though not at all desiring to witness the 
 sentimental fit, she wished to see that he held an image of 
 Diana — surely a woman to kindle poets and heroes, the princes 
 of the race; and it was a curious perversity that the two men 
 she had moved were merely excellent, emotionless, ordinary 
 men, with heads for business. Elsewhere, out of England, 
 Diana would have been a woman for a place in song, exalted 
 to the skies. Here she had the destiny to inflame Mr. Red- 
 worth and Mr. Warwick, two railway directors, bent upon 
 scoring the country to the likeness of a child's lines of hop- 
 scotch in a gravel-yard. 
 
 As with all invalids, the pleasure of living backward was 
 haunted by the tortures it evoked, and two years later she 
 recalled this outcry against the Fates. She would then have 
 prayed for Diana to inflame none but such men as those two. 
 The original error was, of course, that rash and most inexplica- 
 ble marriage, a step never alluded to by the driven victim of 
 it. Lady Dunstane heard rumors of dissensions. Diana 
 did not mention them. She spoke of her husband as unlucky 
 in railway ventures, and of a household necessity for money, 
 nothing further. One day she wrote of a government ap- 
 pointment her husband had received, ending the letter: "So 
 there is the end of our troubles." Her friend rejoiced, and, 
 afterward looking back at her satisfaction, saw the dire be- 
 ginning of them. 
 
 Lord Dannisburgh's name, as one of the admirers of Mrs. 
 Warwick, was dropped once or twice by Sir Lukin. He had 
 dined with the Warwicks, and met the eminent member of 
 the Cabinet at their table. There is no harm in admiration, 
 especially on the part of one of a crowd observing a star. 
 !N"o harm can be imputed when the husband of a beautiful" 
 woman accepts an appointment from the potent Minister 
 admiring her. So Lady Dunstane thought, for she was sure 
 of Diana to her inmost soul. But she soon perceived in Sir 
 Lukin that the old dog- world was preparing to yelp on a scent. 
 He of his nature belonged to the hunting pack, and, with a 
 
64 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 cordial feeling for the quarry, lie was quite with his world in 
 expecting to see her run, and readiness to join the chase. No 
 great scandal had occurred for several months. The world 
 was in want of it; and he, too, with a very cordial feeling 
 for the quarry, piousty hoping she would escape, already had 
 his nose to ground, collecting testimony in the track of 
 her. He said little to his wife, but his world was getting so 
 noisy that he could not help half pursing his lips, as with the 
 soft whistle of an innuendo at the heels of it. Eedworth was 
 in America, engaged in carving up that hemisphere. She had 
 no source of information but her husband's chance gossip; 
 and London was death to her; and Diana, writing faithfully 
 twice a week, kept silence as to Lord Dannisburgh, except in 
 naming him among her guests. She wrote this, which might 
 have a secret personal signification: "We women are the verbs 
 passive of the alliance, we have to learn, and if we take to 
 activity, with the best intentions, we conjugate a frightful dis- 
 turbance. We are to run on lines, like the steam-trains, or we 
 come to no station, dash to fragments. I have the misfortune 
 to know I was born an active. I take my chance." 
 
 Once she coupled the names of Lord Larrian and Lord 
 Dannisburgh, remarking that she had a fatal attraction for 
 antiques. 
 
 The death of her husband's uncle and illness of his aunt 
 withdrew her to The Crossways, where she remained nursing 
 for several months, reading diligently as her letter showed, 
 and watching the approaches of the destroyer. She wrote like 
 her former self, subdued by meditation in the presence of that 
 inevitable. The world ceased barking. Lady Dunstane 
 could suppose Mr. Warwick to have now a reconciling experi- 
 ence of his wife's noble qualities. He probably did value 
 them more. He spoke of her to Sir Lukin in London with 
 commendation. "She is an attentive nurse." He inherited a 
 considerable increase of income when he and his wife were the 
 sole tenants of The Crossways, but, disliking the house, for 
 reasons hard to explain by a man previously professing to 
 share her attachment to it, he wished to sell or let the place, 
 and his wife would do neither. She proposed to continue liv- 
 ing in their small London house rather than be cut off from 
 The Crossways, which, he said, was ludicrous; people should 
 live up to their position; and he sneered at the place, and 
 slightly wounded her, for she was open to a wound when the 
 
DIANA OP THE CR09SWAYS. 65 
 
 cold fire of a renewed attempt at warmth between them was 
 crackling and showing bits of flame, after she had given proof 
 of her power to serve. Service to himself and his relatives 
 affected him. He deferred to her craze for The Crossways, 
 and they lived in a larger London house, "up to their posi- 
 tion/^ which means ever a trifle beyond it, and gave choice 
 dinner-parties to the most eminent. His jealousy slumbered. 
 Having ideas of a seat in Parliament at this period, and pre- 
 ferment superior to the post he held, Mr. Warwick deemed it 
 sagacious to court the potent patron Lord Dannisburgh could 
 be; and his wife had his interests at heart, the fork-tongued 
 world said. The cry revived. Stories of Lord D. and Mrs. 
 W. whipped the hot pursuit. The moral repute of the great 
 Whig lord and the beauty of the lady composed inflammable 
 material. 
 
 "Are you altogether incautious?" Lady Dunstane wrote 
 to Diana; and her friend sent a copious reply: "You have 
 the fullest right to ask your Tony anything, and I will answer 
 as at the Judgment bar. You allude to Lord Dannisburgh. 
 He is near what Dada's age would have been, and is, I think 
 I can affirm, next to my dead father and my Emmy, my dear- 
 est friend. I love him. I could say it in the streets without 
 shame; and you do not imagine me shameless. Whatever his 
 character in his younger days, he can be honestly a woman's 
 friend, believe me. I see straight to his heart; he has no dis- 
 guise; and, unless I am to suppose that marriage is the end 
 of me, I must keep him among my treasures. I see him al- 
 most daily; it is not possible to think I can be deceived; and, 
 as long as he does me the honor to esteem my poor portion 
 of brains by coming to me for what he is good enough to call 
 my counsel, I shall let the world wag its tongue. Between 
 ourselves, I trust to be doing some good. I know I am of use 
 in various ways. 'No doubt there is a danger of a woman's 
 head being turned when she reflects that a powerful Minister 
 governing a kingdom has not considered her too insignificant 
 to advise him; and I am sensible of it. I am, I assure you, 
 dearest, on my guard against it. That would not attach me 
 to him, as his homely friendliness does. He is the most amia- 
 ble, cheerful, benignant of men; he has no feeling of an 
 enemy, though naturally his enemies are numerous and 
 venomous. He is full of observation and humor. How he 
 would amuse you! In many respects accord with you. And 
 
 6 
 
66 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 I should not have a spark of jealousy. Some day I shall beg 
 permission to bring him to Copsley, At present, during the 
 Session, he is too busy, as you know. Me — his 'crystal spring 
 of wisdom' — he can favor with no more than an hour in the 
 afternoon or a few minutes at night. Or I get a pencilled 
 note from the benches of the House, with an anecdote, or news 
 of a Division. I am sure to be enlivened. 
 
 "So I have written to you, fully, simply, frankly. Have 
 perfect faith in your Tony, who would, she vows to Heaven, 
 die rather than disturb it and her heart's beloved." 
 
 The letter terminated with one of Lord Dannisburgh's anec- 
 dotes, exciting to merriment in the season of its freshness; and 
 a postscript of information: "Augustus expects a mission — 
 about a month; uncertain whether I accompany him." 
 
 Mr. Warwick departed on his mission. Diana remained in 
 London. Lady Dunstane wrote entreating her to pass the 
 month — her favorite time of the violet yielding to the cowslip 
 — at Copsley. The invitation could not be accepted, but the 
 next day Diana sent word that she had a surprise for the fol- 
 lowing Sunday, and would bring a friend to lunch, if Sir 
 Lukin would meet them at the corner of the road in the valley 
 leading up to the heights, at a stated hour. 
 
 Lady Dunstane gave the listless baronet his directions, ob- 
 serving: "It's odd, she never will come alone since her mar- 
 riage." 
 
 "Queer!" said he of the serenest absence of conscience; and 
 that there must be something not entirely right going on he 
 strongly inclined to think. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE CRISIS. 
 
 It was a confirmed suspicion when he beheld Lord Dannis- 
 burgh on the box of a four-in-hand, and the peerless Diana 
 beside him, cockaded lackeys in plain livery and the lady's 
 maid to the rear. But Lord Dannisburgh's visit was a com- 
 pliment, and the freak of his driving down under the beams 
 of Aurora on a sober Sunday morning capital fun; so, with a 
 gayety that was kept alive for the invalid Emma to partake of 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 67 
 
 it, they rattled away to the heights, and dimbed them, and 
 Diana rushed to the arms of her friend, whispering and coo- 
 ing for pardon if she startled her, guilty of a little whiff of 
 blarney. Lord Dannisburgh wanted so much to be intro- 
 duced to her, and she so much wanted her to know him, and 
 she hoped to be graciously excused for thus bringing them to- 
 gether, *^that she might be chorus to them!" Chorus was a 
 pretty fiction on the part of the thrilling and topping voice. 
 She was the very radiant Diana of her earliest opening day, 
 both in look and speech, a queenly comrade, and a spirit leap- 
 ing and shining like a mountain water. She did not seduce, 
 she ravished. The judgment was taken captive and flowed 
 with her. As to the prank of the visit, Emma heartily en- 
 joyed it, and hugged it for a holiday of her own; and doting 
 on the beautiful, dark-eyed, fresh creature, who bore the name 
 of the divine huntress, she thought her a true Dian in stature, 
 step, and attributes, the genius of laughter superadded. None 
 else on earth so sweetly laughed, none so spontaneously, vic- 
 toriously provoked the healthful openness. Her delicious 
 chatter, and her museful sparkle in listening, equally quick- 
 ened every sense of life. Adorable as she was to her friend 
 Emma at all times, she that day struck a new fountain in 
 memory. And it was pleasant to see the great lord's admira- 
 tion of this wonder. One could firmly believe in their friend- 
 ship and his winning ideas from the abounding bubbling well. 
 A recurrent smile beamed on his face when hearing and ob- 
 serving her. Certain dishes provided at the table were Diana's 
 favorites, and he relished them, asking for a second help, and 
 remarking that her taste was good in that as in all things. 
 They lunched, eating like boys. They walked over the 
 grounds of Copsley, and into the lanes and across the meadows 
 of the cowslip, rattling, chatting, enlivening the frosty air, 
 happy as children biting to the juices of ripe apples off the tree. 
 But Tony was the tree, the dispenser of the rosy gifts. She had 
 a moment of reflection, only a moment, and Emma felt the 
 pause as though a cloud had shadowed them and a spirit had 
 been shut away. Both spoke of their happiness at the kiss of 
 parting. That melancholy note at the top of the wave to 
 human hearts conscious of its enforced decline was repeated 
 by them, and Diana's eyelids blinked to dismiss a tear. 
 
 "You have no troubles?" Emma said. 
 
 "Only the pain of the good-bye to my beloved," said Diana. 
 
68 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "I have never been happier — ^never shall be! Now you know 
 him you think with me ? I knew you would. You have seen 
 him as he always is — except when he is armed for battle. 
 He is the kindest of souls. And soul I say. He is the one 
 man among men who gives me notions of a soul in men." 
 
 The eulogy was exalted. Lady Dunstane made a little 
 mouth for Oh, in correction of the transcendental touch, 
 though she remembered their foregone conversations upon 
 men — strange beings that they are! — and understood Diana^s 
 meaning. 
 
 "Really! really! honor!" Diana emphasized her extrav- 
 agant praise to print it fast. "Hear him speak of Ireland." 
 
 "Would he not speak of Ireland in a tone to catch the' 
 Irishwoman?" 
 
 "He is past thoughts of catching, dearest. At that age 
 men are pools of fish, or what you will; they are not anglers. 
 Next year, if you invite us, we will come again." 
 
 "But you will come to stay in the winter?" 
 
 "Certainly. But I am speaking of one of my holidays." 
 
 They kissed fervently. The lady mounted; the gray and 
 portly lord followed her; Sir Lukin flourished his whip, and 
 Emma was left to brood over her friend's last words: "One 
 of my holidays." Not a hint to the detriment of her husband 
 had passed. The stray beam balefully illuminating her mar- 
 riage slipped from her involuntarily. Sir Lukin was trouble- 
 some with his ejaculations that evening, and kept speculating 
 on the time of the arrival of the four-in-hand in London; up- 
 on which he thought a great deal depended. They had driven 
 out of town early, and if they drove back late they would not 
 be seen, as all the cacklers were sure then to be dressing for 
 dinner, and he would not pass the clubs. "I could not sug- 
 gest it," he said. "But Dannisburgh's an old hand. But 
 they say he snaps his fingers at tattle and laughs. Well, it 
 
 doesn't matter for him, perhaps, but a game of two 
 
 Oh! it'll be all right. They can't reach London before dusk. 
 And the cat's away." 
 
 "It's more than ever incomprehensible to me how she could 
 have married that man," said his wife. 
 
 "I've long since given it up," said he. 
 
 Diana wrote her thanks for the delightful welcome, telling 
 of her drive home to smoke and solitude, with a new host of 
 romantic sensations to keep her company. She wrote thrice 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 69 
 
 in the week, and the same addition of one to the ordinary 
 number next week. Then for three weeks not a line. Sir 
 Lukin brought news from London that Warwick had re- 
 turned, nothing to explain the silence. A letter addressed to 
 The Crossways was likewise unnoticed. The supposition that 
 they must be visiting on a round appeared rational; but many 
 weeks elapsed, until Sir Lukin received a printed sheet in the 
 superscription of a former military comrade, who had marked 
 a paragraph. It was one of those Journals, now barely credi- 
 ble, dedicated to the putrid of the upper circle, wherein initials 
 raised sewer-lamps and Asmodeus lifted a roof, leering 
 hideously. Thousands detested it, and fattened their crops 
 on it. Domesticated beasts of superior habits to the common 
 will indulge themselves with a luxurious roll in carrion, for a 
 revival of their original instincts. Society w^as largely a pur- 
 chaser. The ghastly thing was dreaded as a scourge, hailed as 
 a refreshment, nourished as a parasite. It professed un- 
 daunted honesty, and operated in the fashion of the worms 
 bred of decay. Success was its boasted Justification. The 
 animal world, when not rigorously watched, will always crown 
 with success the machine supplying its appetites. The old 
 dog-world took signal from it. The one-legged devil-god 
 waved his wooden hoof, and the creatures in view, the hunt 
 was uproarious. Why should we seem better than we are? 
 Down with hypocrisy! cried the censor morum, spicing the 
 lamentable derelictions of this and that great person, male and 
 female. The plea of corruption of blood in the world, to ex- 
 cuse the public chafing of a grievous itch, is not less old than 
 sin; and it offers a merry day of frisky truant running to the 
 animal made unashamed by another and another stripped, 
 branded and stretched fiat. Sir Lukin read of Mr. and Mrs. 
 W. and a distinguished peer of the realm. The paragraph 
 was brief; it had a flavor. Promise of more to come pricked 
 curiosity. He read it enraged, feeling for his wife; and, again 
 indignant, feeling for Diana. His third reading found him 
 out; he felt for both, but as a member of the whispering 
 world, much behind the scenes, he had a longing for the prom- 
 ised insinuations. Just to know what they could say, or dared 
 say. The paper was not shown to Lady Dunstane. A run to 
 London put him in the tide of the broken dam of gossip. 
 The names w^ere openly spoken and swept from mouth to 
 mouth of the scandalmongers, gathering matter as they flew. 
 
70 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 He knocked at Diana's door, where he was informed that the 
 mistress of the house was absent. More than official gravity 
 accompanied the announcement. Her address was unknown. 
 Sir Lukin thought it now time to tell his wife. He began 
 with a hesitating circumlocution, in order to prepare her mind 
 for bad news. She divined immediately that it concerned 
 Diana, and, forcing him to speak to the point, she had the 
 story jerked out to her in a sentence. It stopped her heart. 
 
 The chill of death was tasted in that wavering ascent from 
 oblivion to recollection. Why had not Diana come to her? 
 she asked herself, and asked her husband; who, as usual, was 
 absolutely unable to say. Under compulsory squeezing he 
 would have answered that she did not come because she could 
 not fib so easily to her bosom friend; and this he thought not- 
 withstanding his personal experience of Diana's generosity. 
 But he had other personal experiences of her sex, and her sex 
 plucked at the bright star and drowned it. 
 
 The happy day of Lord Dannisburgh's visit settled in 
 Emma's belief as the cause of Mr. Warwick's unpardonable 
 suspicions and cruelty. Arguing from her own sensations of 
 a day that had been like the return of sweet health to her 
 frame, she could see nothing but the loveliest freakish inno- 
 cence in Diana's conduct; and she recalled her looks, her 
 words, every fleeting gesture, even to the ingenuousness of the 
 noble statesman's admiration of her, for the confusion of her 
 unmanly and unworthy husband. And Emma was neverthe- 
 less a thoughtful person; only her heart was at the head of her 
 thoughts, and led the file, whose reasoning was accurate on 
 erratic tracks. All night her heart went at fever pace. She 
 brought the repentant husband to his knees, and then doubted, 
 strongly doubted, whether she would, whether in considera- 
 tion for her friend, she could intercede with Diana to forgive 
 him. In the morning she slept heavily. Sir Lukin had gone 
 to London early for further tidings. She woke about midday, 
 and found a letter on her pillow. It was Diana's. Then 
 while her fingers eagerly tore it open, her heart, the champion 
 rider over-night, sank. It needed support of facts, and feared 
 them; not in distrust of that dear persecuted soul, but be- 
 cause the very bravest of hearts is of its nature a shivering de- 
 fender, sensitive in the presence of any hostile array, much 
 craving for material support, until the mind and spirit dis- 
 place it, depute it to second them instead of leading. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. ?1 
 
 She read by a dull November fog-light a mixture of the 
 dreadful and the comforting, and dwelt upon the latter m 
 abandonment, hugged it, though conscious of evil and the 
 little that there was to veritably console. 
 
 The close of the letter struck the blow. After bluntly 
 stating that Mr. Warwick had served her with a process, 
 and that he had no case without suborning witnesses, Diana 
 '"Said: "But I leave the case, and him, to the world. Ireland, 
 or else America — it is a guiltless kind of suicide to bury 
 myself abroad. He has my letters. They are such as I can 
 own to you, and ask you to kiss me — and kiss me when you 
 have heard all the evidence, all that I can add to it, kiss 
 me. You know me too well to think I would ask you to kiss 
 criminal lips. But I cannot face the world. In the dock, 
 yes. Not where I am expected to smile and sparkle, on pain 
 of incurring suspicion if I show a sign of oppression. I 
 cannot do that. I see myself wearing a false grin — your 
 Tony! No, I do well to go. This is my resolution; and in 
 consequence, my beloved! my only truly loved on earth! I 
 do not come to you, to grieve you, as I surely should. Nor 
 would it soothe me, dearest. This will be to you the best of 
 reasons. It could not soothe me to see myself giving pain to 
 Emma. I am like a pestilence, and let me swing away to 
 the desert, for there I do no harm. I know I am right. I 
 have questioned myself — it is not cowardice. I do not quail. 
 I abhor the part of actress. I should do it well — too well; 
 destroy my soul in the performance. Is a good name before 
 such a world as this worth that sacrifice? A convent and 
 self -quenching; — cloisters would seem to me like holy dew. 
 But that would be sleep, and I feel the powers of life. 
 Never have I felt them so mightily. If it were not for being 
 called on to act and mew, I would stay, fight, meet a 
 bayonet-edge of charges and rebut them. I have my natural 
 weapons and my cause. It must be confessed that I have 
 also more knowledge of men and the secret contempt — ^it 
 must be — the best of them entertain for us. Oh! and we 
 confirm it if we trust them. But they have been at a wicked 
 school. 
 
 "I will write. From whatever place, you shall have let- 
 ters, and constant. I write no more now. In my present 
 mood I find no alternative between raging and drivelling. I 
 
72 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 am henceforth dead to the world. Fever dead to Emma till 
 my breath is gone — poor flame! I blow at a bed-room 
 candle, by which I write in a brown fog, and behold what I 
 am — though not even serving to write such a tangled scrawl 
 as this. I am of no mortal service. In two days I shall be 
 out of England. Within a week you shall hear where. I 
 long for your heart on mine, your dear eyes. You have 
 faith in me, and I fly from you! — I must be mad. Yet I. 
 feel calmly reasonable. I know that this is the thing to do. 
 Some years hence a gray woman may return, to hear of a 
 butterfly Diana, that had her day and disappeared. Better 
 than a mewing and courtesying simulacrum of the woman — 
 I drivel again. Adieu. I suppose I am not liable to capture 
 and imprisonment until the day when my name is cited to 
 appear. I have left London. This letter and I quit the 
 scene by different routes — I would they were one. My 
 beloved! I have an ache — I think I am wronging you. I am 
 not mistress of myself, and do as something within me, wiser 
 than I, dictates. You will write kindly. Write your whole 
 heart. It is not compassion I want, I want you. I can bear 
 stripes from you. Let me hear Emma's voice — ^the true 
 voice. This running away merits your reproaches. It will 
 
 look like . I have more to confess: the tigress in me 
 
 wishes it were! I should then have a reckless passion to 
 fold me about, and the glory — ^infernal, if you name it so, 
 and so it would be — of suffering for and with some one else. 
 As it is, I am utterly solitary, sustained neither from above 
 nor below, except within myself, and that is all fire and 
 smoke, like their new engines. I kiss this miserable sheet 
 of paper. Yes, I judge that I have run off a line — and what 
 a line! — which hardly shows a trace for breathing things to 
 follow until they feel the transgression in wreck. How im- 
 mensely nature seems to prefer men to women! But this 
 paper is happier than the writer. 
 
 "Your Tony." 
 
 That was the end. Emma kissed it in tears. They had 
 often talked of the possibility of a classic friendship between 
 women, the alliance of a mutual devotedness men choose to 
 doubt of. She caught herself accusing Tony of the lapse 
 from friendship. Hither should the true friend have flown 
 unerringly. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 73 
 
 Tlie blunt ending of the letter likewise dealt a wound. 
 She reperused it, perused and meditated. The flight of Mrs. 
 Warwick! She heard that cry — fatal! But she had no 
 means of putting a hand on her. "Your Tony." The cold- 
 ness might be set down to exhaustion: it might, yet her not 
 coming to her friend for counsel and love was a positive 
 weight in the indifferent scale. She read the letter back- 
 wards, and by snatches here and there; many perusals and 
 hours passed before the scattered creature exhibited in its 
 pages came to her out of the fl3'ing threads of the web as her 
 living Tony, whom she loved and prized and was ready to 
 defend against the w^orld. By that time the fog had lifted; 
 she saw the sky on the borders of milky cloudfolds. Her 
 invalid's chill sensitiveness conceived a sympathy in the 
 baring heavens, and lying on her sofa in the drawing-room 
 she gained strength of meditative vision, weak though she 
 was to help, through ceasing to brood on her wound and 
 herself. She cast herself into her dear Tony's feelings; and 
 thus it came that she imagined Tony would visit The Cross- 
 ways, — where she kept souvenirs of her father, his cane, and 
 his writing-desk, and a precious miniature of him hanging 
 above it, — ^before leaving England for ever. The fancy 
 sprang to certainty; every speculation confirmed it. Had 
 Sir Lukin been at home she would have despatched him to 
 The Crossw^ays at once. The west wind blew, and gave her 
 a view of the downs beyond the weald from her southern 
 window. She thought it even possible to drive there and 
 reach the place, on the chance of her vivid suggestion, some 
 time after nightfall; but a w^alk across the room to try her 
 forces was too convincing of her inability. She walked with 
 an ebony silver-mounted stick, a present from Mr. Eedworth. 
 She was leaning on it when the card of Thomas Eedworth 
 was handed to her. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A 
 DIVINING WOMAN LEARN TO RESPECT 
 ONE ANOTHER. 
 
 "You see, you are my crutch," Lady Dunstane said to 
 him, raising the stick in reminder of the present. 
 
 He offered his arm and hurriedly informed her, to dispose 
 
74 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 of dull personal matter, that he had just landed. She 
 looked at the clock. "Lukin is in town. You know the 
 song: ^Alas! I scarce can go or creep, While Lukin is 
 away.^ I do not doubt you have succeeded in your business 
 over there. Ah! I^ow I suppose you have confidence in 
 your success. I should have predicted it had you come to 
 me.'^ She stood, either musing or in weakness, and said 
 abruptly: "Will you object to lunching at one o'clock?" 
 
 "The sooner the better," said Eedworth. She had sighed: 
 her voice betrayed some agitation, strange in so serenely- 
 minded a person. 
 
 His partial acquaintance with the Herculean Sir Lukin's 
 reputation in town inspired a fear of his being about to 
 receive admission to the distressful confidences of the wife, 
 and he asked if Mrs. Warwick was well. The answer 
 sounded ominous, with its accompaniment of evident pain: 
 "I think her health is good." 
 
 Had they quarrelled? He said he had not heard a word 
 of Mrs. Warwick for several months. 
 
 "I heard from her this morning," said Lady Dunstane, 
 and motioned him to a chair beside the sofa, where she half 
 reclined, closing her eyes. The sight of tears on the eye- 
 lashes frightened him. She roused herself to look at the 
 clock. "Providence or accident, you are here," she said. 
 "I could not have prayed for the coming of a truer man. 
 Mrs. Warwick is in great danger. . . . You know our love. 
 She is the best of me, heart and soul. Her husband has 
 chosen to act on vile suspicions; baseless, I could hold my 
 hand in the fire and swear. She has enemies, or the jealous 
 fury is on the man; I know little of him. He has commenced 
 an action against her. He will rue it. But she .... you 
 understand this of women at least; they are not cowards in 
 all things! but the horror of facing a public scandal! My 
 poor girl writes of the hatefulness of having to act the com- 
 placent — put on her accustomed self! She would have to 
 go about, a mark for the talkers, and behave as if nothing 
 were in the air, full of darts! Oh, that general whisper! 
 It makes a coup demassue, a gale to sink the bravest vessel, 
 and a woman must preserve her smoothest front; chat, smile, 
 
 or else Well, she shrinks from it. I should too. She 
 
 is leaving the country." 
 
 "Wrong!" cried Eedworth, 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 75 
 
 "Wrong, indeed. She writes that in two days she will 
 be out of it. Judge her as I do, though you are a man, I 
 pray. You have seen the hunted hare. It is our education; 
 we have something of the hare in us when the hounds are 
 full cry. Our bravest, our best, have an impulse to run. 
 'By this, poor Wat far off upon a hill.' Shakespeare would 
 have the divine comprehension. I have thought all round 
 it, and come back to him. She is one of Shakespeare's 
 women. Another character, but one of his own: another 
 Hermione! I dream of him, seeing her with the eye of 
 steady flame. The bravest and best of us at bay in the 
 world need an eye like his to read deep, and not be baffled 
 by inconsistencies." 
 
 Insensibly Eedworth blinked. His consciousness of an 
 exalted compassion for the lady was heated by these flights 
 of advocacy to feel that he was almost seated beside the 
 sovereign poet thus eulogized, and he was of a modest 
 nature. 
 
 "But you are practical," pursued Lady Dunstane, observ- 
 ing signs that she took for impatience. "You are thinking 
 of what can be done. If Lukin were here I would send him 
 to The Crossways without a moment's delay, on the chance, 
 the mere chance: it shines to me! If I were only a little 
 stronger! I fear I might break down, and it would be unfair 
 to my husband. He has trouble enough with my premature 
 infirmities already. I am certain she will go to The Cross- 
 ways. Tony is one of the women who burn to give last 
 kisses to things they love. And she has her little treasures 
 hoarded there. She was born there. Her father died there. 
 She is three parts Irish, superstitious in affection. I know her 
 so well. At this moment I see her there. If not, she has 
 grown unlike herself." 
 
 "Have you a stout horse in the stables?" Eedworth asked. 
 
 "You remember the mare Bertha; you have ridden her." 
 
 "The mare would do, and better than a dozen horses." He 
 consulted his watch. "Let me mount Bertha; I engage to 
 deliver a letter at The Crossways to-night." 
 
 Lady Dunstane half inclined to act hesitation in accepting 
 the aid she sought, but said, "Will you find your way?" 
 
 He spoke of three hours of daylight and a moon to rise. 
 "She has often pointed out to me from your ridges where 
 Th^ Crossways lies, about three miles from the Downs, near 
 
76 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 a village named Storling, on the road to Brasted. The house 
 has a small plantation of firs behind it, and a bit of river, 
 rare for Sussex, to the right. An old straggling red brick 
 house at Crossways, a stone's throw from a fingerpost on a 
 square of green; roads to Brasted, London, Wickford, Riddle- 
 hurst. I shall find it. Write what you have to say, my lady, 
 and confide it to me. She shall have it to-night, if she's 
 where you suppose. I'll go, with your permission, and take 
 a look at the mare. Sussex roads are heavy in this damp 
 weather, and the frost coming on won't improve them for a 
 tired beast. We haven't our rails laid down there yet." 
 
 "You make me admit some virtues in the practical," said 
 Lady Dunstane: and had the poor fellow vollied forth a tale 
 of the everlastingness of his passion for Diana it would have 
 touched her far less than his exact memory of Diana's de- 
 scription of her loved birthplace. 
 
 She wrote: 
 
 "I trust my messenger to tell you how I hang on you. I 
 see my ship making for the rocks. You break your Emma's 
 heart. It will be the second wrong step. I shall not survive 
 it. The threat has made me incapable of rushing to you, 
 as I might have had strength to do yesterday. I am shat- 
 tered, and I wait panting for Mr. Redworth's return with 
 you. He has called, by accident, as we say. Trust to him. 
 If ever Heaven was active to avert a fatal mischance it is 
 to-day. You will not stand against my supplication. It is 
 my life I cry for. I have no more time. He starts. He 
 leaves me to pray, like the mother seeing her child on the 
 edge of the cliff. Come! This is your breast, my Tony! 
 And your soul warns you it is right to come. Do rightly. 
 Scorn other counsel, the coward's. Come with our friend, 
 the one man known to me who can be a friend of women. 
 
 ''Your Emma." 
 
 Redworth was in the room. "The mare'll do it well," he 
 said. "She has had her feed, and in five minutes will be 
 saddled at the door." 
 
 "But you must eat, dear friend," said the hostess. 
 
 "I'll munch at a packet of sandwiches on the way. There 
 seems a chance, and the time for lunching may miss it." 
 
 "You understand . , , ?" 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 77 
 
 "Everything, Infancy." 
 
 "If she is there !'^ 
 
 "One break in the run will turn her back." 
 
 The sensitive invalid felt a blow in his following up the 
 simile of the hunted hare for her friend;, but it had a promise 
 of hopefulness. And this was all that could be done by 
 earthly agents, under direction of spiritual, as her imagina- 
 tion encouraged her to believe. 
 
 She saw him start, after fortifying him with a tumbler of 
 choice Bordeaux, thinking how Tony would have said she 
 was like a lady arming her knight for battle On the back 
 of the mare he passed her window, after lifting his hat, and 
 he thumped at his breast-pocket, to show her where the 
 letter housed safely. The packet of provision bulged on his 
 hip, absurdly and blessedly to her sight, not unlike the man, 
 in his combination of robust serviceable qualities, as she re- 
 flected during the later hours, until the sun fell on smoulder- 
 ing November woods; and sensations of the frost he foretold 
 bade her remember that he had gone forth riding like a 
 huntsman. His greatcoat lay on a chair in the hall, and his 
 traveling-bag was beside it. He had carried it up from the 
 valley, expecting hospitality, and she had sent him forth 
 half-naked to weather a frosty November night! She called 
 in the groom, whose derision of a greatcoat for any gentle- 
 man upon Bertha, meaning work for the mare, appeased her 
 remorsefulness. Brisby, the groom, reckoned how long the 
 mare would take to do the distance to Storling, with a rider 
 like Mr. Eedworth on her back. By seven, Brisby calculated, 
 Mr. Redworth would be knocking at the door of the Three 
 Kavens Inn, at Storling, when the mare would have a decent 
 grooming, and Mr. Redworth was not the gentleman to let 
 her be fed out of his eye. More than that, Brisby had some 
 acquaintance with the people of the inn. He begged to in- 
 form her ladyship the he was half a Sussex man, though 
 not exactly born in the county; his parents had removed to 
 Sussex after the great event; and the Downs were his first 
 field of horse-exercise, and no place in the world was like 
 them, fair weather or foul, summer or winter, and snow ten 
 feet deep in the gullies. The grandest air in England, he 
 had heard say. His mistress kept him to the discourse, for 
 the comfort of hearing hard bald matter-of-fact; and she 
 was amused and rebuked by his assumption that she must 
 
78 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 be entertaining an anxiety about master's favorite mare. 
 But, ah! that Diana had delayed in choosing a mate; had 
 avoided her disastrous union with perhaps a more imposing 
 man, to see the true beauty of masculine character in Mr. 
 Redworth, as he showed himself to-day. How could he have 
 doubted succeeding? One grain more of faith in his energy 
 and Diana might have been mated to the right husband for 
 her — an open-minded clear-faced English gentleman. Her 
 speculative ethereal mind clung to bald matter-of-fact to- 
 day. She would have vowed that it was the sole potentially 
 horoical. Even Brisby partook of the reflected rays, and he 
 was very benevolently considered by her. She dismissed 
 him only when his recounting of the stages of Bertha's 
 journey began to fatigue her and deaden the medical efficacy 
 of him and his like. Stretched on the sofa she watched the 
 early sinking sun in south-western cloud, and the changes 
 from saffron to intensest crimson, the crown of a November 
 evening, and one of frost. 
 
 Redworth struck on a southward line from the chalk- 
 ridge to sand, where he had a pleasant footing in familiar 
 country, under beeches that browned the ways, along beside 
 a meadow-brook fed by the heights, through pines and across 
 deep sand-ruts to full view of weald and downs. Diana had 
 been with him here in her maiden days. The colored back 
 of a coach put an end to that dream. He lightened his 
 pocket, surveying the land as he munched. A favorable land 
 for rails: and she had looked over it; and he was now be- 
 coming a wealthy man: and she was a married woman strain- 
 ing the leash. His errand would not bear examination, it 
 seemed such a desperate long shot. He shut his inner vision 
 on it, and pricked forward. When the burning sunset shot 
 waves above the Juniper and yews behind him, he was far 
 on the weald, trotting down an interminable road. That 
 the people opposing railways were not people of business 
 was his reflection, and it returned persistently: for practical 
 men, even the most devoted among them, will think for them- 
 selves; their army, which is the rational, calls them to its 
 banners, in opposition to the sentimental; and Redworth 
 joined it in the abstract, summoning the horrible state of the 
 roads to testify against an enemy wanting almost in common 
 humaneness. A slip of his excellent stepper in one of the half- 
 frozen pits of the highway was the principal cause of his 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 79 
 
 confusion of logic; she was half on her knees. Beyond 
 the market-town the roads were so bad that he quitted them, 
 and with the indifference of an engineer struck a line of his 
 own south-eastward over fields and ditches, favored by a 
 round horizon moon on his left. So for a couple of hours he 
 went ahead over rolling fallow land to the meadow-flats and 
 a pale shining of freshets; then hit on a lane skirting the 
 w^ater, and reached an amphibious village; five miles from 
 Sterling, he was informed, and a clear traverse of lanes, not 
 to be mistaken, "if he kept a sharp eye open." The sharp- 
 ness of his eye was divided between the sword-belt of the 
 starry Hunter and the shifting lanes that zig-zagged his 
 course below. The downs were softly illumined; still it 
 amazed him to think of a woman like Diana Warwick having 
 an attachment to this district, so hard of yield, mucky, fea- 
 tureless, fit but for the rails she sided with her friend in de- 
 testing. Eeasonable women, too! The moon stood high on 
 her march as he entered Sterling. He led his good beast to 
 the stables of The Three Eavens, thanking her and caressing 
 her. The ostler conjectured, from the look of the mare, that 
 he had been out with the hounds and lost his way. It ap- 
 peared to Redworth singular that, near the ending of a wild- 
 goose chase, his plight was pretty well described by the fellow. 
 However, he had to knock at the door of The Crossways now, 
 in the silent night-time, a certainly empty house, to his fancy. 
 He fed on a snack of cold meat and tea, standing, and set 
 forth, clearly directed, "if he kept a sharp eye open." Hither- 
 to he had proved his capacity, and he rather smiled at the 
 repetition of the formula to him, of all men. A turning to the 
 right was taken, one to the left, and through the churchyard, 
 out of the gate, round to the right, and on. By this route, 
 after an hour, he found himself passing beneath the bare 
 chestnuts of the churchyard wall of Sterling, and the sparkle 
 of the edges of the dead chestnut-leaves at his feet reminded 
 him of the very ideas he had entertained when treading them. 
 The less of an hour strung him to pursue the chase in earnest, 
 and he had a beating of the heart as he thought that it might 
 be serious. He recollected thinking it so at Copsley. The 
 long ride and nightfall, with nothing in view, had obscured 
 his mind to the possible behind the thick obstruction of the 
 probable; again the possible waved its marsh-light. To help 
 in saving her from a fatal step, supposing a dozen combina- 
 
BO DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 tions of the conditional mood, became his fixed object, since 
 here he was — of that there was no doubt; and he was not 
 here to play the fool though the errand was foolish. He en- 
 tered the churchyard, crossed the shadow of the tower, and 
 hastened along the path, fancying he beheld a couple of figures 
 vanishing before him. He shouted; he hoped to obtain di- 
 rections from these natives: the moon was bright, the grave- 
 stones legible; but no answer came back, and the place ap- 
 peared to belong entirely to the dead. "I've frightened 
 them," he thought. They left a queerish sensation in his 
 frame. A ride down to Sussex to see ghosts would be an odd 
 experience; but an undigested dinner of tea is the very 
 grandmother of ghosts; and he accused it of confusing him, 
 sight and mind. Out of the gate; now for the turning to the 
 right, and on. He turned. He must have previously turned 
 wrongly somewhere, and where? A light in a cottage invited 
 him to apply for the needed directions. The door was opened 
 by a woman, who had never heard tell of The Crossways, nor 
 had her husband, nor any of the children crowding round 
 them. A voice within ejaculated: "Crassways!" and soon 
 upon the grating of a chair, an old man, whom the woman 
 named her lodger, by way of introduction, presented himself 
 with his hat on, saying: "I knows the spot they calls Crass- 
 ways," and he led. Redworth understood the intention that 
 a job was to be made of it, and, submitting, said: "To the 
 right, I think." He was bidden to come along, if he wanted 
 "they Crassways," and from the right they turned to the 
 left, and further sharp round, and on to a turn, where the old 
 man, otherwise incommunicative, said: "There, down thik 
 theer road, and a post in the middle." 
 
 "I want a house, not a post!" roared Redworth, spying a 
 bare space. 
 
 The old man despatched a finger traveling to his nob. 
 "Naw, there's ne'er a house. But that's crassways for four 
 roads, if it's crassways you wants." 
 
 They journeyed backwards. They were in such a maze of 
 lanes that the old man was master, and Redworth vowed to 
 be rid of him at the first cottage. This, however, they were 
 long in reaching, and the old man was promptly through the 
 garden-gate, hailing the people and securing information be- 
 fore Redworth could well hear. He smiled at the dogged 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 81 
 
 astuteness of a dense-headed old creature determined to 
 establish a claim to his fee. They struck a lane sharp to 
 the left. 
 
 "You're Sussex?" Redworth asked him, and was answered: 
 "Naw; the Sheers.'' 
 
 Emerging from deliberation, the old man said: "Ah'm a 
 Hampshireman." 
 
 "A capital county!" 
 
 "Heigh!" The old man heaved his chest. "Once!" 
 
 "Why, what has happened to it?" 
 
 "Once it were a capital county, I say. Hah! you ask me 
 what have happened to it. You take and go and look at it 
 now. And down heer'll be no better soon, I tells 'em. 
 When ah was a boy, old Hampshire was a proud country, 
 wi' the old coaches and the old squires, and harvest homes, 
 and Christmas merryings. Cutting up the land! There's 
 no pride in livin' theer, nor anywhere, as I sees, now." 
 
 "You mean the railways." 
 
 "It's the Devil come up and abroad ower all England!" 
 exclaimed the melancholy ancient patriot. 
 
 A little cheering was tried on him, but vainly. He saw 
 with unerring distinctness the triumph of the Foul Poten- 
 tate, nay his personal appearance "in they theer puffin' en- 
 gines." The country which had produced Andrew Hedger, 
 as he stated his name to be, would never show the same old 
 cricketing commons it did when he was a boy. Old England, 
 he declared, was done for. 
 
 When Eedworth applied to his watch under the brilliant 
 moonbeams he discovered that he had been listening to this 
 natural outcry of a decaying and shunted class full three- 
 quarters of an hour, and The Crossways was not in sight. 
 He remonstrated. The old man plodded along. "We must 
 do as we're directed," he said. 
 
 Further walking brought them to a turn. Any turn 
 seemed hopeful. Another turn offered the welcome sight 
 of a blazing doorway on a rise of ground off the road. Ap- 
 proaching it, the old man requested him to "bide a bit," and 
 stalked the ascent at long strides. A vigorous old fellow. 
 Eedworth waited below, observing how he joined the group 
 at the lighted door, and, as it was apparent, put his question 
 of the whereabout of The Crossways. Finally, in extreme 
 impatience, he walked up to the grpup of spectators. They 
 
S2 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 were all, and Andrew Hedger among them, the most entranced 
 and profoundly reverent, observing the dissection of a pig. 
 
 Unable to awaken his hearing, Redworth jogged his arm, 
 and the shake was ineffective until it grew in force. 
 
 "I've no time to lose; have they told you the way?" 
 
 Andrew Hedger yielded his arm. He slowly withdrew his 
 intent fond gaze from the fair outstretched white carcass, and 
 with drooping eyelids he said: "Ah could eat hog a solid 
 hower!" 
 
 He had forgotten to ask the way, intoxicated by the aspect 
 of the pig; and when he did ask it he was hard of under- 
 standing, given wholly to his last glimpses. 
 
 Redworth got the directions. He would have dismissed 
 Mr. Andrew Hedger, but there was no doing so. "I'll show 
 ye on to the Crossways House," the latter said, implying that 
 he had already earned something by showing him the Cross- 
 ways post. 
 
 "Hog's my feed," said Andrew Hedger. The gastric 
 springs of eloquence moved him to discourse, and he un- 
 burdened himself between succulent pauses. "They've 
 killed him early. He's fat; and he might ha' been fatter. 
 But he's fat. They've got their Christmas ready, that they 
 have. Lord! you should see the chitterlings, and the sau- 
 sages hung up to and along the beams. That's a crown for 
 any dwellin'! They runs 'em round the top of the room — 
 it's like a May-day wreath in old times. Home-fed hog! 
 They've a treat in store, they have. And snap your fingers 
 at the world for many a long day. And the hams! They 
 cure their own hams at that house. Old style! That's what 
 I say of a hog. He's good from end to end, and beats a 
 Christian hollow. Everybody knows it and owns it." 
 
 Redworth was getting tired. In sympathy with current con- 
 versation, he said a word for the railways; they would cer- 
 tainly make the flesh of swine cheaper, bring a heap of hams 
 into the market. But Andrew Hedger remarked with con- 
 tempt that he had not much opinion of foreign hams; nobody 
 knew what they fed on. Hog, he said, would feed on any- 
 thing, where there was no choice — they had wonderful 
 stomachs for food. Only, when they had a choice, they left 
 the worse for last, and home-fed filled them with stulf to 
 make good meat and fat — "what we calls prime bacon." As 
 it is not right to damp a native enthusiasm, Redworth let 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 83 
 
 him dilate on his theme, and mused on his boast to eat hog 
 a solid hour, which roused some distant classic recollection — 
 an odd jumble. 
 
 They crossed the wooden bridge of a flooded stream. 
 
 "Now ye have it," said the hog-worshiper; "that may be 
 the house, I reckon." 
 
 A dark mass of building, with the moon behind it, shining 
 in spires through a mound of firs, met Eedworth's gaze. The 
 windows all were blind, no smoke rose from the chimneys. 
 He noted the dusky square of green, and the finger-post sig- 
 naling the center of the four roads. Andrew Hedger re- 
 peated that it was The Crossways house, ne'er a doubt. 
 Redworth paid him his expected fee, whereupon Andrew, 
 shouldering off, wished him a hearty good night, and forth- 
 with departed at high pedestrian pace, manifestly to have a 
 concluding look at the beloved anatomy. 
 
 There stood the house. Absolutely empty! thought Eed- 
 worth. The sound of the gate-bell he rang was like an echo 
 to him. The gate was unlocked. He felt a return of his 
 queer churchyard sensation when walking up the garden- 
 path, in the shadow of the house. Here she was bom; here 
 her father died; and this was the station of her dreams, as 
 a girl at school near London and in Paris. Her heart Tras 
 here. He looked at the windows facing the downs with dead 
 eyes. The vivid idea of her was a phantom presence, and cold, 
 assuring him that the bodily Diana was absent. Had Lady 
 Dunstane guessed rightly he might perhaps have been of 
 service! 
 
 Anticipating the blank silence, he rang the house-bell. 
 It seemed to set wagging a weariful tongue in a corpse. The 
 bell did its duty to the last note, and one thin revival stroke, 
 for a finish, as in days when it responded livingly to the 
 guest. He pulled, and had the reply, just the same, with the 
 faint terminal touch, resembling exactly a "There!" at the 
 close of a voluble delivery in the negative. Absolutely 
 empty. He pulled and pulled. The bell wagged, wagged. 
 This had been a house of a witty host, a merry girl, junketing 
 guests; a house of hilarious thunders, lightnings of fun and 
 fancy. Death never seemed more voiceful than in that wag- 
 ging of the bell. 
 
 For conscience' sake, as became a trusty emissary, he 
 walked round to the back of the house, to verify the total 
 
$4 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 emptiness. His apprehensive despondency had said that it 
 was absolutely empty, but upon consideration he supposed 
 the house must have some guardian; likely enough an old 
 gardener and his wife, lost in deafness double-shotted by 
 sleep! There was no sign of them. The night air waxed 
 sensibly crisper. He thumped the back-doors. Blank hol- 
 lowness retorted on the blow. He banged and kicked. The 
 violent altercation with wood and wall lasted several min- 
 utes, ending as it had begun. Flesh may worry, but is sure 
 to be worsted in such an argument. 
 
 "Well, my dear lady!" — Redworth addressed Lady Dun- 
 stane aloud, while driving his hands into his pockets for 
 warmth — "weVe done what we could. The next best thing 
 is to go to bed and see what morning brings us." 
 
 The temptation to glance at the wild divinings of dreamy- 
 witted women from the point of view of the practical man 
 was aided by the intense frigidity of the atmosphere in lead- 
 ing him to criticize a sex not much used to the exercise of 
 brains. "And they hate railways!" He associated them, 
 in the matter of intelligence, with Andrew Hedger and com- 
 pany. They sank to the level of the temperature in his 
 esteem — as regarded their intellects. He approved their 
 warmth of heart. The nipping of the victim's toes and finger- 
 tips testified powerfully to that. 
 
 Round to the front of the house at a trot, he stood in 
 moonlight. Then, for involuntarily he now did everything 
 running, with a dash up the steps he seized the sullen pen- 
 dent bell-handle, and worked it pumpwise, till he perceived 
 a smaller bell-knob beside the door, at which he worked 
 piston-wise. Pump and piston, the hurly-burly and the 
 tinkler created an alarm to scare cat and mouse and Cardinal 
 spider, all that run or weave in desolate houses, with the 
 good result of a certain degree of heat to his frame. He 
 ceased, panting. No stir within, nor light. That white 
 stare of windows at the moon was undisturbed. 
 
 The downs were like a wavy robe of shadowy gray silk. No 
 wonder that she had loved to look on them! 
 
 And it was no wonder that Andrew Hedger enjoyed prime 
 bacon. Bacon frizzling, fat rashers of real home-fed on the 
 fire — ^none of your foreign — suggested a genial refreshment 
 and resistance to antagonistic elements. Nor was it, grant- 
 ing health, granting a sharp night — the temperature at 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 85 
 
 least fifteen below freezing-point — an excessive boast for a 
 man to say he could go on eating for a solid hour. 
 
 These were notions darting through a half-nourished gen- 
 tleman nipped in the frame by a severely frosty night. 
 Truly a most beautiful night! She would have delighted to 
 see it here. The downs were like floating islands, like fairy- 
 laden vapors; solid, as Andrew HedgePs hour of eating; 
 visionary, as too often his desire. 
 
 Redworth muttered to himself, after taking the picture 
 of the house and surrounding country from the sward, that 
 he thought it about the sharpest night he had ever en- 
 countered in England. He was cold, hungry, dispirited, 
 and astoundingly stricken with an incapacity to separate any 
 of his thoughts from old Andrew Hedger. Nature was at 
 her pranks upon him. 
 
 He left the garden briskly, as to the legs, and reluctantly. 
 He would have liked to know whether Diana had recently 
 visited the house or was expected. It could be learnt in the 
 morning; but his mission was urgent, and he on the wings 
 of it. He was vexed and saddened. 
 
 Scarcely had he closed the garden-gate when the noise of 
 an opening window arrested him, and he called. The an- 
 swer was in a feminine voice; youngish, not disagreeable, 
 though not Diana's. 
 
 He heard none of the words, but rejoined in a bawl, "Mrs. 
 Warwick! Mr. Redworth!" 
 
 That was loud enough for the deaf or the dead. 
 
 The window closed. He went to the door and waited. It 
 swung wide to him; and oh, marvel of a woman's divination 
 of a woman, there stood Diana! 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SHOWS HOW A POSITION OF DELICACY FOR A LADY AND 
 
 GENTLEMAN WAS MET IN SIMPLE FASHION 
 
 WITHOUT HURT TO EITHER. 
 
 Redworth's impulse was to laugh for very gladness of heart, 
 as he proffered excuses for his tremendous alarums; and in 
 doing so the worthy gentleman imagined he must have per- 
 
86 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 sisted in clamoring for admission because lie suspected that, 
 if at home, she would require a violent summons to betray her- 
 self. It was necessary to him to follow his abashed sagacity 
 up to the mark of his happy animation. 
 
 "Had I known it was you!" said Diana, bidding him 
 enter the passage. She wore a black silk mantilla, and was 
 warmly covered. 
 
 She called to her maid Danvers, whom Kedworth remem- 
 bered: a firm woman of about forty, wrapped, like her mis- 
 tress, in head-covering, cloak, scarf, and shawl. Telling her 
 to scour the kitchen for firewood, Diana led into a sitting- 
 room. "I need not ask; you have come from Lady Dun- 
 stane," she said. "Is she well?" 
 
 "She is deeply anxious." 
 
 "You are cold. Empty houses are colder than out of doors. 
 You shall soon have a fire." 
 
 She begged him to be seated. 
 
 The small glow of candle-light made her dark rich coloring 
 orange in shadow. 
 
 "House and grounds are open to a tenant," she resumed. 
 "I say good-bye to them to-morrow morning. The old couple 
 who are in charge sleep in the village to-night. I did not 
 want them here. You have quitted the Government service, 
 I think?" 
 
 "A year or so since." 
 
 "When did you return from America?" 
 
 "Two days back." 
 
 "And paid your visit to Copsley immediately?" 
 
 "As early as I could." 
 
 "That was true friendliness. You have a letter for me?" 
 
 "I have." 
 
 He put his hand to his pocket for the letter. 
 
 "Presently," she said. She divined the contents, and 
 nursed her resolution to withstand them. Danvers had 
 brought firewood and coal. Orders were given to her, and, 
 in spite of the opposition of the maid and intervention of the 
 gentleman, Diana knelt at the grate, observing, "Allow me 
 to do this. I can lay and light a fire." 
 
 He was obliged to look on: she was a woman who spoke 
 her meaning. She knelt, handling paper, firewood, and 
 matches, like a housemaid. Danvers proceeded on her 
 mission, and Redworth eyed Diana in the first fire-glow. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 61 
 
 He could have imagine'd a Madonna on an old black Spanish 
 canvas. 
 
 The act of service was beautiful in gracefulness, and her 
 simplicity in doing the work touched it spiritually. He 
 thought, as she knelt there, that never had he seen how 
 lovely and how charged with mystery her features were; the 
 dark large eyes full on the brows; the proud line of a straight 
 nose in right measure to the bow of the lips; reposeful red 
 lips, shut, and their curve of the slumber-smile at the cor- 
 ners. Her forehead was broad; the chin of a sufficient firm- 
 ness to sustain that noble square; the brows marked by a soft, 
 thick brush to the temples; her black hair plainly drawn 
 along her head to the knot, revealed by the mantilla fallen on 
 her neck. 
 
 Elegant in plainness, the classic poet would have said of 
 her hair and dress. She was of the women whose wits are 
 quick in everything they do. That which was proper to her 
 position, complexion, and the hour, surely marked her ap- 
 pearance. Unaccountably this night, the fair fleshly presence 
 over-weighted her intellectual distinction, to an observer bent 
 on vindicating her innocence. Or, rather, he saw the hidden 
 in the visible. 
 
 Owner of such a woman, and to lose her! Redworth 
 pitied the husband. 
 
 The crackling flames reddened her whole person. Gazing, 
 he remembered Lady Dunstane saying of her once that in 
 anger she had the nostrils of a war-horse. The nostrils now 
 were faintly alive under some sensitive impression of her 
 musings. The olive-cheeks, pale as she stood in the door- 
 way, were flushed by the fire-beams, though no longer with 
 their swarthy central rose, tropic flower of a pure and 
 abounding blood, as it had seemed. She was now beset by 
 battle. His pity for her, and his eager championship, over- 
 whelmed the spirit of compassion for the foolish wretched 
 husband. Dolt, the man must be, Redworth thought; and 
 he asked inwardly. Did the miserable tyrant suppose of a 
 woman like this, that she would be content to shine as a 
 candle in a grated lantern? The generosity of men specu- 
 lating upon other men's possessions is known. Yet the man 
 who loves a woman has to the full the husband's jealousy of 
 her good name. And a lover that, without the claims of the 
 alliance, can be wounded on her behalf, is less distracted in 
 
88 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 his homage by the personal luminary, to which man's manu- 
 facture of balm and incense is mainly drawn when his love 
 is wounded. That contemplation of her incomparable beauty, 
 with the multitude of his ideas fluttering round it, did some- 
 what shake the personal luminary in Eedworth. He was 
 conscious of pangs. The question bit him: How far had she 
 been indiscreet or willful? and the bite of it was a keen acid 
 to his nerves. A woman doubted by her husband is always, 
 and even to her champions in the first hours of the noxious 
 rumor, until they have solidified in confidence through service, 
 a creature of the wilds, marked for our ancient running. 
 Nay, more than a cynical world, these latter will be sensible of 
 it. The doubt casts her forth, the general yelp drags her 
 down; she runs like the prey of the forest under spotting 
 branches; clear if we can think so, but it has to be thought 
 in devotedness: her character is abroad. Eedworth bore a 
 strong resemblance to his fellowmen, except for his power 
 of faith in this woman. Nevertheless it required the superb- 
 ness of her beauty and the' contrasting charm of her humble 
 posture of kneeling by the fire to set him on his right track 
 of mind. He knew and was sure of her. He dispersed the 
 unhallowed fry in attendance upon any stirring of the reptile 
 part of us, to look at her with the eyes of a friend. And if 
 . . . . ! a little mouse of a thought scampered out of one of 
 the chambers of his head and darted along the passages, fetch- 
 ing a sweat to his brows. Well, whatsoever the fact his heart 
 was hers! He hoped he could be charitable to women. 
 
 She rose from her knees and said: "Now, please, give me 
 the letter." 
 
 He was entreated to excuse her for consigning him to fire- 
 light when she left the room. 
 
 Danvers brought in a dismal tallow-candle, remarking that 
 her mistress had not expected visitors; her mistress had noth- 
 ing but tea and bread and butter to offer him. Danvers ut- 
 tered no complaint of her sufferings; happy in being the pic- 
 ture of them. 
 
 "I'm not hungry," said he. 
 
 A plate of Andrew Hedger's own would not have tempted 
 him. The foolish frizzle of bacon sang in his ears as he 
 walked from end to end of the room; an illusion of his fancy 
 pricked by a frost-edged appetite. But the anticipated con- 
 test with Diana checked and numbed the craving. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 89 
 
 Was Warwick a man to proceed to extremities on a mad 
 suspicion? What kind of proof had he ? 
 
 Eedworth summoned the portrait of Mr. Warwick before 
 him, and beheld a sweeping of close eyes in cloud, a long 
 upper lip in cloud; the rest of him was all cloud. As usual 
 with these conjurations of a face, the index of the nature 
 conceived by him displayed itself, and no more; but he toolc 
 it for the whole physiognomy, and pronounced of the hus- 
 band thus delineated, that those close eyes of the long upper 
 lip would both suspect and proceed madly. 
 
 He was invited by Danvers to enter the dining-room. 
 
 There Diana joined him. 
 
 "The best of a dinner on bread and butter is, that one is 
 ready for supper soon after it," she said, swimming to the 
 tea-tray. "You have dined?" 
 
 "At the inn," he replied. 
 
 "The Three Eavens! When my father's guests from Lon- 
 don flooded The Crossways, The Three Eavens provided the 
 overflow with beds. On nights like this I have got up and 
 scraped the frost from my window-panes to see them step 
 into the old fly, singing some song of his. The inn had a 
 good reputation for hospitality in those days. I hope they 
 treated you well?" 
 
 "Excellently," said Eedworth, taking an enormous mouth- 
 ful, while his heart sank to see that she who smiled to en- 
 courage his eating had been weeping. But she also con- 
 sumed her bread and butter. 
 
 "That poor maid of mine is an instance of a woman able 
 to do things against the grain," she said. "Danvers is a 
 foster-child of luxury. She loves it; great houses, plentiful 
 meals, and the crowd of twinkling footmen's calves. Yet you 
 see her here in a desolate house, consenting to cold and I 
 know not what — terrors of ghosts! poor soul. I have some 
 mysterious attraction for her. She would not let me come 
 alone. I should have had to hire some old Sterling grannam, 
 or retain the tattling keepers of the house. She loves her 
 native country too, and disdains the foreigner. My tea you 
 may trust." 
 
 Eedworth had not a doubt of it. He was becoming a tea- 
 taster. The merit of warmth pertained to the beverage. "I 
 think you get your tea from Scoppin's, in the city," he said. 
 
 That was the warehouse for Mrs. Warwick's tea. They 
 
90 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 conversed of teas; the black, the green, the mixtures; each 
 thinking of the attack to come, and the defense. Meantime, 
 the cut bread and butter having flown, Redworth attacked the 
 loaf. He apologized, 
 
 "Oh! pay me a practical compliment," Diana said, and 
 looked really happy at his unfeigned relish of her simple 
 fare. 
 
 She had given him one opportunity in speaking of her 
 maid's love of native country. But it came too early. 
 
 "They say that bread and butter is fattening," he re- 
 marked. 
 
 "You preserve the mean," said she. 
 
 He admitted that his health was good. For some little 
 time, to his vexation at the absurdity, she kept him talking 
 of himself. So flowing was she, and so sweet the motion of 
 her mouth in utterance, that he followed her lead, and he 
 said odd things and corrected them. He had to describe his 
 ride to her. 
 
 "Yes! the view of the downs from Dewhurst," she ex- 
 claimed, "or any point along the ridge. Emma and I once 
 drove there in summer, with clotted cream from her dairy; 
 and we bought fresh-plucked wortleberries, and stewed them 
 in a hollow of the furzes, and ate them with ground biscuits 
 and the clotted cream iced, and thought it a luncheon for 
 seraphs. Then you dropped to the road round under the 
 sand-heights — and meditated railways!" 
 
 "Just a notion or two." 
 
 "You have been very successful in America?" 
 
 "Successful? — perhaps; we exclude extremes in our cal- 
 culations of the still problematical." 
 
 "I am sure," said she, "you always have faith in your cal- 
 culations." 
 
 Her innocent archness dealt him a stab sharper than any 
 he had known since the day of his hearing of her engagement. 
 He muttered of his calculations being human; he was as much 
 of a fool as other men — more! 
 
 "Oh! no," said she. 
 
 "Positively." 
 
 "I cannot think it." 
 
 "I know it." 
 
 "Mr. Redworth, you will never persuade me to believe it." 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 91 
 
 He knocked a rising groan on tiie head, and rejoined: "I 
 hope I may not have to say so to-night." 
 
 Diana felt the edge of the dart. "And meditating rail- 
 ways you scored our poor land of herds and flocks; and 
 night fell, and the moon sprang up, and on you came. It 
 was clever of you to find your way by the moonbeams." 
 
 "That's about the one thing I seem fit for!" 
 
 "But what delusion is this, in the mind of a man succeed- 
 ing in everything he does?" cried Diana, curious despite her 
 wariness. "Is there to be the revelation of a hairshirt ulti- 
 mately? — a Journal of Confessions? You succeeded in every- 
 thing you aimed at, and broke your heart over one chance 
 miss?" 
 
 "My heart is not of the stuff to break," he said, and laughed 
 off her fortuitous thrust straight into it. "Another cup, yes. 
 I came . . . /' 
 
 "By night," said she, "and cleverly found your way, and 
 dined at The Three Eavens, and walked to The Crossways, 
 and met no ghosts." 
 
 "On the contrary — or at least I saw a couple." 
 
 "Tell me of them; we breed them here. We sell them 
 periodically to the newspapers." 
 
 "Well, I started them in their natal locality. I saw them, 
 going down the churchyard, and bellowed after them with all 
 my lungs. I wanted directions to The Crossways; I had 
 missed my way at some turning. In an instant they were 
 vapor." 
 
 Diana smiled. "It was indeed a voice to startle delicate 
 apparitions! So do roar Hyrcanean tigers, Pyramus and 
 Thisbe — slaying lions! One of your ghosts carried a loaf of 
 bread, and dropped it in fright; one carried a pound of fresh 
 butter for home consumption. They were in the church- 
 yard for one in passing to kneel at her father's grave and kiss 
 his tombstone." 
 
 She bowed her head, forgetful of her guard. 
 
 The pause presented an opening. Redworth left his chair 
 and walked to the mantelpiece. It was easier to him to 
 speak, not facing her. 
 
 "You have read Lady Dunstane's letter?" he began. 
 
 She nodded. "I have." 
 
 "Can you resist her appeal to you?" 
 
 "I must." 
 
93 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "She is not in a condition to bear it well. You will pardon 
 me, Mrs. Warwick . . ." 
 
 "Fully! Fully!" 
 
 "I venture to offer merely practical advice. You have 
 thought of it all, but have not felt it. In these cases the 
 one thing to do is to make a stand. Lady Dunstane has a 
 clear head. She sees what has to be endured by you. Con- 
 sider: she appeals to me to bring you her letter. Would she 
 have chosen me, or any man, for her messenger, if it had not 
 appeared to her a matter of life and death? — You count me 
 among your friends." 
 
 "One of the truest." 
 
 "Here are two, then, and your own good sense. For I do 
 not believe it to be a question of courage." 
 
 "He has commenced. Let him carry it out," said Diana. 
 
 Her desperation could have added the cry — And give me 
 freedom! That was the secret in her heart. She had struck 
 on the hope for the detested yoke to be broken at any 
 cost. 
 
 "I decline to meet his charges. I despise them. If my 
 friends have faith in me — and they may! — I want nothing 
 more." 
 
 "Well, I won't talk commonplaces about the world," said 
 Redworth. "We can none of us afford to have it against 
 us. Consider a moment: to your friends you are the Diana 
 Merion they knew, and they will not suffer an injury to 
 your good name without a struggle. But if you fly? You 
 leave the dearest you have to the whole brunt of it." 
 
 "They will, if they love me." 
 
 "They will. But think of the shock to her. Lady Dun- 
 stane reads you . . ." 
 
 "Not quite. No, not if she even wishes me to stay!" said 
 Diana. 
 
 He was too intent on his pleading to perceive a significa- 
 tion. 
 
 "She reads you as clearly in the dark as if you were present 
 with her." 
 
 "Oh! why am I not ten years older?" Diana cried, and 
 tried to face round to him, and stopped paralyzed. "Ten 
 years older, I could discuss my situation, as an old woman of 
 the world, and use my wits to defend myself." 
 
 "And then you would not dream of flight before it!" 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. §3 
 
 '^No, she does not read me: no! She saw that I might come 
 to The Crossways. She — no one but myself can see the 
 wisdom of my holding aloof, in contempt of this base- 
 ness/^ 
 
 "And of allowing her to sink under that which your pres- 
 ence would arrest. Her strength will not support it." 
 
 "Emma! Oh, cruel!" Diana sprang up to give play to 
 her limbs. She dropped on another chair. "Go I must, I 
 cannot turn back. She saw my old attachment to this place. 
 It was not difficult to guess .... Who but I can see the 
 wisest course for me!" 
 
 "It comes to this, that the blow aimed at you in your 
 absence will strike her, and mortally," said Eedworth. 
 
 "Then I say it is terrible to have a friend," said Diana, with 
 her bosom heaving. 
 
 "Friendship, I fancy, means one heart between two." 
 
 His unstressed observation hit a bell in her head, and set 
 it reverberating. She and Emma had spoken, written, the 
 very words. She drew forth her Emma's letter from under 
 her left breast, and read some half -blinded lines. 
 
 Eedworth immediately prepared to leave her to her feelings 
 — trustier guides than her judgment in this crisis. 
 
 "Adieu, for the night, Mrs. Warwick," he said, and was 
 guilty of eulogizing the judgment he thought erratic for the 
 moment. ' "Night is a calm adviser. Let me presume to 
 come again in the morning. I dare not go back without you." 
 
 She looked up. As they faced together each saw that the 
 other had passed through a furnace, scorching enough to him, 
 though hers was the delicacy exposed. The reflection had its 
 weight with her during the night. 
 
 "Danvers is getting ready a bed for you; she is airing 
 linen," Diana said. But the bed was declined, and the hos- 
 pitality was not pressed. The offer of it seemed to him sig- 
 nificant of an unwary cordiality and thoughtlessness of tattlers 
 that might account possibly for many things — supposing a 
 fool or madman, or malignants, to interpret them. 
 
 "Then, good night," said she. 
 
 They joined hands. He exacted no promise that she would 
 be present in the morning to receive him; and it was a con- 
 solation to her desire for freedom, until she reflected on the 
 perfect confidence it implied, and felt as a quivering butterfly 
 impalpably pinned. 
 
94 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE CONFLICT OF THE NIGHT. 
 
 Her brain was a steam- wheel throughout the night; every- 
 thing that could be thought of was tossed, nothing grasped. 
 
 The unfriendliness of the friends who sought to retain her 
 recurred. For look — to fly could not be interpreted as a 
 flight. It was but a stepping aside, a disdain of defending 
 herself, and a wrapping herself in her dignity. Women would 
 be with her. She called on the noblest of them to justify the 
 course she chose, and they did, in an almost audible murmur. 
 
 And oh! the rich reward. A black archway-gate swung 
 open to the glittering fields of freedom. 
 
 Emma was not of the chorus. Emma meditated as an in- 
 valid. How often had Emma bewailed to her that the most 
 grevious burden of her malady was her fatal tendency to brood 
 sickly upon human complications! She could not see the 
 blessedness of the prospect of freedom to a woman abominably 
 yoked. What if a miserable woman were dragged through 
 mire to reach it! Married, the mire was her portion, what- 
 ever she might do. That man — but pass him! 
 
 And that other — the dear, the kind, careless, high-hearted 
 old friend. He could honestly protest his guiltlessness, and 
 would smilingly leave the case to go its ways. Of this she was 
 sure, that her decision and her pleasure would be his. They 
 were tied to the stake. She had already tasted some of the 
 mortal agony. Did it matter whether the flames consumed 
 her? 
 
 Reflecting on the interview with Redworth, though she 
 had* performed her part in it placidly, her skin burned. It 
 was the beginning of tortures if she stayed in England. 
 
 By staying to defend herself she forfeited her attitude of 
 dignity and lost all chance of her reward. And name the sort 
 of world it is, dear friends, for which we are to sacrifice our 
 one hope of freedom, that we may preserve our fair fame in 
 it! 
 
 Diana cried aloud, "My freedom!" feeling as a butterfly 
 flown out of a box to stretches of sunny earth beneath spa- 
 cious heavens. Her bitter marriage, — joyless in all its chap- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 95 
 
 ters, indefensible where the man was right as well as where 
 insensately wrong, — had been imprisonment. She excused 
 him down to his last madness, if only the bonds were broken. 
 Here, too, in this very house of her happiness with her father, 
 she had bound herself to the man: voluntarily, quite inexpli- 
 cably. Voluntarily, as we say. But there must be a spell 
 upon us at times. Upon young women there certainly is. 
 
 The wild brain of Diana, armed by her later enlighten- 
 ment as to the laws of life and nature, dashed in revolt at 
 the laws of the world when she thought of the forces, natural 
 and social, urging young women to marry and be bound to 
 the end. 
 
 It should be a spotless world which is thus ruthless. 
 
 But were the world impeccable it would behave more gen- 
 erously. 
 
 The world is ruthless, dear friends, because the world is 
 hypocrite! The world cannot afford to be magnanimous or 
 even just. 
 
 Her dissensions with her husband, their differences of 
 opinion and puny wranglings, hoistings of two standards, 
 reconciliations for the sake of decency, breaches of the truer, 
 and his detested meanness, the man behind the mask; and 
 glimpses of herself, too, the half-known, half-suspected, de- 
 veloping creature claiming to be Diana, and unlike her 
 dreamed Diana, deformed by marriage, irritable, acerb, rebel- 
 lious, constantly justifiable against him, but not in her own 
 mind, and therefore accusing him of the double crime of pro- 
 voking her and perverting her — these were the troops defiling 
 through her head while she did battle with the hypocrite 
 world. 
 
 One painful sting was caused by the feeling that she could 
 have loved — whom? An ideal. Had he, the imagined but 
 unvisioned, been her yoke-fellow, would she now lie raising 
 caged-beast cries in execration of the yoke? She Avould not 
 now be seeing herself a hare, serpent, tigress! The hypoth- 
 esis was reviewed in negatives; she had barely a sense of 
 softness, just a single little heave of the bosom, quivering 
 upward and leadenly sinking, when she glanced at a married 
 Diana heartily mated. The regrets of the youthful for a 
 life sailing away under medical sentence of death in the sad 
 eyes of relatives resemble it. She could have loved. Good- 
 bye to that! 
 
96 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 A woman's brutallest tussle with the world was upon her. 
 She was in the arena of the savage claws, flung there by the 
 man who of all others should have protected her from them. 
 And what had she done to deserve it? She listened to the 
 advocate pleading her case; she primed him to admit the 
 charges, to say the worst, in contempt of legal prudence, 
 and thereby expose her transparent honesty. The very things 
 awakening a mad suspicion proved her innocence. But was 
 she this utterly simple person? Oh, no! She was the Diana 
 of the pride in her power of fencing with evil — by no means 
 of the order of those ninny young women who realize the pop- 
 ular conception of the purely innocent. She had fenced and 
 kept her guard. Of this it was her angry glory to have the 
 knowledge. But she had been compelled to fence. Such are 
 men in the world of facts, that, when a woman steps out of 
 her domestic tangle to assert, because it is a tangle, her rights 
 to partial independence, they sight her for their prey, or at 
 least they complacently suppose her accessible. Wretched at 
 home, a woman ought to bury herself in her wretchedness, 
 else may she be assured that not the cleverest, wariest guard 
 will cover her character. 
 
 Against the husband her cause was triumphant. Against 
 herself she decided not to plead it, for this reason, that the 
 preceding court, which was the public and only positive one, 
 had entirely and justly exonerated her. But the holding of 
 her hand by the friend half a minute too long for friendship, 
 and the overfriendliness of looks, letters, frequency of visits, 
 would speak within her. She had a darting view of her hus- 
 band's estimation of them in his present mood. She 
 quenched it: they were trifles — things that women of the 
 world have to combat. The revelation to a fair-minded young 
 woman of the majority of men being naught other than men, 
 and some of the friendliest of men betraying confidence un- 
 der the excuse of temptation, is one of the shocks to simpli- 
 city which leave her the alternative of misanthropy or phil- 
 osophy. Diana had not the heart to hate her kind, so she 
 resigned herself to pardon, and to the recognition of the state 
 of duel between the sexes — active enough in her sphere of so- 
 ciety. The circle hummed with it; many lived for it. Could 
 she pretend to ignore it? Her personal experience might have 
 instigated a less clear and less intrepid nature to take ad- 
 vantage of the opportunity for playing the popular innocent, 
 
DIA'NA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 97 
 
 who runs about with astonished eyes to find herself in so 
 hunting a world, and wins general compassion, if not shelter, 
 in unsuspected and unlicensed places. There is perpetually 
 the inducement to act the hypocrite before the hypocrite 
 world, unless a woman submits to be the humbly knitting 
 housewife, unquestioningly worshipful of her lord; for the 
 world is ever gracious to an liypocrisy that pays homage to the 
 mask of virtue by copying it; the world is hostile to the face 
 of an innocence not conventionally simpering and quite sur- 
 prised; the world prefers decorum to honesty. "Let me be 
 myself, whatever the martyrdom!" she cried, in that phase of 
 young sensation when, to the blooming woman, the putting 
 on of a mask appears to wither her and reduce her to the 
 show she parades. Yet, in common with her sisterhood, she 
 owned she had worn a sort of mask; the world demands it of 
 them as the price of their station. That she had never worn 
 it consentingly was the plea for now casting it off altogether, 
 showing herself as she was, accepting martyrdom, becoming 
 the first martyr of the modern woman's cause. A grand posi- 
 tion! and one imaginable to an excited mind in the dark, 
 which does not conjure a critical humor, as light does, to cor- 
 rect the feverish sublimity. She was, then, this martyr, a 
 woman capable of telling the world she knew it, and of con- 
 fessing that she had behaved in disdain of its rigider rules, 
 according to her own ideas of her immunities. Oh brave! 
 
 But was she holding the position by flight? It involved the 
 challenge of consequences, not an evasion of them. 
 
 She moaned; her mental steam- wheel stopped: fatigue 
 brought sleep. 
 
 She had sensationally led her rebellious wits to The Cross- 
 ways, distilling much poison from thoughts on the way; and 
 there, for the luxury of a still seeming indecision, she sank 
 into oblivion. 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 RECOUNTS THE JOURNEY IN A CHARIOT, WITH A CER- 
 TAIN AMOUNT OF DIALOGUE, AND A SMALL 
 INCIDENT ON THE ROAD. 
 
 In the morning the fight was over. She looked at the 
 signpost of The Crossways whilst dressing, and submitted to 
 
98 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 follow, obediently as a puppet, the road recommended by 
 friends, though a voice within, that she took for the intima- 
 tions of her reason, protested that they were wrong, that they 
 were judging of her case in the general, and unwisely — dis- 
 astrously for her. 
 
 The mistaking of her desires for her reason was peculiar to 
 her situation. 
 
 "So I suppose I shall some day see The Crossways again," 
 she said, to conceive a compensation in the abandonment of 
 freedom. The night's red vision of martyrdom was reserved 
 to console her secretly, among the unopened lockers in her 
 treasury of thoughts. It helped to sustain her; and she was 
 too conscious of things necessary for her sustainment to bring 
 it to the light of day and examine it. She had a pitiful bit 
 of pleasure in the gratification she imparted to Danvers, by 
 informing her that the journey of the day was backward to 
 Copsley. 
 
 "If I may venture to say so, ma'am, I am very glad," said 
 her maid. 
 
 "You must be prepared for the questions of lawyers, Dan- 
 vers." 
 
 "Oh, ma'am! they'll get nothing out of me, and their 
 wigs won't frighten me." 
 
 "It is usually their baldness that is most frightening, my 
 poor Danvers." 
 
 "Nor their baldness, ma'am," said the literal maid; "I never 
 cared for their heads, or them. I've been in a case be- 
 fore." 
 
 "Indeed!" exclaimed her mistress; and she had a chill. 
 
 Danvers mentioned a notorious case, adding, "They got 
 nothing out of me." 
 
 "In my case you will please to speak the truth," said Diana, 
 and beheld in the looking-glass the primming of her maid's 
 mouth. The sight shot a sting. 
 
 "Understand that there is to be no hesitation about telling 
 the truth of what you know of me," said Diana; and the an- 
 swer was, "No, ma'am." 
 
 For Danvers could remark to herself that she knew little, 
 and was not a person to hesitate. She was a maid of the 
 world, with the quality of faithfulness, by nature, to a good 
 mistress. 
 
 Eedworth's further difficulties were confined to the hiring 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 99 
 
 of a conveyance for the travelers, and hot-water bottles, to- 
 gether with a postillion not addicted to drunkenness. He 
 procured a posting-chariot, an ancient and musty, of a late 
 autumnal yellow unrefreshed by paint; the only bottles to 
 be had were Dutch schiedam. His postillion, inspected at 
 Sterling, carried the flag of habitual inebriation on his nose, 
 and he deemed it advisable to ride the mare in accompani- 
 ment as far as Riddlehurst, notwithstanding the postillion's 
 vows upon his honor that he was no drinker. The emphasis, 
 to a gentleman acquainted with his countrymen, was not re- 
 assuring. He had hopes of enlisting a trustier fellow at Rid- 
 dlehurst, but he was disappointed; and while debating upon 
 what to do, for he shrank from leaving two women to the 
 conduct of that inflamed trough-snout, Brisby, dispatched to 
 Sterling by an after-thought of Lady Dunstane's, rushed out 
 of the Riddlehurst inn tap-room and relieved him of the 
 charge of the mare. He was accommodated with a seat on a 
 stool in the chariot, "My triumphal car," said his captive. 
 She was very amusing about her postillion; Danvers had to 
 beg pardon for laughing. "You are happy," observed her 
 mistress. But Redworth laughed too, and he could not boast 
 of any happiness beyond the temporary satisfaction, nor could 
 she who sprang the laughter boast of that little. She said to 
 herself, in the midst of the hilarity, "Wherever I go now, in 
 all weathers, I am perfectly naked!" And remembering her 
 readings of a certain wonderful old quarto book in her fath- 
 er's library, by an eccentric old Scottish nobleman, wherein 
 the wearing of garments and sleeping in houses is accused as 
 the cause of human degeneracy, she took a forced merry stand 
 on her return to the primitive healthful state of man and 
 woman, and affected scorn of our modern ways of dressing and 
 thinking; whence it came that she had some of her wildest 
 seizures of iridescent humor. Danvers attributed the fun 
 to her mistress' gladness in not having pursued her bent to 
 quit the country. Redworth saw deeper, and was neverthe- 
 less amazed by the airy hawk-poise and pounce-down of her 
 wit, as she ranged high and low, now capriciously generaliz- 
 ing, now dropping bolt upon things of passage — the postillion 
 jogging from rum to gin, the rustics baconly agape, the horse- 
 kneed ostlers. She touched them to the life in similes and 
 phrases; and next she was aloft, derisively philosophizing, but 
 with a comic afflatus that dispersed the sharpness of her irony 
 
100 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 in mocking laughter. The afternoon refreshments at the inn 
 of the county market-town, and the EngHsh idea of public 
 hospitality as to manner and the substance provided for way- 
 farers, was among the themes she made memorable to him. 
 She spoke of everything tolerantly, just naming it in a simple 
 sentence, that fell with a ring and chimed: their host's ready 
 acquiescence in receiving orders, his contemptuous disclaimer 
 of stuff he did not keep, his fiat indifference to the sheep he 
 sheared, and the phantom half-crown flickering in one eye of 
 the anticipatory waiter; the pervading and confounding smell 
 of stale beer over all the apartments; the prevalent notion of 
 bread, butter, tea, milk, sugar, as matter for the exercise of a 
 native inventive genius — ^these were reviewed in quips of 
 metaphor. 
 
 "Come, we can do better at an inn or two known to me," 
 said Eedworth. 
 
 "Surely this is the best that can be done for us, when 
 we strike them with the magic wand of a postillion?" said 
 she. 
 
 'T.t depends, as elsewhere, on the individuals entertaining 
 us.'^ 
 
 "Yet you admit that your railways are rapidly "^polishing off' 
 the individual." 
 
 "They will spread the metropolitan idea of comfort." 
 "I fear they will feed us on nothing but that big word. 
 It booms — a curfew bell — for every poor little light that we 
 would read by." 
 
 Seeing their beacon-nosed postillion preparing to mount 
 and failing in his jump, Eedworth was apprehensive, and 
 questioned the fellow concerning potation. 
 
 "Lord, sir, they call me half a horse, but I can't 'bide wa- 
 ter," was the reply, with the assurance that he had not "taken 
 a pailful." 
 
 Habit enabled him to gain his seat. 
 
 "It seems to us unnecessary to heap on coal when the 
 chimney is afire; but he may know the proper course," Diana 
 said, convulsing Danvers; and there was discernibly to Red- 
 worth, under the influence of her phrases, a likeness of the 
 flaming "half-horse," with the animals all smoking in the 
 frost, to a railway-engine. "Your wrinkled centaur," she 
 named the man. Of course he had to play second to her, 
 and not unwillingly; but he reflected passingly on the in- 
 stinctive push of her rich and sparkling voluble fancy to the 
 
DIANA OF THE CRQSSWAYS. 101 
 
 initiative, which women do not like in a woman, and men 
 prefer to distantly admire. English women and men feel to- 
 wards the quickwitted of their species as to aliens, having the 
 demerits of aliens — wordiness, vanity, obscurity, shallowness, 
 an empty glitter, the sin of posturing. A quickwitted woman 
 exerting her wit is both a foreigner and potentially a criminal. 
 She is incandescent to a breath of rumor. It accounted for 
 her having detractors; a heavy counterpoise to her enthusi- 
 astic friends. It might account for her husband's discontent 
 — the reduction of him to a state of mere mascuUne antago- 
 nism. What is the husband of a vanward woman? He feels 
 himself but a diminished man. The English husband of a 
 voluble woman relapses into a dreary mute. Ah, for the 
 choice of places! Eedworth would have yielded her the lo- 
 quent lead for the smallest of the privileges due to him who 
 now rejected all, except the public scourging of her. The 
 conviction was in his mind that the husband of this woman 
 sought rather to punish than be rid of her. But a part of his 
 own emotion went to form the judgment. 
 
 Furthermore, Lady Dunstane's allusion to her ^'enemies" 
 made him set down her growing crop of backbiters to the 
 trick she had of ridiculing tilings English. If the English 
 do it themselves it is in a professionally robust, a jacose, kind- 
 ly way, always with a glance at the other things, great things, 
 they excel in; and it is done to have the credit of doing it, 
 They are keen to catch an inimical tone; they will find oc- 
 casion to chastise the presumptuous individual, unless it be 
 the leader of a party, therefore a power; for they respect a 
 power. Eedworth knew their quaintnesses; without overlook- 
 ing them he winced at the acid of an irony that seemed to 
 spring from aversion, and regretted it for her sake. He had 
 to recollect that she was in a sharp-strung mood, bitterly sur- 
 excited. Moreover, he reminded himself of her many and 
 memorable phrases of enthusiasm for England — Shakespeare- 
 land, as she would sometimes perversely term it, to sink the 
 country in the poet. English fortitude, English integrity, 
 the English disposition to do justice to dependents, adolescent 
 English ingenuousness, she was always ready to laud. Only 
 her enthusiasm required rousing by circumstances; it was 
 less at the brim than her satire. Hence she made enemies 
 among a placable people. 
 
 He felt that he could have helped her imder happier con- 
 
102 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 ditions. The beautiful vision she had been on the night of 
 the Irish ball swept before him, and he looked at her, smil- 
 ing. 
 
 "Why do you smile?'' she said. 
 
 "I was thinking of Mr. Sullivan Smith." 
 
 "Ah! my dear compatriot! And think, too, of Lord L^r- 
 rian.'^ 
 
 She caught her breath. Instead of recreation the names 
 brought on a fit of sadness. It deepened; she neither smiled 
 nor rattled any more. She gazed across the hedgeways at 
 the white meadows and bare-twigged copses showing their 
 last leaves in the frost. 
 
 "I remember your words: ^Observation is the most en- 
 during of the pleasures of life'; and so I have found it," she 
 said. There was a brightness along her under-eyelids that 
 caused him to look away. 
 
 The expected catastrophe occurred on the descent of a 
 cutting in the sand, where their cordial postillion at a trot 
 bumped the chariot against the sturdy wheels of a wagon, 
 which sent it reclining for support upon a beech-tree's huge 
 intertwisted serpent roots, amid strips of brown bracken and 
 pendent weeds, while he exhibited one short stump of leg, 
 all boot, in air. No one was hurt. Diana disengaged her- 
 self from the shoulder of Dan vers, and mildly said: 
 
 "That reminds me, I forgot to ask why we came in a 
 chariot." 
 
 Eedworth was excited on her behalf, but the broken glass 
 had done no damage, nor had Danvers fainted. The remark 
 was unintelligible to him, apart from the comforting it had 
 been designed to give. He jumped out, and held a hand for 
 them to do the same. "I never foresaw an event more posi- 
 tively," said he. 
 
 "And it was nothing but a back view that inspired you 
 all the way," said Diana. 
 
 A wagoner held the horses, another assisted Eedworth to 
 right the chariot. The postillion had hastily recovered pos- 
 session of his official seat, that he might as soon as possible 
 feel himself again where he was most intelligent, and was gay 
 in stupidity, indifferent to what happened behind him. Diana 
 heard him counseling the wagoner as to the common sense 
 of meeting small accidents Avith a cheerful soul. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 103 
 
 "Lord!'' he cried, "I been pitched a somerset in my time, 
 and taken up for dead, and that didn't beat me!" 
 
 Disasters of the present kind could hardly affect such a 
 veteran. But he was painfully disconcerted by Eedworth's 
 determination not to entrust the ladies any further to his 
 guidance. Danvers had implored for permission to walk 
 the mile to the town, and thence take a fly to Copsley. Her 
 mistress rather sided with the postillion, who begged them 
 to spare him the disgrace of riding in and delivering a box 
 at the Eed Lion. 
 
 "What'll they say? And they know Arthur Dance well 
 there,'' he groaned. "What! Arthur! chariotin' a box! 
 And me a better man to his work now than I been for many 
 a long season, fit for double the journey! A bit of a shake 
 always braces me up. I could read a newspaper right off, 
 small print and all. Come along, sir, and hand the ladies in." 
 
 Danvers vowed her thanks to Mr. Redworth for refusing. 
 They walked ahead; the postillion communicated his mixture 
 of professional and human feelings to the wagoners, and 
 walked his horses in the rear, meditating on the weak-hearted- 
 ness of gentryfolk, and the means for escaping being chaffed 
 out of his boots at the Old Eed Lion, where he was to eat, 
 drink, and sleep that night. Ladies might be fearsome after 
 a bit of a shake; he would not have supposed it of a gentle- 
 man. He jogged himself into an arithmetic of the number of 
 nips of liquor he had taken to soothe him on the road, in spite 
 of the gentleman. "For some of 'em are sworn enemies of 
 poor men, as yonder one, ne'er a doubt.'' 
 
 Diana enjoyed her walk beneath the lingering brown-red 
 of the frosty November sunset, with the scent of sand-earth 
 strong in the air. 
 
 "I had to hire a chariot because there was no two-horse 
 carriage," said Redwortb, "and I wished to reach Copsley as 
 early as possible." 
 
 She replied, smiling, that accidents were fated. As a cer- 
 tain marriage had been! The comparison forced itself on her 
 reflections. 
 
 "But this is quite an adventure," said she, reanimated by 
 the brisker flow of her blood. "We ought really to be thank- 
 ful for it, in days when nothing happens." 
 
 Redworth accused her of getting that idea from the perusal 
 of romances. 
 
/^■' ' 
 
 i., 
 
 04 / DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "Yes, our lives require compression, like romances, to be 
 interesting, and we object to the process,^^ she said. "Real 
 happiness is a state of dullness. When we taste it con- 
 sciously it becomes mortal — a thing of the seasons. But I 
 like my walk. How long these November sunsets burn, 
 and what hues they have! There is a scientific reason, only 
 don't tell it me. JSTow I understand why you always used 
 to choose your holidays in November.'' 
 
 She thrilled him with her friendly recollection of his 
 I customs. 
 
 f. "As to happiness, the looking forward is happiness," he 
 I remarked. 
 
 I "Oh, the looking back! back!" she cried. 
 
 f "Forward! that is life." 
 
 I "And backward, death, if you will; and still it is hap- 
 
 f piness. Death, and our postillion!" 
 
 I "Ay; I wonder why the fellow hangs to the rear," said 
 
 I Eedworth, turning about. 
 
 « "It's his cunning strategy, poor creature, so that he may 
 
 be thought to have delivered us at the head of the town, for 
 us to make a purchase or two, if we go to the inn on foot," 
 said Diana. "We'll let the maneuver succeed." 
 
 Eedworth declared that she had a head for everything, 
 and she was flattered to hear him. 
 
 So passing from the southern into the western road, they 
 saw the town-lights beneath an umber sky burning out 
 somberly over the woods of Copsley, and entered the town, 
 the postillion following. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BETWEEN EMMA AND DIANA. 
 
 Diana was in the arms of her friend at a late hour of the 
 evening, and Danvers breathed the amiable atmosphere of 
 footmen once more, professing herself perished. This maid 
 of the world, who could endure hardships and loss of society 
 for the mistress to whom she was attached, no sooner saw 
 herself surrounded by the comforts befitting her station than 
 she indulged in the luxury of a wailful dejeetedness, the 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 105 
 
 better to appreciate them. She was unaffectedly astonished 
 to find her outcries against the cold and the joumeyings 
 to and fro interpreted as a serving-woman's muffled com- 
 ments on her mistress' behavior. Lady Dunstane's maid 
 Bartlett;, and Mrs. Bridges the housekeeper, and Foster the 
 butler, contrived to let her know that they could speak an 
 if they would; and they expressed their pity of her to 
 assist her to begin the speaking. She bowed in acceptance 
 of Foster's offer of a glass of wine after supper, but treated 
 him and the other two immediately as though they had been 
 interrogating bigwigs. 
 
 "They wormed nothing out of me/' she said to her mis- 
 tress at night, undressing her. "But what a set they are! 
 They've got such comfortable places, they've all their days 
 and hours for talk of the doings of their superiors. They 
 read the vilest of those town papers, and they put their two 
 and two together of what is happening in and about. And 
 not one of the footmen thinks of staying because it's so 
 dull; and they and the maids object — did one ever hear? — 
 to the three uppers retiring, when they've done dining, to 
 the private room to dessert." 
 
 "That is the custom," observed her mistress. 
 
 "Foster carries the decanter, ma'am, and Mrs. Bridges 
 the biscuits, and Bartlett the plate of fruit, and they march 
 out in order." 
 
 "The man at the head of the procession, probably." 
 
 "Oh, yes. And the others, though they have everything 
 except the wine and dessert, don't like it. When I was here 
 last they were new, and hadn't a word against it. Now they 
 say it's invidious! Lady Dunstane will be left without an 
 under-servant at Copsley soon. I was asked about your 
 boxes, ma'am, and the moment I said they were at Dover 
 that instant all three peeped. They let out a mouse to me. 
 They do love to talk!" 
 
 Her mistress could have added, "And you too, my good 
 Danvers!" trustworthy though she knew the creature to be 
 in the main. 
 
 "Now go, and be sure you have bedclothes enough before 
 you drop asleep," she said; and Danvers directed her steps 
 to gossip with Bartlett. 
 
 Diana wrapped herself in a dressing-gown Lady Dunstane 
 had sent her, and sat by the fire, thinking of the powder of 
 
106 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 tattle stored in servants' halls to explode beneath her: and 
 but for her choice of roads she might have been among 
 strangers. The liking of strangers best is a curious exem- 
 plification of innocence. 
 
 "Yes, I was in a muse," she said, raising her head to 
 Emma, whom she expected and sat armed to meet, un- 
 accountably iron-nerved. "I was questioning whether I could 
 be quite as blameless as I fancy if I sit and shiver to be in 
 England. You will tell me I have taken the right road. 
 I doubt it. But the road is taken, and here I am. But 
 any road that leads me to you is homeward, my darling!'* 
 She tried to melt, determining to be at least open with her. 
 
 "I have not praised you enough for coming," said Emma, 
 when they had embraced again. 
 
 "Praise a little your 'truest friend of women.' Your letter 
 gave the tug. I might have resisted it." 
 
 "He came straight from heaven! But, cruel Tony! where 
 is your love?" 
 
 "It is unequal to yours, dear, I see. I could have wrestled 
 
 with anything abstract and distant, from being certain . 
 
 But here I am." 
 
 "But, my own dear girl, you never could have allowed 
 this infamous charge to be undefended?" 
 
 "I think so. I've an odd apathy as to my character; 
 rather like death, when one dreams of flying the soul. What 
 does it matter? I should have left the flies and wasps to 
 worry a corpse. And then, good-bye gentility! I should 
 have worked for my bread. I had thoughts of America. I 
 fancy I can write, and Americans, one hears, are gentle to 
 women." 
 
 "Ah, Tony! there's the looking back. And, of all women, 
 you!" 
 
 "Or else, dear — well, perhaps once on foreign soil, in a 
 different air, I might — might have looked back, and seen my 
 whole self, not shattered, as I feel it now, and come home 
 again compassionate to the poor persecuted animal to defend 
 her. Perhaps that was what I was running away for. I 
 fled on the instinct, often a good thing to trust." 
 
 "I saw you at The Crossways." 
 
 "I remembered I had the dread that you would, though 
 I did not imagine you would reach me so swiftly. My going 
 there was an instinct, too. I suppose we are all instinct 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 107 
 
 when we have the world at our heels. Forgive me if I 
 generalize without any longer the right to be included in 
 the common human sum. Tariah' and 'taboo' are words 
 we borrow from barbarous tribes; they stick to me." 
 
 "My Tony, you look as bright as ever, and you speak 
 despairingly." 
 
 "Call me enigma. I am that to myself, Emmy." 
 
 "You are not quite yourself to your friend." 
 
 "Since the blow I have been bewildered; I see nothing 
 upright. It came on me suddenly; stunned me. A bolt out 
 of a clear sky, as they say. He spared me a scene. There 
 had been threats, and yet the sky was clear, or seemed. 
 AVhen we have a man for arbiter he is our sky." 
 
 Emma pressed her Tony's unresponsive hand, feeling 
 strangely that her friend ebbed from her. 
 
 "Has he .... to mislead him?" she said, coloring at 
 the breach in the question. 
 
 "Proofs? He has the proofs he supposes." 
 
 "JSTot to justify suspicion?" 
 
 "He broke open my desk and took my letters." 
 
 "Horrible! But the letters?" Emma shook with a ner- 
 vous revulsion. 
 
 "You might read them." 
 
 "Basest of men! That is the unpardonable cowardice!" 
 exclaimed Emma. 
 
 "The world will read them, dear," said Diana, and struck 
 herself to ice. 
 
 She broke from the bitter frigidity in fury. "They are 
 letters — none very long, sometimes two short sentences — he 
 wrote at any spare moment. On my honor, as a woman, 
 I feel for him most. The letters; I would bear any accu- 
 sation rather than that exposure. Letters of a man of his 
 age to a young woman he rates too highly! The world reads 
 them. Do you hear it saying it could have excused her for 
 that fiddle-faddle with a younger — a young lover? And 
 had I thought of a lover . . . . ! I had no thought of lov- 
 ing or being loved. I confess I was flattered. To you, 
 Emma, I wdll confess. . . . You see the public ridicule! and 
 half his age, he and I would have appeared a romantic couple! 
 Confess, I said. Well, dear, the stake is lighted for a trial 
 of its effect on me. It is this: he Avas never a dishonorable 
 friend; but men appear to be capable of friendship with 
 
108 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 women only for as long as we keep out of pulling distance 
 of that line where friendship ceases. They may step on it; 
 we must hold back a league. I have learnt it. You will 
 judge whether he disrespects me. As for him, he is a man; 
 at his worst, not one of the worst; at his best, better than 
 very many. There, now, Emma, you have me stripped and 
 burning; there is my full confession. Except for this — yes, 
 one thing further — that I do rage at the ridicule, and could 
 choose, but for you, to have given the world cause to revile 
 me, or think me romantic. Something or somebody to suffer 
 for would really be agreeable. It is a singular fact, I have 
 not known what this love is that they talk about. And be- 
 hold me marched into Smithfield! society's heretic, if you 
 please. I must own I think it hard." 
 
 Emma chafed her cold hand softly. 
 
 "It is hard; I understand it," she murmured. "And is 
 your Sunday visit to us in the list of offenses?" 
 
 "An item." 
 
 "You gave me a hapj)y day." 
 
 "Then it counts for me in Heaven." 
 
 "He set spies on you?" 
 
 "So we may presume." 
 
 Emma went through a sphere of tenuous reflections in a 
 flash. 
 
 "He will rue it. Perhaps now .... he may now be 
 regretting his wretched frenzy. And Tony could pardon; 
 she has the pov/er of pardoning in her heart." 
 
 "Oh certainly, dear. But tell me why it is you speak 
 to-night rather unlike the sedate, philosophical Emma; in a 
 tone — well, tolerably sentimental?" 
 
 "I am unaware of it," said Emma, who could have retorted 
 with a like reproach. "I am anxious, I will not say at pres- 
 ent for your happiness, for 5^our peace, and I have a hope 
 that possibly a timely word from some friend — Lukin or 
 another — might induce him to consider." 
 
 "To pardon me, do you mean?" cried Diana, flushing 
 sternly. 
 
 "Not pardon. Suppose a case of faults on both sides." 
 
 "You address a faulty person, my dear. But djo you know 
 that you are hinting at a reconcilement?" 
 
 "Might it not be?" 
 
 "Open your eyes to what it involves. I trust I can par- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 109 
 
 don. Let liim go his ways, do his darkest, or repent. But 
 return to the roof of the ^basest of men/ who was guilty of 
 *the unpardonable cowardice'? You expect me to be super- 
 human. When I consent to that I shall be out of my woman's 
 skin, which he has branded. Go back to him?" She was 
 taken with a shudder of head and limbs. "No; I really 
 have the power of pardoning, and I am bound to: for, among 
 my debts to him, this present exemption, — that is like liberty 
 dragging a chain, or, say, an escaped felon wearing his 
 manacles, — should count. I am sensible of my obligation. 
 The price I pay for it is an immovable patch — attractive to 
 male idiots, I have heard, and a mark of scorn to females. 
 Between the two the remainder of my days will be lively. 
 *Out, out, damned spot!' But it will not. x\nd not on the 
 hand — on the forehead! We'll talk of it no longer. I have 
 sent a note, with an inclosure, to my lawyers. I sell The 
 Crossways, if I have the married woman's right to any scrap 
 of property, for money to scatter fees." 
 
 "My purse, dear Tony!" exclaimed Emma. "My house! 
 You will stay with me? AVhy do you shake your head? 
 With me you are safe." She spied at the shadows in her 
 friend's face. "Ever since your marriage, Tony, you have 
 been strange in your trick of refusing to stay with me. And 
 you and I made our friendship the pledge of a belief in 
 eternity! We vowed it. Come, I do talk sentimentally, but 
 my heart is in it. I beg you — all the reasons are with me — 
 to make my house your home. You will. You know I am 
 rather lonely." 
 
 Diana struggled to keep her resolution from being broken 
 by tenderness. And doubtless poor Sir Lukin had learnt his 
 lesson; still, her defensive instincts could never quite slum- 
 ber under his roof; not because of any further fear that they 
 would have to be summoned; it was chiefly owing to the 
 consequences of his treacherous foolishness. For this half- 
 home with her friend thenceforward denied to her, she had 
 accepted a protector, called husband — rashly, past credence, 
 in the retrospect; but it had been her propelling motive; 
 and the loathings roused by her marriage helped to sicken 
 her at the idea of a lengthened stay where she had sufl;ered 
 the shock precipitating her to an act of insanity. 
 
 "I do not forget you were an heiress, Emmy, and I will 
 come to you if I need money to keep my head up. As for 
 
110 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 staying, two reasons are against it. If I am to fight my 
 battle I must be seen; I must go about — wherever I am 
 received. So my field is London. That is obvious. And I 
 shall rest better in a house where my story is not known." 
 
 Two or three questions ensued. Diana had to fortify her 
 fictitious objection by alluding to her maid's prattle of the 
 household below; and she excused the hapless, overfed, idle 
 people of those regions. 
 
 To Emma it seemed a not unnatural sensitiveness. She 
 came to a settled resolve in her thoughts, as she said, "They 
 want a change. London is their element." 
 
 Feeling that she deceived this true heart, however lightly 
 and necessarily, Diana warmed to her, forgiving her at last 
 for having netted and dragged her back to front the enemy; 
 an imposition of horrors of which the scene and the traveling 
 with Eedworth, the talking of her case with her most inti- 
 mate friend as well, had been a distempering foretaste. 
 
 They stood up and kissed, parting for the night. 
 
 An odd world, where for the sin we have not participated 
 in we must fib and continue fibbing, she reflected. She did 
 not entirely cheat her clearer mind, for she perceived that 
 her step in flight had been urged both by a weak despondency 
 and a blind desperation; also that the world of a fluid civiliza- 
 tion is perforce artificial. But her mind was in the back- 
 ground of her fevered senses, and w^hen she looked in the 
 glass and mused on, uttering the word "Liar!" to the lovely 
 image, her senses were refreshed, her mind somewhat re- 
 lieved, the face appeared so sovereignly defiant of abasement. 
 
 Thus did a nature distraught by pain obtain some short 
 lull of repose. Thus, moreover, by closely reading herself, 
 whom she scourged to excess that she might in justice be 
 comforted, she gathered an increasing knowledge of our 
 human constitution, and stored matter for the brain. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 TOUCHING THE FIRST DAYS OF HER PROBATION. 
 
 The result of her sleeping was, that Diana's humor, locked 
 up over-night, insisted on an excursion, as she lay with 
 half-buried head and open eyelids, thinking of the firm of 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. Ill 
 
 lawyers slie had to see, and to whom, and to the legal 
 profession generally, she would be under outward courtesies 
 nothing other than "the woman Warwick." She pursued 
 the woman Warwick unmercifully through a series of inter- 
 views with her decorous and crudely-minded defenders; ac- 
 curately perusing them behind their senior staidness. Her 
 scorching sensitiveness sharpened her intelligence in regard 
 to the estimate of discarded wives entertained by men of 
 business and plain men of the world, and she drove the 
 woman Warwick down their ranks, amazed by the vision of 
 a puppet so unlike to herself in reality, though identical in 
 situation. That woman, reciting her side of the case, gained 
 a gradual resemblance to Dan vers; she spoke primly; per- 
 petually the creature aired her handkerchief; she was bent 
 on softening those sugarloaves, the hard business-men apply- 
 ing to her for facts. Facts were treated as unworthy of her; 
 mere stuff of the dustheap, mutton-bones, old shoes; she 
 swam above them in a cocoon of her spinning, sylphidine, 
 unseizable; and, between perplexing and mollifying the slaves 
 of facts, she saw them at their heels, a tearful fry, abjectly 
 imitative of her melodramatic performances. The spectacle 
 was presented of a band of legal gentlemen vociferating 
 mightily for swords and the onset, like the Austrian em- 
 press' Magyars, to vindicate her just and holy cause. Our 
 law-courts failing, they threatened Parliament, and, for a last 
 resort, the country! We are not going to be the woman 
 Warwick without a stir, my brethren. 
 
 Emma, an early riser that morning, for the purpose of a 
 private consultation with Mr. Redworth, found her lying 
 placidly wakeful, to judge by appearances. 
 
 "You have not slept, my dear child?" 
 
 "Perfectly," said Diana, giving her hand and offering the 
 lips. "I'm only having a warm morning bath in bed," she 
 added, in explanation of a chill moisture that the touch of 
 her exposed ski-n betrayed: for, whatever the fun of the 
 woman Warwick, there had been sympathetic feminine horrors 
 in the frame of the sentient woman. 
 
 Emma fancied she kissed a quiet sufferer. A few remarks 
 very soon set her wildly laughing. Both were laughing when 
 Danvers entered the room, rather guilty, being late; and 
 the sight of the prim-visaged maid she had been driving 
 among the lawyers kindled Diana's comic imagination to 
 
112 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 such a pitch, that she ran riot in drolleries, carrying her 
 friend headlong on the tide. 
 
 "I have not laughed so much since you were married/' 
 said Emma. 
 
 "ISTor I, dear; — proving that the bar to it was the cere- 
 mony/' said Diana. 
 
 She promised to remain at Copsley three days. "Then 
 for the campaign in Mr. Redworth's metropolis. I wonder 
 whether I may ask him to get me lodgings; a sitting-room 
 and two bed-rooms. The Crossways has a board up for 
 letting. I should prefer to be my own tenant, only it would 
 give me a hundred pounds more to get a substitute's money! 
 I should like to be at work writing instantly. Ink is my 
 opium, and the pen my nigger, and he must dig up gold for 
 me. It is written. Danvers, you can make ready to dress 
 me when I ring." 
 
 Emma helped the beautiful woman to her dressing-gown 
 and the step from her bed. She had her thoughts, and 
 went down to Redworth at the breakfast-table, marveling 
 that any husband other than a madman could cast such a 
 jewel away. The material loveliness eclipses intellectual 
 qualities in such reflections. 
 
 "He must be mad/' she said, compelled to disburden her- 
 self in a congenial atmosphere; which, however, she infri- 
 gidated by her overflow of exclamatory wonderment — a cur- 
 tain that shook voluminous folds, luring Redworth to dreams 
 of the treasure forfeited. He became rigidly practical. 
 
 "Provision will have to be made for her. Lukin must 
 see Mr. Warwick. She will do wisely to stay with friends 
 in town, mix in company. Women are the best allies for 
 such cases. Who are her solicitors?" 
 
 "They are mine: Braddock, Thorpe, and Simnel." 
 
 "A good firm. She is in safe hands with them. I dare- 
 say they may come to an arrangement." 
 
 "I should wish it. She will never consent." 
 
 Redworth shrugged. A woman's "never" fell far short 
 of outstripping the sturdy pedestrian Time, to his mind. 
 
 Diana saw him drive off to catch the coach in the valley, 
 regulated to meet the train, and, much though she liked him, 
 she was not sorry that he had gone. She felt the better 
 clad for it. She would have rejoiced to witness the de- 
 parture on wings of all her friends, except Emma, to whom 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 113 
 
 her coldness overnight had bound her anew warmly in con- 
 trition. And yet her friends were well-beloved by her; but 
 her emotions were distraught. 
 
 Emma told her that Mr. Eedworth had undertaken to 
 hire a suit of convenient rooms, and to these she looked 
 forward, the nest among strangers, where she could begin to 
 write, earning bread: an idea that, with the pride of inde- (^ 
 pendence, conjured the pleasant morning smell of a bakery 
 about her. 
 
 She passed three peaceable days at Copsle}^ at war only 
 with the luxury of the house. On the fourth a letter to 
 Lady Dunstane from Eedworth gave the address of the best 
 lodgings he could find, and Diana started for London. 
 
 She had duiing a couple of weeks, besides the first fresh 
 exercising of her pen, as well as the severe gratification of 
 economy, a savage exultation in passing through the streets 
 on foot and unknown. Save for the plunges into the office 
 of her solicitors, she could seem to herself a woman who had 
 never submitted to the yoke. What a pleasure it was, after 
 finishing a number of pages, to start eastward toward the 
 lawyer-regions, full of imaginary cropping incidents, and 
 from that churchyard westward, against smoky sunsets, or 
 in welcoming fogs, an atom of the crowd! She had an 
 affection for the crowd. They clothed her. She laughed at 
 the gloomy forebodings of Danvers concerning the perils 
 environing ladies in the streets after dark alone. The lights 
 in the streets after dark, and the quick running of her blood, 
 combined to strike sparks of fancy and inspirit the task of 
 composition at night. This new, strange, solitary life, cut 
 off from her adulatory society, both by the shock that made 
 the abyss and by the utter f oreignness, threw her in upon her 
 natural forces, recasting her, and thinning away her memory 
 of her past days, excepting girlhood, into the remote. She 
 lived with her girlhood as with a simple little sister. They 
 were two in one, and she corrected the dreams of the younger, 
 protected and counseled her very sagely, advising her to 
 love Truth and look always to Eeality for her refreshment. 
 She was ready to say that no habitable spot on our planet 
 was healthier and pleasanter than London. As to the perils 
 haunting the head of Danvors, her experiences assured her 
 of a perfect immunity from them; and the maligned thorough- 
 
^ 
 
 114 / DIANA OF THE CR03SWAYS. 
 
 fares of a great city, she was ready to affirm, contrasted 
 favorably with certain hospitable halls. 
 
 The long-suffering Fates permitted her for a term to 
 enjoy the generous delusion. Subsequently a sweet surprise 
 alleviated the shock she had sustained. Emma Dunstane's 
 carriage was at her door, and Emma entered her sitting- 
 room, to tell her of having hired a house in the neighbor- 
 hood, looking on the Park. She begged to have her for 
 guest, sorrowfully anticipating the refusal. At least they 
 were to be near one another. 
 
 "You really like this life in lodgings?'^ asked Emma, to 
 whgm the stiff furniture and narrow apartments were a 
 dreariness, the miserably small fire of the sitting-room an 
 aspect of cheerless winter. 
 
 "I do," said Diana; "yes," she added with some reserve, 
 and smiled at her damped enthusiasm, "I can eat when I 
 like, walk, work — and I am working! My legs and my pen 
 demand it. Let me be independent! Besides, I begin to 
 learn something of the bigger world outside the one I know, 
 and I crush my mincing tastes. In return for that I get a 
 sense of strength I had not when I was a drawing-room 
 exotic. Much is repulsive. But I am taken with a passion 
 for reality." 
 
 They spoke of the lawyers, and the calculated period of 
 the trial; of the husband too, and his inciting belief in the 
 falseness of his wife. "That is his excuse," Diana said, her 
 closed mouth meditatively dimpling the corners over 
 thoughts of his grounds for fury. He had them, though 
 none for the incriminating charge. The sphinx mouth of 
 the married woman at war and at bay must be left unriddled. 
 She and the law differed in their interpretation of the dues 
 of wedlock. 
 
 But matters referring to her case were secondary with 
 Diana beside the importance of her storing impressions. Her 
 mind required to hunger for something; and this reality, 
 which frequently she was forced to loathe, she forced herself 
 proudly to accept, despite her youthfulness. Her philosophy 
 swallowed it in the lump, as the great serpent his meal; she 
 hoped to digest it sleeping likewise. Her visits of curiosity 
 to the Law Courts, where she stood spying and listening 
 behind a veil, gave her a great deal of tough substance to 
 digest. There she watched the process of the tortures to be 
 
DIANA OF THE CBOSSWAYS. 115 
 
 applied to herself, and hardened her senses for the ordeal. 
 She saw there the ribbed and shanked old skeleton world on 
 which our fair fleshly is moulded. After all, your Fool's 
 Paradise is not a garden to grow in. Charon's ferry-boat is 
 not thicker with phantoms. They do not live in mind or 
 soul. Chiefly women people it: a certain class of limp men; 
 women for the most part: they are sown there. And put 
 their garden under the magnifying glass of intimacy, what 
 do we behold? A world not better than the world it cur- 
 tains, only foolisher. 
 
 Her conversations with Lady Dunstane brought her at 
 last to the point of her damped enthusiasm. She related an 
 incident or two occurring in her career of independence, and 
 they discussed our state of civilization plainly and gravely, 
 save for the laughing peals her phrases occasionally pro- 
 voked; as when she named the intruders and disturbers of 
 solitarily-faring ladies, "Cupid's footpads." Her humor 
 was created to swim on waters where a prescribed and culti- 
 vated prudery should pretend to be drowning. 
 
 "I was getting an exalted idea of English gentlemen, 
 Emmy. ^Rich and rare were the gems she wore.' I was 
 ready +o vow that one might traverse the larger island simi- 
 larly respected. I praised their chivalry. I thought it a 
 privilege to live in such a land. I cannot describe to you 
 how delightful it was tu me to walk out and home generally 
 protected. I might have been seriously annoyed but that 
 one of tlip clerks — ^articled,' he called himself — of our law- 
 yers happened to be by. He offered to guard me, and was 
 amusing with his modest tiptoe air. No, I trust to the Eng- 
 lish common man more than ever. He is a man of honor. 
 I am convinced he is matchless in any other country, except 
 Ireland. The English gentleman trades on his reputation." 
 
 He was condemned by an afflicted delicacy, the sharpest of 
 critical tribunals. 
 
 Emma bade her not to be too sweeping from a bad 
 example. 
 
 "It is not a single one," said Diana. "What vexes me 
 and frets me is, that I must be a prisoner, or allow Danvers 
 to mount guard. And I can't see the end of it. And Dan- 
 vers is no magician. She seems to know her countrymen, 
 though. She warded one of them off by saying to me: 
 *This is the crossing, my lady.' He fled." 
 
116 DIANA OF THE CR09SWAYS. 
 
 Lady Dunstane affixed the proper title to the latter kind 
 of gentleman. She was irritated on her friend's behalf, and 
 against the worrying of her sisterhood; thinking in her 
 heart, nevertheless, that the passing of a face and figure like 
 Diana's might inspire honorable emotions, pitiable for being 
 hapless. 
 
 "If you were with me, dear, you would have none of these 
 annoyances," she said, pleading forlornly. 
 
 Diana smiled to herself. "No; I should relapse into 
 softness. This life exactly suits my present temper. My 
 landlady is respectful and attentive; the little housemaid is 
 a willing slave; Danvers does not despise them pugnaciously; 
 they make a home for me, and I am learning daily. Do 
 you know, the less ignorant I become the more considerate 
 I am for the ignorance of others — I love them for it." She 
 squeezed Emma's hand with more meaning than her friend 
 apprehended. "So I win my advantage from the trifles I have 
 to endure. They are really trifles, and I should once have 
 thought them mountains!" 
 
 For the moment Diana stipulated that she might not have 
 to encounter friends or others at Lady Dunstane's dinner- 
 table, and, the season not being favorable to those gatherings 
 planned by Lady Dunstane in her project of winning support- 
 ers, there was a respite, during which Sir Lukin worked man- 
 fully at his three clubs to vindicate Diana's name from the 
 hummers and hawers, gaining half-a-dozen hot adherents, and 
 a body of lukewarm, sufficiently stirred to be desirous to see 
 the lady. He worked with true champion zeal, although an 
 interview granted him by the husband settled his opinion 
 as to any possibility of the two ever coming to terms. Also 
 it struck him that if he by misadventure had been a woman 
 and the wife of such a fellow, by Jove! ... his apostro- 
 phe to the father of the gods of pagandom signifying the 
 amount of matter Warwick would have had reason to com- 
 plain of in earnest. By ricochet his military mind rebounded 
 from his knowledge of himself to an ardent faith in Mrs. War- 
 wick's innocence; for, as there was no resemblance between 
 them, there must, he deduced, be a difference in their ca- 
 pacity for enduring the perpetual company of a prig, a stick, 
 and a petrified poser. Moreover, the novel act of advocacy, 
 and the nature of the advocacy, had effect on him. And then 
 he recalled the scene in the winter beech-woods, and Diana's 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 117 
 
 wild-deer eyes; her perfect generosity to a traitor and fool. 
 How could he have doubted her? Glimpses of the corrupt- 
 ing cause for it partly penetrated his density: a conqueror 
 of ladies, in mid-career, doubts them all. Of course he had 
 meant no harm, nothing worse than some pretty philander- 
 ing with the loveliest woman of her time. And, by Jove! it 
 was worth the rebuff to behold the Beauty in her wrath. 
 
 The reflections of Lothario, however much tending tardily 
 to do justice to a particular lady, cannot terminate whole- 
 somely. But he became a gallant partisan. His portrayal 
 of Mr. Warwick to his wife and his friends was fine carica- 
 ture. "The fellow had his hand up at my first word — stood 
 like a sentinel under inspection. ^Understand, Sir Lukin, 
 that I receive you simply as an acquaintance. As an inter- 
 mediary, permit me to state that you are taking superfluous 
 trouble. The case must proceed. It is final. She is at 
 liberty, in the meantime, to draw on my bankers for the pro- 
 vision she may need, at the rate of five hundred pounds per 
 annum.' He spoke of ^the lady now bearing my name.' He 
 was within an inch of saying ^dishonoring.' I swear I 
 heard the ^dis,' and he caught himself up. He %gain de- 
 clined any attempt toward reconcilliation.' It could 'only 
 be founded on evasion of the truth to be made patent on the 
 day of trial.' Half his talk was lawyers' lingo. The fellow's 
 teeth looked like frost. If Lot's wife had a brother his name's 
 Warwick. How Diana Merion, who could have had the pick 
 of the best of us, ever came to marry a fellow like that, 
 passes my comprehension, queer creatures as women are! He 
 can ride; that's about all he can do. I told him Mrs. War- 
 wick had no thought of reconciliation. 'Then, Sir Lukin, 
 you will perceive that we have no standpoint for a discus- 
 sion.' I told him the point was, for a man of honor not to 
 drag his wife before the public, as he had no case to stand 
 on — less than nothing. You should have seen the fellow's 
 face. He shot a sneer up to his eyelids, and flung his head 
 back. So I said, 'Good day.' He marches me to the door, 
 'With his compliments to Lady Dunstane.' I could have 
 floored him for that. Bless my soul! what fellows the world 
 is made of, when here's a man, calling himself a gentleman, 
 who, just because he gets in a rage with his wife for one 
 thing or another — and past all competition the handsomest <^ 
 woman of her day, and the cleverest, the nicest, the best of the 
 
118 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 whole boiling — ^has her out for a public horse-whipping, and 
 sets all the idiots of the kingdom against her! I tried to rea- 
 son with him. He made as if he were going to sleep stand- 
 ing/' 
 
 Sir Lukin gratified Lady Dunstane by his honest cham- 
 pionship of Diana. And now, in his altered mood (the thrice- 
 indebted rogue was just cloudily conscious of a desire to pro- 
 pitiate his dear wife by serving her friend), he began a cru- 
 sade against the scandal-newspapers, going with an Irish 
 military comrade straight to the editorial offices, and leaving 
 his card and a warning that the chastisement for print of the 
 name of the lady in their columns would be personal and con- 
 dign. Captain Carew Mahoney, albeit unacquainted with 
 Mrs. "Warwick, had espoused her cause. She was a woman — 
 she was an Irishwoman — she was a beautiful woman. She 
 had, therefore, three positive claims on him as a soldier and 
 a man. Other Irish gentlemen, animated by the same swelling 
 degrees, were awaking to the intimation that they might be 
 wanted. Some words were dropped here and there by Major- 
 Gen eral Lord Larrian: he regretted his age and infirmities. 
 A goodly regiment for a bodyguard might have been selected 
 to protect her steps in the public streets, when it was bruited 
 that the General had sent her a present of his great Newfound- 
 land dog, Leander, to attend on her and impose a required re- 
 spect. But, as it chanced that her address was unknown to the 
 volunteer constabulary they had to assuage their ardor by 
 thinking the dog luckier than they. 
 
 The report of the dog was a fact. He arrived one morning 
 at Diana^s lodgings, with a soldier to lead him, and a card to 
 introduce: the Hercules of dogs, a very ideal of the species, 
 toweringly big, benevolent, reputed a rescuer of lives, dis- 
 dainful of dog-fighting, devoted to his guardian's office, with 
 a majestic paw to give, and the noblest satisfaction in re- 
 ceiving caresses ever expressed by mortal male enfolded about 
 the head, kissed, patted, hugged, snuggled, informed that he 
 was his new mistress' one love and darling. 
 
 She dispatched a thrilling note of thanks to Lord Larrian, 
 sure of her touch upon an Irish heart. 
 
 The dog Leander soon responded to the attachment of a 
 mistress enamored of him. "He is my husband," she said to 
 Emma, and started a tear in the eyes of her smiling friend; 
 "he promises to trust me, and never to have the law of me, 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 119 
 
 and to love my friends as my own; so we are certain to agree." 
 In rain, snow, sunshine, through the parks and the streets, 
 he was the shadow of Diana, commanding, on the whole, apart 
 from some desperate attempts to make him serve as intro- 
 ducer, a civilized behavior in the legions of Cupid's footpads. 
 But he helped, innocently enough, to create an enemy. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GIVING GLIMPSES OF DIANA UNDER HER CLOUD BEFORE 
 THE WORLD AND OF HER FURTHER 
 APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 As the day of her trial became more closely calculable, 
 Diana's anticipated alarms receded with the deadening of 
 her heart to meet the shock. She fancied she had put on 
 proof-armor, unconscious that it was the turning of the in- 
 ward flutterer to steel w^hich supplied her cuirass and shield. 
 The necessity to brave society, in the character of honest De- 
 fendant, caused but a momentary twitch of the nerves. Her 
 heart beat regularly, like a serviceable clock; none of her 
 faculties abandoned her save songfulness, and none belied 
 her, excepting a disposition to tartness almost venomous 
 in the sarcastic shafts she let fly at friends interceding with 
 Mr. Warwick to spare his wife, when she had determined to 
 be tried. A strange fit of childishness overcame her powers 
 of thinking, and was betrayed in her manner of speaking, 
 though to herself her dwindled humor allowed her to appear 
 the towering Britomart. She pouted contemptuously on hear- 
 ing that a Mr. Sullivan Smith (a remotely recollected figure) 
 had besought Mr. Warwick for an interview, and gained it, by 
 stratagem, "to bring the man to his senses": but an ultra- 
 Irishman did not compromise her battle-front as the busy- 
 body supplications of a personal friend like Mr. Redworth 
 did; and that the latter, without consulting her, should be 
 "one of the plaintive crew whining about the heels of the 
 Plaintiff for a mercy she disdained and rejected," was bitter to 
 her taste. 
 
 "He does not see that unless I go through the fire there 
 is no justification for this wretched character of mine!" she 
 
120 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 exclaimed. Truce, treaty, withdrawal, signified publicly par- 
 don, not exoneration by any means; and now that she was in 
 armor she had no dread of the public. So she said, Red- 
 worth's being then engaged upon the canvass of a borough 
 added to the absurdity of liis meddling with the dilemmas of a 
 woman. "Dear me, Emma! think of stepping aside from 
 the parliamentary road to entreat a husband to relent, and 
 arrange the domestic alliance of a contrary couple. Quix- 
 otry is agreeable reading, a silly performance." Lady Dun- 
 stane pleaded his friendship. She had to quit the field where 
 such darts were shov^ering. 
 
 The first dinner-party was aristocratic, easy to encounter. 
 Lord and Lady Crane, Lady Pennon, Lord and Lady Esquart, 
 Lord Larrian, Mr. and Mrs. Montvert of Halford Manor, 
 Lady Singleby, Sir Walter Capperston: friends, admirers of 
 Diana; patrons, in the phrase of the time, of her father, were 
 the guests. Lady Pennon expected to be amused, and was 
 gratified, for Diana had only to open her mouth to set the 
 great lady laughing. She petitioned to have Mrs. Warwick 
 at her table that day week, because the marquis was dying 
 to make her acquaintance, and begged to have all her sayings 
 repeated to him; vowed she must be salt in the desert. "And 
 remember, I back you through thick and thin," said Lady 
 Pennon. To which Diana replied: "If I am salt in the des- 
 ert you are the spring;" and the old lady protested she must 
 put that down for her book. The witty Mrs. Warwick, of 
 whom wit was expected, had many incitements to be guilty of 
 cheap wit; and the beautiful Mrs. Warwick, being able to pass 
 anything she uttered, gave good and bad alike, under the im- 
 pulsion to give out something, that the stripped and shiver- 
 ing Mrs. Warwick might find a cover in applause. She dis- 
 covered the social uses of cheap wit; she laid ambushes for 
 anecdotes, a telling form of it among a people of no conver- 
 sational interlocution, especially in the circles depending 
 for dialogue upon perpetual fresh supplies of scandal; which 
 have plentiful crops, yet not sufficient. The old dinner and 
 supper tables at The Crossways furnished her with an abund- 
 ant store; and, recollection failing, she invented. Irish anec- 
 dotes are always popular in England, as promoting, besides 
 the wholesome shake of the sides, a kindly sense of superior- 
 ity. Anecdotes also are portable, unlike the lightning flash, 
 which will not go into the pocket; they can be carried home, 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 121 
 
 they are disbursable at other tables. These were Diana' s weap- 
 ons. She was perforce the actress of her part. In happier 
 times, when light of heart and natural, her vogue had not 
 been so enrapturing. Doubtless Cleopatra in her simple 
 Egyptian uniform would hardly have won such plaudits as her 
 stress of barbaric Oriental splendors evoked for her on the 
 swan and serpent Nile-barge — not from posterity at least. It is 
 a terrible decree, that all must act who would prevail; and 
 the more extended the audience the greater need for the mask 
 and buskin. 
 
 From Lady Pennon's table Diana passed to Lady Crane's, 
 Lady Esquart's, Lady Singleby's, the Duchess of Raby's, 
 warmly clad in the admiration she excited. She appeared at 
 Princess Therese Paryli's first ball of the season, and had 
 her circle, no\ of worshipers only. She did not dance. The 
 princess, a fair Au?trian, bencvok-nt to her sisterhood, an 
 admirer of Diana's contrasting complexion, would have had 
 her dance once in a quadrille of her forming, but yielded to 
 the mute expression of the refusal. Wherever Mrs. Warwick 
 went, hex arts of charming were addressed to the women Men 
 may be counted on for falling bowled over by a handsome face 
 and pointed tongue; women require some wooing from their 
 ensphered and charioted sister, particularly if she is clouded: 
 and old women — excellent buttresses — must be suavely court- 
 ed. Now, to woo the swimming matron and court the set- 
 tled dowager, she had to win forgiveness for her beauty; and 
 this was done, easily done, by forbearing to angle with it in 
 the press of nibblers. They ranged about her, individually un- 
 noticed. Seeming unaware of its effect where it kindled, she 
 smote a number of musical female chords, compassion among 
 them. A general grave affability of her eyes and smiles was 
 taken for quiet pleasure in the scene. Her fitful intentness 
 of look when conversing with the older ladies told of the 
 mind within at work upon what they said, and she was care- 
 ful that plain dialogue should make her comprehensible to 
 them. Nature taught her these arts, through which her wit 
 became extolled entirely on the strength of her reputation, 
 and her beauty did her service by never taking aim abroad. 
 They are the woman's arts of self-defense, as legitimately and 
 honorably hers as the manful use of the fists with a coarser sex. 
 If it had not been nature that taught her the practice of them 
 in extremity, the sagacious dowagers would have seen braz- 
 
122 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 enness rather than innocence — or an excusable indiscretion — 
 in the part she was performing. They are not lightly duped 
 by one of their sex. Few tasks are more difficult than for a 
 young woman under a cloud to hoodwink old women of the 
 world. They are the prey of financiers; but Time has pre- 
 sented them a magic ancient glass to scan their sex in. 
 
 At Princess Paryli's ball two young men of singular ele- 
 gance were observed by Diana, little though she concentered 
 her attention on any figures of the groups. She had the wom- 
 an's faculty (transiently bestowed by perfervid jealousy upon 
 men) of distinguishing minutely in the calmest of indifferent 
 glances. She could see without looking; and when her eyes 
 were wide they had not to dwell to be detective. It did not 
 escape her that the Englishman of the two hurried for the 
 chance of an introduction, nor that he suddenly, after put- 
 ting a question to a man beside him, retired. She spoke of 
 them to Emma as they drove home. "The princess' partner 
 in the first quadrille. . . . Hungarian, I suppose? He 
 was like a Tartar modeled by a Greek; supple as the Scyth- 
 i^.n's bow, braced as the string! He has the air of a born 
 horseman, and valses perfectly. I won't say he was hand- 
 somer than a young Englishman there, but he had the ad- 
 vantage of soldierly training. How different is that quick 
 springy figure from our young men's lounging style! It 
 comes of military exercise and discipline." 
 
 "That was Count Jochany, a cousin of the princess, and a 
 cavalry officer," said Emma. "You don't know the other? 
 I am sure the one you mean must be Percy Dacier." 
 
 His retiring was explained: the Hon. Percy Dacier was 
 the nephew of Lord Dannisburgh, often extolled to her as 
 the promising youngster of his day, with the reserve that he 
 wasted his youth; for the young gentleman was decorous and 
 studious; ambitious, according to report; a politician taking 
 to politics much too seriously and exclusively to suit his 
 uncle's pattern for the early period of life. Uncle and nephew 
 went their separate ways, rarely meeting, though their ex- 
 change of esteem was cordial. 
 
 Thinking over his abrupt retirement from the crowded semi- 
 circle, Diana felt her position pinch her — she knew not why. 
 
 Lady Dunstane was as indefatigable by day as by night 
 in the business of acting goddess to her beloved Tony, whom 
 she assured that the service, instead of exhausting, gave her 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 123 
 
 such healthfulness as she had imagined herself to have lost 
 for ever. The word was passed, and invitations poured in to 
 choice conversational breakfasts, private afternoon concerts, 
 all the humming season's assemblies. Mr. Warwick's treatment 
 of his Avife was taken by implication for lunatic; wherever 
 she was heard or seen he had no case; a jury of some hundreds 
 of both sexes, ready to be sworn, pronounced against him. 
 Only the personal enemies of the lord in the suit presumed to 
 doubt, and they exercised the discretion of a minority. 
 
 But there is an upper middle class below the aristocratic, 
 boasting an aristocracy of morals, and eminently persuasive of 
 public opinion, if not commanding it. Previous to the re- 
 laxation, by amendment, of a certain legal process, this class 
 was held to represent the austerity of the country. At pres- 
 ent a relaxed austerity is represented; and still the bulk of 
 the members are of fair repute, though not quite on the level 
 of their pretensions. They were then, while more sharply di- 
 vided from the titular superiors they are socially absorbing, 
 very powerful to brand a woman's character, whatever her 
 rank might be: having innumerable agencies and avenues 
 for that high purpose, to say nothing of the printing-press. 
 Lady Dunstane's anxiety to draw them over to the cause of her 
 friend set her thinking of the influential Mrs. Cramborne 
 Wathin, with whom she wa^ distantly connected; the wife of 
 a potent sergeant-at-law, fast mounting to the Bench and 
 knighthood; the center of a circle, and not strangely, that, 
 despite her deficiency in the arts and graces, for she had 
 wealth and a cook, a husband proud of his wine-cellar, and 
 the ambition to rule, all the rewards, together with the ex- 
 pectations, of the virtuous. She was a lady of incisive fea- 
 tures bound in stale parchment. Complexion she had none, 
 but she had spotlessness of skin, and sons and daughters just 
 resembling her, like cheaper editions of a precious quarto of 
 a perished type. You discerned the imitation of the type — 
 you acknowledged the inferior compositor. Mr. Cramborne 
 Wathin was by birth of a grade beneath his \vife; he sprang 
 (behind a curtain of horror) from tradesmen. The Bench was 
 in designation for him to wash out the stain; but his children 
 suffered in large hands and feet, short legs, excess of bone, 
 prominences misplaced. Their mother inspired them care- 
 fully with the religion she opposed to the pretensions of a 
 nobler blood, while instilling into them that the blood they 
 
124 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 drew from her was territorial, far above the vulgar. Her ap- 
 pearance and her principles fitted her to stand for the Puritan 
 rich of the period, emerging by the aid of an extending wealth 
 into luxurious worldliness, and retaining the maxims of their 
 forefathers for the discipline of the poor and erring. 
 
 Lady Dunstane called on her, ostensibly to let her know 
 she had taken a house in town for the season, and in the 
 course of the chat Mrs. Cramborne Wathin was invited to 
 dinner. "You will meet my dear friend, Mrs. Warwick,^' she 
 said, and the reply was, "Oh, I have heard of her." 
 
 The formal consultation with Mr. Cramborne Wathin ended 
 in an agreement to accept Lady Dunstane's kind invitation. 
 
 Considering her husband's plenitude of old legal anec- 
 dotes, and her own diHgent perusal of the funny publications 
 of the day, that she might be on the level of the wits and 
 celebrities she entertained, Mrs. Cramborne Wathin had a 
 right to expect the leading share in the conversation to which 
 she was accustomed. Every honor was paid to them; they 
 met aristocracy in the persons of Lord Larrian, of Lady 
 Rockden, Colonel Purlby, the Pettigrews, but neither of them 
 held the table for a moment; the topics flew, and were no 
 sooner up than down; they were unable to get a shot. They 
 had to eat in silence, occas^'onally grinning, because a woman 
 laboring under a stigma would rattle-rattle, as if the laughter 
 of the company were her due and decency beneath her notice. 
 Some one alluded to a dog of Mrs. Warwick's, whereupon she 
 trips out a story of her dog's amazing intelligence. 
 
 "And pray," said Mrs. Cramborne Wathin across the table, 
 merely to slip in a word, "what is the name of this wonder- 
 ful dog?" 
 
 "His name is Leander," said Diana. 
 
 "Oh, Leander. I don't think I hear myself calling to a 
 dog in a name of three syllables. Two at the most." 
 
 "No, so I call Hero! if I want him to come immediately," 
 said Diana, and the gentlemen, to Mrs. Cramborne Wathin's 
 astonishment, acclaimed it. Mr. Eedworth, at her elbow, ex- 
 plained the point to her disgust. 
 
 That was Diana's offense. 
 
 If it should seem a small one, let it be remembered that a 
 snub was intended, and was foiled: and foiled with an ap- 
 parent simplicitj?^, enough to exasperate had there been no 
 laughter of men to back the countering stroke. A woman 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 125 
 
 under a cloud, she talked, pushed to shine: she would be 
 lieard, would be applauded. Her chronicler must likewise 
 admit the error of her giving way to a petty sentiment of 
 antagonism on first beholding Mrs. Cramborne Wathin, be- 
 fore whom she at once resolved to be herself, for a holiday, in- 
 stead of acting demurely to conciliate. Probably it was an 
 antagonism of race, the shrinking of the skin from the burr. 
 But when Tremendous Powers are invoked we should treat 
 any simple revulsion of our blood as a vice. The gods of 
 this world's contests demand it of us, in relation to them, that 
 the mind, and not the instincts, shall be at work. Other- 
 wise the course of a prudent policy is never to invoke them, 
 but avoid. 
 
 The upper class was gained by her intrepidity, her charm, 
 and her elsewhere oifending wit, however the case might go. 
 It is chivalrous, but not, alas! inflammable in support of in- 
 nocence. The class below it is governed in estimates of char- 
 acter by accepted patterns of conduct; yet where innocence 
 under persecution is believed to exist the members animated 
 by that belief can be enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is a heaven- 
 sent steeplechaser, and takes a flying leap of the ordinary 
 barriers; it is more intrusive than chivalr}^ and has a passion 
 to communicate its ardor. Two letters from stranger ladies 
 reached Diana, through her lawyers and Lady Dunstane. 
 Anonymous letters, not so welcome, being male efi'usions, ar- 
 rived at her lodgings, one of them comical almost over the 
 verge to pathos in its termination: "To me you will ever be 
 the Goddess Diana — my faith in woman !'^ 
 
 He was unacquainted with her! 
 
 She had not the heart to think the writers donkeys. How 
 tliey obtained her address was a puzzle; they stole in to com- 
 fort her slightly. They attached her to her position of De- 
 fendant by the thought of what would have been the idea of 
 her character if she had flown — a reflection emanating from 
 inexperience of the resources of sentimentalists. 
 
 If she had flown! She was borne along by the tide like a 
 butterfly that a fish may gobble unless a friendly hand should 
 intervene. And could it in nature? She was past expecta- 
 tion of release. The attempt to imagine living with any 
 warmth of blood in her vindicated character, for the sake of 
 zealous friends, consigned her to a cold and empty house upon 
 a foreign earth. She had to set her mind upon tlie mysterious 
 
126 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 enshrouded Twelve, with whom the verdict would soon be 
 hanging, that she might prompt her human combativeness 
 to desire the vindication at such a price as she would have 
 to pay for it. When Emma Dunstane spoke to her of the cer- 
 tainty of triumphing, she suggested a possible dissentient 
 among the fatal Twelve, merely to escape the drumming 
 sound of that hollow big word. The irreverent imp of her 
 humor came to her relief by calling forth the Twelve, in the 
 tone of the clerk of the court, and they answered to their 
 names of trades and crafts after the manner of Titania's elves, 
 and were questioned as to their fitness — by education, habits, 
 enlightenment — ^to pronounce decisively upon the case in dis- 
 pute, the case being plainly stated. They replied, that the 
 long habit of dealing with scales enabled them to weigh the 
 value of evidence the most delicate. Moreover, they were Eng- 
 lishmen, and anything short of downright bullet facts went to 
 favor the woman. For thus we right the balance of legal in- 
 justice towards the sex: we conveniently wink, ma'am. A 
 rough, old-fashioned way for us! Is it a Breach of Promise? 
 She may reckon on her damages; we have daughters of our 
 own. Is it a suit for Divorce? Well, we have wives of our 
 own, and we can lash or we can spare; that's as it may be; 
 but we'll keep the couple tied, let 'em hate as they like, if 
 they can't furnish porkbutchers' reasons for sundering, be- 
 cause the man makes the money in this country. My good- 
 ness! what a funny people, sir! It's our way of holding the 
 balance, ma'am. But would it not be better to rectify the 
 law and the social sj^stem, dear sir? Why, ma'am, we find it 
 comfortabler to take cases as they come, in the style of our 
 fathers. But don't you see, my good man, that you are oifer- 
 ing scapegoats for the comfort of the majority? Well, ma'am, 
 there always were scapegoats, and always will be; we find it 
 comes round pretty square in the end. 
 
 "And I may be the scapegoat, Emmy! It is perfectly pos- 
 sible. The grocer, the pork-butcher, drysalter, stationer, tea- 
 merchant, et cetera — they sit on me. I have studied the faces 
 of the juries, and Mr. Braddock tells me of their composition. 
 And he admits that they do justice roughly — a rough-and- 
 tumble country! to quote him — ^though he says they are hon- 
 est in intention." 
 
 "More shame to the man who drags yoni before them — if 
 he persists!" Emma rejoined. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 127 
 
 "He will. I know Mm. I would not have him draw back 
 now," said Diana, catching her breath. "And, dearest, do not 
 abuse him; for, if you do, you set me imagining guiltiness. 
 Oh, Heaven! — suppose me publicly pardoned! No, I have 
 kinder feelings when we stand opposed. It is odd, and rather 
 frets my conscience, to think of the little resentment I feel. 
 Hardly any! He has not cause to like his wife. I can own 
 it, and I am sorry for him, heartily. No two have ever come 
 together so naturally antagonistic as we two. We walked 
 a dozen steps in stupefied union, and hit upon crossways. 
 From that moment it was tug and tug; he me, I him. By 
 resisting, I made him a tyrant; and he, by insisting, made me 
 a rebel. And he was the maddest of tyrants — a weak one. My 
 dear, he was also a double-dealer. Or no, perhaps not, in de- 
 sign. He was moved at one time by his interests; at another 
 by his idea of his honor. He took what I could get for him, 
 and then turned and drubbed me for getting it." 
 
 "This is the creature you try to excuse!" exclaimed in- 
 dignant Emma. 
 
 "Yes, because — ^but fancy all the smart things I said being 
 called my 'sallies'! — can a woman live with it? — because I 
 behaved. . . I despised him too much, and I showed it. 
 He is not a contemptible man before the world; he is merely 
 a very narrow one under close inspection. I could not — or 
 did not — conceal my feeling. I showed it not only to him, to 
 my friend. Husband grew to mean to me stifler, lung-con- 
 tractor, iron mask, inquisitor, everything anti-natural. He 
 suffered under my *^sallies': and it was the worse for him when 
 he did not perceive their drift. He is an upright man; I 
 have not seen marked meanness. One might build up a re- 
 spectable figure in negatives. I could add a row of noughts 
 to the single number he cherishes, enough to make a million- 
 aire of him, but strike away the first, the rest are wind. 
 Which signifies, that if you do not take his estimate of him- 
 self you will think little of his negative virtues. He is not 
 eminentl}^ that is to say, not saliently, selfish; not rancorous, 
 not obtrusive — ta-ta-ta-ta. But dull!— dull as a woolen night- 
 cap over eyes and ears and mouth. Oh! an executioner's 
 black cap to me. Dull, and suddenly staring awake to the 
 idea of his honor. I 'rendered' him ridiculous — I had caught 
 a trick of 'using men's phrases.' Dearest, now that the day of 
 trial draws nigh — ^you have never questioned me, and it was 
 
128 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 like you to spare me pain — ^biit now I can speak of him 
 and myself/' Diana dropped her voice. Here was another 
 confession. The proximity of the trial acted like fire on her 
 faded recbllection of incidents. It may be that partly the 
 shame of alluding to them had blocked her woman's memory. 
 For one curious operation of the charge of guiltiness upon the 
 nearly guiltless is to make them paint themselves pure white, 
 to the obliteration of minor spots, until the whiteness being 
 acknowledged, or the ordeal imminent, the spots recur and 
 press upon their consciences. She resumed, in a rapid un- 
 dertone: "You know that a certain degree of independence 
 had been, if not granted by him, conquered by me. I had the 
 habit of it. Obedience with him is imprisonment — he is a 
 blind wall. He received a commission, greatly to his ad- 
 vantage, and was absent. He seems to have received informa- 
 tion of some sort. He returned unexpectedly, at a late hour, 
 and attacked me at once, middling violent. My friend — and 
 that he is! — was coming from the House for a ten minutes' 
 talk, as usual, on his way home, to refresh him after the long 
 sitting and bear-baiting he had nightly to endure. Now let 
 me confess: I grew frightened: Mr. Warwick was 'off his 
 head,' as they say — crazy, and I could not bear the thought of 
 those two meeting. While he raged I threw open the window 
 and put the lamp near it, to expose the whole interior — cun- 
 ning as a veteran intriguer: horrible! but it had to be done 
 to keep them apart. He asked me what madness possessed me 
 to sit by an open window at midnight, in view of the public, 
 with a damp wind blowing. I complained of want of air and 
 fanned my forehead. I heard the steps on the pavement; I 
 stung him to retort loudly, and I was relieved; the steps 
 passed on. So the trick succeeded — the trick! It was the 
 worst I was guilty of, but it was a trick, and it branded me 
 trickster. It teaches me to see myself with an abyss in my 
 nature full of infernal possibilities. I think I am hewn in 
 black rock. A woman who can do as I did by instinct needs 
 to have an angel always near her, if she has not a husband she 
 reveres." 
 
 "We are none of us better than you, dear Tony; only some 
 are more fortunate and many are cowards," Emma said. "You 
 acted prudently in a wretched situation, partly of your own 
 making, partly of the circumstances. But a nature like 
 yours could not sit still and moan. That marriage was to 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. f"""!^ 
 
 . \ .^^ 
 
 blame! The English notion of women to be that we are born 
 white sheep or black; circumstances have nothing to do with 
 our color. They dread to grant distinctions, and to judge of 
 us discerningly is beyond them. Whether the fiction that 
 their homes are purer than elsewhere helps to establish the 
 fact I do not know: there is a class that does live honestly; 
 and at any rate it springs from a liking for purity; but I am 
 sure that their method of impressing it on women has the 
 dangers of things artificial. They narrow their understand- 
 ing of human nature, and that is not the way to improve the 
 breed." 
 
 "I suppose we women are taken to be the second thoughts 
 of the Creator; human nature's fringes, mere finishing 
 touches, not a part of the texture," said Diana; "the pretty 
 ornamentation. However, I fancy I perceive some tolerance 
 growing in the minds of the dominant sex. Our old lawyer 
 Mr. Braddock, who appears to have no distaste for conver- 
 sations with me, assures me he expects the day to come when 
 women will be encouraged to work at crafts and professions 
 for their independence. That is the secret of the opinion of 
 us at present — our dependency. Give us the means of in- 
 dependence and we will gain it, and have a turn at judging 
 you, my lords! You shall behold a world reversed. When- 
 ever I am distracted by existing circumstances I lay my finger 
 on the material conditions, and I touch the secret. Individ- 
 ually, it may be moral with us; collectively, it is material — 
 gross wrongs, gross hungers. I am a married rebel, and 
 thereof comes the social rebel. I was once a dancing and 
 singing girl. You remember the night of the Dublin ball. 
 A Channel sea in uproar, stirred by witches, flows between." 
 
 "You are as lovely as you were then; I could say, lovelier," 
 said Emma. 
 
 "I have unconquerable health, and I wish I could give you 
 the half of it, dear. I work late into the night, and I wake 
 early and fresh in the morning. I do not sing, that is" all. A 
 few days more, and my character will be up before the Bull's 
 Head to face him in the arena. The worst of a position like 
 mine is, that it causes me incessantly to think and talk of my- 
 self. I believe I think less than I talk, but the subject is 
 growing stale; as those who are long dying feel, I dare say — 
 if they do not take it as the compensation for their departure." 
 
 The Bull's Head, or British Jury of Twelve, with the wig 
 
130 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 on it, was faced during the latter half of a week of good 
 news. First, Mr. Thomas Redworth was returned to Par- 
 liament by a stout majority for the borough of Orrybridge; 
 the Hon. Percy Dacier delivered a brilliant speech in the 
 House of Commons, necessarily pleasing to his uncle; Lord 
 Larrian obtained the command of the Rock; the house of 
 The Crossways was let to a tenant approved by Mr. Brad- 
 dock; Diana received the opening proof-sheets of her little 
 volume, and an installment of the modest honorarium; and, 
 finally, the Plaintiff in the suit involving her name was ad- 
 judged to have not proved his charge. 
 
 She heard of it without a change of countenance. 
 
 She could not have wished it the reverse; she was exone- 
 rated. But she was not free — far from that; and she re- 
 venged herself on the friends who made much of her triumph 
 and overlooked her plight by showing no sign of satisfaction. 
 There was in her bosom a revolt at the legal consequences 
 of the verdict — or blunt acquiescence of the law in the con- 
 ditions possibly to be imposed on her unless she went straight 
 to the relieving phial; and the burden of keeping it under 
 set her wildest humor alight, somewhat as Redworth remem- 
 bered of her on the journey from The Crossways to Cops- 
 ley. This ironic fury, coming of the contrast of the outer 
 and the inner, would have been indulged to the extent of 
 permanent injury to her disposition had not her beloved 
 Emma, immediately after the tension of the struggle ceased, 
 required her tenderest aid. Lady Dunstane chanted victory, 
 and at night collapsed. By the advice of her physician she 
 was removed to Copsley, where Diana's labor of anxious nurs- 
 ing restored her through love to a saner spirit. The hope- 
 fulness of life must bloom again in the heart whose prayers 
 are offered for a life dearer than its own to be preserved. A 
 little return of confidence in Sir Lukin also refreshed her 
 when she saw that the poor creature did honestly, in his shag- 
 gy rough male fashion, reverence and cling to the flower of 
 souls he named as his wife. His piteous groans of self-ac- 
 cusation during the crisis haunted her, and made the con- 
 duct and nature of men a bewilderment to her still young 
 understanding. Save for the knot of her sensations (hardly 
 a mental memory, but a sullen knot), which she did not dis- 
 entangle to charge him with his complicity in the blind rash- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 131 
 
 ness of her marriage, she might have felt sisterly as warmly as 
 she compassionated him. 
 
 It was midwinter when Dame Gossip, who keeps the exotic 
 world alive with her fanning whispers, related that the lovely 
 Mrs. Warwick had left England on board the schooner-yacht 
 Clarissa, with Lord and Lady Esqnart, for a voyage in the 
 Mediterranean; and (behind her hand) that the reason was 
 urgent, inasmuch as she fled to escape the meshes of the 
 ierrjilc net of the marital law, brutally whirled to capture her 
 by the man her husband. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 INTRODUCES THE HON. PERCY DACIER. 
 
 The gods of this world's contests, against whom our poor 
 stripped individual is commonly in revolt, are, as we know, 
 not miners, they are reapers; and, if we appear no longer on 
 the surface, they cease to bruise us; they will allow an arena 
 character to be cleansed and made presentable while enthu- 
 siastic friends preserve discretion. It is, of course, less than 
 magnanimity; they are not proposed to you for your worship; 
 they are little gods, temporary as that great wave, their 
 parent human mass of the hour. But they have one worship- 
 ful element in them, which is, the divine insistancy upon 
 there being two sides to a case — to every case. And the 
 people so far directed by them may boast of healthfulness. 
 Let the individual shriek, the innocent, triumphant, have in 
 honesty to admit the fact. One side is vanquished, according 
 to decree of law, but the superior council does not allow it 
 to be extinguished. 
 
 Diana's battle was fought shadowily behind her for the 
 space of a week or so, with some advocates on behalf of the 
 beaten man; then it became a recollection of a beautiful wom- 
 an, possibly erring, misvalued by a husband, who was neither 
 a man of the world nor a gracious yokefellow, nor anything to 
 match her. She, however, once out of the public flames, had 
 to recall her scorchings to be gentle with herself. Under a 
 defeat she would have been angrily self -vindicated. The vic- 
 tory of the ashen laurels drove her mind inward to gird at 
 
132 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 the hateful yoke, in compassion for its pair of victims. Quite 
 earnestly by such means, yet always bearing a comical eye on 
 her subterfuges, she escaped the extremes of personal blame. 
 Those advocates of her opponent, in and out of court, com- 
 pelled her honest heart to search within and own to faults. 
 But were they not natural faults? It was her marriage; it 
 was marriage in the abstract : her own mistake and the A^orld's 
 clumsy machinery of civilization: these were the capital of- 
 fenders: not the wife who would laugh ringingly, and would 
 have friends of the other sex, and shot her epigrams at the 
 helpless despot, and was at times — yes, vixenish; a nature 
 driven to it, but that was the word. She was too generous to 
 recount her charges against the vanquished. If his wretched 
 Jealousy had ruined her, the secret high tribunal within her 
 bosom, which judged her guiltless for putting the sword be- 
 tween their marriage tie when they stood as one, because a 
 quarreling couple could not in honor play the embracing, pro- 
 nounced him just pardonable. She distinguished that he could 
 only suppose, manlikely, one bad cause for the division. 
 
 To this extent she used her unerring brains, more openly 
 than on her night of debate at The Crossways. The next 
 moment she was off in vapor, meditating grandly on her in- 
 dependence of her sex and the passions. Love! she did not 
 know it; she was not acquainted with either the criminal or 
 the domestic god, and persuaded herself that she never could 
 be. She was a Diana of coldness, preferring friendship; she 
 could be the friend of men. There was another who could 
 be the friend of women. Her heart leapt to Eedworth. Con- 
 juring up his clear trusty face, at their grasp of hands when 
 parting, she thought of her visions of her future about the 
 period of the Dublin ball, and acknowledged, despite the er- 
 ratic step to wedlock, a gain in having met and proved so 
 true a friend. His face, figure, character, lightest look, light- 
 est word, all were loyal signs of a man of honor, cold as she; 
 he was the man to whom she could have opened her heart for 
 inspection. Rejoicing in her independence of an emotional 
 sex, the impulsive woman burned with a regret that at their 
 parting she had not broken down conventional barriers and 
 given her cheek to his lips in the anti-insular fashion with a 
 brotherly friend. And why not when both were cold? Spirit 
 to spirit, she did, delightfully refreshed by her capacity to do 
 so without a throb. He had held her hand and looked into her 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 133 
 
 eyes half a minute, like a dear comrade; as little arousing her 
 instincts of defensiveness as the clearing heavens; and sisterly 
 love for it was his due, a sister's kiss. He needed a sister, and 
 should have one in her. Emma's recollected talk of "Tom 
 Eedworth" painted him from head to foot, brought the living 
 man over the waters to the deck of the yacht. A stout cham- 
 pion in the person of Tom Eedworth was left on British land; 
 but for some reason past analysis, intermixed, that is, among 
 a swarm of sensations, Diana named her champion to herself 
 with the formal prefix: perhaps because she knew a man's 
 Christian name to be dangerous handling. They differed be- 
 sides frequently in opinion, when the habit of thinking of 
 him as Mr. Eedworth would be best. Women are bound to 
 such small observances, and especially the beautiful of the 
 sisterhood, whom the world soon warns that they carry ex- 
 plosives and must particularly guard against the ignition of 
 petty sparks. She was less indiscreet in her thoughts than 
 in her acts, as is the way with the reflective daughter of im- 
 pulse; though she had fine mental distinctions: what she could 
 offer to do "spirit to spirit," for instance, held nothing to her 
 mind of the intimacy of calling the gentleman plain Tom in 
 mere contemplation of him. Her friend and champion was 
 a volunteer, far from a mercenary, and he deserved the re- 
 ward, if she could bestow it unalarmed. They were to meet in 
 Egypt. Meanwhile England loomed the home of hostile 
 forces ready to shock, had she been a visible planet, and ready 
 to secrete a virus of her past history, had she been making new. 
 She was happily away, borne by a whiter than swan's wing 
 on the sapphire Mediterranean. Her letters to Emma were 
 peeps of splendor for the invalid; her way of life on board 
 the yacht, and sketches of her host and hostess as lovers in 
 wedlock on the other side of our perilous forties; sketches 
 of the bays, the towns, the people — priests, dames, cavaliers, 
 urchins, infants, shifting groups of supple southerners — 
 flashed across the page like, a web of silk, and were dashed 
 off, redolent of herself, as lightly as the silvery spray of the 
 blue waves she furrowed; telling, without allusions to the land 
 behind her, that she had dipped in the wells of blissful obliv- 
 ion. Emma Dunstane, as is usual with those who receive ex- 
 hilarating correspotidence from makeis of books, condemned 
 the authoress in comparison, and now first saw that she had 
 the gift of writing. Only one cry: "Italy, Eden of exiles!'^ 
 
34' DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 betrayed ihe seeming of a moan. She wrote of her poet and 
 others immediately. Thither had they fled, with adieu to 
 England! 
 
 How many have waved the adieu! And it is England nour- 
 ishing, England protecting them, England clothing them in 
 the honors they wear. Only the posturing lower natures, on 
 the level of their buskins, can pluck out the pocket-knife of 
 sentimental spite to cut themselves loose from her at heart in 
 earnest. The higher, bleed as they may, too pressingly feel 
 their debt. Diana had the Celtic vivid sense of country. In 
 England she was Irish, by hereditary and by willful opposition. 
 Abroad, gazing along the waters, observing, comparing, re- 
 flecting — above all, reading of the struggles at home, the 
 things done and attempted — ^her soul of generosity made her, 
 though not less Irish, a daughter of Britain. It is at a dis- 
 tance that striving countries should be seen if we would have 
 them in the pure idea; and this young woman of fervid mind, 
 a reader of public speeches and speculator on the tides of poli- 
 tics (desirous, further, to feel herself rather more in the pure 
 idea), began to yearn for England long before her term of holi- 
 day exile had ended. She had been flattered by her friend, 
 her "wedded martyr at the stake,^^ as she named him, to be- 
 lieve that she could exercise a judgment in politics — could 
 think, even speak acutely, on public affairs. The reports of 
 speeches delivered by the men she knew or knew of set her 
 thrilling; and she fancied the sensibility to be as independent 
 of her sympathy with the orators as her political notions were 
 sovereignly above a sex devoted to trifles, and the feelings of 
 a woman who had gone through fire. She fancied it confi- 
 dently, notwithstanding a peculiar intuition that the plunge 
 into the nobler business of the world would be a haven of 
 safety for a woman with blood and imagination, when writ- 
 ing to Emma: "Mr. Eedworth's great success in Parliament 
 is good in itself, whatever his views of present questions; and 
 I do not heed them when I look to what may be done by a 
 man of such power in striking at unjust laws, which keep the 
 really numerically better-half of the population in a state of 
 slavery. If he had been a lawyer! It must be a lawyer's in- 
 itiative — a lawyer's bill. Mr. Percy Dacier also spoke well, as 
 might have been expected, and his uncle's compliment to him 
 was merited. Should you meet him sound him. He has read 
 for the bar, and is younger than Mr. Kedworth. The very 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 €L^' 
 
 young men and the old are our hope. The middle-aged are 
 hard and fast for existing facts. We pick our leaders on the 
 slopes, the incline and decline of the mountain — not on the 
 upper table-land midway, where all appears to men so solid, 
 so tolerably smooth, save for a few excrescences, roughnesses, 
 gradually to be leveled at their leisure; which induces one 
 to protest that the middle-age of men is their time of delu- 
 sion. It is no paradox. They may be publicly useful in a 
 small way, I do not deny it at all. They must be near the 
 gates of life — the opening or the closing — for their minds to 
 be accessible to the urgency of the greater questions. Ot 
 wise the world presents itself to them under too settled an as- 
 pect — unless, of course, Yesuvian Revolution shakes the land. 
 And that touches only their nerves. I dream of some old 
 judge! There is one — ^if having caught we could keep him. 
 But I dread so tricksy a pilot. You have guessed him — the 
 ancient Puck! We have laughed all day over the paper telling 
 us of his worrying the Lords. Lady Esquart congratulates her 
 husband in being out of it. Puck bien ride and bewigged 
 might perhaps — except that at the critical moment he would 
 be sure to plead allegiance to Oberon. However, the work 
 will be performed by some one: I am prophetic: when maid- 
 ens are grandmothers! when your Tony is wearing a perpetual 
 laugh in the unhusbanded regions where there is no institu- 
 tion of the wedding-tie." 
 
 For the reason that she was not to participate in the re- 
 sult of the old judge's or young hero's happy championship of 
 the cause of her sex she conceived her separateness high aloof, 
 and actually supposed she was a contemplative, simply specu- 
 lative political spirit, impersonal albeit a woman. This, as 
 Emma, smiling at the Imes, had not to learn, was always her 
 secret pride of fancy — the belief in her possession of a dis- 
 engaged intellect. 
 
 The strange illusion so clearly exposed to her correspondent 
 was maintained through a series of letters very slightly de- 
 scriptive, dated from the Piraeus, the Bosphorus, the coasts 
 of the Crimea, all more or less relating to the latest news of 
 the journals received on board the yacht, and of English vis- 
 itors fresh from the country she now seemed fond of calling 
 "home." Politics, and gentle allusions to the curious exhi- 
 bition of "love in marriage" shown by her amiable host and 
 hostess — "these dear Esquarts, who are never tired of one an- 
 
 7 
 
136 DM'NA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 other, but courtly courting, tempting me to think it possible 
 that a fortunate selection and a mutual deference may sub- 
 scribe to human happiness" — filled the paragraphs. Reviews 
 of her first literary venture w^ere mentioned once: "I was 
 well advised by Mr. Eedworth in putting Antonia for author- 
 ess. She is a buff jerkin to the stripes, and I suspect that the 
 signature of D. A. W., written in full, would have cawed woe- 
 fully to hear that her stjde is affected, her characters nulli- 
 ties, her cleverness forced, etc., etc. As it is, I have much the 
 same contempt for poor Antonia's performance. Cease pen- 
 ning, little tool! She writes, Vith some comprehension of 
 the passion of love.' I know her to be a stranger to the earl- 
 iest cry. So you see, dear, that utter ignorance is the mother 
 of the Art. Dialogues 'occasionally pointed.' She has a sister 
 who may do better. But why was I not apprenticed to a 
 serviceable profession or a trade? I perceive now that a 
 hanger-on of the market had no right to expect a happier 
 fate than mine has been." 
 
 On the Nile, in the winter of the year, Diana met the Hon. 
 Percy Dacier. He was introduced to her at Cairo by Eed- 
 worth. The two gentlemen had struck up a House of Com- 
 mons acquaintanceship, and, finding themselves bound for 
 the same destination, had grown friendly. Redworth's arrival 
 had been pleasantly expected. She remarked on Dacier's 
 presence to Emma, without sketch or note of him as other 
 than much esteemed by Lord and Lady Esquart. These, with 
 Diana, Eedworth, Dacier, the German Eastern traveler 
 Schweizerbarth, and the French Consul and Egyptologist Du- 
 riette, composed a voyaging party up the river, of which ex- 
 pedition Eedworth was Lady Dunstane's chief writer of the 
 records. His novel perceptiveness and shrewdness of touch 
 made them amusing; and his tenderness to the Beauty's 
 coquetry between the two foreign rivals moved a deeper feel- 
 ing. The German had a guitar, the Frenchman a voice; Diana 
 joined them in harmony. They complained apart severally of 
 the accompaniment and the singer. Our English criticized 
 them apart; and that is at any rate to occupy a post, though 
 it contributes nothing to entertainment. At home the Es- 
 quarts had sung duets; Diana had assisted Eedworth's manly 
 chest-notes at the piano. Each of them declined to be vocal. 
 Diana sang alone for the credit of the country, Italian and 
 French songs, Irish also. She was in her mood of Planxty 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 137 
 
 Kelly and Garryowen all the way. "Madame est Irlandaise?" 
 Redworth heard the Frenchman say, and he owned to what 
 was implied in the answering tone of the question. "We 
 should be dull dogs without the Irish leaven!'' So Tony in 
 exile still managed to do something for her darling Erin. The 
 solitary woman on her heights at Copsley raised an exclama- 
 tion of, "Oh, that those two had been or could be united!" She 
 was conscious of a mystic symbolism in the prayer. 
 
 She was not apprehensive of any ominous intervention of 
 another. Writing from Venice, Diana mentioned Mr. Percy 
 Dacier as being engaged to an heiress: "A Miss Asper, niece 
 of a mighty shipowner, Mr. Quintin Manx, Lady Esquart tells 
 me: money fabulous, and necessary to a younger son devoured 
 with ambition. The elder brother. Lord Creedmore, is a com- 
 mon Nimrod, always absent in Hungary, Eussia, America, 
 hunting somewhere. Mr. Dacier will be in the Cabinet with 
 the next Ministry." No more of him. A new work by An- 
 tonia was progressing. 
 
 The summer in South Tyrol passed like a royal procession 
 before young eyes for Diana; and at the close of it, descend- 
 ing the Stelvio, idling through the Valtelline, Como Lake 
 was reached, Diana full of her work, living the double life of 
 the author. At Bellagio one afternoon Mr. Percy Dacier ap- 
 peared. She remembered subsequently a disappointment she 
 felt in not beholding Mr. Redworth either with him or dis- 
 placing him. If engaged to a lady, he was not an ardent 
 suitor; nor was he a pointedly complimentary acquaintance. 
 His enthusiasm was reserved for Italian scenery. She had 
 already formed a sort of estimate of his character, as an in- 
 different observer may do, and any woman previous to the 
 inflaming of her imagination, if that is in store for her; and 
 she now fell to w^ork resetting the puzzle it became as soon 
 as her positive conclusions had to be shaped again. "But 
 women never can know young men," she wrote to Emma, after 
 praising his good repute as one of the brotherhood. "He 
 drops pretty sentences now and then: no compliments; milky 
 nuts. Of course he has a head, or he would not be where he 
 is — and that seems always to me the most enviable place a 
 young man can occupy." She observed in him a singular con- 
 flicting of a buoyant animal nature with a curb of studious- 
 ness, as if the fardels of age were piling on his shoulders before 
 youth had quitted its pastures. His build of limbs and his 
 
^ 
 
 138 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 features were those of the finely-bred English; he had the 
 English taste for sports, games, manly diversions; and in the 
 bloom of life, under thirty, his head was given to bend. The 
 head bending on a tall upright figure, where there was breadth 
 of chest, told of weights working. She recollected his open 
 look, larger than inquiring, at the introduction to her; and it 
 recurred when she uttered anything specially taking. What 
 it meant was past a guess, though, comparing it with the 
 frank directness of Eedworth's eyes, she saw the difference 
 between a look that accepted her and one that dilated on two 
 opinions. 
 
 Her thought of the gentleman was of a brilliant young 
 charioteer in the ruck of the race, watchful for his chance to 
 push to the front; and she could have said that a dubious 
 consort might spoil a promising career. It flattered her to 
 think that she sometimes prompted him, sometimes illumined. 
 He repeated sentences she had spoken. "I shall be better 
 able to describe Mr. Dacier when you and I sit together, my 
 Emmy, and a stroke here and there completes the painting. 
 Set descriptions are good for puppets. Living men and wom- 
 en are too various in the mixture fashioning them — even the 
 'external presentment' — to be livingly rendered in a formal 
 sketch. I may tell you his eyes are pale blue, his features 
 regular, his hair silky, brownish, his legs long, his head rather 
 stooping (only the head), his mouth commonly closed; these 
 are the facts, and you have seen much the same in a nursery 
 doll. Such literary craft is of the nursery. So with land- 
 scapes. The art of the pen (we write on darkness) is to rouse 
 the inward vision, instead of laboring with a drop-scene brush, 
 as if it were to the eye; because our flying minds cannot con- 
 tain a protracted description. That is why the poets, who 
 spring imagination with a word or a phrase, paint lasting pic- 
 tures. The Shakespearian, the Dantesque, are in a line, two 
 at most. H^ lends an attentive ear when I speak, agrees or 
 has a quaint pucker of the eyebrows dissenting inwardly. He 
 lacks mental liveliness — cheerfulness I should say, and is 
 thankful to have it imparted. One suspects he would be a dull 
 domestic companion. He has a veritable thirst for hopeful 
 views of the world, and no spiritual distillery of his own. He 
 leans to depression. Why! The broken reed you call your 
 Tony carries a cargo, all of her manufacture — she reeks of 
 secret stills; and here is a young man — a sapling oak — ^in- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 139 
 
 clined to droop. His nature has an air of imploring me que 
 je Varrose! I begin to perform Mrs. Dr. Pangloss on purpose 
 to brighten him — the mind, the views. He is not altogether 
 deficient in conversational gayety, and he shines in exercise. 
 But the world is a poor old ball bounding down a hill — to an 
 Irish melody in the evening generally, by request. So far 
 of Mr. Percy Dacier, of whom I have some hopes — distant, 
 perhaps delusive — that he may be of use to our cause. He lis- 
 tens. It is an auspicious commencement." 
 
 Lugano is the Itahan lake most lovingly encircled by moun- 
 tain arms, and every height about it may be scaled with ease. 
 The heights have their nest of waters below for a home 
 scene, the southern Swiss peaks, with celestial Monta Rosa, in 
 prospect. It was there that Diana reawakened, after the 
 trance of a deadly draught, to the glory of the earth and her 
 share in it. She wakened like the Princess of the Kiss; hap- 
 pily not to kisses; to no sign, touch, or call that she could 
 trace backward. The change befell her without a warning. 
 After writing deliberately to her friend Emma she laid down 
 her pen and thought of nothing; and into this dreamfulness a 
 wine pass<^d, filling her veins, suffusing her mind, quickening 
 her soul — and coming whence? out of air, out of the yonder 
 of air. She could have imagined a seraphic presence in the 
 room, that bade her arise and live; take the cup of the wells 
 of youth arrested at her lips by her marriage; quit her wintry 
 bondage for warmth, light, space, the quick of simple being. 
 And the strange pure ecstasy was not a transient electrifica- 
 tion; it came in waves on a continuous tide; looking was liv- 
 ing; walking flying. She hardly knew that she slept. The 
 heights she had seen rosy at eve were marked for her ascent 
 in the dawn. Sleep was one wink, and, fresh as the dewy field 
 and rock-flowers on her way upward, she sprang to more and 
 more of Heaven, insatiable, happily chirruping over her pos- 
 sessions. The threading of the town among the dear common 
 people before others were abroad was a pleasure: and pleasant 
 her solitariness threading the gardens at the base of the rock, 
 only she astir; and the first rough steps of the winding foot- 
 path, the first closed buds, the sharper air, the uprising of the 
 mountain with her ascent; and pleasant too was her hunger 
 and the nibble at a little loaf of bread. A linnet sang in her 
 breast, an eagle lifted her feet. The feet were verily winged, 
 as they are in a season of youth, when the blood leaps to light 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 from the pressure of the under forces, like a source at the 
 well-heads, and the Avhole creature blooms, vital in every 
 energy as a spirit. To be a girl again was magical. She could 
 fancy her having risen from the dead. And to be a girl, with 
 a woman's broader vision and receptiveness of soul, with 
 knowledge of evil, and winging to ethereal happiness, this 
 was a revelation of our human powers. 
 
 She attributed the change to the influences of nature's 
 beauty and grandeur. Nor had her woman's consciousness 
 to play the chrysalis in any shy recesses of her heart; she 
 was nowhere veiled or torpid; she was illumined, like ijie 
 Salvatore she saw in the evening beams and mounted in the 
 mornings; and she had not a spot of secrecy; all her nature 
 flew and bloomed; she was bird, flower, flowing river, a quiv- 
 ering sensibility unweighted, unshrouded. Desires and hopes 
 would surely have weighted and shrouded her. She had 
 none, save for the upper air, the eyes of the mountain. 
 
 Which was the dream — her past life or this ethereal exist- 
 ence? But this ran spontaneously, and the other had often 
 been stimulated — ^her vivaciousness on the Nile-boat, for a re- 
 cent example. She had not a doubt that her past life was the 
 dream, or deception; and for the reason that now she was 
 compassionate, large of heart toward all beneath her. Let 
 them but leave her free, they were forgiven, even to prayers 
 for their well-being! The plural number in the case was an 
 involuntary multiplying of the single, coming of her inca- 
 pacity during this elevation and rapture of the senses to think 
 distinctly of that One who had discolored her opening life. 
 Freedom to breathe, gaze, climb, grow with the grasses, fly 
 with the clouds, to muse, to sing, to be an unclaimed self, dis- 
 persed upon earth, air, sky, to find a keener transfigured self 
 in that radiation — she craved no more. 
 
 Bear in mind her beauty, her charm of tongue, her present 
 state of white simplicity in fervor: was there ever so perilous 
 a woman for the most guarded and clearest-eyed of young men 
 to meet at early morn upon a mountain side? 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 141 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 TREATS OF A MIDNIGHT BELL AND OF A SCENE OP 
 EARLY MORNING. 
 
 On a round of the mountains rising from Osteno, south- 
 eastward of Lugano, the Esquart party rose from the natural 
 grotto and headed their carriages up and down the defiles, 
 halting for a night at Eovio, a little village below the Gener- 
 oso, lively with waterfalls and watercourses; and they fell so 
 in love with the place that, after roaming along the flowery 
 border-ways by moonlight, they resolved to rest there two or 
 three days, and try some easy ascents. In the diurnal course 
 of nature, being pleasantly tired, they had the avowed inten- 
 tion of sleeping there; so they went early to their beds, and 
 carelessly wished one another good-night, none of them suppos- 
 ing slumber to be anywhere one of the warlike arts, a para- 
 doxical thing you must battle for, and can only win at last 
 when utterly beaten. Hard by their inn, close enough for a 
 priestly homily to have been audible, stood a church campan- 
 ile, wherein hung a bell, not ostensibly communicating with 
 the demons of the pit; in daylight rather a merry comrade. 
 But at night, when the children of nerves lay stretched, he 
 threw off the mask. As soon as they had fairly nestled he 
 smote their pillows a shattering blow, loud for the retold pre- 
 luding quarters, incredibly clanging the number ten. Then 
 he waited for neighboring campanili to box the ears of slum- 
 ber's votaries in turn; whereupon, under pretense of excessive 
 conscientiousness, or else oblivious of his antecedent damnable 
 misconduct, or perhaps in actual league and trapdoor conspir- 
 acy with the surging goblin hosts beneath us, he resumed his 
 blaring strokes, a sonorous recapitulation of the number; all 
 the others likewise. It was an alarum fit to warn of Attila or 
 Alaric; and not simply the maniacal noise invaded the fruit- 
 ful provinces of sleep like Hun and Vandal, the irrational repe- 
 tition ploughed the minds of those unhappy somnivolent, leav- 
 ing them worse than sheared by barbarians, disrupt, as by 
 earthquake, with the unanswerable question to Providence. 
 Why!— Why twice? 
 
142 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 Designing slumberers are sucli infants. When they have 
 undressed and stretched themselves fiat it seems that they 
 have really gone back to their mother's breasts, and they fret 
 at whatsoever does not smack of nature or custom. The 
 cause of a repetition so senseless in its violence, and so unne- 
 cessary, set them querying and kicking until the inevitable 
 quarters recommenced. Then arose an insurgent rabble in 
 their bosoms, it might be the loosened imps of darkness, urg- 
 ing them to speculate whether the proximate monster about 
 to dole out eleventh hour in uproar would again forget himself 
 and repeat his dreary arithmetic a second time; for they 
 were unaware of his religious obligation, following the hour 
 of the district, to inform them of the tardy hour of Eome. 
 They waited in suspense, curiosity enabling them to bear the 
 first crash callously. His performance was the same. And 
 now they took him for a crazy engine whose madness had in- 
 fected the whole neighborhood. Now was the moment to fight 
 for sleep in contempt of him, and they began by simulating 
 an entry into the fortress they were to defend, plunging on 
 their pillows, battening down their eyelids, breathing with a 
 dreadful regularity. Alas! it came to their knowledge that 
 the bell was in possession, and they the besiegers. Every res- 
 onant quarter was anticipated up to the blow, without avert- 
 ing its murderous abruptness; and an executioner. Midnight, 
 'that sounded, in addition to the reiterated quarters, four-and- 
 twenty ringing hammer-strokes, with the aching pause be- 
 tween the twelves, left them the prey of the legions of tor- 
 turers which are summed, though not described, in the title 
 of a sleepless night. 
 
 From that period the curse was milder, but the victims 
 raged. They swam on vasty deeps, they knocked at rusty 
 gates, they shouldered all the weapons of black Insomnia's 
 armory and became her soldiery, doing her will upon them- 
 selves. Of her originally sprang the inspired teaching of the 
 doom of men to excruciation in endlessness. She is the foun- 
 tain of the infinite ocean whereon the exceedingly sensitive 
 soul is tumbled everlastingly, with the diversion of hot pin- 
 cers to appease its appetite for change. 
 
 Dacier was never the best of sleepers. He had taken to 
 exercise his brains prematurely, not only in learning, but also 
 in reflection; and a reflectiveness that is indulged before we 
 have a rigid mastery of the emotions, or have slain them, is 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 143 
 
 apt to make a young man more than commonly a child of 
 nerves: nearly as much so as the dissipated, with the differ- 
 ence that they are hilarious while wasting their treasury, 
 which he is not; and he may recover under favoring condi- 
 tions, which is a point of vantage denied to them. Physically 
 he had stout reserves, for he had not disgraced the temple. 
 His intemperateness lay in the craving to rise and lead; a 
 precocious ambition. This apparently modest young man 
 started with an aim — and if in the distance, and with but a 
 slingstone, like the slender shepherd fronting the Philistine, 
 all his energies were in his aim — at Government. He had 
 hung on the fringe of an Administration. His party was out, 
 and he hoped for higher station on its return to power. Many 
 perplexities were therefore buzzing about his head; among 
 them at present one sufficiently magnified and voracious to 
 swallow the remainder. He added force to the interrogation 
 as to why that bell should sound its inhuman strokes twice, 
 by asking himself why he was there to hear it! A strange 
 suspicion of a bewitchment might have enlightened him if he 
 had been a man accustomed to yield to the peculiar kind of 
 sorcery issuing from the sex. He rather despised the power of 
 women over men; and nevertheless he was there, listening 
 to that bell, instead of having obeyed the call of his family 
 duties, when the latter was urgent. He had received letters 
 at Lugano, summoning him home, before he set forth on his 
 present expedition. The noisy alarum told him he floundered 
 in quags, like a silly creature chasing a marsh-lamp. But was 
 it so? Was it not, on the contrary, a serious pursuit of the 
 secret of a woman's character? — Oh, a woman and her char- 
 acter! Ordinary women and their characters might set to 
 work to get what relationship and likeness they could. They 
 had no secret to allure. This one had; she had the secret of 
 lake waters under rock, unfathomable in limpidness. He 
 could not think of her without shooting at nature, and na- 
 ture's very sweetest and subtlest, for comparisons. As to the 
 sex, his active man's contempt of the petticoated secret at- 
 tractive to boys and graylings made him believe that in her he 
 hunted the mind and the spirit; perchance a double mind, a 
 twilighted spirit; but not a mere woman. She bore no re- 
 semblance to the bundle of women. Well, she was worth 
 studying; she had ideas and could give ear to ideas. Further- 
 more, a couple of the members of his family inclined to do her 
 
144 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 injustice. At least they judged her harshly, owing, he thought, 
 to an inveterate opinion they held regarding Lord Dannis- 
 burgh's obliquity in relation to women. He shared it, and did 
 not concur in their verdict upon the women implicated. That 
 is to say, knowing something of her now, he could see the 
 possibility of her innocence in the special charm that her mere 
 sparkle of features and speech, and her freshness, would have 
 for a man like his uncle. The possibility pleaded strongly on 
 her behalf, while the darker possibility, weighted by his 
 uncle's reputation, plucked at him from below. 
 • She was delightful to hear, delightful to see; and her 
 friends loved her and had faith in her. So clever a woman 
 might be too clever for her friends! .... 
 
 The circle he moved in hummed of women, prompting 
 novices, as well as veterans, to suspect that the multitude of 
 them, and notably the fairest, yet more the cleverest, con- 
 cealed the serpent somewhere. 
 
 She certainly had not directed any of her arts upon him. 
 Besides, he was half engaged. And that was a burning per- 
 plexity; not because of abstract scruples touching the neces- 
 sity for love in marriage. The young lady, great heiress though 
 she was, and willing, as she allowed him to assume, — grace- 
 ful, too, reputed a beauty, — struck him cold. He fancied her 
 transparent, only arctic. Her transparency displayed to him 
 all the common virtues, and a serene possession of the ines- 
 timable and eminent one outweighing all; but charm, wit, 
 ardor, intercommunicative quickness, and kindling beauty, 
 airy grace, were qualities that a man, it seemed, had to look 
 for in women spotted by a doubt of their having the chief 
 and priceless. 
 
 However, he was not absolutely plighted. Nor did it mat- 
 ter to him whether this or that woman concealed the tail of 
 the serpent and trail, excepting the singular interest this wom- 
 an managed to excite, and so deeply as set him wondering 
 how that Resurrection Bell might be affecting her ability to 
 sleep. Was she sleeping or waking? His nervous imagina- 
 tion was a torch that alternately lighted her lying asleep with 
 the innocent, like a babe, and tossing beneath the overflow of 
 her dark hair, hounded by haggard memories. She fluttered 
 before him in either aspect; and another perplexity now was 
 to distinguish within himself which was the aspect he pre- 
 ferred. Great nature broucrht him thus to drink of her 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 145 
 
 beauty, under the delusion that the act was a speculation on 
 her character. 
 
 The Bell, with its clash, throb, and long swoon of sound, 
 reminded him of her name: Diana! An attribute? or a de- 
 rision? 
 
 It really mattered nothing to him, save for her being ma- 
 ligned; and, if most unfairly, then that face of the varying 
 expressions, and the rich voice, and remembered gentle and 
 taking words coming from her, appealed to him with a sup- 
 plicating vividness that pricked his heart to leap. 
 
 He was dozing when the Bell burst through the thin di- 
 vision between slumber and wakefulness, recounting what 
 seemed innumerable peals, hard on his cranium. Gray daj^- 
 light blanched the window and the bed; his watch said five of 
 the morning. He thought of the pleasure of a bath beneath 
 some dashing spray-showers, and jumped up to dress, feeling 
 a queer sensation of skin in his clothes, the sign of a feverish 
 night; and j^awning he went into the air. Leftward the 
 narrow village-street led to the footway along which he could 
 make for the mountain-wall. He cast one look at the head of 
 the campanile, silly as an owlish roysterer's glazed stare at 
 the young Aurora, and hurried his feet to check the yawns 
 coming alarmingly fast, in the place of ideas. 
 
 His elevation above the valley was about the kneecap of 
 the Generoso. Waters of past rain-clouds poured down the 
 mountain-sides like veins of metal, here and there flinging off 
 a shower on the busy descent; only dubiously animate in the 
 lacklustre of the huge bulk piled against a yellow east that 
 wafted fleets of pinky cloudlets overhead. He mounted his 
 path to a level with inviting grass-mounds where water cir- 
 cled, running from scoops and cups to curves and brook- 
 streams, and in his fancy calling to him to hear them. To dip 
 in them was his desire. To roll and shiver braced by the icy 
 flow was the spell to break that baleful incantation of the in- 
 tolerable night; so he struck across a ridge of boulders, wreck 
 of a landslip from the height he had hugged, to the open space 
 of shadowed undulations, and soon had his feet on turf. 
 Heights to right and to left, and between them, aloft, a sky 
 the rosy wheelcourse of the chariot of mom, and below, 
 among the knolls, choice of sheltered nooks where waters 
 whispered of secrecy to satisfy Diana herself. They have that 
 whisper and waving of secrecy in secret scenery; they beckon 
 
 10 
 
146 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 to the bath; and they conjure classic visions of the pudency 
 of the goddess irate or unsighted. The semi-mythological 
 state of mind, built of old images and favoring haunts, was 
 known to Dacier. The name of Diana, playing vaguely on his 
 consciousness, helped to it. He had no definite thought of 
 the mortal woman when the highest grass-roll near the rock 
 gave him view of a bowered source and of a pool under a chain 
 of cascades, bounded by polished shelves and slabs. The 
 very spot for him, he decided at the first peep; and at the sec- 
 ond, with fingers instinctively loosening his waistcoat-but- 
 tons for a commencement, he shouldered round and strolled 
 away, though not at a rapid pace, nor far before he halted. 
 
 That it could be no other than she, the figure he had seen 
 standing beside the pool, he was sure. AYhy had he turned? 
 Thoughts thick and swift as a blush in the cheeks of seventeen 
 overcame him; and queen of all, the thought bringing the 
 picture of this mountain solitude to vindicate a woman shame- 
 fully assailed. She who found her pleasure in these haunts 
 of nymph and goddess, as the fresh cold bosom of nature, must 
 be clear as day. She trusted herself to the loneliness here, 
 and to the honor of men, from a like irreflective sincereness. 
 She was unable to imagine danger where her own impelling 
 thirst was pure 
 
 The thoughts, it will be discerned, were but flashes of a 
 momentary vivid sensibility. Where a woman's charm has 
 won half the battle, her character is an advancing standard, 
 and sings victory, let her do no more than take a quiet morn- 
 ing walk before breakfast. 
 
 But why had he turned his back on her? There was noth- 
 ing in his presence to alarm, nothing in her appearance to for- 
 bid. The motive and the movement were equally quaint; in- 
 comprehensible to him; for, after putting himself out of 
 sight, he understood the absurdity of the supposition that she 
 would seek the secluded sylvan bath for the same purpose as 
 he. Yet now he was debarred from going to meet her. She 
 might have an impulse to bathe her feet. Her name was 
 Diana 
 
 Yes, and a married woman; and a proclaimed one! And 
 notwithstanding those brassy facts he was ready to side with 
 the evidence declaring her free from stain; and further, to 
 swear that her blood was Diana's! 
 
 Nor had Dacier ever been particularly poetical about 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 147 
 
 women. The present Diana had awakened his curiosity, had 
 stirred his interest in her, pricked his admiration, but gradu- 
 ally, until a sleepless night with its flock of raven-fancies 
 imder that dominant Bell, ended by coloring her, the moment 
 she stood in his eyes, as freshly as the morning heavens. We 
 are much influenced in youth by sleepless nights; they dis- 
 arm, they predispose us to submit to soft occasion; and in our 
 youth occasion is always coming. 
 
 He heard her voice. She had risen up the grass-mound, 
 and he hung brooding half-way down. She was dressed in 
 some texture of the hue of lavender. A violet scarf loosely 
 knotted ovei" the bosom opened on her throat. The loop of 
 her black hair curved under a hat of gray beaver. Memor- 
 ably radiant was her face. 
 
 They met, exchanged greetings, praised the beauty of the 
 morning, and struck together on the Bell. She laughed: "I 
 heard it at ten; I slept till four. I never wake later. I was 
 out in the air by half -past. Were you disturbed?'^ 
 
 He alluded to his troubles with the Bell. 
 
 "It sounded like a felon's heart in skeleton ribs," he said. 
 
 "Or a proser's tongue in a hollow skull," said she. 
 
 He bowed to her conversible readiness, and at once fell into 
 the background, as he did only with her, to perform accordant 
 bass in their dialogue; for when a woman lightly caps our 
 strained remarks we gallantly surrender the leadership, lest 
 she should too cuttingly assert her claim. 
 
 Some sweet wild cyclamen flowers were at her breast. She 
 held in her left hand a bunch of buds and blown cups of the 
 pale purple meadow-crocus. He admired them. She told 
 him to look round. He confessed to not having noticed them 
 in the grass; what was the name? Colchicum, in botany, she 
 said. 
 
 "These are plucked to be sent to a friend; otherwise I'm 
 reluctant to take the life of flowers for a whim. Wild flowers, 
 I mean. I am not sentimental about garden flowers; they are 
 cultivated for decoration, grown for clipping." 
 
 "I suppose they don't carry the same signification," said 
 Dacier, in the tone of a pupil to such themes. 
 
 "They carry no feeling," said she. "And that is my ex- 
 cuse for plucking these, where they seem to spring like our 
 town-dream of happiness. I believe they are sensible of it, 
 too; but these must do service to my invalid friend, who can- 
 
148} DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 not travel. Are you ever as much interested in the woes of 
 great ladies as of country damsels? I am not — not unless 
 they have natural distinction. You have met Lady 
 Dunstane?'' 
 
 The question sounded artless. Dacier answered that he 
 thought he had seen her somewhere once, and Diana shut her 
 lips on a rising under-smile. 
 
 "She is the coeur d'or of our time; the one soul I would 
 sacrifice these flowers to." 
 
 "A bit of a blue-stocking, I think I have heard said." 
 
 "She might have been admitted to the Hotel Eambouillet, 
 without being anything of a Precieuse. She is the woman 
 of the largest heart now beating." 
 
 "Mr. Eedworth talked of her." 
 
 ^^As she deserved, I am sure." 
 
 "Very warmly." 
 
 "He would!" 
 
 "He told me you were the Damon and Pythias of women." 
 
 "Her one fault is an extreme humility that makes her 
 always play second to me; and, as I am apt to gabble, I take 
 the lead; and I am froth in comparison. I can reverence my 
 superiors even when tried by intimacy with them. She is the 
 next heavenly thing to Heaven that I know. Court her, if 
 ever you come across her. Or have you a man's horror of 
 women with brains?" 
 
 "Am I expressing it?" said he. 
 
 "Do not breathe London or Paris here on me." She 
 fanned the crocuses under her chin. "The early morning 
 always has this — I wish I had a word! — touch . . . whis- 
 per . . . gleam . . . beat of wings — ^I envy poets 
 now more than ever! — of Eden, I was going to say. Prose 
 can paint evening and moonlight, but poets are needed to sing 
 the dawn. That is because prose is equal to melancholy stuff. 
 Gladness requires the finer language. Otherwise we have it 
 coarse — anything but a reproduction. You politicians de- 
 spise the little distinctions ^'twixt tweedledum and tweedle- 
 dee,' I fancy." 
 
 Of the poetic sort, Dacier's uncle certainly did. For him- 
 self he confessed to not having thought much on them. 
 ! "But how divine is utterance!" she said. "As we to the 
 1 brutes, poets are to us." 
 I He listened somewhat with the head of the hanged. A 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 149 
 
 beautiful woman choosing to rhapsodize has her way, and is 
 not subjected to the critical commentary within us. He won- 
 dered whether she had discoursed in such a fashion to his 
 uncle. 
 
 "I can read good poetry/' said he. 
 
 "If you would have this valley — or mountain-cleft, one 
 should call it — described, only verse could do it for you,'' 
 Diana pursued, and stopped, glanced at his face and smiled. 
 She had spied the end of a towel peeping out of one of his 
 pockets. "You came out for a bath! Go back, by all means, 
 and mount that rise of grass where you first saw me; and down 
 on the other side, a little to the right, you will find the very 
 place for a bath, at a comer of the rock — a natural fountain; 
 a bubbling pool in a ring of brushwood, with falling water, 
 so tempting that I could have pardoned a push; about five 
 feet deep. Lose no time." 
 
 He begged to assure her that he would rather stroll with 
 her; it had been only a notion of bathing by chance when he 
 pocketed the towel. 
 
 "Dear me," she cried, "if I had been a man I should have 
 scurried off at a signal of release, quick as a hare I once woke 
 up in a field with my foot on its back." 
 
 Dacier's eyebrows knotted a trifle over her eagerness to 
 dismiss him; he was not used to it, but rather to be courted 
 by women, and to condescend. 
 
 "I shall not long, I'm afraid, have the pleasure of walking 
 beside you and hearing you. I had letters at Lugano. My 
 uncle is unwell, I hear." 
 
 "Lord Dannisburgh?" 
 
 The name sprang from her lips unhesitatingly. 
 
 His nodded affirmative altered her face and her voice. 
 
 "It is not a grave illness?" 
 
 "They rather fear it." 
 
 "You had the news at Lugano?" 
 
 He answered the implied reproach: "I can be of no 
 service." 
 
 "But surely!" 
 
 "It's even doubtful that he would be bothered to receive 
 me. We hold no views in common — excepting one." 
 
 "Could I?" she exclaimed. "0 that I might! If he is 
 really ill! But if it is actually serious he would perhaps have 
 
150 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 a wish ... I can nurse. I know I have the power to 
 cheer him. You ought indeed to be in England." 
 
 Dacier said he had thought it better to wait for later re- 
 ports. "I shall drive to Lugano this afternoon, and act on the 
 information I get there. Probably it ends my holiday." 
 
 "Will you do me the favor to write me word? — and espe- 
 cially tell me if you think he would like to have me near him/' 
 said Diana. "And let him know that, if he wants nursing or 
 cheerful companionship, I am at any moment ready to come." 
 
 The flattery of a beautiful young woman to wait on him 
 would be very agreeable to Lord Dannisburgh, Dacier con- 
 ceived. Her offer to go was possibly purely charitable. But 
 the prudence of her occupation of the post obscured what- 
 ever appeared admirable in her devotedness. Her choice of a 
 man like Lord Dannisburgh for a friend to whom she could 
 sacrifice her good name less falteringly than she gathered 
 those field-flowers was inexplicable; and she herself a darker 
 riddle at each step of his reading. 
 
 He promised curtly to write. "I will do my best to hit a fly- 
 ing address." 
 
 "Your club enables me to hit a permanent one that will 
 establish the communication," said Diana. "We shall not 
 sleep another night at Eovio. Lady Esquart is the lightest 
 of sleepers, and, if you had a restless time, she and her hus- 
 band must have been in purgatory. Besides, permit me to 
 say, you should be with your party. The times are troublous 
 — ^not for holidays! Your holiday has had a haunted look, 
 creditably to your conscience as a politician. These Corn 
 Law agitations!" 
 
 "Ah, but no politics here!" said Dacier. 
 
 "Politics everywhere! In the Courts of Faery! They are 
 not discord to me." 
 
 "But not the last day — the last hour!" he pleaded. 
 
 "Well! Only do not forget your assurance to me that you 
 would give some thoughts to Ireland — and the cause of 
 women. Has it slipped from your memory?" 
 
 "If I see the chance of serving you, you may trust to me." 
 
 She sent up an interjection on the misfortune of her not 
 having been born a man. 
 
 It was to him the one smart of sourness in her charm as a 
 woman. 
 
 Among the boulder-stones of the ascent to the path he 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 151 
 
 ventured to propose a little masculine assistance in a hand 
 stretched mutely. Although there was no great need for 
 help her natural kindliness checked the inclination to refuse 
 it. When their hands disjoined she found herself reddening. 
 She cast it on the exertion. Her heart was throbbing. It 
 might be the exertion likewise. 
 
 He walked and talked much more airily along the descend- 
 ing pathway, as if he had suddenly become more intimately 
 acquainted with her 
 
 She listened, trying to think of the manner in which he 
 might be taught to serve that cause she had at heart; and 
 the color deepened on her cheeks till it set fire to her under- 
 lying consciousness; blood to spirit. A tremor of alarm ran 
 through her. 
 
 His request for one of the crocuses to keep as a souvenir of 
 the morning was refused. "They are sacred; they were all 
 devoted to my iriend when I plucked them." 
 
 He pointed to a half-open one, with the petals in dispart- 
 ing pointing to junction, and compared it to the famous tip- 
 toe ballet-posture, arms above head and fingers like swallows 
 meeting in air, of an operatic danseuse of the time. 
 
 "I do not see it, because I will not see it," she said, and 
 she found a personal cooling and consolement in the phrase. 
 We have this power of resisting invasion of the poetic by 
 the commonplace, the spirit by the blood, if we please, though 
 you men may not think that we have! Her alarmed sensi- 
 bilities bristled and made head against him as an enemy. 
 She fancied (for the aforesaid reason, because she chose) 
 that it was on account of the offense to her shy morning 
 pleasure by his Londonizing. At any other moment her 
 natural liveliness and trained social ease would have taken 
 any remark on the eddies of the tide of converse; and so she 
 told herself, and did not the less feel wounded, adverse, 
 armed. He seemed somehow to have dealt a mortal blow to 
 the happy girl she had become again. The woman she was 
 protested on behalf of the girl, while the girl in her heart 
 bent lowered sad eyelids to the woman; and which of them 
 was wiser of the truth she could not have said, for she was 
 honestly not aware of the truth, but she knew she was divided 
 in halves, with one half pitying the other, one rebuking; and 
 all because of the incongruous comparison of a wildflower to 
 
152 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 an opera-dancer! Absurd indeed! We human creatures are 
 the silliest on earth, most certainly. 
 
 Dacier had observed the blush, and the check to her flow- 
 ing tongue did not escape him as they walked back to the 
 inn down the narrow street of black rooms, where the women 
 gossiped at the fountain and the cobbler threaded on his 
 doorstep. His novel excitement supplied the deficiency, 
 sweeping him past minor reflections. He was, however, sur- 
 prised to hear her tell Lady Esquart, as soon as they were 
 together at the breakfast table, that he had the intention 
 of starting for England; and further surprised, and slightly 
 stung too, when on the poor lady's moaning over her recollec- 
 tion of the midnight Bell, and vowing she could not attempt 
 to sleep another night in the place, Diana declared her re- 
 solve to stay there one day longer with her maid, and explore 
 the neighborhood for the wild-flowers in which it abounded. 
 Lord and Lady Esquart agreed to anything agreeable to her, 
 after excusing themselves for the necessitated flight, piteously 
 relating the story of their sufferings. My lord could have 
 slept, but he had remained awake to comfort my lady. 
 
 "True knightliness!" Diana said in praise of these long- 
 married lovers; and she asked them what they had talked of 
 during the night. 
 
 "You, my dear, partly," said Lady Esquart. 
 
 "For an opiate?" 
 
 "An invocation 9f the morning," said Dacier. 
 
 Lady Esquart looked at Diana and at him. She thought 
 it was well that her fair friend should stay. It was then set- 
 tled for Diana to rejoin them the next evening at Lugano, 
 thence to proceed to Luino on the Maggiore. 
 
 "I fear it is good-bye for me," Dacier said to her, as he was 
 about to step into the carriage with the Esquarts. 
 
 "If you have not better news of your uncle, it must be," 
 she replied, and gave him her hand promptly and formally, 
 hardly diverting her eyes from Lady Esquart to grace the 
 temporary gift with a look. The last of her he saw was a 
 waving of her arm and a finger pointing triumphantly at 
 the Bell in the tower. It said, to an understanding unprac- 
 ticed in the feminine mysteries, "I can sleep through any- 
 thing." What that revealed of her state of conscience and 
 her nature, his efforts to preserve the lovely optical figure 
 blocked his guessing. He was with her friends, who liked 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 153 
 
 her the more they knew her, and he was compelled to lean 
 to their view of the perplexing woman. 
 
 *^She is a riddle to the world," Lady Esquart said, "but I 
 know that she is good. It is the best of signs when women 
 take to her and are proud to be her friend." 
 
 My lord echoed his wife. She talked in this homely man- 
 ner to stop any notion of philandering that the young gen- 
 tleman might be disposed to entertain in regard to a lady 
 so attractive to the pursuit as Diana's beauty and delicate 
 situation might make her seem. 
 
 "She is an exceedingly clever person, and handsomer than 
 report, which is uncommon," said Dacier, becoming voluble 
 on town-topics, Miss Asper incidentally among them. He 
 denied Lady Esquart's charge of an engagement; the matter 
 hung. 
 
 His letters at Lugano summoned him to England in- 
 stantly. 
 
 "I have taken leave of Mrs. Warwick, but tell her I re- 
 gret, et cetera," he said; "and, by the way, as my uncle's 
 illness appears to be serious, the longer she is absent the bet- 
 ter, perhaps." 
 
 "It would never do," said Lady Esquart, understanding 
 his drift immediately. "We winter in Rome. She will not 
 abandon us — I have her word for it. Next Easter we are in 
 Paris; and so home, I suppose. There will be no hurry be- 
 fore we are due at Cowes. We seem to have become con- 
 firmed wanderers; for two of us at least it is likely to be our 
 last great tour." 
 
 Dacier informed her that he had pledged his word to write 
 to Mrs. Warwick of his uncle's condition, and the several ap- 
 pointed halting-places of the Esquarts between the lakes and 
 Florence were named to him. Thus all things were openly 
 treated; all had an air of being on the surface; the communi- 
 cations passing between Mrs. Warwick and the Hon. Percy 
 Dacier might have been perused by all the world. None but 
 that portion of it, sage in suspiciousness, which objects to such 
 communications under any circumstances, could have detected 
 in their correspondence a spark of coming fire or that there 
 was common warmth. She did not feel it, nor did he. The 
 position of the two interdicted it to a couple honor- 
 ably sensible of social decencies; and who were, be it added, 
 kept apart. The blood is the treacherous element in the 
 
154 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 story of the nobly civilized, of which secret Diana, a wife and 
 no wife, a prisoner in liberty, a blooming woman imagining 
 herself restored to transcendent maiden ecstasies — the highest 
 youthful poetic — had received some faint intimation when 
 the blush flamed suddenly in her cheeks and her heart knelled 
 like the towers of a city given over to the devourer. She had 
 no wish to meet him again. Without telling herself why, 
 she would have shunned the meeting. Disturbers that 
 thwarted her simple happiness in sublime scenery were best 
 avoided. She thought so the more for a fitful blur to the 
 simplicity of her sensations, and a task she sometimes had in 
 restoring and toning them, after that sweet morning time in 
 Eovio. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 "THE PRINCESS EGERIA." 
 
 London, say what we will of it, is after all the head of 
 the British giant, and, if not the liveliest in bubbles, it is 
 past competition the largest broth-pot of brains anywhere 
 simmering on the hob; over the steadiest of furnaces too. 
 And the oceans and the continents, as you know, are per- 
 petual and copious contributors, either to the heating appa- 
 ratus or to the contents of the pot. Let grander similes be 
 sought. This one fits for the smoky receptacle cherishing 
 millions, magnetic to tens of millions more, with its caked 
 outside of grime, and the inward substance incessantly kick- 
 ing the lid, prankish, but never casting it off. A good stew, 
 you perceive; not a parlous boiling. Weak as we may be 
 in our domestic cookery, our political has been sagaciously 
 adjusted as yet to catch the ardors of the furnace without 
 being subject to their volcanic activities. 
 
 That the social is also somewhat at fault we have proof in 
 occasional outcries over the absence of these or those par- 
 ticular persons famous for inspiriting. It sticks and clogs. 
 The improvising songster is missed, the convivial essayist, 
 the humorous Dean, the traveled cynic, and he, the one of 
 his day, the iridescent Irishman, whose remembered repartees 
 are a feast, sharp and ringing, at divers tables descending 
 from the upper to the fat citizen's, where, instead of coming 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 155 
 
 in the sequence of talk, they are exposed by blasting, like 
 fossil teeth of old deluge sharks in monotonous walls of our 
 chalk quarries. Nor are these the less welcome for the vio- 
 lence of their introduction among a people glad to be set 
 burning rather briskly awhile by the most unexpected of 
 digs in the ribs. Dan Merion, to give an example. That 
 was Dan Merion's joke with the watchman; and he said that 
 other thing to the Marquis of Kingsbury, when the latter 
 asked him if he had ever won a donkey-race. And old Dan 
 is dead, and we are the duller for it! which leads to the 
 question: Is genius hereditary? And the affirmative and 
 negative are respectively maintained, rather against the Yes 
 in the dispute, until a member of the audience speaks of Dan 
 Merion's having left a daughter reputed for a sparkling wit 
 not much below the level of his own. Why, are you unaware 
 that the Mrs. Warwick of that scandal case of Warwick 
 versus Dannisburgh was old Dan Merion's girl and his only 
 child? It is true; for a friend had it from a man who had 
 it straight from Mr. Braddock, of the firm of Braddock, 
 Thorp, and Simnel, her solicitors in the action, who told him 
 he could sit listening to her for hours, and that she was as 
 innocent as day; a wonderful combination of a good woman 
 and a clever woman, and a real beauty. Only her misfortune 
 was to have a furiously jealous husband, and they say he went 
 mad after hearing the verdict. 
 
 Diana was talked of in the London circles. A witty 
 woman is such salt that, where she has once been tasted, she 
 must perforce be missed more than any of the absent, the 
 dowering heavens not having yet showered her like very 
 plentifully upon us. Then it was first heard that Percy 
 Dacier had been traveling with her. Miss Asper heard of 
 it. Her uncle, Mr. Quintin Manx, the millionaire, was an 
 acquaintance of the new judge and titled dignitary. Sir 
 Cramborne Wathin, and she visited Lady Wathin, at whose 
 table the report in the journals of the Nile-boat party was 
 mentioned. Lady Wathin's table could dispense with witty 
 women, and, for that matter, witty men. The intrusion of 
 the spontaneous on the stereotyped would have clashed. 
 She preferred, as hostess, the old legal anecdote sure of their 
 laugh, and the citations from the manufactories of fun in 
 the press, which were current and instantly intelligible to all 
 her guests. She smiled suavely on an impromptu pun, be- 
 
156 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 cause her experience of the humorous appreciation of it by 
 her guests bade her welcome the upstart. Nothing else im- 
 promptu was acceptable. Mrs. Warwick, therefore, was not 
 missed by Lady Wathin. "I have met her/' she said. "I 
 confess I am not one of the fanatics about Mrs. Warwick. 
 She has a sort of skill in getting men to clamor. If you 
 stoop to tickle them they will applaud. It is a way of win- 
 ning a reputation." When the ladies were separated from 
 the gentlemen by the stream of claret, Miss Asper heard Lady 
 Wathin speak of Mrs. Warwick again. An allusion to Lord 
 Dannisburgh's fit of illness in the House of Lords led to her 
 saying that there was no doubt he had been fascinated, and 
 that, in her opinion, Mrs. Warwick was a dangerous woman. 
 Sir Cramborne knew something of Mr. Warwick; "Poor man!" 
 she added. A lady present put a question concerning Mrs. 
 Warwick's beauty. "Yes," Lady Wathin said, "she has good 
 looks to aid her. Judging from what I hear and have seen, 
 her thirst is for notoriety. Sooner or later we shall have her 
 making a noise, you may be certain. Yes, she has the secret of 
 dressing well — in the French style." 
 
 A simple newspaper report of the expedition of a Nile- 
 boat party could stir the Powers to take her up and turn her 
 on their wheel in this manner. 
 
 But others of the sons and daughters of London were re- 
 gretting her prolonged absence. The great and exclusive 
 Whitmonby, who had dined once at Lady Wathin's table, 
 and vowed never more to repeat that offense to his patience, 
 lamented bitterly to Henry Wilmers that the sole woman 
 worthy of sitting at a little Sunday evening dinner with the 
 cream of the choicest men of the time was away wasting her- 
 self in that insane modern chase of the picturesque! He 
 called her a perverted Celimene. 
 
 Eedworth had less to regret than the rest of her male 
 friends, as he was receiving at intervals pleasant descriptive 
 letters, besides manuscript sheets of Antonia's new piece of 
 composition, to correct the proofs for the press, and he read 
 them critically, he thought. He read them with a watchful 
 eye to guard them from the critics. Antonia, whatever her 
 faults as a writer, was not one of the order whose muse is 
 the Public Taste. She did at least draw her inspiration from 
 herself, and there was much to be feared in her work, if a 
 sah was the object. Otherwise Kedworth's highly critical 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 157 
 
 perusal led him flatly to admire. This was like her, and 
 that was like her, and here and there a phrase gave him the 
 very play of her mouth, the flash of her eyes. Could he 
 possibly wish, or bear, to have anything altered? But she 
 had reason to desire an extended sale of the work. Her aim, 
 in the teeth of her independent style, was at the means of 
 independence — a feminine method of attempting to conciliate 
 contraries; and, after dispatching the last sheets to the 
 printer, he meditated upon the several ways which might 
 serve to assist her; the main way running thus in his mind: — 
 We have a work of genius. Genius is good for the public. 
 What is good for the public should be recommended by the 
 critics. It should be. How then to come at them to get it 
 done? As he was not a member of the honorable literary 
 craft, and regarded its arcana altogether externally, it may 
 be confessed of him that he deemed the incorruptible cor- 
 ruptible; not, of course, with filthy coin slid into sticky 
 palms. Critics are human and exceedingly beyond the com- 
 mon lot when touched; and they are excited by mysterious 
 hints of loftiness in authorship; by rumors of veiled loveli- 
 ness; whispers of a general anticipation; and also editors 
 can jog them. Redworth was rising to be a railway king of 
 a period soon to glitter with rails, iron in the concrete, 
 golden in the visionary. He had already his court, much 
 against his will. The powerful magnetic attractions of those 
 who can help the world to fortune was exercised by him in 
 spite of his disgust of sycophants. He dropped words to 
 right and left of a coming w^ork by Antonia. And who was 
 Antonia? Ah! there hung the riddle. An exalted person- 
 age? So much so that he dared not name her even in con- 
 fidence to ladies; he named the publishers. To men he said 
 he was at liberty to speak of her only as the most beautiful 
 woman of her time. His courtiers of both sexes were recom- 
 mended to read the new story, The Princess Egeria. 
 
 Oddly, one great lady of his court had heard a forthcoming 
 work of this title spoken of by Percy Dacier, not a man to 
 read silly fiction, unless there was meaning behind the lines; 
 that is, rich scandal of the aristocracy, diversified by sting- 
 ing epigrams to the address of discernible personages. She 
 talked of The Princess Egeria; nay, laid her finger on 
 the identical princess. Others followed her. Dozens were 
 soon flying with a torch; a new work immediately to be pub- 
 
158 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 lished from the pen of the Duchess of Stars! And the 
 princess who lends her title to the book is a living portrait 
 of the Princess of Highest Eminence, the Hope of all Civili- 
 zation. Orders for copies of The Princess Egeria reached the 
 astonished publishers before the book was advertised. 
 
 Speaking to editors, Eedworth complimented them with 
 friendly intimations of the real authorship of the remarkable 
 work appearing. He used a certain penetrative mildness of 
 tone in saying that "he hoped the book would succeed.'^ It 
 deserved to; it was original; but the originality might tell 
 against it. All would depend upon a favorable launching 
 of such a book. "^Irs. Warwick? Mrs. Warwick?" said 
 the most influential of editors, Mr. Marcus Tonans. "What! 
 that singularly handsome woman? .... The Dannis- 
 burgh affair? .... She's Whitmonby's heroine. If 
 she writes as cleverly as she talks, her work is worth trumpet- 
 ing.'' He promised to see that it went into good hands for 
 the review, and a prompt review — an essential point; none of 
 your long digestions of the contents. 
 
 Diana's indefatigable friend had fair assurances that her 
 book would be noticed before it dropped dead to the public 
 appetite for novelty. He was anxious next, notwithstanding 
 his admiration of the originality of the conception and the 
 cleverness of the writing, lest the Literary Eeviews should 
 fail "to do it justice." He used the term; for, if they 
 wounded her, they would take the pleasure out of success; 
 and he had always present to him that picture of the beloved 
 woman kneeling at the fire-grate at The Crossways, which 
 made the thought of her suffering any wound his personal 
 anguish, so crucially sweet and saintly had her image then 
 been stamped on him. He bethought him, in consequence, 
 while sitting in the House of Commons, engaged upon the 
 affairs of the nation, and honestly engaged, for he was a 
 vigilant worker, that the Irish Secretary, Charles Rainer, 
 with whom he stood in amicable relations, had an interest, 
 to the extent of reputed ownership, in the chief of the 
 Literary Eeviews. He saw Eainer on the benches, and 
 marked him to speak to him. Looking for him shortly after- 
 ward, the man was gone. "Off to the opera, if he's not too 
 late for the drop," a neighbor said, smiling queerly, as 
 though he ought to know and then Eedworth recollected cur- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 159 
 
 rent stories of Eainer's fantastical devotion to the popular 
 prima donna of the angelical voice. He hurried to the opera 
 and met the vomit, and heard in the crush-room how divine 
 she had been that night. A fellow member of the House, 
 tolerably intimate with Rainer, informed him, between fright- 
 ful stomachic roulades of her final aria, of the likeliest place 
 where Eainer might be found when the opera was over; not 
 at his Club, nor at his chambers; on one of the bridges — 
 Westminster, he fancied. 
 
 There was no need for Redworth to run hunting the man 
 at so late an hour, but he was drawn on by the similarity in 
 dissimilarity of this devotee of a woman, who could worship 
 her at a distance, and talk of her to everybody. Not till he 
 beheld Eainer's tall figure cutting the bridge-parapet, with 
 a star over his shoulder, did he reflect on the views the other 
 might entertain of the nocturnal solicitation to see "justice 
 done" to a lady's new book in a particular Eeview, and the 
 absurd outside of the request was immediately smothered by 
 the natural simplicity and pressing necessity of its inside. 
 
 He crossed the road and said, "Ah!" in recognition. "Were 
 you at the opera this evening?" 
 
 "Oh, just at the end," said Eainer, pacing forward. "It's 
 a fine night. Did you hear her?" 
 
 "No; too late." 
 
 Eainer pressed ahead, to meditate by himself, as was his 
 wont. Finding Eedworth beside him, he monologuized in 
 his depths, "They'll kill her. She puts her soul into it; gives 
 her blood. There's no failing of the voice. You see how it 
 wears her. She's doomed. Half a year's rest on Como 
 . . . . somewhere .... she might be saved! 
 She won't refuse to work." 
 
 "Have you spoken to her?" said Eedworth. 
 
 "And next to Berlin! Vienna! A horse would be I? 
 
 I don't know her," Eainer replied. "Some of their women 
 stand it. She's delicately built. You can't treat a lute like 
 a drum without destroying the instrument. We look on at a 
 murder!" 
 
 The haggard prospect from that step of the climax checked 
 his delivery. 
 
 Eedworth knew him to be a sober man in office, a man 
 with a head for statecraft. He had made a weighty speech 
 
160 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 in the House a couple of hours back. This opera cantatrice, 
 no beauty, though gentle, thrilling, winning, was his comer 
 of romance. 
 
 "Do you come here often?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, I can't sleep." 
 
 "London at night, from the bridge looks fine. By the 
 way . . . ." 
 
 "It's lonely here, that's the advantage," said Rainer. "I 
 keep silver in my pocket for poor girls going to their homes, 
 and I'm left in peace. An hour later, there's the dawn down 
 yonder." 
 
 "By the way," Eedworth interposed, and was told that after 
 these nights of her singing she never slept till morning. He 
 swallowed the fact, sympathized and resumed: "I want a 
 email favor." 
 
 "No business here, please!" 
 
 ^'Not a bit of it. You know Mrs. Warwick. .... 
 You know of her. She's publishing a book. I want you to 
 use your influence to get it noticed quickly, if you can." 
 
 'Warwick? Oh, yes, a handsome woman. Ah, yes; the 
 Dannisburgh affair, yes. What did I hear? They say she's 
 thick with Percy Dacier at present. Who was talking of her? 
 Yes, old Lady Dacier. So she's a friend of yours?" 
 
 "She's an old friend," said Eedworth, composing himself; 
 for the dose he had taken was not of the sweetest, and no 
 protestations could be uttered by a man of the world to repel 
 a charge of tattlers. "The truth is, her book is clever. I 
 have read the proofs. She must have an income, and she 
 won't apply to her husband; and literature should help her, if 
 she's fairly treated. She's Irish by descent; Merion's daugh- 
 ter, witty as her father. It's odd you haven't met her. The 
 mere writing of the book is extraordinarily good. If it's put 
 into capable hands for review, that's all it requires. And full 
 of life .... bright dialogue .... capital sketches. 
 The book's a piece of literature. Only it must have compe- 
 tent critics!" 
 
 So he talked, while Rainer ejaculated, "Warwick? War- 
 wick?" in the irritating tone of dozens of others. "What 
 did I hear of her husband? He has a post .... Yes, 
 yes. Some one said the verdict in that case knocked him 
 over — ^heart disease, or something." 
 
 He glanced at the dark Thames water. "Take my word 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. IGl 
 
 for it, the groves of xicademe won't compare with one of our 
 bridges at night, if you seek philosophy. You see the Lon- 
 don above and the London below; round us the sleepy city, 
 and the stars in the water looking Hke souls of suicides. I 
 caught a girl with a bad fit on her once. I had to lecture 
 her! It's when we become parsons we find out our cousinship 
 with these poor peripatetics, whose ^last philosophy' is a jump 
 across the parapet. The bridge at night is a bath for a public 
 man. But choose another; leave me mine." 
 
 Redworth took the hint. He stated the title of Mrs. War- 
 wick's book, and imagined, from the thoughtful cast of 
 Rainer's head, that he was impressing The Princess Egeria on 
 his memory. 
 
 Rainer burst out, with clenched fists: "He beats her! 
 The fellow lives on her and beats her; strikes that woman! 
 He drags her about to every capital in Europe to make money 
 for him, and the scoundrel pays her with blows." 
 
 In the course of a heavy tirade against the scoundrel, 
 Eedworth apprehended that it was the cantatrice's husband. 
 He expressed his horror and regret; paused, and named The 
 Princess Egeria and a certain Critical Review. Another 
 outburst seemed to be in preparation. Nothing further was 
 to be done for the book at that hour. So, with a blunt 
 "Good night," he left Charles Rainer pacing, and thought 
 on his walk home of the strange effects wrought by women 
 unwittingly upon men (Englishmen); those women, or some 
 of them, as little knowing it as the moon her traditional in- 
 fluence upon the tides. He thought of Percy Dacier, too. 
 In his bed he could have wished himself peregrinating a 
 bridge. 
 
 The Princess Egeria appeared, with the reviews at her 
 heels, a pack of clappers, causing her to fly over editions 
 clean as a doe the gates and hedges — to quote Mr. Sullivan 
 Smith, who knew not a sentence of the work save what he 
 gathered of it from Redworth, at their chance meeting on 
 Piccadilly pavement, and then immediately he knew enough 
 to blow his huntsman's horn in honor of the sale. His hallali 
 rang high. "Here's another Irish girl to win their laurels! 
 'Tis one of the blazing successes. A most enthralling work, 
 beautifully composed. And where is she now, Mr. Redworth, 
 since she broke away from that husband of hers, that wears 
 the clothes of the worst tailor ever begotten by a thread on a 
 u 
 
162 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 needle, as I tell every soul of 'em in my part of the country?" 
 
 "You have seen him?" said Redworth. 
 
 "Why, sir, wasn't he on show at the court he applied to 
 for relief and damages? as we heard when we were watching 
 the case daily, scarce drawing our breath for fear the inno- 
 cent — and one of our own blood — would be crushed. Sure, 
 there he stood; ay, and looking the very donkey for a woman 
 to flip off her fingers, like the dust from my great-uncle's prize 
 of snuff! She's a glory to the old country. And better you 
 than another, I'd say, since it wasn't an Irishman to have her; 
 but what induced the dear lady to take him is the question 
 we're all of us asking. And it's mournful to think that some- 
 how you contrive to get the pick of us in the girls! If ever 
 we're united 'twill be by a trick of circumvention of that sort, 
 pretty sure. There's a turn in the market when they shut their 
 eyes and drop to the handiest; and London's a vortex that 
 poor dear dull old Dublin can't compete with. I'll beg you 
 for the address of the lady her friend, Lady Dunstane." 
 
 Mr. Sullivan Smith walked with Eedworth through the 
 Park to the House of Commons, discoursing of Rails and his 
 excellent old friend's rise to the top rung of the ladder and 
 Beanstalk land, so elevated that one had to look up at him 
 with watery eyes, as if one had flung a ball at the meridian 
 sun. Arrived at famed St. Stephen's he sent in his compli- 
 ments to the noble patriot and accepted an invitation to 
 dinner. 
 
 "And mind you read The Princess Egeria," said Redworth. 
 
 "Again and again, my friend. The book is bought." Sul- 
 livan Smith slapped his breast-pocket. 
 
 "There's a bit of Erin in it." 
 
 "It sprouts from Erin." 
 
 "Trumpet it." 
 
 "Loud as cavalry to the charge!" 
 
 Once with the title stamped on his memory the zealous 
 Irishman might be trusted to become an ambulant adver- 
 tiser. Others — personal friends, adherents, courtiers of Red- 
 worth's — were active. Lady Pennon and Henry Wilmers, in 
 the upper circle; Whitmonby and Westlake, in the literary; 
 spread the fever for this new book. The chief interpreter 
 of public opinion caught the way of the wind and headed 
 the gale. 
 
 Editions of the book did really run like fires in summer 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 163 
 
 furze; and to such an extent that a simple literary perform- 
 ance grew to be respected in Great Britain, as representing 
 Money. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE AUTHORESS. 
 
 The effect of a great success upon Diana, at her second 
 literary venture, was shown in the transparent sedateness of 
 a letter she wrote to Emma Dunstane as much as in her im- 
 mediate and complacent acceptance of the magical change of 
 her fortunes. She spoke one thing and acted another, but 
 did both with a lofty calm that deceived the admiring friend, 
 who clearly saw the authoress behind her mask, and feared 
 lest she should be too confidently trusting to the powers of her 
 pen to support an establishment. 
 
 "If the public were a perfect instrument to strike on, I 
 should be tempted to take the wonderful success of my 
 Princess at her first appearance for a proof of natural apti- 
 tude in composition, and might think myself the genius. I 
 know it to be as little a Stradivarius as I am a Paganini. It 
 is an eccentric machine, in tune with me for the moment, be- 
 cause I happen to have hit it in the ringing spot. The book 
 is a new face appealing to a mirror of the common surface 
 emotions; and the kitchen rather than the dairy offers an 
 analogy for the real value of that 'top-skim.' I have not seen 
 what I consider good in the book once mentioned among the 
 laudatory notices — except by your dear hand, my Emmy. Be 
 sure I will stand on guard against the 'vaporous generaliza- 
 tions' and other 'tricks' you fear. Now that you are studying 
 Latin for an occupation — how good and wise it was of Mr. 
 Redworth to propose it! — I look upon you with awe as a classic 
 authority and critic. I wish I had leisure to study with you. 
 What I do is nothing like so solid and durable. 
 
 "The Princess Egeria originally (I must have written word 
 of it to you — I remember the evening off Palermo) was con- 
 ceived as a sketch; by gradations she grew into a sort of semi- 
 Scudery romancer, and swelled to her present portliness. 
 
164 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 This was done by a great deal of piecing, not to say puffing, of 
 her frame. She would be healthier and have a chance of 
 living longer if she were reduced by a reversal of the processes. 
 But how would the judicious clippings and prickings affect 
 our ^pensive public'? 'Now that I have furnished a house 
 and have a fixed address, under the paws of creditors, I feel I 
 am in the wizard-circle of my popularity and subscribe to its 
 laws or waken to incubus and the desert. Have I been rash? 
 You do not pronounce. If I have bound myself to pipe as 
 others please it need not be entirely; and I can promise you 
 it shall not be; but still I am sensible when I lift my 'little 
 quill' of having forced the note of a woodland wren into the 
 popular nightingale's — which may end in the daw's, from 
 straining; or worse, a toy-whistle. 
 
 "That is, in the field of literature. Otherwise, within me 
 deep, I am not aware of any transmutation of the celestial 
 into coined gold. I sound myself, and ring clear. Incessant 
 writing is my refuge, my solace — escape out of the personal 
 net. I delight in it, as in my early morning walks at Lugano, 
 when I went threading the streets and by the lake away to 
 'the heavenly mount,' like a dim idea worming upward in a 
 sleepy head to bright wakefulness. 
 
 "My anonymous critic, of whom I told you, is intoxicating 
 with eulogy. The signature 'Apollonius' appears to be of 
 literary-middle indication. He marks passages approved by 
 you. I have also had a complimentary letter from Mr. Dacier. 
 
 "For an instance of this delight I have in writing, so 
 strong is it that I can read pages I have written, and tear the 
 stuff to strips (I did yesterday), and resume, as if nothing had 
 happened. The waves within are ready for any displacement. 
 That must be a good sign. I do not doubt of excelling my 
 Princess; and if she received compliments the next may hope 
 for more. Consider, too, the novel pleasure of earning money 
 by the labor we delight in. It is an answer to your question 
 whether I am happy. Yes, as the savage islander before the 
 ship entered the bay with the fire-water. My blood is wine, 
 and I have the slumbers of an infant. I dream, wake, for- 
 get my dream, barely dress, before the pen is galloping; barely 
 breakfast; no toilette till noon. A savage in good sooth! 
 You see, my Emmy, I could not house with the 'companion- 
 able person' you hint at. The poles can never come together 
 till the earth is crushed. She would find my habits intolera- 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 165 
 
 ble, and I hers contemptible, though we might both be com- 
 panionable persons. My dear, I could not even live with my- 
 self. My blessed little quill, which helps me divinely to live 
 out of myself, is and must continue to be my one companion. 
 It is my mountain height, morning light, wings, cup from the 
 springs, my horse, my goal, my lancet and replenisher, my key 
 of communication with the highest, grandest, holiest between 
 earth and heaven — the vital air connecting them. 
 
 "In justice let me add that I have not been troubled by 
 hearing of any of the mysterious legal claims, et cetera. I am 
 sorry to hear bad reports of health. I wish him entire felicity 
 — no step taken to bridge division! The thought of it makes 
 me tigerish. 
 
 "A new pianist playing his own pieces (at Lady Single- 
 by's concert) has given me exquisite pleasure and set me com- 
 posing songs — not to his music, which could be rendered only 
 by sylphs moving to 'soft recorders' in the humor of wildness, 
 languor, bewitching caprices, giving a new sense to melody. 
 How I wish you had been with me to hear him! It was the 
 most Aeolian thing ever caught from a night-breeze by the 
 soul of a poet. 
 
 "But do not suppose me having headlong tendencies to 
 the melting mood. (The above, by the way, is a Pole settled 
 in Paris, and he is to be introduced to me at Lady Pennon's.) 
 What do you say to my being invited by Mr. Whitmonby to 
 aid him in writing leading articles for the paper he is going 
 to conduct! 'Write as you talk and it will do,' he says. lam 
 choosing my themes. To write — of politics — as I talk, seems 
 to me like an effort to jump away from my shadow. The 
 black dog of consciousness declines to be shaken off. If some 
 one commanded me to talk as I write, I suspect it would be a 
 way of winding me up to a sharp critical pitch rapidly. 
 
 "Not good news of Lord D. I have had messages. Mr. 
 Dacier conceals his alarm. The Princess gave great gratifi- 
 cation. She did me her best service there. Is it not cruel that 
 the interdict of the censor should force us to depend for 
 information upon such scraps as I get from a gentleman pass- 
 ing my habitation on his way to the House? And he is not, 
 he never has been, sj^mpathetic in that direction. He sees my 
 grief, and assumes an undertakerly air, with some notion of 
 acting in concert, one supposes — little imagining how I revolt 
 from that crape hatband formalism of sorrow! 
 

 
 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "One word of her we call our inner I. I am not drawing 
 upon her resources for my daily needs; not wasting her at all, 
 I trust; certainly not walling her up to deafen her voice. It 
 would be to fall away from you. She bids me sign myself, 
 my beloved, ever, ever your Tony.'^ 
 
 The letter had every outward show of sincereness in ex- 
 pression, and was endowed to wear that appearance by the 
 writer's impulse to protest with so resolute a vigor as to de- 
 lude herself. Lady Dunstane heard of Mr. Dacier's novel at- 
 tendance at concerts. The world made a note of it; for the 
 gentleman was notoriously without ear for music. 
 
 Diana's comparison of her hours of incessant writing to her 
 walks under the dawn at Lugano, her boast of the similarity 
 of her delight in both, deluded her uncorrupted conscience 
 to believe that she was now spiritually as free as in that fair 
 season of the new spring in her veins. She was not an in- 
 vestigating physician, nor was Lady Dunstane, otherwise they 
 would have examined the material points of her conduct — 
 indicators of the spiritual secret always. What are the pa- 
 tient's acts? The patient's mind was projected too far be- 
 yond them to see the forefinger they stretched at her; and 
 the friend's was not that of a prying doctor on the look-out 
 for betraying symptoms. Lady Dunstane did ask herself why 
 Tony should have incurred the burden of a costly household — 
 a very costly: Sir Lukin had been at one of Tony's little din- 
 ners; but her wish to meet the world on equal terms, after 
 a long dependency, accounted for it in seeming to excuse. 
 The guests on the occasion were Lady Pennon, Lady Single- 
 by, Mr. Whitmonby, Mr. Percy Dacier, Mr. Tonans; — "Some 
 other women," Sir Lukin said, and himself. He reported the 
 cookery as matching the conversation, and that was prince- 
 ly; the wines not less : an extraordinary fact to note of a wom- 
 an. But to hear Whitmonby and Diana Warwick! How he 
 told a story, neat as a postman's knock, and she tipped it with 
 a remark and ran to a second, drawing in Lady Pennon, and 
 then Dacier, "and me!" cried Sir Lukin; "she made us all toss 
 '^ the ball from hand to hand, and all talk up to the mark; and 
 \* none of us noticed that we all went together to the drawing- 
 \ 'room, where we talked for another hour, and broke up fresher 
 'than we began." 
 ^'^ "That break between the men and the women after dinner 
 
 \ 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 167 
 
 was Tony's aversion, and I am glad she has instituted a 
 change/' said Lady Dunstane. 
 
 She heard also from Eedworth of the unexampled concert 
 of the guests at Mrs. Warwick's dinner parties. He had 
 met on one occasion the Esquarts, the Pettigrews, Mr. Percy 
 Dacier, and a Miss Paynham. Redwerth had not a word to 
 say of the expensive household. Whatever Mrs. Warwick did 
 was evidently good to him. On another evening the party 
 was composed of Lady Pennon, Lord Larrian, Miss Paynham, 
 a clever Mrs. Wollasley, Mr. Henry Wilmers, and again Mr. 
 Percy Dacier. 
 
 When Diana came to Copsley, Lady Dunstane remarked on 
 the recurrence of the name of Miss Paynham in the list of her 
 guests. 
 
 "And Mr. Percy Dacier's, too," said Diana, smiling. "They 
 are invited each for specific reasons. It pleases Lord Dan- 
 nisburgh to hear that a way has been found to enliven his 
 nephew; and my little dinners are effective, I think. He 
 wakes. Yesterday evening he capped flying jests with Mr. 
 Sullivan Smith. But you speak of Miss Paynham." Diana 
 lowered her voice on half-a-dozen syllables, till the half-tones 
 dropped into her steady look. "You approve, Emmy?" 
 
 The answer was: "I do — true or not." 
 
 "Between us two, dear, I fear! ... In either case, she 
 has been badly used. Society is big engine enough to pro- 
 tect itself. I incline with British juries to do rough justice 
 to the victims. She has neither father nor brother. I have 
 had no confidences: but it wears the look of a cowardly 
 business. With two words in his ear I could arm an Irishman 
 to do some work of chastisement: — he would select the ras- 
 cal's necktie for a cause of quarrel: and lords have to stand 
 their ground as well as commoners. They measure the same 
 number of feet when stretched their length. However, ven- 
 geance with the heavens! though they seem tardy. Lady 
 Pennon has been very kind about it: and the Esquarts invite 
 her to Lockton. Shoulder to shoulder, the tide may be 
 stemmed." 
 
 "She would have gone under but for you, dear Tony!" 
 said Emma, folding arms round her darling's neck and kiss- 
 ing her. "Bring her here some day." 
 
 Diana did not promise it. She had her vision of Sir Lukin 
 in his fit of lunacy. 
 
168 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "I am too weak for London now," Emma resumed. "I 
 should like to be useful. Is she pleasant?'^ 
 
 "Sprightly by nature. She has worn herself with fretting." 
 
 "Then bring her to stay with me, if I cannot keep you. She 
 will talk of you to me." 
 
 "I will bring her for a couple of days," Diana said. "I am 
 too busy to remain longer. She paints portraits to amuse her- 
 self. She ought to be pushed, wherever she is received about 
 London, while the season is warm. One season will suffice to 
 establish her. She is pretty, near upon six-and-twenty: fool- 
 ish, of course: she pays for having had a romantic head. 
 Heavy payment, Emmy! I drive at laws, but hers is an in- 
 stance of the creatures' wanting simple human kindness." 
 
 "The good law will come with a better civilization; but 
 before society can be civilized it has to be de-barbarized," 
 Emma remarked, and Diana sighed over the task and the 
 truism. 
 
 "I should have said in younger days, because it will not 
 look plainly on our nature and try to reconcile it with our 
 conditions. But now I see that the sin is cowardice. The 
 more I know of the world the more clearly I perceive that its 
 top and bottom sin is cowardice, physically and morally alike. 
 Lord Larrian owns to there being few heroes in an army. 
 We must fawn in society. What is the meaning of that dread 
 of one example of tolerance? 0! my dear, let us give it the 
 right name. Society is the best thing we have, but it is a 
 crazy vessel worked by a crew that formerly practiced piracy, 
 and now, in expiation, professes piety, fearful of a discovered 
 omnipotence, which is in the image of themselves and cap- 
 tain. Their old habits are not quite abandoned, and their 
 new one is used as a lash to whip the exposed of us for a pro- 
 pitiation of the capricious potentate whom they worship in the 
 place of the true God." 
 
 Lady Dunstane sniffed. "I smell the leading article." 
 
 Diana joined with her smile, "No, the style is rather dif- 
 ferent." 
 
 "Have you not got into a trick of composing in speaking, 
 at times?" 
 
 Diana confessed, "I think I have at times. Perhaps the 
 daily writing of all kinds and the nightly talking ... I 
 may be getting strained." 
 
 "No, Tony; but longer visits in the country to me would 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 169 
 
 refresh you. I miss your lighter touches. London is a 
 school, but — ^you know it — not a school for comedy nor for 
 philosophy; that is gathered on my hills, with London dis- 
 tantly in view, and then occasional descents on it well di- 
 gested." 
 
 "I wonder whether it is affecting me!" said Diana, mus- 
 ing. "A metropolitan hack! and, while thinking myself free, 
 thrice harnessed; and all my fun gone. Am I really as dull 
 as a tract, my dear? I must be, or I should be proving the 
 contrary instead of asking. My pitfall is to fancy I have 
 powers equal to the first look-out of the eyes of the morning. 
 Enough of me. We talked of Mary Paynham. If only some 
 right good man would marry her!" 
 
 Lady Dunstane guessed at the right good man in Diana's 
 mind. "Do you bring them together?" 
 
 Diana nodded, and then shook doleful negatives to signify 
 no hope. 
 
 "None whatever; if we mean the same person," said Lady 
 Dunstane, bethinking her, in the spirit of wrath she felt at 
 such a scheme being planned by Diana to snare the right good 
 man, that instead of her own true lover, Eedworth, it might 
 be only Percy Dacier. So tenuous of mere sensations are 
 these little ideas as they flit in converse that she did not re- 
 flect on her friend's ignorance of Eedworth's love of her, or 
 on the unlikely choice of one in Dacier's high station to rein- 
 state a damsel. 
 
 They did not name the person. 
 
 "Passing the instance, which is cruel, I will be just to so- 
 ciety thus far," said Diana. "I was in a boat at Eichmond 
 last week, and Leander was revelling along the mud-banks, 
 and took it into his head to swim out to me, and I was moved 
 to take him on board. The ladies in the boat objected, for he 
 was not only wet but very muddy. I was forced to own that 
 their objections were reasonable. My sentimental humane- 
 ness had no argument against muslin dresses, though my dear 
 dog's eyes appealed pathetically, and he would keep swim- 
 ming after us. The analogy excuses the world for protect- 
 ing itself in extreme cases; nothing — nothing excuses its in- 
 sensibility to cases which may be pleaded. You see the pirate 
 crew turned pious — ferocious in sanctity." She added, half 
 laughing: "I am reminded by the boat, I have unveiled my 
 anonymous critic, and had a woeful disappointment. He 
 
170 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 wrote like a veteran; he is not much more than a boy. I re- 
 ceived a volume of verse, and a few lines begging my ac- 
 ceptance. I fancied I knew the writing, and wrote asking 
 him whether I had not to thank him, et cetera, and inviting 
 him to call. He seems a nice lad of about two and twenty, 
 mad for literature; and he must have talent. Arthur Rhodes 
 by name. I may have a chance of helping him. He was an 
 articled clerk of Mr. Braddock's, the same who valiently came 
 to my rescue once. He was with us in the boat." 
 
 "Bring him to me some day," said Lady Dunstane. 
 
 Miss Paynham's visit to Copsley was arranged, and it turned 
 out a failure. The poor young lady came in a flutter, think- 
 ing that the friend of Mrs. Warwick would expect her to dis- 
 course cleverly. She attempted it, to Diana's amazement. 
 Lady Dunstane's opposingly corresponding stillness provoked 
 Miss Paynham to expatiate, for she had sprightliness and some 
 mental reserves of the common order. Clearly, Lady Dun- 
 stane mused while listening amiably, Tony never could have 
 designed this gabbler for the mate of Thomas Red worth! 
 
 Percy Dacier seemed to her the more likely one, in that 
 light, and she thought so still, after Sir Lukin had intro- 
 duced him at Copsley for a couple of days of the hunting 
 season. Tony's manner with him suggested it; she had a dash 
 of leadership. They were not intimate in look or tongue. 
 
 But Percy Dacier also was too good for Miss Paynham, if 
 that was Tony's plan for him, Lady Dunstane thought, with 
 the relentlessness of an invalid and recluse's distaste. An as- 
 pect of penitence she had not demanded, but the silly gab- 
 bler under a stigma she could not pardon. 
 
 Her opinion of Miss Paynham was diffused in her silence. 
 
 Speaking of Mr. Dacier she remarked, "As you say of him, 
 Tony, he can brighten, and when you give him a chance he is 
 entertaining. He has fine gifts. If I were a member of his 
 family I should beat about for a match for him. He strikes 
 us as one of the young men who would do better married." 
 
 "He is doing very well, but the wonder is that he doesn't 
 marry," said Diana. "He ought to be engaged. Lady Es- 
 quart told me that he was. A Miss Asper — great heiress; and 
 the Daciers want money. However, there it is." 
 
 Not many weeks later Diana could not have spoken of Mr. 
 Percy Dacier with this air of indifference without corruption 
 of her inward guide, 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 171 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 A DRIVE IN SUNLIGHT AND A DRIVE IN MOONLIGHT. 
 
 The fatal time to come for her was in the summer of that 
 year. 
 
 Emma had written her a letter of unwonted bright spirits, 
 contrasting strangely with an inexplicable oppression of her 
 own that led her to imagine her recent placid life the pause 
 before thunder, and to share the mood of her solitary friend 
 she flew to Copsley, finding Sir Lukin absent, as usual. They 
 drove out immediately after breakfast, on one of those high 
 mornings of the bared bosom of June when distances are given 
 to our eyes, and a soft air fondles leaf and grass-blade, and 
 beauty and peace are overhead, reflected, if we will. Eain had 
 fallen in the night. Here and there hung a milkwhite cloud 
 with folded sail. The southwest left it its bay of blue, and 
 breathed below. At moments the fresh scent of herb and 
 mould swung richly in warmth. The young beech-leaves glit- 
 tered, pools of rainwater made the roadways laugh, the grass- 
 banks under hedges rolled their interwoven weeds in cas- 
 cades of many-shaded green to right and left of the pair of 
 dappled ponies, and a squirrel crossed ahead, a lark went up 
 a little way to ease his heart, closing his wings when the 
 burst was over, startled blackbirds, darting with a clamor like 
 a broken cockcrow, looped the wayside woods from hazel to 
 oak-scrub; short flights, quick spirits everywhere, steady sun- 
 shine above. 
 
 Diana held the reins. The whip was an ornament, as the 
 plume of feathers to the general officer. Lady Dunstane's 
 ponies were a present from Redworth, who always chose the 
 pick of the land for his gifts. They joyed in their trot, and 
 were the very love-birds of the breed for their pleasure of 
 going together, so like that Diana called them the Dromios. 
 Through an old gravel-cutting a gateway led to the turf of 
 the down, springy turf bordered on a long line, clear as a 
 racecourse, by golden gorse covers, and leftward over the 
 gorse the dark ridge of the fir and heath country ran com- 
 panionably to the southwest, the valley between, with un- 
 
172 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 dulations of wood and meadow sunned or shaded, clumps, 
 mounds, promontories, away to broad spaces of tillage banked 
 by wooded hills, and dimmer beyond, and further the faintest 
 shadowiness of heights, as a veil to the illimitable. Yews, 
 junipers, radiant beeches, and gleams of the service-tree or 
 the white-beam spotted the semi-circle of swelling green down 
 black and silver. The sun in the valley sharpened his beams 
 on squares of buttercups, and made a pond a diamond. 
 
 "You see, Tony," Emma said, for a comment on the scene, 
 "I could envy Italy for having you, more than you for being 
 in Italy." 
 
 "Feature and color!" said Diana. "You have them here, 
 and on a scale that one can embrace. I should like to build 
 a hut on this point, and wait for such a day to return. It 
 brings me to life." She lifted her eyelids on her friend's worn 
 sweet face, and knowing her this friend up to death, past it 
 in her hopes, she said bravely, "It is the Emma of days and 
 scenes to me! It helps me to forget myself, as I do when I 
 think of you dearest; but the subject has latterly been haunt- 
 ing me, I don't know why, and ominously, as if my nature 
 were about to horrify my soul. But I am not sentimentaliz- 
 ing, you are really this day and scene in my heart." Emma 
 smiled confiding^. She spoke her reflection: "The heart 
 must be troubled a little to have the thought. The flower I 
 gather here tells me that we may be happy in privation and 
 suffering if simply we can accept beauty. I won't say expel 
 the passions, but keep passion sober, a trotter in harness." 
 
 Diana caressed the ponies' heads with the droop of her 
 whip: "I don't think I know him!" she said. 
 
 Between sincerity and a suspicion so cloaked and dull that 
 she did not feel it to be the opposite of candor, she fancied 
 she was passionless because she could accept the visible beauty, 
 which was Emma's prescription and test; and she forced her- 
 self to make much of it, cling to it, devour it; with envy of 
 Emma's contemplative happiness, through whose grave mind 
 she tried to get to the peace in it, imagining that she suc- 
 ceeded. The cloaked and dull suspicion weighed within her 
 nevertheless. She took it for a mania to speculate on herself. 
 There are states of the crimson blood when the keenest wits 
 are childish, notably in great-hearted women aiming at the 
 majesty of their sex and fearful of confounding it by the look 
 direct and the downright word. Yet her nature compelled her 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 173 
 
 inwardly to phrase the sent'ence: "Emma is a wife!" The 
 character of her husband was not considered, nor was the 
 meaning of the exclamation pursued. 
 
 They drove through the gorse into wild land of heath and 
 flowering hawthorn, and along by tracts of yew and juniper 
 to another point, jutting on a furzy sand-mound, rich with 
 the mild splendor of English scenery, which Emma stamped 
 on her friend's mind by saying: "A cripple has little to envy 
 in you who can fly when she has feasts like these at her 
 doors." 
 
 They had an inclination to boast on the drive home of the 
 solitude they had enjoyed; and just then, as the road in the 
 wood wound under great beeches, they beheld a London hat. 
 The hat was plucked from its head. A clear-faCed youth, 
 rather flushed, dusty at the legs, addressed Diana. 
 
 "Mr. Rhodes!'' she said, not discouragingly. 
 
 She was petitioned to excuse him; he thought she would 
 wish to hear the news in town last night as early as possible; 
 he hesitated and murmured it. 
 
 Diana turned to Emma: "Lord Dannisburgh!" — her pale- 
 ness told the rest. 
 
 Hearing from Mr. Ehodes that he had walked the distance 
 from town, and had been to Copsley, Lady Dunstane invited 
 him to follow the pony-carriage thither, where he was fed 
 and refreshed by a tea-breakfast, as he preferred walking on 
 tea, he said. "I took the liberty to call at Mrs. Warwick's 
 house," he informed her; "the footman said she was at Cops- 
 ley. I found it on the map — I knew the direction — and start- 
 ed about two in the morning. I wanted a walk." 
 
 It was evident to her that he was one of the young squires 
 bewitched whom beautiful women are constantly enlisting. 
 There was no concealment of it, though he stirred a sad en- 
 viousness in the invalid lady by descanting on the raptures of 
 a walk out of London in the youngest light of day, and on the 
 common objects he had noticed along the roadside, and 
 through the woods, more sustaining, closer with nature than 
 her compulsory feeding on the cream of things. 
 
 "You are not fatigued?" she inquired, hoping for that con- 
 fession at least; but she pardoned his boyish vaunting to walk 
 the distance back without any fatigue at all. 
 
 He had a sweeter reward for his pains; and, if the busi- 
 ness of the chronicler allowed him to become attached to pure 
 
174 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 throbbing felicity wherever it is encountered, he might be 
 diverted by the blissful unexpectedness of good fortune be- 
 falling Mr. Arthur Ehodes in having the honor to conduct 
 Mrs. Warwick to town. No imagined happiness, even in the 
 heart of a young man of two-and-twenty, could have matched 
 it. He was by her side, hearing and seeing her, not less than 
 four hours. To add to his happiness, Lady Dunstane said 
 she would be glad to welcome him again. She thought him 
 a pleasant specimen of the self -vowed squire. 
 
 Diana was sure that there would be a communication for 
 her of some sort at her house in London; perhaps a message of 
 farewell from the dying lord, now dead. Mr. Ehodes had 
 only the news of the evening journals, to the effect that Lord 
 Dannisburgh had expired at his residence, the Priory, Hal- 
 lowmere, in Hampshire. A message of farewell from him she 
 hoped for: knowing him as she did it seemed a certainty; and 
 she hungered for that last gleam of life in her friend. She 
 had no anticipation of the burden of the message awaiting 
 her. 
 
 A consultation as to the despatching of the message had 
 taken place among the members of Lord Dannisburgh's fam- 
 ily present at his death. Percy Dacier was one of them, and 
 he settled the disputed point, after some time had been spent 
 in persuading his father to take the plain view of obligation 
 in the matter, and in opposing the dowager countess, his grand- 
 mother, by stating that he had already sent a special mes- 
 senger to London. Lord Dannisburgh on his death-bed had 
 expressed a wish that Mrs. Warwick would sit with him for 
 an hour one night before the nails were knocked in his coffin. 
 He spoke of it twice, putting it the second time to Percy as 
 a formal request to be made to her, and Percy had promised 
 him that Mrs. Warwick should have the message. He had 
 done his best to keep his pledge, aware of the disrelish of the 
 whole family for the lady's name, to say nothing of her pres- 
 ence. 
 
 "She won't come," said the earl. 
 
 "She'll come," said old Lady Dacier. 
 
 "If the woman respects herself she'll hold off it," the earl 
 insisted because of his desire that way: He signified in mut- 
 terings that the thing was improper and absurd, a piece of 
 sentiment, sickly senility, unlike Lord Dannisburgh. Also 
 that Percy had been guilty of excessive folly. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 175 
 
 To whicli Lady Dacier nodded her assent, remaivking: "The 
 woman is on her mettle. From what Tve heard of her she's 
 not a woman to stick at trifles. She'll take it as a sort of 
 ordeal by touch, and she'll come." 
 
 They joined in abusing Percy, who had driven away to an- 
 other part of the country. Lord Creedmore, the heir of the 
 house, was absent, hunting in America, or he might tempo- 
 rarily have been taken into favor by contrast. Ultimately they 
 agreed that the woman must be allowed to enter the house, but 
 could not be received. The earl was a widower; his mother man- 
 aged the family, and, being hard to convince, she customarily 
 carried her point, save when it involved Percy's freedom of ac- 
 tion. She was one of the veterans of her sex that age to 
 toughness; and the "hysterical fuss" she apprehended in the 
 visit of this woman to Lord Dannisburgh's death-bed and body 
 did not alarm her. For the sake of the household she deter- 
 mined to remain, shut up in her room. Before night the 
 house was empiy of any members of the family excepting old 
 Lady Creedmore and the outstretched figure on the bed. 
 
 Dacier fled to escape the hearing of the numberless ejacu- 
 lations re-awakened in the family by his uncle's extraordinary 
 dying request. They were an outrage to the lady, of whom 
 he could now speak as a privileged champion; and the request 
 itself had an air of proving her stainless, a white soul and effi- 
 cacious ad^^ocate at the celestial gates (reading the mind of 
 the dying man). So he thought at one moment: he had 
 thought so when charged with the message to her; had even 
 thought it a natural wish that she should look once on the 
 face she would see no more, and say farewell to it, considering 
 that in life it could not be requested. But the susceptibility 
 to sentimental emotion beside a death-bed, with a dying man's 
 voice in the ear, requires fortification if it is to be maintained; 
 and the review of his uncle's character did not tend to make 
 this very singular request a proof that the lady's innocence 
 was honored in it. His epicurean uncle had no profound es- 
 teem for the kind of innocence. He had always talked of Mrs. 
 Warwick with a warm respect for her: Dacier knew that he 
 had bequeathed her a sum of money. The inferences were 
 either way. Lord Dannisburgh never spoke evilly of any wom- 
 an, and he was perhaps bound to indemnify her materially as 
 well as he could for what she had suffered. On the other 
 hand, how easy it was to be the dupe of a woman so hand- 
 
176 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 some and clever. Unlikely, too, that his nncle would consent 
 to sit at the Platonic banquet with her. Judging by himself, 
 Dacier deemed it possible for man. He was not quick to kin- 
 dle, and had lately seen much of her, had found her a Lady 
 Egeria, helpful in counsel, prompting, inspiriting, reviving as 
 well-waters, and as temperately cool: not one sign of native 
 slipperiness. Nor did she stir the mud in him upon which 
 proud man is built. The shadow of the scandal had checked 
 a few shifty sensations rising now and then of their own ac- 
 cord, and had laid them, with the lady's benign connivance. 
 This was good proof in her favor, seeing that she must have 
 perceived of late the besetting thirst he had for her company; 
 and alone or in the medley equally. To see her, hear, ex- 
 change ideas with her; and to talk of new books, try to listen 
 to music at the opera and at concerts, and admire her playing 
 of hostess, were novel pleasures, giving him fresh notions of 
 life, and strengthening rather than disturbing the course of 
 his life's business. 
 
 At any rate, she was capable of friendship. Why not reso- 
 lutely believe that she had been his uncle's true and simple 
 friend! He adopted the resolution, thanking her for one 
 recognized fact: he hated marriage, and would by this time 
 have been in the yoke but for the agreeable deviation of his 
 path to her society. Since his visit to Copsley, moreover. 
 Lady Dunstane's idolizing of her friend had influenced him. 
 Eeflecting on it, he recovered from the shock which his uncle's 
 request had caused. 
 
 Certain positive calculations were running side by side with 
 the speculations in vapor. His messenger would reach her 
 house at about four of the afternoon. If then at home, would 
 she decide to start immediately? Would she come? That 
 was a question he did not delay to answer. Would she defer 
 the visit? Death replied to that. She would not delay it. 
 
 She would be sure to come at once. And what of the wel- 
 come she would meet? Leaving the station in London at six 
 in the evening, she might arrive at the Priory, all impedi- 
 ments counted, between ten and eleven at night. Thence, 
 coldly greeted, or not greeted, to the chamber of death. 
 
 A pitiable and cruel reception for a woman upon such a mis- 
 sion! 
 
 His mingled calculations and meditations reached that ex- 
 clamatory terminus in feeling, and settled on the picture of 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 177 
 
 Diana, about as clear as light to blinking eyes, but enough for 
 him to realize her being there and alone, woefully alone. The 
 supposition of an absolute loneliness was most possible. He 
 had intended to drive back the next day, when the domestic 
 storm would be over, and take the chances of her coming. It 
 seemed now a piece of duty to return at night, a traverse of 
 twenty rough up-and-down miles from Itchenford to the 
 heathland rolling on the chalk wave of the Surrey borders, 
 easily done after the remonstrances of his host were stopped. 
 
 Dacier sat in an open carriage, facing a slip of bright moon. 
 Poetical impressions, emotions, any stirrings of his mind by 
 the sensational stamp on it, were new to him; and while he 
 swam in them, both lulled and pricked by his novel accessi- 
 bility to nature's lyrical touch, he asked himself whether, if he 
 were near the throes of death, the thought of having Diana 
 Warwick to sit beside his vacant semblance for an hour at 
 midnight would be comforting. And why had his uncle speci- 
 fied an hour of the night? It was a sentiment, like the re- 
 quest: curious in a man so little sentimental. Yonder cres- 
 cent running the shadowy round of the hoop roused compari- 
 sons. Would one really wish to have her beside one in death? 
 In life — ah! But suppose her denied to us in life. Then the 
 desire for her companionship appears passingly comprehensi- 
 ble. Enter into the sentiment, you see that the hour of dark- 
 ness is naturally chosen. And would even a grand old Pagan 
 crave the presence beside his dead body for an hour of the 
 night of a woman he did not esteem? Dacier answered No. 
 The negative was not echoed in his mind. He repeated it, and 
 to the same deadness. 
 
 He became aware that he had spoken for himself, and he 
 had a fit of sourness. For who can say he is not a fool before 
 he has been tried by a woman? Dacier's wretched tendency 
 under vexation to conceive grotesque analogies — anti-poetic, 
 not to say cockney similes — which had slightly chilled Diana 
 at Rovio, set him looking at yonder crescent with the hoop, as 
 at the shape of a white cat climbing a wheel. Men of the 
 northern blood will sometimes lend their assent to poetical 
 images; even to those that do not stun the mind like bludg- 
 eons, and imperatively, by much repetition, command their 
 assent; and it is for a solid exchange and interest in usury 
 with soft poetical creatures when they are so condescending; 
 but they are seized by the grotesque. In spite of efforts to 
 
 12 
 
178 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 efface or supplant it he saw the white cat, nothing else, even 
 to thinking that she had jumped cleverly to catch the wheel. 
 He was a true descendant of practical hard-grained fighting 
 Northerners, of gnarled dwarf imaginations, chivalrous though 
 they were, and heroes to have serviceable and valiant gentle- 
 men for issue. Without at all tracing back to its origin his 
 destestable image of the white cat on the dead circle, he kicked 
 at the links between his uncle and Diana Warwick, whatever 
 they had been; particularly at the present revival of them. 
 Old Lady Dacier's blunt speech, and his father's fixed opin- 
 ion, hissed in his head. 
 
 They were ignorant of his autumnal visit to the Italian 
 Lakes after the winter's Mle-boat expedition; and also of the 
 degree of his recent intimacy with Mrs. Warwick; or else, as 
 he knew, he would have heard more hissing things. Her pat- 
 ronage of Miss Paynham exposed her to attacks where she 
 was deemed vulnerable; Lady Dacier muttered old saws as to 
 the flocking of birds. He did not accurately understand it: 
 thought it indiscreet at best. But, in regard to his experience, 
 he could tell himself that a woman more guileless of luring 
 never drew breath. On the contrary, candor said it had al- 
 ways been he who had schemed and pressed for the meeting. 
 He was at liberty to do it, not being bound in honor else- 
 where. Besides, despite his acknowledgment of her beauty, 
 Mrs. Warwick was not quite his ideal of the perfectly beautiful 
 woman. Constance Asper came nearer to it. He had the Eng- 
 lish taste for red and white, and for cold outlines; he secretly 
 admired a statuesque demeanor with a statue's eyes. The 
 national approbation of a reserved haughtiness in woman, a 
 tempered disdain in her slightly lifted small upperlip and 
 drooped eyelids, was shared by him; and Constance Asper, if 
 not exactly aristocratic by birth, stood well for that aristo- 
 cratic insular type which seems to promise the husband of it 
 a casket of all the trusty virtues, as well as the security of 
 frigidity in the casket. Such was Dacier's native taste; con- 
 sequently the attractions of Diana Warwick for him were, he 
 thought, chiefly mental — those of a Lady Egeria. She might 
 or might not be good, in the vulgar sense. She was an agree- 
 able woman, an amusing companion, very suggestive, inciting, 
 animating; and her past history must be left as her own. Did 
 it matter to him? What he saw was bright: a silver crescent 
 on the side of the shadowy ring. Were it a question of marry- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 179 
 
 ing her! That was out of the possibilities. He remembered, 
 moreover, having heard from Quintin Manx, who professed 
 to know, that Mrs. Warwick had started in married Hfe by 
 treating her husband cavaherly to an intolerable degree, "such 
 as no Englishman could stand," the portly old shipowner 
 thundered, describing it and her in racy vernacular. She 
 might be a devil of a wife. She was a pleasant friend; just 
 the soft bit sweeter than male friends, which gave the flavor 
 of sex without the artful seductions. He required them strong 
 to move him. 
 
 He looked at last on the green walls of the Priory, scarce- 
 ly supposing a fair watcher to be within; for the contrasting 
 pale colors of dawn had ceased to quicken the brilliancy of the 
 crescent, and summer daylight drowned it to fainter than a 
 silver coin in water. It lay dispieced like a pulled rag. East- 
 ward, over Surrey, stood the full rose of morning. The Priory 
 clock struck four. When the summons of the bell had gained 
 him admittance, and he heard that Mrs. Warwick had come 
 in the night, he looked back through the doorway at the rosy 
 color, and congratulated himself to think that her hour of 
 watching was at an end. A sleepy footman was his inform- 
 ant. Women were in my lord's dressing-room, he said. Up- 
 stairs, at the death-chamber, Dacier paused. No sound came 
 to him. He hurried to his own room, paced about, and re- 
 turned. Expecting to see no one but the dead he turned the 
 handle, and the two circles of a shaded lamp, on ceiling and 
 on table, met his gaze. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 DIANIA'S NIGHT-WATCH IN THE CHAMBER OF DEATH. 
 
 He stepped into the room, and thrilled to hear the quiet 
 voice beside the bed: "Who is it?" 
 
 Apologies and excuses were on his tongue. The vibration 
 of those grave tones checked them. 
 
 "It is you," she said. 
 
 She sat in shadow, her hands joined on her lap. An un- 
 opened book was under the lamp. 
 
 He spoke in an underbreath: "I have just come. I was 
 not sure I should find you here. Pardon." 
 
 "There is a chair." 
 
180 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 He murmured thanks and entered into the stillness, observ- 
 ing her. 
 
 "You have been watching. . . You must be tired." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "An hour was asked; only one." 
 
 "I could not leave him." 
 
 "Watchers are at hand to relieve you." 
 
 "It is better for him to have me." 
 
 The chord of her voice told him of the gulfs she had sunk 
 in during the night. The thought of her endurance became 
 a burden. 
 
 He let fall his breath for patience, and tapped the floor 
 with his foot. 
 
 He feared to discompose her by speaking. The silence grew 
 more fearful, as the very speech of death between them. 
 
 "You came. I thought it right to let you know instantly. I 
 hoped you would come to-morrow." 
 
 "I could not delay." 
 
 "You have been sitting alone here since eleven." 
 
 "I have not found it long." 
 
 "You must want some refreshment . . tea?" 
 
 "I need nothing." 
 
 "It can be made ready in a few minutes." 
 
 "I could not eat or drink." 
 
 He tried to brush away the impression of the tomb in the 
 heavily-curtained chamber by thinking of the summer morn 
 outside; he spoke of it, the rosy sky, the dewy grass, the piping 
 birds. She listened, as one hearing of a quitted sphere. 
 
 Their breathing in common was just heard if either drew a 
 deeper breath. At moments his eyes wandered and shut. Al- 
 ternately in his mind Death had vaster meanings and doubt- 
 fuller; Life cowered under the shadow or outshone it. He 
 glanced from her to the figure in the bed, and she seemed 
 swallowed. 
 
 He said : "It is time for you to have rest. You know your 
 room. I will stay till the servants are up." 
 
 She replied: "No, let this night with him be mine." 
 
 "I am not intruding? . . . ." 
 
 "If you wish to remain. . . ." 
 
 No traces of weeping were on her face. The lamp-shade 
 revealed it colorless, and lusterless her eyes. She was robed 
 in black. She held her hands clasped. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 181 
 
 *^You have not suffered?" 
 
 "Oh, no." 
 
 She said it without sighing: nor was her speech mournful, 
 only brief. 
 
 "You have seen death before?" 
 
 "I sat by my father four nights. I was a girl then. I cried 
 till I had no more tears." 
 
 He felt a burning pressure behind his eyeballs. 
 
 "Death is natural," he said. 
 
 "It is natural to the aged. When they die honored . . 
 . ." She looked where the dead man lay. "To sit beside 
 the young, cut off from their dear opening life! ..." A 
 little shudder swept over her. "Oh! that!" 
 
 "You were very good to come. We must all thank you for 
 fulfilling his wish." 
 
 "He knew it would be my wish." 
 
 Her hands pressed together. 
 
 "He lies peacefully!" 
 
 "I have raised the lamp on him, and wondered each time. 
 So changeless he lies. But so like a sleep that will wake. 
 We never see peace but in the features of the dead. Will you 
 look? They are beautiful. They have a heavenly sweetness." 
 
 The desire to look was evidently recurrent with her. Da- 
 cier rose. 
 
 Their eyes fell together on the dead man, as thoughtfully 
 as death allows to the creatures of sensation. 
 
 "And after?" he said in low tones. 
 
 "I trust to my Maker," she replied. "Do you see a change 
 since he breathed his last?" 
 
 "Kot any." 
 
 "You were with him?" 
 
 "Not in the room. Two minutes later." 
 
 "Who? . . ." 
 
 "My father. His niece. Lady Cathairn." 
 
 "If our lives are lengthened we outlive most of those we 
 would have to close our eyes. He had a dear sister." 
 
 "She died some years back." 
 
 "I helped to comfort him for that loss." 
 
 "He told me you did." 
 
 The lamp was replaced on the table. 
 
 "For a moment, when I withdraw the light from him, I 
 
182 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 feel sadness. As if the light we lend to anything were of value 
 to him now!'^ 
 
 She bowed h-er head deeply. Daeier left her meditation un- 
 disturbed. The birds on the walls outside were audible, tweet- 
 ing, chirping. 
 
 He went to the window-curtains and tried the shutter-bars. 
 It seemed to him that daylight would be cheerfuller for her. 
 He had a thirst to behold her standing bathed in daylight. 
 
 "Shall I open them?" he asked her. 
 
 "I would rather rhe lamp/' she said. 
 
 They sat silently until she drew her watch from her girdle. 
 "My train starts at half-past six. It is a walk of thirty-five 
 minutes to the station. I did it last night in that time.'' 
 
 "You walked here in the dark alone?" 
 
 "There was no fly to be had. The station-master sent one 
 of his porters with me. We had a talk on the road. I like 
 those men." 
 
 Daeier read the hour by the mantel-piece clock. "If you 
 must really go by the early train I will drive you." 
 
 "No, I will walk; I prefer it." 
 
 "I will order your breakfast at once." 
 
 He turned on his heel. She stopped him. "No, I have no 
 taste for eating or drinking." 
 
 "Pray . . ." said he, in visible distress. 
 
 She shook her head. "I could not. I have twenty minutes 
 longer. I can find my way to the station; it is almost a 
 straight road out of the park-gates." 
 
 His heart swelled with anger at the household for the treat- 
 ment she had been subjected to, judging by her resolve not to 
 break bread in the house. 
 
 They resumed their silent sitting. The intervals for a word 
 to pass between them were long, and the ticking of the time- 
 piece fronting the deathbed ruled the chamber, scarcely 
 varied. 
 
 The lamp was raised for the final look, the leave-taking. 
 
 Daeier buried his face, thinking many things — the common 
 multitude in insurrection. 
 
 "A servant should be told to come now," she said. "I have 
 only to put on my bonnet and I am ready." 
 
 "You will take no . . ?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "It is not too late for a carriage to be ordered." 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 183 
 
 «Ko— the walk!" 
 
 They separated. 
 
 He roused the two women in the dressing-room, asleep with 
 heads against the wall. Thence he sped to his own room for 
 hat and overcoat, and a sprinkle of cold water. Descending 
 the stairs he beheld his companion issuing from the chamber 
 of death. Her lips were shut, her eyelids nervously tremulous. 
 
 They were soon in the warm sweet open air, and they 
 walked without an interchange of a syllable through the park 
 into the white hawthorn lane, glad to breathe. Her nostrils 
 took long draughts of air, but of the change of scene she ap- 
 peared scarcely sensible. 
 
 At the park-gates she said: "There is no necessity for your 
 coming." 
 
 His answer was: "I think of myself. I gain something 
 every step I walk with you." 
 
 "To-day is Thursday," said she. "The funeral is . . ?" 
 
 "Monday has been fixed. According to his directions he 
 will lie in the churchyard of his village — not in the family 
 vault." 
 
 "I know," she said, hastily. "They are privileged who fol- 
 low him and see the coffin lowered. He spoke of this quiet lit- 
 tle resting-place." 
 
 "Yes, it's a good end. I do not wonder at his wish for the 
 honor you have done him. I could wish it too. But more 
 living than dead — that is a natural wish." 
 
 "It is not to be called an honor." 
 
 "I should feel it so — an honor to me." 
 
 "It is a friend's duty. The word is too harsh. It was 
 his friend's desire. He did not ask it so much as he sanc- 
 tioned it. For to him what has my sitting beside him been?" 
 
 "He had the prospective happiness." 
 
 "He knew well that my soul would be with him — as it was 
 last night. But he knew it would be my poor human happi- 
 ness to see him with my eyes, touch him with my hand, be- 
 fore he passed from our sight." 
 
 Dacier exclaimed: "How you can love!" 
 
 "Is the village church to be seen?" she asked. 
 
 "To the right of those elms; that is the spire. The black 
 spot below is a yew. You love with the whole heart when you 
 love." 
 
 "I love my friends," she replied. 
 
< 
 
 184 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "You tempt me to envy those who are numbered among 
 them." 
 
 "They are not many." 
 
 "They should be grateful." 
 
 "You have some acquaintance with them all." 
 
 "And an enemy? Had you ever one? Do you know of 
 one?" 
 
 "Direct and personal designedly? I think not. We give 
 that title to those who are disinclined to us and add a dash 
 of darker color to our errors. Foxes have enemies in the dogs; 
 heroines of melodramas have their persecuting villains. I 
 suppose that conditions of life exist where one meets the 
 original complexities. The bad are in every rank. The in- 
 veterately malignant I have not found. Circumstances may 
 combine to make a whisper as deadly as a blow, though not of 
 such evil design. Perhaps if we lived at a court of a mag- 
 nificent despot we should learn that we are less highly civilized 
 than we imagine ourselves; but that is a fire to the passions, 
 and the extreme is not the perfect test. Our civilization 
 counts positive gains — unless you take the melodrama for 
 the truer picture of us. It is always the most popular with 
 the English. And look, what a month June is. Yesterday 
 morning I was with Lady Dunstane on her heights, and I feel 
 double the age. He was fond of this wild country. We think 
 it a desert — a blank, whither he has gone, because we will 
 strain to see in the utter dark, and nothing can come of that 
 but the bursting of the eyeballs." 
 
 Dacier assented: "There's no use in peering beyond the 
 limits." 
 
 "No," said she; "the effect is like the explaining of things 
 to a dull head — the finishing stroke to the understanding! 
 Better continue to brood. We get to some unravelment if 
 we are left to our own efforts. I quarrel with no priest of 
 any denomination. That they should quarrel among them- 
 selves is comprehensible in their wisdom, for each has the 
 specific. But they show us their way of solving the great prob- 
 lem, and we ought to thank them, though one or the other 
 abominate us. You are advised to talk with Lady Dunstane 
 on these themes. She is perpetually in the ante-chamber 
 of death, and her soul is perennially sunshine. See the pretty 
 cottage under the laburnum curls! Who lives there?" 
 "His gamekeeper, Simon Rofe." 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 185 
 
 "And what a playground for the children, that bit of 
 common by their garden-palings! And the pond, and the 
 blue hills over the furzes. I hope those people will not be 
 turned ouV 
 
 Dacier could not tell. He promised to do his best for them. 
 
 "But/' said she, "you are the lord here now." 
 
 "Not likely to be the tenant. Incomes are wanted to sup- 
 port even small estates." 
 
 "The reason is good for courting the income." 
 
 He disliked the remark; and when she said presently, 
 "Those windmills make the landscape homely," he rejoined, 
 "They remind one of our wheeling London gamins round the 
 cab from the station." 
 
 "They remind you," said she, and smiled at the chance dis- 
 cordant trick he had, remembering occasions when it had 
 crossed her. 
 
 "This is homelier than Kovio," she said; "quite as nice in 
 its way." 
 
 "You do not gather flowers here." 
 
 "Because my friend has these at her feet." 
 
 "May one petition without a rival, then, for a souvenir?" 
 
 "Certainly, if yoa care to have a common buttercup." 
 
 They reached the station five minutes in advance of the 
 train. His coming manoeuvre was early detected, and she 
 drew from her pocket the little book he had seen lying un- 
 opened on the table and said, "I shall have two good hours 
 for reading." 
 
 "You will not object? ... I must accompany you to 
 town. Permit it, I beg. You shall not be worried to talk." 
 
 "No; I came alone, and return alone." 
 
 "Fasting and unprotected! Are you determined to take 
 away the worst impression of us? Do not refuse me this 
 favor." 
 
 "As to fasting, I could not eat: and unprotected no woman 
 is in England if she is a third-class traveler. That is my ex- 
 perience of the class; and I shall return among my natural 
 protectors — the most unselfishly chivalrous to women in the 
 whole world." 
 
 He had set his heart on going with her, and he attempted 
 eloquence in pleading, but that exposed him to her humor. He 
 was tripped. 
 
 "It is not denied that you belong to the knightly class," 
 
186 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 she said; ^^and it is not necessary that you should wear armor 
 and plumes to proclaim it: and your appearance would be am- 
 ple protection from the drunken sailors traveling, you say, on 
 this line; and I may be deplorably mistaken in imagining that 
 I could tame them. But your knightliness is due elsewhere, 
 and I commit myself to the fortune of war. It is a battle for 
 women everywhere; under the most favorable conditions 
 among my dear common English. I have not my maid with 
 me, or else I should not dare." 
 
 She paid for a third-class ticket, amused by Dacier's look 
 of entreaty and trouble. 
 
 "Of course I obey," he murmured. 
 
 "I have the habit of exacting it in matters concerning my 
 independence," she said; and it arrested some rumbling no- 
 tions in his head as to a piece of audacity on the starting of 
 the train. They walked up and down the platform till the 
 bell rang and the train came rounding beneath an arch. 
 
 "Oh, by the way, may I ask?" — he said: "was it your ar- 
 ticle in Whitmonby's Journal on a speech of mine last week?" 
 
 "The guilty writer is confessed." 
 
 "Let me thank you." 
 
 "Don't. But try to believe it written on public grounds 
 — ^if the task is not too great." 
 
 "I may call?" 
 
 "You will be welcome." 
 
 "To tell you of the funeral— the last of him!" 
 
 "Do not fail to come." 
 
 She could have laughed to see him jumping on the steps 
 of the third-class carriages one after another to choose her 
 company for her. In those pre-democratic blissful days be- 
 fore the miry Deluge the opinion of the requirements of poor 
 English travelers entertained by the seigneur directors of the 
 class above them was that they differed from cattle in stipu- 
 lating for seats. With the exception of that provision to suit 
 their weakness, the accommodation extended to them re- 
 sembled pens, and the seats were emphatically seats of peni- 
 tence, intended to grind the sitter for his mean pittance pay- 
 ment and absence of aspiration to a higher state. Hard angu- 
 lar wood, a low roof, a shabby square window aloof, demand- 
 ing of him to quit the seat he insisted on having, if he would 
 indulge in views of the passing scenery, — such was the fur- 
 niture of dens where a refinement of castigation was prac- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 187 
 
 ticed on villain poverty by denying leathers to the windows, 
 or else buttons to the leathers, so that the windows had either 
 to be up or down, but refused to shelter and freshen simul- 
 taneously. 
 
 Dacier selected a compartment occupied by two old wom- 
 en, a mother and babe and little maid, and a laboring man. 
 There he installed her, with an eager look that she would 
 not notice. 
 
 "You will want the window down," he said. 
 
 She applied to her fellow-travelers for the permission; and, 
 struggling to get the window down, he was irritated to animad- 
 vert on "these carriages" of the benevolent railway company. 
 
 "Do not forget that the wealthy are well treated, or you 
 may be unjust," said she, to pacify him. 
 
 His mouth sharpened its line while he tried arts and ener- 
 gies on the refractory window. She told him to leave it. 
 "You can't breathe this atmosphere!" he cried, and called a 
 porter, who did the work, remarking that it was rather stiff. 
 
 The door was banged and fastened. Dacier had to hang 
 on the step to see her in the farewell. From the platform he 
 saw the top of her bonnet; and why she should have been 
 guilty of this freak of riding in an unwholesome carriage task- 
 ed his power of guessing. He was too English even to have 
 taken the explanation, for he detested the distinguishing of 
 the races in his country, and could not therefore have com- 
 prehended her peculiar tenacity of the sense of injury as long 
 as enthusiasm did not arise to obliterate it. He required a 
 course of lessons in Irish. 
 
 Sauntering down the lane he called at Simon Eofe's cot- 
 tage, and spoke very kindly to the gamekeeper's wife. That 
 might please Diana. It was all he could do at present. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 *THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE." 
 
 Descriptions in the newspapers of the rural funeral of Lord 
 Dannisburgh had the effect of rousing flights of tattlers with 
 a twittering of the disused name of Warwick; our social gods 
 renewed their combat, and the verdict of the jury was again 
 
188 DIANA OF THE CR09SWAYS. 
 
 overhauled, to be attacked and maintained, the carpers reply- 
 ing to the champions that they held to their view of it: as 
 heads of bull-dogs are expected to do when they have got a 
 grip of one. It is a point of muscular honor with them never 
 to relax their hold. They will tell you why — they formed 
 that opinion from the first. And but for the swearing of a 
 particular witness, upon whom the plaintiff had been taught 
 to rely, the verdict would have been different — to prove their 
 soundness of judgment. They could speak from private posi- 
 tive information of certain damnatory circumstances, derived 
 from authentic sources. Visits of a gentleman to the house 
 of a married lady in the absence of the husband? Oh! The 
 British Lucretia was very properly not legally at home to the 
 masculine world of that day. She plied her distaff in pure 
 seclusion, meditating on her absent lord; or else a fair pro- 
 portion of the masculine world, which had not yet, has not 
 yet, ^'doubled Cape Turk," approved her condemnation to the 
 sack. 
 
 There was talk in the feminine world — at Lady Wathin's 
 assemblies. The elevation of her husband had extended and 
 deepened her influence on the levels where it reigned before, 
 but without, strange as we may think it now, assisting to her 
 own elevation, much aspired for, to the smooth and lively 
 upper pavement of Society, above its tumbled strata. She 
 was near that distinguished surface, not on it. Her circle was 
 practically the same as it was previous to the coveted nominal 
 rank enabling her to trample on those beneath it. And wom- 
 en like that Mrs. Warwick, a woman of no birth, no money, 
 not even honest character, enjoyed the entry" undisputed, cir- 
 culated among the highest — because people took her rattle for 
 wit! — and because also our nobility. Lady Wathin feared, had 
 no due regard for morality. Our aristocracy, brilliant and 
 ancient though it was, merited rebuke. She grew severe upon 
 aristocratic scandals, whereof were plenty among the frolic- 
 some host just overhead, as vexatious as the drawing-room 
 party to the lodger in the floor below, who has not received 
 an invitation to partake of the festivities, and is required to 
 digest the noise. But, if ambition is over-sensitive, moral in- 
 dignation is ever consolatory, for it plants us on the Judg- 
 ment Seat. There indeed we may, sitting with the very High- 
 est, forget our personal disappointments in dispensing repro- 
 bation for misconduct, however eminent the offenders. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 189 
 
 She was Lady Wathin, and once on an afternoon's call to 
 see her poor Lady Dunstane at her town-house she had been 
 introduced to Lady Pennon, a patroness of Mrs. Warwick, and 
 had met a snub — an icy check-bow of the aristocratic head 
 from the top of the spinal column, and not a word, not a look; 
 the half -turn of a head devoid of mouth and eyes! She prac- 
 ticed that forbidding check-bow herself to perfection, so the 
 endurance of it was horrible. A 7ioli me tangere, her husband 
 termed it, in his ridiculous equanimity; and he might term 
 it what he pleased — it was insulting. The solace she had was 
 in hearing that hideous Eadical Revolutionary things were 
 openly spoken at Mrs. Warwick's evenings with her friends — 
 impudently named "the elect of London." Pleasing to re- 
 flect upon Mrs. Warwick as undermining her supporters, to 
 bring them some day down with a crash! Her "elect of Lon- 
 don" were a queer gathering by report of them! And Mr. 
 Whitmonby, too, no doubt a celebrity, was the right-hand 
 man at these dinner-parties of Mrs. Warwick. Where will not 
 men go to be flattered by a pretty woman! He had declined 
 repeated, successive invitations to Lady Wathin's table. But 
 there, of course, he would not have had "the freedom": that 
 is, she rejoiced in thinking, defensively and offensively, a 
 moral wall inclosed her topics. The Hon. Percy Dacier had 
 been brought to her Thursday afternoon by Mr. Quintin 
 Manx, and he had one day dined with her; and he knew Mrs. 
 Warwick — a little, he said. The opportunity was not lost to 
 convey to him, entirely in the interest of sweet Constance As- 
 per, that the moral world entertained a settled view of the 
 very clever woman ^Irs. Warwick certainly was. He had 
 asked Diana, on their morning walk to the station, whether 
 she had an enemy: so prone are men, educated by the drama 
 and fiction in the belief that the garden of civilized life must 
 be at the mercy of the old wild devourers, to fancy "villain 
 whispers" an indication of direct animosity. Lady Wathin 
 had no sentiment of the kind. 
 
 But she had become acquainted with the other side of the 
 famous Dannisburgh case — the unfortunate plaintiff; and 
 compassion as well as morality moved her to put on a speaking 
 air when Mrs. Warwick's name was mentioned. She pictured 
 him to the ladies of her circle as "one of our true gentlemen 
 in his deportment and his feelings." He was, she would ven- 
 ture to say, her ideal of an English gentleman. "But now," 
 
l&O DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 she added commiseratingly, "ruined; ruined in his health 
 and in his prospects/' A lady inquired if it was the verdict 
 that had thus affected him. Lady Wathin's answer was re- 
 ported over moral, or suhstratum, London: "He is the vic- 
 tim of a fatal passion for his wife, and would take her back 
 to-morrow were she to solicit his forgiveness." Morality had 
 something to say against this active marital charity, attrib- 
 utable, it was to be feared, to weakness of character on the 
 part of the husband. Still Mrs. Warwick undoubtedly was 
 one of those women (of Satanic construction) who have the 
 art of enslaving the men unhappy enough to cross their path. 
 The nature of the art was hinted, with the delicacy of dainty 
 feet which have to tread in mire to get to safety. Men, alas! 
 are snared in this way. Instances too numerous for the good 
 repute of the swinish sex were cited, and the question of how 
 Morality was defensible from their grossness passed without 
 a tactical reply. There is no defense. Those women come 
 like the cholera morbus, and owing to similar causes. They 
 will prevail until the ideas of men regarding women are puri- 
 fied. Nevertheless the husband who could forgive, even pro- 
 pose to forgive, was deemed by consent generous, however 
 weak. Though she might not have been wholly guilty she 
 had bitterly offended. And he despatched an emissary to her? 
 The theme, one may, in their language, "fear," was relished as 
 a sugared acid. It was renewed in the late autumn of the 
 year, when Antonia published her new book, entitled The 
 Young Minister of State. The signature of the authoress 
 was now known; and, from this resurgence of her name in 
 public, suddenly a radiation of tongues from the circle of Lady 
 Wathin declared that the repentant Mrs. Warwick had gone 
 back to her husband's bosom and forgiveness! The rumor 
 spread in spite of sturdy denials at odd corners, counting the 
 red-hot proposal of Mr. Sullivan Smith to eat his head and 
 boots for breakfast if it was proved correct. It filled a yawn 
 of the clubs for the afternoon. Soon this wanton rumor was 
 met and stifled by another of more morbific density, heavily 
 charged as that which led the sad Eliza to her pyre. 
 
 Antonia's hero was easily identified. The Young Minister 
 of State could be he only who was now at all her parties, 
 always meeting her; had been spied walking with her daily 
 in the Park near her house, on his march down to Westmins- 
 ter during the session; and who positively went to concerts 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 191 
 
 and sat under fiddlers to be near her. It accounted moreover 
 for his treatment of Constance Asper. What effrontery of the 
 authoress, to placard herself with him in a book! The like- 
 ness of the hero to Percy Dacier once established became strik- 
 ing to glaringness: a proof of her ability, and more of her 
 audacity; still more of her intention to flatter him up to his 
 perdition. By the things written of him, one would imagine 
 the conversations going on behind the scenes. She had the 
 wiles of a Cleopatra, not without some of the Mlene's experi- 
 ences. A youthful Antony, Dacier would be little likely to 
 escape her toils. And so promising a young man! The sigh, 
 the tear for weeping over his destruction, almost fell, such 
 vivid realizing of the prophesy appeared in its pathetic pro- 
 nouncement. 
 
 This low rumor, or malaria, began blowing in the winter, 
 and did not travel fast; for, strangely, there was hardly a 
 breath of it in the atmosphere of Dacier, none in Diana's. It 
 rose from groups not so rapidly and largely mixing, and less 
 quick to kindle; whose crazy sincereness battened on the 
 smallest morsel of fact and collected the fictitious by slow 
 absorption. But, as guardians of morality, often doing good 
 duty in their office, they are persistent. When Parliament 
 assembled, Mr. Quintin Manx, a punctual member of the 
 House, if nothing else, arrived in town. He was invited to 
 dine with Lady Wathin. After dinner she spoke to him of 
 the absent Constance, and heard of her being well, and ex- 
 pressed a great rejoicing at that. Whereupon the burly old 
 shipowner frowned and puffed. Constance, he said, had 
 plunged into these new spangle, candle and high singing serv- 
 ices; was all for symbols, harps, effigies, what not. Lady 
 Wathin's countenance froze in hearing of it. She led Mr. 
 Quintin to a wall-sofa, and said: "Surely the dear child must 
 have had a disappointment for her to have taken to those fool- 
 ish displays of religion! It is generally a sign." 
 
 "Well, ma'am — my lady — I let girls go their ways in such 
 things. I don't interfere. But it's that fellow, or nobody, 
 with her. She has fixed her girl's mind on him, and if she 
 can't columbine as a bride she will as a nun. Young people 
 must be at some harlequinade." 
 
 "But it is very shocking. And he?" 
 
 "He plays fast and loose, warm and cold. I'm ready to 
 settle twenty times a nobleman's dowry on my niece: and 
 
192 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 she's a fine girl, a handsome girl, educated up to the brim, fit 
 to queen it in any drawing-room. He holds her by some arts 
 that don't hold him, it seems. He's all for politics." 
 
 "Constance can scarcely be his dupe so far, I should think." 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "Everything points to one secret of his conduct." 
 
 "A woman?" 
 
 Lady Wathin's head shook for her sex's pained afl&rmative. 
 
 Mr. Quintin in the same fashion signified the downright 
 negative. "The fellow's as cold as a fish." 
 
 "Flattery will do anything. There is, I fear, one." 
 
 "Widow? wife? maid?" 
 
 "Married, I regret to say." 
 
 "Well, if he'd get over with it," said Quintin, in whose 
 notions the seductiveness of a married woman could be only 
 temporary, for all the reasons pertaining to her state. At the 
 same time his view of Percy Dacier was changed in thinking 
 it possible that a woman could divert him from his political 
 and social interests. He looked incredulous. 
 
 "You have heard of a Mrs. Warwick?" said Lady Wathin. 
 
 "Warwick! I have. I've never seen her. At my broker's 
 in the City yesterday I saw the name on a memorandum of 
 purchase of shares in a concern promising ten per cent., and 
 not likely to carry the per annum into the plural. He told 
 me she was a grand kind of woman, past advising." 
 
 "For what amount?" 
 
 "Some thousands, I think it was." 
 
 "She has no money:" Lady Wathin corrected her em- 
 phasis: "or ought to have none." 
 
 "She can't have got it from him." 
 
 "Did you notice her Christian name?" 
 
 "I don't recollect it, if I did. I thought the woman a don- 
 key." 
 
 "Would you consider me a busybody were I to try to miti- 
 gate this woman's evil influence? I love dear Constance, and 
 should be happy to serve her." 
 
 "I want my girl married," said old Quintin. "He's one of 
 my Parliamentary chiefs, with first-rate prospects; good fam- 
 ily, good sober fellow — at least I thought so; by nature T 
 mean; barring your incantations. He suits me, she liking 
 him." 
 
 "She admires him, I am sure." 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 193 
 
 "She's dead on end for the fellow!" 
 
 Lady Wathin felt herself empowered by Quintin Manx to 
 undertake the release of sweet Constance Asper's knight from 
 thte toils of his enchantress. For this purpose she had first 
 an interview with Mr. Warwick, and next she hurried to Lady 
 Dunstane at Copsley. There, after jumbling Mr. Warwick's 
 connubial dispositions and Mrs. Warwick's last book, and Mr. 
 Percy Dacier's engagement to the great heiress in a gossipy 
 hotch-potch, she contrived to gather a few items of fact, as 
 that The Young Minister was probably modeled upon Mr. 
 Percy Dacier. Lady Dunstane made no concealment of it as 
 soon as she grew sensible of the angling. But she refused her 
 help to any reconciliation between Mr. and Mrs. Warwick. 
 She declined to listen to Lady Wathin's entreaties. She de- 
 clined to give her reasons. These bookworm women, whose 
 pride it is to fancy that they can think for themselves, have a 
 great deal of the heathen in them, as morality discovers when 
 it wears the enlistment ribbons and applies to them to win re- 
 cruits for a service under the direct blessing of Providence. • 
 
 Lady Wathin left some darts behind her in the form of 
 moral exclamations, and really intended morally. For, 
 though she did not like Mrs. Warwick, she had no wish to 
 wound, other than by stopping her further studies of the 
 Young Minister, and conducting him to the young lady loving 
 him, besides restoring a bereft husband to his own. How 
 sadly pale and worn poor Mr. Warwick appeared! The por- 
 trayal of his withered visage to Lady Dunstane had quite 
 failed to gain a show of sympathy. And so it is ever with 
 your bookworm women pretending to be philosophical! You 
 sound them vainly for a manifestation of the commonest 
 human sensibilities. They turn over the leaves of a Latin 
 book on their laps while you are supplicating them to assist 
 in a work of charity! 
 
 Lady Wathin's inter jectory notes haunted Emma's ear. 
 Yet she had seen nothing in Tony to let her suppose that 
 there was trouble of her heart below the surface; and her 
 Tony, when she came to Copsley, shone in the mood of the 
 day of Lord Dannisburgh's drive down from London with 
 her. She was running on a fresh work; talked of composi- 
 tion as a trifle. 
 
 "I suppose The Young Minister is Mr. Percy Dacier?" said 
 Emma, 
 la 
 
194 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "Between ourselves he is/' Diana replied, smiling at a secret 
 guessed. "You know my model, and can judge of the 
 likeness." 
 
 "You write admiringly of him, Tony." 
 
 "And I do admire him. So would you, Emmy, if you 
 knew him as well as I do now. He pairs with Mr. Eed- 
 worth; he also is the friend of women. But he lifts us to 
 rather a higher level of intellectual friendship. When the 
 ice has melted — and it is thick at first — he pours forth all 
 his ideas without reserve; and they are deep and noble. Ever 
 since Lord Dannisburgh's death and our sitting together we 
 have been warm friends — intimate, I would say, if it could be 
 said of one so self-contained. In that respect, no young man 
 was ever comparable with him. And I am encouraged to 
 flatter myself that he unbends to me more than to others." 
 
 "He is engaged, or partl}^, I hear; why does he not marry?" 
 
 "I wish he would!" Diana said, with a most brilliant can- 
 dor of aspect. 
 
 Emma read in it that it would complete her happiness, pos- 
 sibly by fortifying her sense of security; and that seemed 
 right. Her own meditations, illumined by the beautiful face 
 in her presence, referred to the security of Mr. Dacier. 
 
 "So, then, life is going smoothly?" said Emma. 
 
 "Yes, at a good pace, and smoothly; not a torrent. Thames- 
 like, Vithout o'erflowing full.' It is not Lugano and the Sal- 
 vatore. Perhaps it is better; as action is better than musing." 
 
 "ISTo troubles whatever?" 
 
 "None. Well, except an Adorer' at times. I have to take 
 him as my portion. An impassioned Caledonian has a little 
 bothered me. I met him at Lady Pennon's, and have been 
 meeting him, as soon as I put foot out of my house, ever since. 
 If I could impress and impound him to marry Mary Payn- 
 ham I should be glad. By the way, I have consented to let 
 her try at a portrait of me. No; I have no troubles. I have 
 friends, the choicest of the nation. I have health, a field for 
 labor, fairish success with it; a mind alive, such as it is. I 
 feel like that midsummer morning of our last drive out to- 
 gether, the sun high, clearish, clouded enough to be cool. 
 And still I envy Emmy on her sofa, mastering Latin, biting at 
 Greek. What a wise recommendation that was of Mr. Red- 
 worth's! He works well in the House. He spoke excellently 
 the other night." 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 195 
 
 "He runs over to Ireland this Easter/' 
 
 "He sees for himself, and speaks with authority. He sees 
 and feels. Englishmen mean well, but they require an ex- 
 tremity of misery to waken their feelings." 
 
 "It is coming, he says; and absit omenr 
 
 "Mr. Dacier says he is the one Englishman who may al- 
 ways be sure of an Irish hearing; and he does not cajole them, 
 you know. But the English defect is really not want of feel- 
 ing so much as want of foresight. They will not look ahead. 
 A famine ceasing, a rebellion crushed, they jog on as before, 
 with their Dobbin trot and blinker confidence in 'Saxon 
 energy.' They should study the Irish. I think it was Mr. 
 Redworth who compared the governing of the Irish to the 
 management of a horse; the rider should not grow restive 
 when the steed begins to kick; calmer; firm, calm, per- 
 suasive." 
 
 "Does Mr. Dacier agree?" 
 
 "Not always. He has the inveterate national belief that 
 Celtic blood is childish, and the consequently illogical disre- 
 gard of its hold of impressions. The Irish — for I have them 
 in my heart, though I have not been among them for long at 
 a time — must love you to serve you, and will hate you if you 
 have done them injury and they have not wiped it out — they 
 with a treble revenge, or you with cordial benefits. I have 
 told him so again and again; ventured to suggest measures." 
 
 "He listens to you, Tony?" 
 
 "He says I have brains. It ends in a compliment." 
 
 "You have inspired Mr. Eedworth." 
 
 "If I have, I have lived for some good." 
 
 Altogether her Tony's conversation proved to Emma that 
 her perusal of the model of The Young Minister of State was 
 an artist's — free, open, and not discolored by the personal 
 tincture. Her heart plainly was free and undisturbed. She 
 had the same girl's love of her walks where wild flowers grew; 
 if possible, a keener pleasure. She hummed of her happiness 
 in being at Copsley, singing her Planxty Kelly and The Puri- 
 tani by turns. She stood on land; she was not on the seas. 
 Emma thought so with good reason. 
 
 She stood on land, it was true, but she stood on a cliff of the 
 land, the seas below and about her; and she was enabled to 
 hoodwink her friend because the assured sensation of her firm 
 footing deceived her own soul, even while it took short flights 
 
196 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 to the troubled waters. Of lier firm footing she was exult- 
 ingly proud. She stood high, close to danger, without giddi- 
 ness. If at intervals her soul flew out like lightning from the 
 rift (a mere shot of involuntary fancy, it seemed to her), the 
 suspicion of instability made her draw on her treasury of 
 impressions of the mornings at Lugano — her loftiest, purest, 
 dearest; and these reinforced her. She did not ask herself 
 why she should have to seek them for aid. In other respects 
 her mind was alert and held no sly covers, as the fiction of a 
 perfect ignorant innocence combined with common intelli- 
 gence would have us to suppose that the minds of women can 
 do. She was honest as long as she was not directly ques- 
 tioned, pierced to the innermost and sanctum of the bosom. 
 She could honestly summon bright light to her eyes in wish- 
 ing the man were married. She did not ask herself why she 
 called it up. The remorseless progressive interrogations of a 
 Jesuit Father in pursuit of the bosom's verity might have 
 transfixed and shown her to herself even then a tossing vessel 
 as to the spirit, far away from that firm land she trod so 
 bravely. 
 
 Descending from the woody heights upon London, Diana 
 would have said that her only anxiety concerned young Mr. 
 Arthur Eh odes, whose position she considered precarious, and 
 who had recently taken a drubbing for venturing to show a 
 peep of his head, like an early crocus, in the literary market. 
 Her Antonia's last book had been reviewed obediently to smart 
 taps from the then commanding baton of Mr. Tonans, and 
 Mr. Whitmonby's choice picking of spscimens down three 
 columns of his paper. A Literary Review (Charles Eainer's 
 property) had suggested that perhaps "the talented authoress 
 might be writing too rapidly"; and another actuated by the 
 public taste of the period for our "vigorous homely Saxon'' in 
 one and two syllable words, had complained of a "tendency to 
 polysyllabic phraseology." The remainder, a full majority, 
 had sounded eulogy with all their band instruments — drum, 
 trumpet, fife, trombone. Her foregoing work had raised her 
 to Fame, which is the court of a queen when the lady has 
 beauty and social influence, and critics are her dedicated 
 courtiers, gaping for the royal mouth to be opened, and re- 
 serving the kicks of their independent manhood for infamous 
 outsiders, whom they hoist in the style and particular service 
 of pitchforks. They had fallen upon a little volume of verse. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 197 
 
 "like a body of barndoor hens on a stranger chick/' Diana 
 complained; and she chid herselJf angrily for letting it escape 
 her forethought to propitiate them on the author's behalf. 
 Young Ehodes was left with scarce a feather; and what re- 
 mained to him appeared a preposterous ornament for the 
 decoration of a shivering and welted poet. He laughed, or 
 tried the mouth of laughter. Antonia's literary conscience was 
 vexed at the different treatment she had met and so impera- 
 tively needed, that the reverse of it would have threatened the 
 smooth sailing of her costly household. A merry-go-round 
 of creditors required a corresponding whirligig of receipts. 
 She felt mercenary, debased by comparison with the well- 
 scourged verse-mason, Orpheus of the untenanted city, who 
 had done his publishing ingenuously for glory; a good in- 
 stance of the comic-pathetic. She wrote to Emma, begging 
 her to take him in at Copsley for a few days: "I told you I 
 had no troubles. I am really troubled about this poor boy. 
 He has very little money and has embarked on literature. I 
 cannot induce any of my friends to lend him a hand. Mr. 
 Bed worth gruffly insists on his going back to his law-clerk's 
 office and stool, and Mr. Dacier says that no place is vacant. 
 The reality of Lord Dannisburgh's death is brought before 
 me by my helplessness. He would have made him an as- 
 sistant private secretary, pending a Government appointment, 
 rather than let me plead in vain." 
 
 Mr. Ehodes, with his traveling bag was packed off to 
 Copsley, to enjoy a change of scene after his run of the 
 gauntlet. He was very heartily welcomed by Lady Dunstane, 
 both for her Tony's sake and his own modest worship of that 
 luminary, which could permit of being transparent; but 
 chiefly she welcomed him as the living proof of Tony's dis- 
 engagement from anxiety, since he was her one spot of trou- 
 ble, and could easily be comforted by reading with her, and 
 wandering through the spring woods along the heights. He 
 had a happy time, midway in air between his accomplished 
 hostess and his protecting goddess. His bruises were soon 
 healed. Each day was radiant to him, whether it rained or 
 shone; and by his looks and what he said of himself Lady 
 Dunstane understood that he was in the highest temper of 
 the human creature tuned to thrilling accord with nature. 
 It was her generous Tony's work. She blessed it, and liked 
 the youth the better. 
 
198 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 During the stay of Mr. Arthur Ehodes at Copsley Sir Lukin 
 came on a visit to his wife. He mentioned reports in the scan- 
 dal-papers: one, that Mr. P. D. would shortly lead to the 
 altar the lovely heiress Miss A., — Percy Dacier and Constance 
 Asper; another, that a reconciliation was to be expected be- 
 tween the beautiful authoress Mrs. W. and her husband. 
 "Perhaps it's the best thing she can do," Sir Lukin added. 
 
 Lady Dunstane pronounced a woman's unforgiving "Never." 
 The revolt of her own sensations assured her of Tony's un- 
 conquerable repugnance. In conversation subsequently with 
 Arthur Ehodes she heard that he knew the son of Mr. War- 
 wick's attorney, a Mr. Fenn; and he had gathered from him 
 some information of Mr. Warwick's condition of health. It 
 had been alarming; young Fenn said it was confirmed heart- 
 disease. His father frequently saw Mr. Warwick, and said 
 lie was fretting himself to death. 
 
 It seemed just a possibility that Tony's natural compassion- 
 ateness had wrought on her to immolate herself and nurse to 
 his end the man who had wrecked her life. Lady Dunstane 
 waited for news. At last she wrote, touching the report inci- 
 dentally. There was no reply. The silence ensuing after 
 such a question responded forcibly. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 BETWEEN DIANA AND DACIER: THE WIND EAST OVER 
 BLEAK LAND. 
 
 On the third day of the Easter recess Percy Dacier landed 
 from the Havre steamer at Caen and drove straightway for 
 the sandy coast, past fields of colza to brine-blown meadows 
 of coarse grass, and then to the low dunes and long stretch- 
 ing sands of the ebb in semi-circle; a desolate place at that 
 season; with a dwarf fishing- village by the shore; an east 
 wind driving landward in streamers every object that had a 
 scrap to fly. He made head to the inn, where the first person 
 he encountered in the passage was Diana's maid, Danvers, 
 who relaxed from the dramatic exaggeration of her surprise 
 at the sight of a real English gentleman in these woebegone 
 regions to inform him that her mistress might be found walk- 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. Idd 
 
 ing somewhere along the sea-shore, and had her dog to pro- 
 tect her. They were to stay here a whole week, Danvers 
 added, for a conveyance of her private sentiments. Second 
 thoughts, however, whispered to her shrewdness that his ar- 
 rival could only he by appointment. She had been anticipat- 
 ing something of the sort for some time. 
 
 Dacier butted against the stringing wind, that kept him 
 at a rocking incline to his left for a mile. He then discerned 
 in what had seemed a dredger's dot on the sands a lady's 
 figure, unmistakably she, without the corroborating testi- 
 mony of Leander paw-deep in the low-tide water. She was 
 out at a distance on the ebb-sands, hurtled, gyred, beaten to all 
 shapes, in rolls, twists, volumes, like a blown banner-flag, by 
 the pressing wind. A kerchief tied her bonnet under her 
 chin. Bonnet and breast-ribbons rattled rapidly as drummer- 
 sticks. She stood near the little running ripple of the flat 
 sea-water, as if hurried from a long streaked back to a tiny 
 imitation of spray. When she turned to the shore she saw 
 him advancing, but did not recognize; when they met she 
 merely looked with wide parted lips. This was no appoint- 
 ment. 
 
 "I had to see you," Dacier said. 
 
 She colored to a deeper red than the rose-conjuring wind 
 had whipped in her cheeks. Her quick intuition of the rea- 
 son of his coming barred a mental evasion, and she had no 
 thought of asking either him or herself what special urgency 
 had brought him. 
 
 "I have been here four days." 
 
 '^Lady Esquart spoke of the place." 
 
 "Lady Esquart should not have betrayed me." 
 
 "She did it inadvertently, without an idea of my profiting 
 by it." 
 
 Diana indicated the scene in a glance. "Dreary country, 
 do you think?" 
 
 "Anywhere!" said he. 
 
 They walked up the sand-heap. The roaring Easter with 
 its shrieks and whistles at her ribbons was not favorable to 
 speech. His "Anywhere!" had a penetrating significance, the 
 fuller for the break that left it vague. 
 
 Speech between them was commanded; he could not be 
 suffered to remain. She descended upon a sheltered path- 
 way running along a ditch, the border of pastures where 
 
aOO DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 cattle cropped, raised heads, and resumed their one comfort- 
 ing occupation. 
 
 Diana gazed on them, smarting from the buffets of the 
 winds she had met. 
 
 "No play of their tails to-day," she said, as she slackened 
 her steps. "You left Lady Esquart well?" 
 
 "Lady Esquart ... I think was well. I had to see 
 you. I thought you would be with her in Berkshire. She 
 told me of a little seaside place close to Caen." 
 
 "You had to see me?" 
 
 "I miss you now if it's a day!" 
 
 "I heard a story in London . . ." 
 
 "In London there are many stories. I heard one. Is there 
 a foundation for it?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 He breathed relieved. "I wanted to see you once before 
 . . . if it was true. It would have made a change in my 
 life — a gap." 
 
 "You do me the honor to like my Sunday evenings?" 
 
 "Beyond anything London can offer." 
 
 "A letter would have reached me." 
 
 "I should have had to wait for the answer. There is no 
 truth in it?" 
 
 Her choice was to treat the direct assailant frankly or im- 
 peril her defense by the ordinary feminine evolutions, which 
 might be taken for inviting; poor pranks always. 
 
 "There have been overtures," she said. 
 
 "Forgive me; I have scarcely the right to ask . . . 
 speak of it." 
 
 "My friends may use their right to take an interest in my 
 fortunes." 
 
 "I thought I might, on my way to Paris, turn aside . . . 
 coming by this route." 
 
 "If you determined not to lose much of your time.*' 
 
 The coolness of her fencing disconcerted a gentleman con- 
 scious of his madness. She took instant advantage of any 
 circuitous move; she gave him no practical point. He was 
 little skilled in the arts of attack, and felt that she checked 
 his impetuousness; respected her for it, chafed at it, writhed 
 with the fervors precipitating him here, and relapsed on his 
 pleasure in seeing her face, hearing her voice. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 201 
 
 "Your happiness, I hope, is the chief thought in such a 
 case/' he said. 
 
 "I am sure you would consider it." 
 
 "I can't quite forget my own." 
 
 "You compliment an ambitious hostess." 
 
 Dacier glanced across the pastures, "What was it that 
 tempted you to this place?" 
 
 "A poet would say it looks like a figure in the shroud. It 
 has no features; it has a sort of grandeur belonging to death. 
 I heard of it as the place where I might be certain of not 
 meeting an acquaintance." 
 
 "And I am the intruder." 
 
 "An hour or two will not give you that title." 
 
 "Am I to count the minutes by my watch?" 
 
 "By the sun. We will supply you an omelette and piquette, 
 and send you back sobered and friarly to Caen for Paris at 
 sunset." 
 
 "Let the fare be Spartan. I could take my black broth with 
 philosophy every day of the year under your auspices. What 
 I should miss . . ." 
 
 "You bring no news of the world or the House ?" 
 
 "None. You know as much as I know. The Irish agita- 
 tion is chronic. The Corn Law threatens to be the same." 
 
 "And your chief — in personal colloquy?" 
 
 "He keeps a calm front. I may tell you — there is nothing 
 I would not confide to you — he has let fall some dubious 
 words in private. I don't know what to think of them." 
 
 "But if he should waver?" 
 
 "It's not wavering. It's the openness of his mind." 
 
 "Ah! the mind. We imagine it free. The House and 
 the country are the sentient frame governing the mind of 
 the politician more than his ideas. He cannot think inde- 
 pendently of them; nor I of my natural anatomy. You will 
 test the truth of that after your omelette and piquette, and 
 marvel at the quitting of your line of route for Paris. As 
 soon as the mind attempts to think independently it is like a 
 kite with the cord cut, and performs a series of darts and 
 frisks, that have the look of wildest liberty till you see it fall 
 flat to earth. The openness of his mind is most honorable 
 to him." 
 
 "Ominous for his party." 
 
 "Likely to be good for his country." 
 
202 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "That is the question." 
 
 "Prepare to encounter it. In polities I am with the active 
 minority on behalf of the inert but suffering majority. That 
 is my rule. It leads, unless you have a despotism, to the 
 conquering side. It is always the noblest. I won't say, 
 listen to me; only do believe my words have some weight. 
 This is a question of bread." 
 
 "It involves many other questions." 
 
 "And how clearly those leaders put their case! They are 
 admirable debaters. If I were asked to write against them I 
 should have but to quote them to confound my argument. I 
 tried it once, and wasted a couple of my precious hours." 
 
 "They are cogent debaters," Dacier assented. "They make 
 me wince now and then without convincing me; I own it to 
 you. The confession is not agreeable, though it's a small 
 matter." 
 
 "One's pride may feel a touch with the foils as keenly as 
 the point of a rapier," said Diana. 
 
 The remark drew a sharp look of pleasure from him. 
 
 "Does the Princess Egeria propose to dismiss the indi- 
 vidual she inspires, when he is growing most sensible of her 
 wisdom?" 
 
 "A young Minister of State should be gleaning at large 
 when holiday is granted him." 
 
 Dacier colored. "May I presume on what is currently re- 
 ported?" 
 
 "Parts, parts; a bit here, a bit there," she rejoined. "Au- 
 thors find their models where they can, and generally hit on 
 the nearest." 
 
 "Happy the nearest!" 
 
 "If you run to interjections I shall cite you a sentence from 
 your latest speech in the House." 
 
 He asked for it, and to school him she consented to flatter 
 with her recollection of his commonest words: "'Dealing 
 with subjects of this nature emotionally does not advance us 
 a calculable inch.' " 
 
 "I must have said that in relation to hard matter of 
 business." 
 
 "It applies. There is my hostelry, and the spectral form 
 of Danvers utterly depaysee. Have you spoken to the poor 
 soul? I can never discover the links of her attachment to 
 my service," 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 203 
 
 "She knows a good mistress. I have but a few minutes, 
 if you are relentless. May I . . . shall I ever be privi- 
 leged to speak your Christian name?" 
 
 "My Christian name! It is Pagan. In one sphere I am 
 Hecate. Kemember that." 
 
 "I am not among the people who so regard you." 
 
 "The time may come." 
 
 "Diana!" 
 
 "Constance!" 
 
 "I break no tie. I owe no allegiance whatever to the 
 name." 
 
 "Keep to the formal title with me. We are Mrs. Warwick 
 and Mr. Dacier. I think I am two years younger than you; 
 socially, therefore, ten in seniority; and I know how this 
 flower of friendship is nourished and may be withered. You 
 see already what you have done? You have cast me on the 
 discretion of my maid. I suppose her trusty, but I am at 
 her mercy, and a breath from her to the people beholding me 
 as Hecate, queen of witches! ... I have a sensation of 
 the sirocco it would blow." 
 
 "In that event the least I can offer is my whole life." 
 
 '^e will not conjecture the event." 
 
 "The best I could hope for!" 
 
 "I see I shall have to revise the next edition of The Young 
 Minister, and make an emotional curate of him. Observe 
 Danvers. The woman is wretched; and now she sees me 
 coming she pretends to be using her wits in studying the 
 things about her, as I have directed. She is a riddle. I have 
 the idea that any morning she may explode; and yet I trust 
 her and sleep soundly. I must be free, though I vex the 
 world's watchdogs. So, Danvers, you are noticing how thor- 
 oughly Frenchwomen do their work." 
 
 Danvers replied with a slight mincing: "They may, ma'am; 
 but they chatter chatter so." 
 
 "The result proves that it is not a waste of energy. They 
 manage their fowls too." 
 
 "They've no such thing as mutton, ma'am." 
 
 Daciei patriotically laughed. 
 
 "She strikes the apology for wealthy and leisurely land- 
 lords," Diana said. 
 
 Danvers remarked that the poor fed meagerly in France. 
 She was not convinced of its being good for them by hearing 
 
204 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 that they could work on it sixteen hours out of the four-and- 
 twenty. 
 
 Mr. Percy Dacier's repast was furnished to him half-an- 
 hour later. At sunset Diana, taking Danvers beside her, 
 walked with him to the line of the country road bearing on 
 Caen. The wind had sunk. A large brown disk paused ray- 
 less on the western hills. 
 
 "A Dacier ought to feel at home in Normandy; and you 
 may have sprung from this neighborhood," said she, simply 
 to chat. "Here the land is poorish, and a mile inland rich 
 enough to bear repeated crops of colza, which tries the soil, 
 I hear. As for beauty, those blue hills you see enfold charm- 
 ing valleys. I meditate an expedition to Harcourt before I 
 return. An English professor of his native tongue at the 
 Lycee at Caen told me, on my way here, that for twenty 
 shillings a week you may live in royal ease round about Har- 
 court. So we have our bed and board in prospect if fortune 
 fails us, Danvers." 
 
 "I would rather die in England, ma'am," was the maid's 
 reply. 
 
 Dacier set foot on his carriage-step. He drew a long breath 
 to say a short farewell, and he and Diana parted. 
 
 They parted as the plainest of sincere good friends, each 
 at heart respecting the other for the repression of that which 
 their hearts craved; any word of which might have carried 
 them headlong, bound together on a Mazeppa-race, with 
 scandal for the hounding wolves and social ruin for the rocks 
 and torrents. 
 
 Dacier was the thankfuller, the most admiring of the two; 
 at the same time the least satisfied. He saw the abyss she 
 had aided him in escaping; and it was refreshful to look 
 abroad after his desperate impulse. Prominent as he stood 
 before the world, he could not think without a shudder of 
 behaving like a young frenetic of the passion. Those whose 
 aim is at the leadership of the English people know that, 
 however truly based the charges of hypocrisy, soundness of 
 moral fiber runs throughout the country and is the national 
 integrity, which may condone old sins for present services, 
 but will not have present sins to flout it. He was in tune 
 with the English character. The passion was in him never- 
 theless, and the stronger for a slow growth that confirmed its 
 lijiion of tiie mi^d and heart. Her counsel fortified hin;, h^r 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 205 
 
 suggestions opened springs; her phrases were golden-lettered 
 in his memory; and more, she had worked an extraordinary 
 change in his views of life and aptitude for social converse; 
 he acknowledged it with genial candor. Through her he 
 was encouraged, led, excited to sparkle with the witty, feel 
 new gifts, or a greater breadth of nature; and, thanking her, 
 he became thirstily susceptible to her dark beauty; he claimed 
 to have found the key of her, and he prized it. She was 
 not passionless; the blood flowed warm. Proud, chaste, 
 she was noble-spirited; having an intellectual refuge from 
 the besiegings of the blood; a rock-fortress. The "wife no 
 wife" appeared to him, striking the higher elements of the 
 man, the commonly masculine also. Would he espouse her 
 had he the chance? To-morrow! this instant! With her to 
 back him he would be doubled in manhood, doubled in brain 
 and heart-energy. To call her wife, spring from her and 
 return, a man might accept his fate to fight Trojan or Greek, 
 sure of his mark on the enemy. 
 
 But if, after all, this imputed Helen of a decayed Paris 
 passed, submissive to the legitimate solicitor, back to her 
 husband ? 
 
 The thought shot Dacier on his legs for a look at the blank 
 behind him. He vowed she had promised it should not be. 
 Could it ever be, after the ruin the meanly suspicious fellow 
 had brought upon her? Diana voluntarily reunited to the 
 treacherous cur? 
 
 He sat, resolving somberly that if the debate arose he would 
 try what force he had to save her from such an ignominy, and 
 dedicate his life to her, let the world wag its tongue. So the 
 knot would be cut. 
 
 Men unaccustomed to a knot in their system find the pros- 
 pect of cutting it an extreme relief, even when they know 
 that the cut has an edge to wound mortally as well as pacify. 
 The wound was not heavy payment for the rapture of hav- 
 ing so incomparable a woman his own. He reflected won- 
 deringly on the husband, as he had previously done, and 
 came again to the conclusion that it was a poor creature, 
 abjectly jealous of a wife he could neither master, nor equal, 
 nor attract. And, thinking of jealousy, Dacier felt none; 
 none of individuals, only of facts; her marriage, her bond- 
 age. Her condemnation to perpetual widowhood angered 
 him, as at an imrighteous decree. The sharp sweet bloom 
 
206 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 of her beauty, fresh in swarthiness, under the whipping Easter, 
 cried out against that loathed inhumanity. Or he made 
 it cry. 
 
 Being a stranger to the jealousy of men, he took the soft 
 assurance that he was preferred above them all. Competitors 
 were numerous; not any won her eyes as he did. She re- 
 vealed nothing of the same pleasures in the shining of the 
 others touched by her magical wand. Would she have par- 
 doned one of them the "Diana!" bursting from his mouth? 
 
 She was not a woman for trifling, still less for secrecy. He 
 was as little the kind of lover. Both would be ready to take 
 up their burden, if the burden was laid on them. Diana had 
 thus far impressed him. 
 
 Meanwhile he faced the cathedral towers of the ancient 
 Norman city, standing up in the smoky hues of the west; 
 and a sentence out of her book seemed fitting to the scene 
 and what he felt. He rolled it over luxuriously as the next 
 of delights to having her beside him. — She wrote of 
 "Thoughts that are bare dark outlines, colored by some old 
 passion of the soul, like towers of a distant city seen in the 
 funeral waste of day." — His bluff English anti-poetic training 
 would have caused him to shrug at the stuff coming from 
 another pen; he might condescendingly have criticized it, 
 with a sneer embalmed in humor. The words were hers; 
 she had written them; almost by a sort of anticipation, he 
 imagined; for he at once fell into the mood they suggested, 
 and had a full crop of the "bare dark outlines" of thoughts 
 colored by his particular form of passion. 
 
 Diana had impressed him powerfully when she set him 
 swallowing and assimilating a sentence ethereally thin in sub- 
 stance, of mere sentimental significance, that he would ante- 
 cedently have read alou.d in a drawing-room, picking up the 
 book by hazard, as your modern specimen of romantic vapor- 
 ing. Mr. Dacier, however, was at the time in observation of 
 the towers of Caen, fresh from her presence, animated to some 
 conception of her spirit. He drove into the streets, desiring, 
 half determining, to risk a drive back on the morrow. 
 
 The cold light of the morrow combined with his fear of 
 distressing her to restrain him. Perhaps he thought it well 
 not to risk his gains. He was a northerner in blood. He 
 may have thought it well not further to run the personal risk 
 immediately. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 2a7 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 RECORDS A VISIT TO DIANA FROM ONE OF THE WORLD'S 
 GOOD WOMEN. 
 
 Pure disengagement of contemplativeness had selected 
 Percy Dacier as the model of her Young Minister of State, 
 Diana supposed. Could she otherwise have dared to sketch 
 him? She certainly would not have done it now. 
 
 That was a reflection similar to what is entertained by one 
 who has dropped from a precipice to the midway ledge over 
 the abyss, where caution of the whole sensitive being is re- 
 quired for simple self-preservation. How could she have been 
 induced to study and portray him! It seemed a form of 
 dementia. 
 
 She thought this while imagining the world to be interro- 
 gating her. When she interrogated herself she flew to Lugano 
 and her celestial Salvatore, that she might be defended from 
 a charge of the dreadful weakness of her sex. Surely she 
 there had proof of her capacity for pure disengagement. 
 Even in recollection the springs of spiritual happiness renewed 
 the bubbling crystal play. She believed that a divineness 
 had wakened in her there, to strengthen her to the end, ward 
 her from any complicity in her sex's culprit blushing. 
 
 Dacier's cry of her name was the cause, she chose to think, 
 of the excessive circumspection she must henceforth prac- 
 tiee; precariously footing, embracing hardest earth, the plain- 
 est rules, to get back to safety. Not that she was personally 
 endangered, or at least not spiritually; she could always fly in 
 soul to her heights. But she had now to be on guard, con- 
 stantly in the fencing attitude. And watchful of herself as 
 well. That was admitted with a ready frankness, to save it 
 from being a necessitated and painful confession; for the 
 voluntary acquiescence, if it involved her in her sex, claimed 
 an individual exemption. "Women are women, and I am a 
 woman; but I am I, and unlike them; I see we are weak, and 
 weakness tempts; in owning the prudence of guarded steps I 
 am armed. It is by dissembling, feigning immunity, that we 
 are imperiled.'' She would have phrased it so, with some 
 
208 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 anger at her feminine nature as well as at the subjection 
 forced on her by circumstances. 
 
 Besides, her position and Percy Dacier's threw the fancied 
 danger into remoteness. The world was her stepmother, 
 vigilant to become her judge; and the world was his task- 
 master, hopeful of him, yet able to strike him down for an 
 offense. She saw their situation as he did. The course of 
 folly must be bravely taken, if taken at all. Disguise degraded 
 her to the reptiles. 
 
 This was faced. Consequently there was no fear of it. 
 
 She had very easily proved that she had skill and self- 
 possession to keep him rational, and therefore they could con- 
 tinue to meet. A little outburst of frenzy to a reputably 
 handsome woman could be treated as the froth of a passing 
 wave. Men have the trick, infants their fevers. 
 
 Diana's days were spent in reasoning. Her nights were 
 not so tunable to the superior mind. When asleep she was 
 the sport of elves that danced her into tangles too deliciously 
 unraveled, and left new problems for the wise-eyed and 
 anxious morning. She solved them with the thought that 
 in sleep it was the mere ordinary woman who fell a prey to 
 her tormentors; awake, she dispersed the swarm, her sky was 
 clear. Gradually the persecutions ceased, thanks to her 
 active pen. 
 
 A letter from her legal adviser, old Mr. Braddock, in- 
 formed her that no grounds existed for apprehending marital 
 annoyance, and late in May her household had resumed its 
 customary round. 
 
 She examined her accounts. The Debit and Credit sides 
 presented much of the appearance of male and female in our 
 jog-trot civilization. They matched middling well; with 
 rather too marked a tendency to strain the leash and run 
 frolic on the part of friend Debit (the wanton male), which 
 deepened the blush of the comparison. Her father had noticed 
 the same funny thing in his effort to balance his tugging ac- 
 counts: "Now then for a look at Man and Wife:" except 
 that he made Debit stand for the portly frisky female. Credit 
 the decorous and contracted other half, a prim gentleman of 
 a constitutionally lean habit of body, remonstrating with her. 
 "You seem to forget that we are married, my dear, and must 
 walk in step or bundle into the Bench," Dan Merion used to 
 say. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 209 
 
 Diana had not so much to rebuke in Mr. Debit; or not at 
 the first reckoning. But his ways were curious. She grew 
 distrustful of him, after dismissing him with a quiet admoni- 
 tion and discovering a series of ambush bills, which he must 
 have been aware of when he was allowed to pass as an honor- 
 able citizen. His answer to her reproaches pleaded the neces- 
 sitousness of his purchases and expenditure; a capital plea; 
 and Mrs. Credit was requested by him, in a courteous man- 
 ner, to drive her pen the faster, so that she might wax to a 
 corresponding size and satisfy the world's idea of fitness in 
 couples. She would have costly furniture, because it pleased 
 her taste; and a French cook, for a like reason, in justice 'to 
 her guests; and trained servants; and her tribe of pensionedfs.; 
 flowers she would have profuse and fresh at her windoWs'aiid 
 over the rooms; and the pictures and engravings^ioiiiihe'Wttlls 
 were (always for the good reason mentioned) chbice ories^ and 
 she had a love of old lace, she loved colors asi isH4j'iyoV)$d'i8h.edr- 
 fulness, and silks, and satin hangings, Indidn'^prbofyx p$rvifigs, 
 countless mirrors. Oriental woods, chair«i:andffdesks>il»Mh')soiiife 
 feature or a flourish in them, del^d^kte^able^'^s^fitk aiiMope 
 legs, of approved workmanship infth^bliroiioi'iD^y^o'f BttM^eaii 
 upholstery, and marble clodfe^^offv/cuurling deirie^^^toogymtlM 
 Time, mantelpiece decor£ti'oits;fri)lia9trii[f8i e'^tk^ftB ^SSt-M)- 
 favorite authors; her bed'eiambei?^ 'Mb,ii^e thgiifi^iTjte 
 sleep a dainty cosiness in 'aerKtlit&'a^eBegiT H'gfi€f67'*i65*jGP'^i* 
 less directly, the peccant :billiii 'XS(K©ii^iwa]kll^duo41l to:^]^^(f& 
 to a nicety the amount sheoconlSntBl^i(mfpakvtimi^;o^W<^ky^ 
 income from her investmefate(^nfi*iifetl)$tM^"^''5Fhe''^ft^^ 
 ways; the days of half-yearly^ i^i:^m^B^'€^^^'y^^^^kM$j 
 her to some proportions begid£ith<^'-^ai^iffig^odi^'^}l[ ifiJfeg}- 
 partner, who was proud of it,;2aidJr^f^ed'h?er -to^'tih^tr^g^^p'^ 
 she could summon with her pi]k,'ia?t «)^milkfifci^ef)idfeMli$toi 
 tion. His compliments werefi:sinOile{)ot^^'^re.t^da8M¥^i 
 He assured her that she hadiststek^^^^i^hl^sP^/ M'^fiflrHe^J- 
 haustible mine; by writing otdy ao^ei ^olittlit f agierr^ghfe! 'e&M<d 
 double her income; counting )aiibroaS^;p(5>pulai^5r,5tt^b?gQife 
 and so on a tide of success dowfiii^ Maefiifig^'fiv^%%W 
 sheer golden. Behold how it'^patkleiP lAri^^>>;rgitfeM^^dlstifit 
 our winged hours of youth fo!P(waBtrbl ^fcOU^Sgg'i^b '¥feaB«i^^ffi(6 
 riches we can command? Det>it'^as ^tobii^iMb^i \te^^^ 
 answerable. lod io ,fieifR+T hoilb, !^>"fi Mniau; 
 
 Another calculator, an accffetbm«ftffi&i^ifciffiei5taM5*-B%riitrtri 
 
 14 
 
210 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 lous arithmetician, had heen at work for some time upon a 
 speculative summing of the outlay of Diana's establishment, 
 as to its chances of swamping the income. Eedworth could 
 guess pretty closely the cost of a household, if his care for 
 the holder set him venturing on averages. He knew nothing 
 of her ten per cent, investment, and considered her fixed in- 
 come a beggarly regiment to marshal against the invader. He 
 fancied, however, in his ignorance of literary profits, that a 
 popular writer, selling several editions, had come to an El 
 Dorado. There was the mine. It required a diligent work- 
 ing. Diana was often struck by hearing Eedworth ask her 
 ottoijher next book might be expected. He appeared to have 
 ;Ji399fiafer3aess in hurr3dng her to produce, and she had to say 
 BhstgfMMas not a nimble writer. His flattering impatience 
 3^torv$^iifi»is. He admired her work, yet he did his utmost 
 B&BTfiate dtiHittle admirable. His literary taste was not that 
 -^Isyfewftgva^rjbHar Ehodes, to whom she could read her chap- 
 ,tfl*lv«|^e0fldiagiTt©..take counsel upon them while drinking 
 ^&aetli^iW^.96hJ5fmii«pecited him of prosaically wishing her 
 4qoPmk& Mm^%bMd^lM>hgh her exchequer was beginning 
 ^okmiM tJbe^f^fedioafldi^dtlrBi quthor's lofty mind disdained 
 Mtm'{ao^i(|iO<^8[) teibftrfiKdiaisedl^ possibly, for a failing pro- 
 -i^tfee mi^ys^9 [SteienHQu^tteTfild obstacles to imaginative 
 •fi§^j«)^tiQiJ^ o^^h,(tto geisdiflnxjifeJr hand she would fall into 
 i^3^[mv^ngH hmthc^-dBiMTdSt to muse, and not on the 
 Mfej^toj f^keifekpfewiiefjei^ aMlnight, was drowsy by day, 
 I^|]^gs^'^e;c^nijaic(|v^ftfea^0rthex[)or animating friends. Eed- 
 a^^^'sjrt%€|^y>itc)|^tdtorAaipublish was particularly annoy- 
 ^gi-^Mri)^d4^iik(^tiigti^^Y -^The Young Minister of State 
 ^^li Ij^^(:fe|e]|i3gip'j^je(i»fhja3)fehe retained the work to brood 
 ^)M??ifife) i#&, T5#^5i^ipt^ages, perfect it. Her musings 
 ^fibjfl^ljJd^grito'logU^idrf.ilrhat work, never printed; they 
 .Wt^MbS^jst^-^^^e^sf soma memory, leaving a distaste for 
 l^rprfi^i^r \j^^;dW^ef,C^i^iviice; far more poetical than the 
 !^t^§§d^Xig,T)im\^^Yi^'^\mon vbf Arthur Ehodes; and the 
 ,^^^d5ji^s,^i(=jrj$fj|jwaf^fjeo^0deled on a prima donna she 
 ]^iro^'»i7/ihepmnme^i^mmot Henry Wilmers, after hear- 
 m&?^^W'^ihh^M CJfesfdfSqEainer's quaint passion for the 
 S?fTO*lfo^dii§^i^A)*ft(i;lieiwx)man. Diana had courted her, 
 sjWij^ aift^iiflgd; jiitfB. ?,fIJ)h^i(|acture she was drawing of the 
 amiable and gifted Italian, of her villain Eoumanian husband, 
 ^R^;1):fe^€fi^e<Mlfetfi(f>fiy^l^imitw3ed, devoted Englishman, was 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 211 
 
 good in a fashion; but, considering the theme, she had reason- 
 able apprehension that her Cantatrice would not repay her for 
 the time and labor bestowed on it. No clever transcripts of 
 the dialogue of the day occurred; no hair-breadth 'scapes, 
 perils by sea and land, heroisms of the hero, fine shrieks of the 
 heroine; no set scenes of catching pathos and humor; no dis- 
 tinguishable points of social satire — equivalent to a smacking 
 of the public on the chaps, which excites it to grin with keen 
 discernment of the author's intention. She did not appeal to 
 the senses nor to a superficial discernment. So she had the 
 anticipatory sense of its failure; and she wrote her best, in 
 perverseness. Of course, she wrote slowly; she wrote more 
 and more realistically of the characters and the downright 
 human emotions, less of the wooden supernumeraries of her 
 story, labeled for broad guffaw or deluge tears — the grap- 
 pling natural links between our public and an author. Her 
 feelings were aloof. They flowed at a hint of a scene of The 
 Young Minister. She could not put them into The Canta- 
 trice. And Arthur Rhodes pronounced this work poetical 
 beyond its predecessors, for the reason that the chief char- 
 acters were alive and the reader felt their pulses. He meant 
 to say, they were poetical inasmuch as they were creations. 
 
 The slow progress of a work not driven by the author's 
 feelings necessitated frequent consultations between Debit 
 and Credit, resulting in altercations, recriminations, discord 
 of the yoked and divergent couple. To restore them to their 
 proper trot in harness, Diana reluctantly went to her pub- 
 lisher for an advance item of the sum she was to receive, and 
 the act increased her distaste. An idea came that she would 
 soon cease to be able to write at all. What then? Perhaps 
 by selling her invested money, and ultimately The Cross- 
 ways, she would have enough for her term upon earth. 
 Necessarily she had to think that short, in order to reckon it 
 as nearly enough. "I am sure," she said to herself, "I shall 
 not trouble the world very long." A strange languor beset 
 her; scarcely melancholy, for she conceived the cheerfulness 
 of life and added to it in company; but a nervelessness, as 
 though she had been left by the stream on the banks, and saw 
 beauty and pleasure sweep along and away, while the sun 
 that primed them dried her veins. At this time she was gain- 
 ing her widest reputation for brilliancy of wit. Only to wel- 
 come guests were her evenings ever spent at home. She had 
 
212 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 no intimate understanding of the deadly wrestle of the con- 
 ventional woman with her nature which she was undergoing 
 below the surface. Perplexities she acknowledged, and the 
 prudence of guardedness. "But as I am sure not to live very 
 long we may as well meet.'^ Her meetings with Percy Dacier 
 were therefore hardly shunned, and his behavior did not warn 
 her to discountenance them. It would have been cruel to 
 e?:clude him from her select little dinners of eight. Whit- 
 monby, Westlake, Henr^; Wilmers, and the rest, she perhaps 
 aiding, schooled him in the conversational art. She heard it 
 said of him, that the courted discarder of the sex, hitherto a 
 mere politician, was wonderfully humanized. Lady Pennon 
 fell to talking of him hopefully. She declared him to be one 
 of the men who unfold tardily, and only await the mastering 
 passion. If the passion had come it was controlled. His com- 
 mand of himself melted Diana. How could she forbid his 
 entry to the houses she frequented? She was glad to see him. 
 He showed his pleasure in seeing her. Remembering his ten- 
 tative indiscretion on those foreign sands, she reflected that 
 he had been easily checked; and the like was not to be said 
 of some others. Beautiful women in her position provoke an 
 intemperateness that contrasts touchingly with the self- 
 restraint of a particular admirer. Her "impassioned Cale- 
 donian" was one of a host, to speak of whom and their fits 
 of lunacy even to her friend Emma was repulsive. She bore 
 with them, foiled them, passed them, and recovered her 
 equanimity; but the contrast called to her to dwell on it, the 
 self-restraint whispered of a depth of passion 
 
 She was shocked at herself for a singular tremble she ex- 
 perienced, without any beating of the heart, one day that the 
 marriage of Percy Dacier and Miss Asper was at last definitely 
 fixed. Mary Paynham brought her the news. She had it 
 from a lady who had come across Miss Asper at Lady Wathin's 
 assemblies, and considered the great heiress extraordinarily 
 handsome. 
 
 "A golden miracle!" Diana gave her words to say. "Good 
 looks and gold together are rather superhuman. The report 
 may be this time true." 
 
 ]^ext afternoon the card of Lady Wathin requested Mrs. 
 Warwick to grant her a private interview. 
 
 Lady Wathin as one of the order of women who can do 
 anything in a holy cause, advanced toward Mrs. Warwick, un- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 213 
 
 abashed by the burden of her mission, and spinally prepared, 
 behind benevolent smilings, to repay dignity of mien with a 
 similar erectness of dignity. They touched fingers and sat. 
 The preliminaries to the matter of the interview were brief 
 between ladies physically sensible of antagonism and mutually 
 too scornful of subterfuges in one another's presence to beat 
 the bush. 
 
 Lady Wathin began. "I am, you are aware, Mrs. Warwick, 
 a cousin of your friend, Lady Dunstane." 
 
 "You come to me on business?'' Diana said. 
 
 "It may be so termed. I have no personal interest in it. 
 I come to lay certain facts before you which I think you 
 should know. We think it better that an acquaintance, and 
 one of your sex, should state the case to you, instead of having 
 recourse to formal intermediaries, lawyers . . ." 
 
 "Lawyers?" 
 
 "Well, my husband is a lawyer, it is true. In the course of 
 his professional vocations he became acquainted with Mr. 
 Warwick. We have latterly seen a good deal of him. He is, 
 I regret to say, seriously unwell." 
 
 "I have heard of it." 
 
 "He has no female relations, it appears. He needs more 
 care than he can receive from hirelings." 
 
 "Are you empowered by him. Lady Wathin?" 
 
 "I am, Mrs. Warwick. We will not waste time in apologies. 
 He is most anxious for a reconciliation. It seems to Sir 
 Cramborne and to me the most desirable thing for all parties 
 concerned if you can be induced to regard it in that light. 
 Mr. Warwick may or may not live; but the estrangement is 
 quite undoubtedly the cause of his illness. I touch on noth- 
 ing connected with it. I simply wish that you should not be 
 in ignorance of his proposal and his condition." 
 
 Diana bowed calmly. "I grieve at his condition. His pro- 
 posal has already been made and replied to." 
 
 "Oh, but, Mrs. Warwick, an immediate and decisive refusal 
 of a proposal so fraught with consequences . . . !" 
 
 "Ah, but. Lady Wathin, you are now out-stepping the limits 
 prescribed by the office you have undertaken." 
 
 "You will not lend ear to an intercession?" 
 
 "I will not." 
 
 "Of course, Mrs. Wai*wick, it is not for me to hint at things 
 that lawyers could say on the subject." 
 
214 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "Your forbearance is creditable, Lady Wathin." 
 
 "Believe me, Mrs. Warwick, the step is — I speak in my bus- 
 band's name as well as my own — strongly to be advised." 
 
 "If I hear one word more of it I leave the country." 
 
 "I should be sorry indeed at any piece of rashness depriv- 
 ing your numerous friends of your society. We have re- 
 cently become acquainted with Mr. Redworth^ and I know 
 the loss you would be to them. I have not attempted an ap- 
 peal to your feelings, Mrs. Warwick." 
 
 "I thank you warmly. Lady Wathin, for what you have not 
 done." 
 
 The aristocratic airs of Mrs. Warwick were annoying to 
 Lady Wathin when she considered that they were borrowed, 
 and that a pattern morality could regard the woman as ostra- 
 cised; nor was it agreeable to be looked at through eye- 
 lashes under partially-lifted brows. She had come to appeal 
 to the feelings of the wife; at any rate, to discover if she had 
 some, and was better than a wild adventuress. 
 
 "Our life below is short!" she said. To which Diana tacitly 
 assented. 
 
 "We have our little term, Mrs. Warwick. It is soon over." 
 
 "On the other hand, the platitudes concerning it are 
 eternal." 
 
 Lady Wathin closed her eyes, that the like effect might be 
 produced on her ears. "Ah! they are the truths. But it is 
 not my business to preach. Permit me to say that I feel 
 deeply for your husband." 
 
 "I am glad of Mr. Warwick's having friends; and they are 
 many, I hope." 
 
 "They cannot behold him perishing without an effort on 
 his behalf." 
 
 A chasm of silence intervened. Wifely pity was not 
 sounded in it. 
 
 "He will question me, Mrs. Warwick." 
 
 "You can report to him the heads of our conversation. Lady 
 Wathin." 
 
 "Would you — it is your husband's most earnest wish; and 
 our house is open to his wife and to him for the purpose; 
 and it seems to lis that . . . indeed it might avert a 
 catastrophe you would necessarily deplore — would you con- 
 sent to meet him at my house?" 
 
 "It has already been asked, Lady Wathin, and refused." 
 
DIANiA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 215 
 
 '^ut at my house — under our auspices!" 
 
 Diana glanced at the clock. ":N'owhere." 
 
 "Is it not — pardon me — a vriie's duty, Mrs. Warwick, at 
 least to listen?" 
 
 "Lady Wathin, I have listened to you." 
 
 "In the case of his extreme generosity so putting it, for 
 the present, Mrs. Warwick, that he asks only to be heard 
 personally by his wife! It may preclude so much." 
 
 Diana felt a hot wind across her skin. 
 
 She smiled and said: "Let me thank you for bringing to 
 an end a mission that must have been unpleasant to you." 
 
 "But you will meditate on it, Mrs. Warwick, will you not? 
 Give me that assurance!" 
 
 "I shall not forget it," said Diana. 
 
 Again the ladies touched fingers, with an interchange of 
 the social grimace of cordiality. A few words of compassion 
 for poor Lady Dunstane's invalided state covered Lady 
 Wathin's retreat. 
 
 She left, it struck her ruffled sentiments, an icy libertine, 
 whom any husband caring for his dignity and comfort was 
 well rid of; and if only she could have contrived allusively 
 to bring in the name of Mr. Percy Dacier — just to show these 
 arrant coquettes, or worse, that they were not quite so privi- 
 leged to pursue their intrigues obscurely as they imagined — 
 it would have soothed her exasperation. 
 
 She left a woman the prey of panic. 
 
 Diana thought of Emma and Red worth, and of their foolish 
 interposition to save her character and keep her boimd. She 
 might now have been free! The struggle with her manacles 
 reduced her to a state of rebelliousness, from which issued 
 vivid illuminations of the one means of certain escape: an 
 abhorrent hissing cavern that led to a place named Liberty, 
 her refuge, but a hectic place. 
 
 Unable to write, hating the house which held her a fixed 
 mark for these attacks, she had an idea of flying straight to 
 her beloved Lugano lake, and there hiding, abandoning her 
 friends, casting off the slave's name she bore, and living free 
 in spirit. She went so far as to reckon the cost of a small 
 household there, and justify the violent step by an exposition 
 of retrenchment upon her large London expenditure. She 
 had but to say farewell to Emma, no other tie to cut! One 
 morning on the Salvatore heights would wash her clear of 
 the webs defacing and entangling her. 
 
216 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXiy. 
 INDICATES A SOUL PREPARED FOR DESPERATION. 
 
 The month was August, four days before the closing of 
 Parliament, and Diana fancied it good for Arthur Rhodes 
 to run down with her to Copsley. He came to her invitation 
 joyfully, reminding her of Lady Dunstane's wish to hear some 
 chapters of "The Cantatrice'^ and the MS. was packed. 
 They started, taking rail and fly, and winding up the dis- 
 tance on foot. August is the month of sober maturity and 
 majestic foliage, songless, but a crowned and royal-robed 
 queenly month; and the youngster's appreciation of the 
 homely scenery refreshed Diana; his delight in being with 
 her was also pleasant. She had no wish to exchange him 
 for another; and that was a strengthening thought. 
 
 At Copsley the arrival of their luggage had prepared the 
 welcome. Warm though it was, Diana perceived a change 
 in Emma, an unwonted reserve, a doubtfulness of her eyes, 
 in spite of tenderness; and thus thrown back on herself, 
 thinking that, if she had followed her own counsel (as she 
 called her impulse) in old days, there would have been no 
 such present misery, she at once, and unconsciously, assumed 
 a guarded look. Based on her knowledge of her honest 
 footing it was a little defiant. Secretly in her bosom it was 
 sharpened to a slight hostility by the knowledge that her 
 mind had been straying. The guilt and the innocence com- 
 bined to clothe her in mail — the innocence being positive, the 
 guilt so vapory. But she was armed only if necessary, and 
 there was no requirement for armor. Emma did not 
 question at all. She saw the alteration in her Tony: she 
 was too full of the tragic apprehensiveness overmastering 
 her to speak of trifles. She had never confided to Tony the 
 exact nature and the growth of her malady, thinking it mor- 
 tal, and fearing to alarm her dearest. 
 
 A portion of the manuscript was read out by Arthur Rhodes 
 in the evening; the remainder next morning. Red worth 
 perceptibly was the model of the English hero; and, as to 
 his person, no friend could complain of the sketch: his clear- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 217 
 
 eyed heartiness, manliness, wholesomeness — a word of Lady 
 Dunstane's regarding him — and his handsome braced figure, 
 were well painted. Emma forgave the insistance on a cer- 
 tain bluntness of the nose in consideration of the fond limn- 
 ing of his honest and expressive eyes, and the "light on his 
 temples," which they had noticed together. She could not so 
 easily forgive the realistic picture of the man: an exaggera- 
 tion, she thought, of small foibles that, even if they existed, 
 should not have been stressed. The turn for "calculating" 
 was shown up ridiculously; Mr. Cuthbert Bering was calcu- 
 lating in his impassioned moods as well as in his cold. His 
 head was a long division of ciphers. He had statistics for 
 spectacles, and beheld the world through them, and the mis- 
 tress he worshiped. 
 
 "I see,'' said Emma, during a pause, "he is a Saxon. You 
 still affect to have the race en grippe, Tony." 
 
 "I give him every credit for what he is," Diana replied. 
 "I admire the finer qualities of the race as much as anyone. 
 You want to have them presented to 3^ou in enamel, Emmy." 
 
 But the worst was an indication that the mania for calcu- 
 lating in and out of season would lead to the catastrophe 
 destructive of his happiness. Emma could not bear that. 
 Without asking herself whether it could be possible that Tony 
 knew the secret, or whether she would have laid it bare, her 
 sympathy for Eed worth revolted at the exposure. She was 
 chilled. She let it pass; she merely said: "I like the writ- 
 ing." 
 
 Diana understood that her story was condemned. 
 
 She put on her robes of philosophy to cloak discourage- 
 ment. "I am glad the writing pleases you." 
 
 "The characters are as true as life!" cried Arthur Ehodes. 
 "The cantatrice drinking porter from the pewter at the slips 
 after harrowing the hearts of her audience is dearer to me 
 than if she had tottered to a sofa declining sustenance and 
 because her creatrix has infused such blood of life into her 
 that you accept naturally whatever she does. She was ex- 
 hausted, and required the porter, like a laborer in the corn- 
 field." 
 
 Emma looked at him and perceived the poet swamped by 
 the admirer. Taken in conjunction with Mr. Cuthbert Der- 
 ing's frenzy for calculating, she disliked the incident of the 
 porter and the pewter. 
 
218 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 *^hile the cantatrice swallowed her draught I suppose 
 Mr. Bering counted the cost?" she said. 
 
 ^'It really might he hinted/' said Diana. 
 
 The discussion closed with the accustomed pro and con 
 upon the wart of Cromwell's nose — Eealism rejoicing in it, 
 Idealism objecting. 
 
 Arthur Rhodes was bidden to stretch his legs on a walk 
 along the heights in the afternoon, and Emma was further 
 vexed by hearing Tony complain of Redworth's treatment 
 of the lad, whom he would not assist to any of the snug little 
 posts he was notoriously able to dispense. 
 
 "He has talked of Mr. Rhodes to me," said Emma. "He 
 thinks the profession of literature a delusion, and doubts the 
 wisdom of having poets for clerks." 
 
 "John-Bullish!" Diana exclaimed. "He speaks contemptu- 
 ously of the poor boy." 
 
 "Only inasmuch as the foolishness of the young man in 
 throwing up the law provokes his practical mind to speak." 
 
 "He might take my word for the ^young man's' ability. I 
 want him to have the means of living, that he may write. 
 He has genius." 
 
 "He may have it. I like him, and have said so. If he 
 were to go back to his law-stool I have no doubt that Red- 
 worth would manage to help him." 
 
 "And make a worthy ancient Braddock of a youth of splen- 
 did promise! Have I sketched him too Saxon?" 
 
 "It is the lens, and not the tribe, Tony." 
 
 "The Cantatrice" was not alluded to any more; but Emma's 
 disapproval blocked the current of composition, already sub- 
 ject to chokings in the brain of the author. Diana stayed 
 three days at Copsley, one longer than she had intended, so 
 that Arthur Rhodes might have his fill of country air. 
 
 "I would keep him, but I should be no companion for him," 
 Emma said. 
 
 "I suspect the gallant squire is only to be satisfied by land- 
 ing me safely," said Diana, and that small remark grated, 
 though Emma saw the simple meaning. When they parted 
 she kissed her Tony many times. Tears were in her eyes. It 
 seemed to Diana that she was anxious to make amends for 
 the fit of alienation, and she was kissed in return warmly, 
 quite forgiven, notwithstanding the deadly blank she had 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 219 
 
 caused in the imagination of the writer for pay, distracted by 
 the squabbles of Debit and Credit. 
 
 Diana chatted spiritedly to young Ehodes on their drive 
 to the train. She was profoundly discouraged by Emma's 
 disapproval of her work. It wanted but that one drop to 
 make a recurrence to the work impossible. There it must 
 lie! And what of the aspects of her household? Perhaps, 
 after all, the Eedworths of the world are right, and litera- 
 ture as a profession is a delusive pursuit. She did not assent 
 to it without hostility to the world's Redworths. "They 
 have no sensitiveness — we have too much. We are made of 
 bubbles that a wind will burst, and, as the wind is always 
 blowing, your practical Redworths have their crow of us." 
 
 She suggested advice to Arthur Rhodes upon the prudence 
 of his resuming the yoke of the law. 
 
 He laughed at such a notion, saying that he had some 
 expectations of money to come. 
 
 "But I fear," said he, "that Lady Dunstane is very, very 
 ill. She begged me to keep her informed of your address." 
 
 Diana told him he was one of those who should know it 
 whithersoever she went. She spoke impulsively, her senti- 
 ments of friendliness for the youth being temporarily bright- 
 ened by the strangeness of Emma's conduct in deputing it to 
 him to fulfill a duty she had never omitted. "What can she 
 think I am going to do ?" 
 
 On her table at home lay a letter from Mr. Warwick. She 
 read it hastily in the presence of Arthur Rhodes, ha^dng at 
 a glance at the handwriting anticipated the proposition it con- 
 tained and the official phrasing. 
 
 Her gallant squire was invited to dine with her that even- 
 ing, costume excused. 
 
 They conversed of literature as a profession, of poets dead 
 and living, of politics which he abhorred and shied at, and 
 of his prospects. He wrote many rejected pages, enjoyed an 
 income of eighty pounds per annum, and eked out a sub- 
 sistence upon the modest sum his pen procured him; a sum 
 extremely insignificant; but great nature was his own, the 
 world was tributary to him, the future his bejeweled and 
 expectant bride. Diana envied his youthfulness. Nothing 
 is more enviable, nothing richer to the mind, than the aspect 
 of a cheerful poverty. How much nobler it was, contrasted 
 with Redworth's amassing of wealth! 
 
220 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 When alone, she went to her hedroom and tried to write, 
 tried to sleep. Mr. Warwick's letter was looked at. It 
 seemed to indicate a threat; hut for the moment it did not 
 disturb her so much as the review of her moral prostration. 
 She -wTote some lines to her lawyers, quoting one of Mr. 
 Warwick's sentences. That done, his letter was dismissed. 
 Her intolerable languor became alternately a defeating 
 drowsiness and a fever. She succeeded in the effort to 
 smother the absolute cause: it was not suffered to show a 
 front, at the cost of her knowledge of a practiced self-decep- 
 tion. "I wonder whether the world is as bad as a certain 
 class of writers tell us?" she sighed in weariness, and mused 
 on their soundings and probings of poor humanity, which the 
 world accepts for the very bottom-truth if their dredge brings 
 up sheer refuse of the abominable. The world imagines those 
 to be at our nature's depths who are impudent enough to 
 expose its muddy shallows. She was in the mood for such 
 a kind of writing: she could have started on it at once, but 
 that the theme was wanting; and it may count on popularity, 
 a great repute for penetration. It is true of its kind, though 
 the dredging of nature is the miry form of art. When it 
 flourishes we may be assured we have been over-enameling 
 the higher forms. She felt, and shuddered to feel, that she 
 could draw from dark stores. Hitherto in her works it had 
 been a triumph of the good. They revealed a gaping defi- 
 ciency of the subtle insight she now possessed. "Exhibit 
 humanity as it is, wallowing, sensual, wicked, behind the 
 mask," a voice called to her; she was allured by the con- 
 templation of the wide-mouthed old dragon Ego, whose por- 
 trait, decently painted, establishes an instant touch of ex- 
 change between author and public, the latter detected and 
 confessing. Next to the pantomime of Humor and Pathos, 
 a cynical surgical knife at the human bosom seems the surest 
 talisman for this agreeable exchange; and she could cut. 
 She gave herself a taste of her powers. She cut at herself 
 mercilessly, and had to bandage the wound in a hurry to 
 keep in life. 
 
 Metaphors were her refuge. Metaphorically she could 
 allow her mind to distinguish the struggle she was under- 
 going, sinking under it. The banished of Eden had to put 
 on metaphors, and the common use of them has helped 
 largely to civilize us. The sluggish in intellect detest them. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 221 
 
 but our civilization is not much indebted to that major fac- 
 tion. Especially are they needed by the pedestaled woman 
 in her conflict with the natural. Diana saw herself through 
 the haze she conjured up. *'Am I worse than other women?" 
 was a piercing twi-thought. Worse, would be hideous isola- 
 tion. The not worse, abased her sex. She could afford to 
 say that the world was bad: not that women were. 
 
 Sinking deeper, an anguish of humiliation smote her to a 
 sense of drowning. For what if the poetic ecstasy on her 
 Salvatore heights had not been of origin divine? had sprung 
 from other than spiritual founts? had sprung from the red- 
 dened sources she was compelled to conceal? Could it be? 
 She would not believe it. But there was matter to clip her 
 wings, quench her light, in the doubt. 
 
 She fell asleep like the wrecked flung ashore. 
 
 Danvers entered her room at an early hour for London to 
 inform her that Mr. Percy Dacier was below, and begged 
 permission to wait. 
 
 Diana gave orders for breakfast to be proposed to him. 
 She lay staring at the wall until it became too visibly a 
 reflection of her mind. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 ONCE MORE THE CROSSWAYS AND A CHANGE OF 
 TURNINGS. 
 
 The suspicion of his having come to impart the news of 
 his proximate marriage ultimately endowed her with sovereign 
 calmness. She had need to think it, and she did. Tea was 
 brought to her while she dressed; she descended the stairs re- 
 volving phrases of happy congratulation and the world's ordi- 
 nary epigrams upon the marriage-tie, neatly mixed. 
 
 They read in one another's faces a different meaning from 
 the empty words of excuse and welcome. Dacier's expressed 
 the buckling of a strong set purpose; but, grieved by the look 
 of her eyes, he wasted a moment to say: "You have not slept. 
 You have heard . . . ?" 
 
 "What?" said she, trying to speculate; and that was a suf- 
 ficient answer. 
 
222 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "I hadn't the courage to call last night; I passed the 
 windows. Give me your hand, I beg." 
 
 She gave her hand in wonderment, and more wonderingly 
 felt it squeezed. Her heart began the hammer-thump. She 
 spoke an unintelligible something; saw herself melting away 
 to utter weakness — pride, reserve, simple prudence, all going; 
 crumbled ruins where had stood a fortress imposing to men. 
 Was it love? Her heart thumped shiveringly. 
 
 He kept her hand, indifferent to the gentle tension. 
 
 "This is the point: I cannot live without you. I have gone 
 on. . . . Who was here last night? Forgive me." 
 
 "You know Arthur Rhodes?" 
 
 "I saw him leave the door at eleven. Why do you torture 
 me? There's no time to lose now. You will be claimed. 
 Come, and let us two cut the knot. It is the best thing in 
 the world for me — the only thing. Be brave! I have your 
 hand. Give it for good, and for Heaven's sake don't play the 
 sex. Be yourself. Dear soul of a woman! I never saw the 
 soul in one but in you. I have waited; nothing but the dread 
 of losing you sets me speaking now. And for you to be sac- 
 rificed a second time, to that ! Oh, no! You know you 
 
 can trust me. On my honor, I take breath from you. You 
 are my better in everything — guide, goddess, dearest heart! 
 Trust me; make me master of your fate." 
 
 "But my friend!" the murmur hung in her throat. He 
 was marvelously transformed; he allowed no space for the 
 arts of defense and evasion. 
 
 "I wish I had the trick of courting. There's not time; and 
 I'm a simpleton at the game. We can start this evening. 
 Once away, we leave it to them to settle the matter, and then 
 you are free, and mine to the death." 
 
 "But speak, speak! What is it?" Diana said. 
 
 "That, if we delay, I'm in danger of losing you altogether." 
 
 Her eyes lightened: "You mean that you have heard he 
 has determined . . . ?" 
 
 "There's a process of the law. But stop it. Just this one 
 step, and it ends. Whether intended or not, it hangs over you, 
 and you will be perpetually tormented. Why waste your 
 whole youth? and mine as well! For I am bound to you as 
 much as if we had stood at the altar, where we will stand to- 
 gether the instant you are free." 
 
 "But where have you heard . . . ?" 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 223 
 
 "From an intimate friend. I will tell you — sufficiently in- 
 timate — from Lady Wathin. ISTothing of a friend, but I see 
 this woman at times. She chose to speak of it to me — it 
 doesn't matter why. She is in his confidence, and pitched me 
 a -whimpering tale. Let those people chatter. But it's exactly 
 for those people that you are hanging in chains, all your 
 youth shrivelling. Let them shout their worst! It's the bark 
 of a day; and you won't hear it; half -a-y ear, and it will be 
 over, and I shall bring you back — the husband of the noblest 
 bride in Christendom! You don't mistrust me?" 
 
 "It is not that," said she. "But now drop my hand. I am 
 imprisoned." 
 
 "It's asking too much. I've lost you too many times. I 
 have the hand and I keep it. I take nothing but the hand. 
 It's the hand I want. I give you mine. I love you. Now I 
 know what love is! and the word carries nothing of its weight. 
 Tell me you do not doubt my honor." 
 
 "Not at all. But be rational. I must think, and I cannot 
 while you keep my hand." 
 
 He kissed it. "I keep my own against the world." 
 
 A cry of rebuke swelled to her lips at his conqueror's tone. 
 It was not uttered, for directness was in his character and his 
 wooing loyal — save far bitter circumstances, delicious to hear; 
 and so narrow was the ring he had wound about her senses 
 that her loathing of the circumstances pushed her to acknowl- 
 edge within her bell of a heart her love for him. 
 
 He was luckless enough to say: "Diana!" 
 
 It rang horridly of her husband. She drew her hand to 
 loosen it, with repulsing brows. "Not that name!" 
 
 Dacier was too full of his honest advocacy of the passionate 
 lover to take a rebuff. There lay his unconscious mastery, 
 where the common arts of attack would have tripped him with 
 a quick-witted woman, and where a man of passion, not al- 
 lowing her to succumb in dignity, would have alarmed her to 
 the breaking lose from him. 
 
 "Lady Dunstane calls you Tony." 
 
 "She is my dearest and oldest friend." 
 
 "You and I don't count by years. You are the dearest to 
 me on earth, Tony!" 
 
 She debated as to forbidding that name. 
 
 The moment's pause wrapped her in a mental hurricane, 
 
224 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 out of which she came with a heart stopped, her olive cheeks 
 ashen-hued. She had seen that the step was possible. 
 
 ^^Oh! Percy, Percy, are we mad?'' 
 
 "Not mad. We take what is ours. Tell me, have I ever, 
 ever disrespected you? You were sacred to me; and you are, 
 though now the change has come. Look back on it — ^it is 
 time lost, years that are dust. But look forward, and you can- 
 not imagine our separation. What I propose is plain sense 
 for us two. Since Eovio I have been at your feet. Have I 
 not some just claim for recompense? Tell me! Tony!" 
 
 The sweetness of the secret name, the privileged name, in 
 his mouth stole through her blood, melting resistance. 
 
 She had consented. The swarthy flaming of her face 
 avowed it even more than the surrender of her hand. He 
 gained much by claiming little: he respected her, gave her no 
 touches of fright and shame; and it was her glory to fall with 
 pride. An attempt at a caress would have awakened her view 
 of the whitherward: but she was treated as a sovereign lady 
 rationally advised. 
 
 "Is it since Eovio, Percy?" 
 
 "Since the morning when you refused me one little flower." 
 
 "If I had given it you might have been saved!" 
 
 "I fancy I was doomed from the beginning." 
 
 "I was worth a thought?" 
 
 '^"orth a life! worth ten thousand!" 
 
 "You have reckoned it all like a sane man: — ^family, posi- 
 tion, the world, the scandal?" 
 
 "AH. I have long known that you were the mate for me. 
 You have to weather a gale, Tony. It won't last. My dear- 
 est! it won't last many months. I regret the trial for you, 
 but I shall be with you, burning for the day to reinstate you 
 and show you the queen you are." 
 
 "Yes, we two can have no covert dealings, Percy," said 
 Diana. They would be hateful — baseness! Eejecting any 
 baseness, it seemed to her that she stood in some brightness. 
 The light was of a lurid sort. She called on her heart to 
 glory in it as the light of tried love, the love that defied the 
 world. Her heart rose. She and he would at a single step 
 give proof of their love for one another; and this kingdom 
 of love — ^how different from her recent craven languors! — this 
 kingdom awaited her, was hers for one word; and, beset with 
 the oceans of enemies, it was unassailable. If only they were 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 225 
 
 true to the love they vowed no human force could subvert 
 it: and she doubted him as little as of herself. This new 
 kingdom of love, never entered by her, acclaiming her, was 
 well nigh unimaginable, in spite of the many hooded mes- 
 sengers it had despatched to her of late. She could hardly be- 
 lieve that it had come. 
 
 "But see me as I am," she said; she faltered it through her 
 direct gaze on him. 
 
 "With chains to strike off? Certainly; it is done," he re- 
 plied. 
 
 "Eather heavier than those of the slave-market. I am the 
 deadest of burdens. It means that your enemies, personal — if 
 you have any, and political — you have numbers, will raise a 
 cry. . . . Realize it. You may still be my friend. I for- 
 give the bit of wildness." 
 
 She provoked a renewed kissing of her hand; for magnan- 
 imity in love is an overflowing danger; and when he said — 
 "The burden you have to bear outweighs mine out of all com- 
 parison. What is it to a man — a public man or not! The 
 woman is always the victim. That's why I have held my- 
 self in so long" — her strung flame softened. She half yielded 
 to the tug on her arm. 
 
 "Is there no talking for us without foolishness?" she mur- 
 mured. The foolishness had wafted her to sea, far from sight 
 of land. "Now sit, and speak soberly. Discuss the mat- 
 ter. Yes, my hand, but I must have my wits. Leave me free 
 to use them till we choose our path. Let it be the brains be- 
 tween us, as far as it can. You ask me to join my fate to 
 yours. It signifies a sharp battle for you, dear friend; per- 
 haps the blighting of the most promising life in England. One 
 question is. Can I countervail the burden I shall be by such 
 help to you as I can afford? Burden is no word — I rake up 
 a buried fever. I have partially lived it down, and instantly 
 I am covered with spots. The old false charges and this 
 plain offense make a monster of me." 
 
 "And meanwhile you are at the disposal of the man who 
 falsely charged you, and armed the world against you," said 
 Dacier. 
 
 "I can fly. The world is wide." 
 
 "Time slips. Your youth is wasted. If you escape the 
 man he will have triumphed in keeping you from me. And 
 I thirst for you; I look to you for aid and counsel; I want 
 
 15 
 
/v 
 
 226 ' DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYa 
 
 my mate. You have not to be told how you inspire me. I 
 am really less than half myself without you. If I am to do 
 anything in the world it must be with your aid — ^you beside 
 me. Our hands are joined: one leap! Do you not see that 
 after . . . well, it cannot be friendship. It imposes 
 rather more on me than I can bear. You are not the woman 
 to trifle; nor 1, Tony, the man for it with a woman like you. 
 You are my spring of wisdom. You interdict me altogether 
 — can you? — or we unite our fates, like these hands now. 
 Try to get yours away!'' 
 
 Her effort ended in a pressure. Eesistance, nay, to hesi- 
 tate at the joining of her life with his after her submission 
 to what was a scorching fire in memory, though it was less 
 than an embrace, accused her of worse than foolishness. 
 
 "Well, then,'' said she, "wait three days. Deliberate. Oh! 
 try to know yourself, for your clear reason to guide you. Let 
 us be something better than the crowd abusing us, not sim- 
 ple creatures of impulse — as we choose to call the animal. 
 What if we had to confess that we took to our heels the mo- 
 ment the idea struck us! Three days. We may then pretend 
 to a philosophical resolve. Then come to me: or write to 
 me." 
 
 "How long is it since the old Rovio morning, Tony?" 
 
 "An age." 
 
 "Date my deliberations from that day." 
 
 The thought of hers having to be dated possibly from an 
 earlier day robbed her of her summit of feminine isolation, and 
 she trembled, chilled, and flushed; she lost all anchorage. 
 
 'So it must be to-morrow," said he, reading her closely, 
 "not later. Better at once. But women are not to be hur- 
 ried." 
 
 "Oh! don't class me, Percy, pray! I think of you, not of 
 myself." 
 
 "You suppose that in a day or two I might vary?" 
 
 She fixed her eyes on him, expressing certainty of his un- 
 alterable steadfastness. The look allured. It changed: her 
 head shook. She held away and said: "No, leave me: leave 
 me, dear, dear friend. Percy, my dearest! I will not ^play 
 the sex.' I am yours if . . if it is your wish. It may as 
 well be to-morrow. Here I am useless. I cannot write, not 
 screw a thought from my head. I dread that 'process of the 
 law' a second time. To-morrow^, if it must be. But no im- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 227 
 
 pulses. Fortune is blind; she may be kind to us. The blind- 
 ness of Fortune is her one merit, and fools accuse her of it, 
 and they profit by it! I fear we all of us have our turn of 
 folly: we throw the stake for good luck. I hope my sin is 
 not very great. I know my position is desperate. I feel a cul- 
 prit. But I am sure I have courage, perhaps brains to help. 
 At any rate, I may say this: I bring no burden to my lover 
 that he does not know of." 
 
 Dacier pressed her hand. "Money we shall have enough. 
 My uncle has left me fairly supplied." 
 
 "What would he think?" said Diana, half in a glimpse of 
 meditation. 
 
 "Think me the luckiest of the breeched. I fancy I hear 
 him thanking you for 'making a man' of me." 
 
 She blushed. Some such phrase might have been spoken by 
 Lord Dannisburgh. 
 
 "I have but a poor sum of money," she said. "I may be 
 able to write abroad. Here I cannot — if I am to be perse- 
 cuted." 
 
 "You shall write, with a new pen!" said Dacier. "You shall 
 live, my darling Tony. You have been held too long in this 
 miserable suspension — ^neither maid nor wife, neither woman 
 nor stockfish. Ah! shameful. But we'll right it. The step, 
 for us, is the most reasonable that could be considered. You 
 shake your head. But the circumstances make it so. Cour- 
 age, and we come to happiness! And that, for you and me, 
 means work. Look at the case of Lord and Lady Dulac. It's 
 identical, except that she is no match beside you: and I do 
 not compare her antecedents with yours. But she braved the 
 leap, and forced the world to swallow it, and now, you see, 
 she's perfectly honored. I know a place on a peak of the 
 Maritime Alps, exquisite in summer, cool, perfectly solitary, 
 no English, snow round us, pastures at our feet, and the Med- 
 iterranean below. There! my Tony. To-morrow night we 
 start. You will meet me — shall I call here? — well, then, at 
 the railway station, the Southeastern, for Paris: say, twenty 
 minutes to eight. I have your pledge? You will come?" 
 
 She sighed it, then said it firmly, to be worthy of him. 
 Kind Fortune, peeping under the edge of her bandaged eyes, 
 appeared willing to bestow the beginning of happiness upon 
 one who thought she had a claim to a small taste of it before 
 
228 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 she died. It seemed distinguishingly done, to give a bite of 
 happiness to the starving! 
 
 "I fancied when you were announced that you came for 
 congratulations upon your approaching marriage, Percy." 
 
 "I shall expect to hear them from you to-morrow evening at 
 the station, dear Tony," said he. 
 
 The time was again stated, the pledge repeated. He for- 
 bore entreaties for privileges, and won her gratitude. 
 
 They named once more the place of meeting and the hour; 
 more significant to them than phrases of intensest love and 
 passion. Pressing hands sharply for pledge of good faith, they 
 sundered. 
 
 She still had him in her eyes when he had gone. Her old 
 world lay shattered; her new world was up without a dawn, 
 with but one figure, the sun of it, to light the swinging 
 strangeness. 
 
 Was ever man more marvelously transformed? or woman 
 more wildly swept from earth into the clouds? So she mused 
 in the hum of her tempest of heart and brain, forgetful of the 
 years and the conditions preparing both of them for this ex- 
 plosion. 
 
 She had much to do: the arrangements to dismiss her serv- 
 ants, write to house-agents and her lawyer, and write fully to 
 Emma, write the enigmatic farewell to the Esquarts and Lady 
 Pennon, Mary Paynham, Arthur Khodes, Whitmonby (stanch 
 in friendship, but requiring friendly touches), Henry Wilmers, 
 and Eedworth. He was reserved to the last, for very enigmat- 
 ical adieux : he would hear the whole story from Emma; must 
 be left to think as he liked. 
 
 The vague letters were excellently well composed: she was 
 going abroad, and knew not when she would return; bade her 
 friends think the best they could of her in the meantime. 
 Whitmonby was favored with an anecdote, to be read as an 
 apologue by the light of subsequent events. But the letter to 
 Emma tasked Diana. Intending to write fully, her pen com- 
 mitted the briefest sentences: the tenderness she felt for 
 Emma wakening her heart to sing that she was loved, loved, 
 and knew love at last; and Emma's foreseen antagonism to 
 the love and the step it involved rendered her pleadings in 
 exculpation a stammered confession of guiltiness, ignominious, 
 unworthy of the pride she felt for her lover. "I am like a cart- 
 ridge rammed into a gun, to be discharged at a certain hour to- 
 
DIANA OF THE CRO&SWAYS. 229 
 
 morrow," she wrote; and she sealed a letter so frigid that she 
 could not decide to post it. All day she imagined hearing a 
 distant cannonade. The light of the day following was not 
 like earthly light. Danvers assured her there was no fog in 
 London. 
 
 "London is insupportable; I am going to Paris, and shall 
 send for you in a week or two/' said Diana. 
 
 "Allow me to say, ma'am, that you had better take me with 
 you/' said Danvers. 
 
 "Are you afraid of traveling by yourself, you foolish creat- 
 urer 
 
 "No, ma'am, but I don't like any hands to undress and dress 
 my mistress but my own." 
 
 "I have not lost the art," said Diana, chafing for a magic 
 spell to extinguish the woman, to whom, immediately pity- 
 ing her, she said: "You are a good faithful soul. I think 
 you have never kissed me. Kiss me on the forehead." 
 
 Danvers put her lips to her mistress's forehead, and was 
 asked: "You still consider yourself attached to my fortunes?" 
 
 "I do, ma'am, at home or abroad: and if you will take me 
 with you. . . ." 
 
 "Not for a week or so." 
 
 "I shall not be in the way, ma'am." 
 
 They played at shutting eyes. The petition of Danvers 
 was declined; which taught her the more; and she was em- 
 boldened to say: "Wherever my mistress goes she ought to 
 have her attendant with her." There was no answer to it but 
 the refusal. 
 
 The hours crumbled slowly, each with a blow at the pas- 
 sages of retreat. Diana thought of herself as another per- 
 son, whom she observed, not counseling her, because it was a 
 creature visibly pushed by the Fates. In her own mind she 
 could not perceive a stone of solidity anywhere, nor a face 
 that had the appearance of our common life. She heard the 
 cannon at intervals. The things she said set Danvers laugh- 
 ing, and she wondered at the woman's mingled mirth and 
 stiffness. Five o'clock struck. Her letters were sent to the 
 post. Her boxes were piled from stairs to door. She read 
 the labels, for her good-bye to the hated name of Warwick. 
 Why ever adopted! Emma might well have questioned why! 
 Women are guilty of such unreasoning acts! But this was 
 the close to that chapter. The hour of six went by. Between 
 
230 DIANiA OP THE CROSSWAYS 
 
 six and seven came a sound of knocker and bell at the street- 
 door. Danvers rushed into the sitting-room to announce that 
 it was Mr. Redworth. Before a word could be mustered, Red- 
 worth was in the room. He said: "You must come with me 
 at once!'' 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 IN WHICH A DISAPPOINTED LOVER RECEIVES A MULTI- 
 TUDE OF LESSONS. 
 
 Dacier waited at the station, a good figure of a sentinel 
 over his luggage and a spy for one among the inpouring pas- 
 sengers. Tickets had been confidently taken, the private di- 
 vision of the carriages happily secured. On board the boat 
 she would be veiled. Landed on French soil, they threw off 
 disguises, breasted the facts. And those? They lightened. 
 He smarted with his eagerness. 
 
 He had come well in advance of the appointed time, for he 
 would not have had her hang about there one minute alone. 
 
 Strange as this adventure was to a man of prominent sta- 
 tion before the world, and electrical as the turning-point of a 
 destiny that he was given to weigh deliberately and farsighted- 
 ly, Diana's image strung him to the pitch of it. He looked 
 nowhere but ahead, like an archer putting his hand for his 
 arrow. 
 
 Presently he compared his watch and the terminus clock. 
 She should now be arriving. He went out to meet her and 
 do service. Many cabs and carriages were peered into, couples 
 inspected, ladies and their maids, wives and their husbands — 
 an August exodus to the Continent. Nowhere the starry she. 
 But he had a fund of patience. She was now in some block 
 of the streets. He was sure of her, sure of her courage. Tony 
 and recreancy could not go together. Now that he called her 
 Tony she was his close comrade, known; the name was a 
 caress and a promise, breathing of her as the rose of sweetest 
 earth. He counted it to be a month ere his family would have 
 wind of the altered position of his affairs, possibly a year to 
 the day of his making the dear woman his own in the eyes 
 of the world. She was dear past computation, womanly, yet 
 quite unlike the womanish women, unlike the semi-males 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS 231 
 
 courteously called dashing, unlike the sentimental. His pres- 
 ent passion for her lineaments declared her surpassingly beau- 
 tiful, though his critical taste was rather for the white statue 
 that gave no warmth. She had brains and ardor, she had grace 
 and sweetness, a playful petulancy enlivening our atmosphere, 
 and withal a refinement, a distinction, not to be classed; and 
 justly might she disHke the being classed. Her humor was 
 a perennial refreshment, a running well, that caught all the 
 colors of light; her wit studded the heavens of the recollec- 
 tion of her. In his heart he felt that it was a stepping down 
 for the brilliant woman to give him her hand: a condescen- 
 sion and an act of valor. She who always led or prompted 
 when they conversed had now in her generosity abandoned 
 the lead and herself to him, and she deserved his utmost hon- 
 oring. 
 
 But where was she? He looked at his watch, looked at the 
 clock. They said the same: ten minutes to the moment of 
 the train's departure. 
 
 A man may still afford to dwell on the charms and merits 
 of his heart's mistress while he has ten minutes to spare. The 
 dropping minutes, however, detract one by one from her in- 
 dividuality and threaten to sink her in her sex entirely. It 
 is the inexorable clock that says she is as other women. Da- 
 cier began to chafe. He was unaccustomed to the part he was 
 performing: and if she failed him? She would not. She 
 would be late, though. No, she was in time! His long legs 
 crossed the platform to overtake a tall lady veiled and dressed 
 in black. He lifted his hat; he heard an alarmed little cry 
 and retired. The clock said, Five minutes: a secret chiro- 
 mancy in addition indicating on its face the word Fool. 
 An odd word to be cast at him! It rocked the icy pillar of 
 pride in the background of his nature. Certainly standing 
 solus at the hour of eight p. m., he would stand for a fool. 
 Hitherto he had never allowed a woman the chance to pos- 
 ture him in that character. He strode out, returned, scanned 
 every lady's shape, and for a distraction watched the veilod 
 lady whom he had accosted. Her figure suggested pleasant 
 features. Either she was disappointed or she was an adept. 
 At the shutting of the gates she glided through, not without 
 a fearful look around and at him. She disappeared. Dacier 
 shrugged. His novel assimilation to the rat rabble of amatory 
 intriguers tapped him on the shoulder unpleasantly. A luck- 
 
232 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 less member of the fraternity too! The bell, the clock, and 
 the train gave him his title. "And I was ready to fling down 
 everything for the woman.'^ The trial of a superb London 
 gentleman's resources in the love-passion could not have been 
 much keener. No sign of her. 
 
 He who stands ready to defy the world, and is baffled by 
 the absence of his fair assistant, is the fool doubled, so com- 
 pletely the fool that he heads the universal shout; he does 
 not spare himself. The sole consolation he has is to revile 
 the sex. Women! women! Whom have they not made a fool 
 of! His uncle as much as any — and professing to know them. 
 Him also! the man proud of escaping their wiles. "For this 
 woman!" ... he went on saying after he had lost sight 
 of her in her sex's trickeries. The nearest he could get to her 
 was to conceive that the arrant coquette was now laughing at 
 her utter subjugation and befooling of the man popularly 
 supposed invincible. If it were known of him! The idea of 
 his being a puppet fixed for derision was madly distempering. 
 He had only to ask the affirmative of Constance Asper to-mor- 
 row! A vision of his determining to do it somewhat com- 
 forted him. 
 
 Dacier walked up and down the platform, passing his pile 
 of luggage, solitary and eloquent on the barrow. Never in 
 his life having been made to look a fool, he felt the red heat 
 of the thing; as a man who has not blessedly become ac- 
 quainted with the swish in boyhood finds his untempered 
 blood turn to poison at a blow — he cannot healthily take a 
 licking. But then it had been so splendid an insanity when 
 he urged Diana to fly with him. Any one but a woman would 
 have appreciated the sacrifice. 
 
 His luggage had to be removed. He dropped his porter a 
 lordly fee and drove home. From that astonished solitude he 
 strolled to his club. Curiosity mastering the wrath it was 
 mixed with, he left his club and crossed the Park southward 
 in the direction of Diana's house, abusing her for her in- 
 veterate attachment to the regions of Westminster. There she 
 used to receive Lord Dannisburgh; innocently, no doubt — 
 assuredly quite innocently; and her husband had quitted the 
 district. Still it was rather childish for a woman to be al- 
 ways haunting the seats of Parliament. Her disposition to 
 imagine that she was able to inspire statesmen came in for a 
 share of ridicule; for when we know ourselves to be ridicu- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 233 
 
 lous a retort in kind, unjust upon consideration, is balm. The 
 woman dragged him down to the level of common men; that 
 was the peculiar injury, and it swept her undistinguished 
 into the stream of women. In appearance, as he had proved 
 to the fellows at his club, he was perfectly self-possessed, men- 
 tally distracted and bitter, hating himself for it, snapping at 
 the cause of it. She had not merely disappointed, she had 
 slashed his high conceit of himself, curbed him at the first 
 animal dash forward, and he champed the bit with the fury 
 of a thwarted racer. 
 
 Twice he passed her house. Of course no light was shown 
 at her windows. They were scanned malignly. 
 
 He held it due to her to call and inquire whether there 
 was any truth in the report of Mrs. Warwick's illness. Mrs. 
 "Warwick! She meant to keep the name. 
 
 A maid-servant came to the door with a candle in her hand 
 revealing red eyelids. She was not aware that her mistress 
 was unwell. Her mistress had left home some time after six 
 o'clock with a gentleman. She was unable to tell him the 
 gentleman's name. William, the footman, had opened the 
 door to him. Her mistress's maid, Mrs. Danvers, had gone 
 to the play — with. William. She thought that Mrs. Danvers 
 might know who the gentleman was. The girl's eyelids 
 blinked, and she turned aside. Dacier consoled her with a 
 piece of gold, saying he would come and see Mrs. Danvers in 
 the morning. 
 
 His wrath was partially quieted by the new speculations 
 offered up to it. He could not conjure a suspicion of treachery 
 in Diana Warwick; and a treachery so foully cynical! She 
 had gone with a gentleman. He guessed on all sides; he 
 struck at walls as in complete obscurity. 
 
 The mystery of her conduct troubling his wits for the many 
 hours was explained by Danvers. With a sympathy that she 
 was at pains to show she informed him that her mistress was 
 not at all unwell, and related of how Mr. Redworth had ar- 
 rived just when her mistress was on the point of starting for 
 Paris and the Continent; because poor Lady Dunstane was 
 this very day to undergo an operation under the surgeons at 
 Copsley, and she did not wish her mistress to be present, but 
 Mr. Redworth thought her mistress ought to be there, and 
 he had gone down thinking she was there, and then came back 
 
234 DIANiA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 in hot haste to fetch her, and was just in time, as it happened, 
 by two or three minutes. 
 
 Dacier rewarded the sympathetic woman for her intelH- 
 gence, which appeared to him to have shot so far as to re- 
 quire a bribe. Gratitude to the person soothing his unwonted- 
 ly ruffled temper was the cause of the indiscretion in the 
 amount he gave. 
 
 It appeared to him that he ought to proceed to Copsley for 
 tidings of Lady Dunstane. Thither he sped by the handy 
 railway and a timely train. He reached the park-gates at 
 three in the afternoon, telling his flyman to wait. As he ad- 
 vanced by short cuts over the grass he studied the look of 
 the rows of windows. She was within, and strangely to his 
 clouded senses she was no longer Tony, no longer the decep- 
 tive woman he could in justice abuse. He and she, so close 
 to union, were divided. A hand resembling the palpable in- 
 terposition of Fate had swept them asunder. Having the 
 poorest right — ^not any — ^to reproach her, he was disarmed, he 
 felt himself a miserable intruder; he summoned his passion 
 to excuse him, and gained some unsatisfied repose of mind by 
 contemplating its devoted sincerity; which roused an effort 
 to feel for the sufferer — Diana Warwick's friend. With the 
 pair of surgeons named, the most eminent of their day, in at- 
 tendance, the case must be serious. To vindicate the breaker 
 of her pledge, his present plight likewise assured him of that, 
 and nearing the house he adopted instinctively the funeral 
 step and mood, just sensible of a novel smallness. For the 
 fortifying testimony of his passion had to be put aside, he was 
 obliged to disavow it for a simpler motive if he applied at the 
 door. He stressed the motive, produced the sentiment, and 
 passed thus naturally into hypocrisy, as lovers precipitated by 
 their blood among the crises of human conditions are often 
 forced to do. He had come to inquire after Lady Dunstane. 
 He remembered that it had struck him as a duty, on hearing of 
 her dangerous illness. 
 
 The door opened before he touched the bell. Sir Lukin 
 knocked against him and stared. 
 
 "Ah! — who? — you?" he said, and took him by the arm 
 and pressed him on along the gravel. "Dacier, are you? Red- 
 worth's in there. Come on a step, come! It's the time for us 
 to pray. Good God! There's mercy for sinners. If ever 
 there was a man! . . . But, oh, good God! she's in their 
 hands this minute. My saint is under the knife." 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 235 
 
 Dacier was hurried forward by a powerful hand. "They 
 say it lasts about five minutes, four and a half — or more! My 
 God! When they turned me out of her room she smiled to 
 keep me calm. She said: 'Dear husband' — the veriest wretch 
 and brutalest husband ever poor woman .... and a 
 saint! a saint on earth! Emmy!" Tears burst from him. 
 
 He pulled forth his watch and asked Dacier for the time. 
 
 "A minute's gone in a minute. It's three minutes and a 
 half. Come faster. They're at their work! It's hfe or death. 
 I've had death about me. But for a woman! and your wife! 
 and that brave soul! She bears it so. Women are the brav- 
 est creatures afloat. If they make her shriek it'll be only if 
 she thinks I'm out of hearing. No; I see her. She bears it! 
 They mayn't have begun yet. It may all be over! Come 
 into the wood. I must pray. I must go on my knees." 
 
 Two or three steps in the wood, at the mossed roots of a 
 beech, he fell kneeling, muttering, exclaiming. 
 
 The tempest of penitence closed with a blind look at his 
 watch, which he left dangling. He had to talk to drug his 
 thoughts. 
 
 "And mind you," said he, when he had rejoined Dacier 
 and was pushing his arm again, rounding beneath the trees 
 to a view of the house, "for a man steeped in damnable in- 
 iquity! She bears it all for me, because I begged her, for the 
 chance of her living. It's my doing — this knife! Macpherson 
 swears there is a chance. Thomson backs him. But they're 
 at her, cutting! . . . The pain must be awful — the mere 
 pain! The gentlest creature ever drew breath! And women 
 fear blood — and her own! And a head! She ought to have 
 
 married the best man alive, not a ! I can't remember her 
 
 once complaining of me — not once. A common donkey com- 
 pared to her! All I can do is to pray. And she knows the 
 beast I am, and has forgiven me. There isn't a blessed text 
 of Scripture that doesn't cry out in praise of her. And they 
 cut and hack! . . ." He dropped his head. The vehe- 
 ment big man heaved, shuddering. His lips worked fast. 
 
 "She is not alone with them, unsupported?" said Dacier. 
 
 Sir Lukin moaned for relief. He caught his watch swinging 
 and stared at it. "What a good fellow you were to come! 
 Now's the time to know your friends. There's Diana War- 
 wick, true as steel. Eedworth came on her tip-toe for the 
 Continent; he had only to mention . . . Emmy wanted 
 
236 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 to spare her. She would not have sent — wanted to spare her 
 the sight. I offered to stand by . . . Chased me out. 
 Diana Warwick's there; worth fifty of me! Dacier^ Tve had 
 my sword-blade tried by Indian horsemen, and I know what 
 true as steel means. She's there. And I know she shrinks 
 from the sight of blood. My oath on it, she won't quiver a 
 muscle! Next to my wife, you may take my word for it, 
 Dacier, Diana Warwick is the pick of living women. I could 
 prove it. They go together. I could prove it over and over. 
 She's the loyalest woman anywhere. Her one error was that 
 marriage of hers, and how she ever pitched herself into it none 
 of us can guess." After a while, he said: "Look at your 
 watch." 
 
 "Nearly twenty minutes gone." 
 
 "Are they afraid to send out word? It's that window!" 
 He covered his eyes, and muttered, sighed. He became 
 abruptly composed in appearance. "The worst of a black 
 sheep like me is, I'm such an infernal sinner, that Provi- 
 dence! . . . But both surgeons gave me their word of 
 honor that there was a chance. A chance! But it's the end 
 
 of me if Emmy . Good God! no! the knife's enough; 
 
 don't let her be killed! It would be murder. Here am I talk- 
 ing! I ought to be pra}dng. I should have sent for the par- 
 son to help me; I can't get the proper words — bellow like a 
 rascal trooper strung up for the cat. It must be twenty-five 
 minutes now. Who's alive now!" 
 
 Dacier thought of the Persian Queen crying for news of 
 the slaughtered, with her mind on her lord and husband: 
 "Who is not dead?" Diana exalted poets, and here was an 
 example of the truth of one to nature, and of the poor hus- 
 band's depth of feeling. They said not the same thing, but 
 it was the same cry, De profundis. 
 
 He saw Eedworth coming at a quick pace. 
 
 Eedworth raised his hand. Sir Lukin stopped. "He's 
 waving!" 
 
 "It's good," said Dacier. 
 
 "Speak! are you sure?" 
 
 "I judge by the look." 
 
 Eedworth stepped unfalteringly. 
 
 "It's over, all well," he said. He brushed his forehead and 
 looked sharply cheerful. 
 
 "My dear fellow! my dear fellow |" Sir Lukin grasped his 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 237 
 
 hand. "It's more than I deserve. Over? She has borne it! 
 She would have gone to heaven and left me— — ! Is she 
 safe?" 
 
 "Doing well." 
 
 "Have you seen the surgeons?" 
 
 "Mrs. Warwick." 
 
 "What did she say?" 
 
 "A nod of the head." 
 
 "You saw her?" 
 
 "She came to the stairs." 
 
 "Diana Warwick never lies. She wouldn't lie, not with a 
 nod! They've saved Emmy — do you think?" 
 
 "It looks well." 
 
 "My girl has passed the worst of it?" 
 
 "That's over." 
 
 Sir Lukin gazed glassily. The necessity of his agony was 
 to lean to the belief, at a beckoning, that Providence par- 
 doned him, in tenderness for his love of his dear adored wife. 
 He realized it, and experienced a sudden calm: testifying to 
 the positive pardon. 
 
 "Now, look here, you two fellows, listen half a moment," 
 he addressed Eedworth and Dacier. "I've been the biggest 
 scoundrel of a husband unhung, and married to a saint; and, 
 if she's only saved to me, I'll swear to serve her faithfully, 
 or may a thunderbolt knock me to perdition! and thank God 
 for his justice! Prayers are answered, mind you, though a 
 fellow may be as black as a sweep. Take a warning from me. 
 I've had my lesson." 
 
 Dacier soon after talked of going. The hope of seeing 
 Diana had abandoned him, the desire was almost extinct. 
 
 Sir Lukin could not let him go. He yearned to preach to 
 him or any one from his personal text of the sinner honor- 
 ably remorseful notwithstanding the forgiveness of Provi- 
 dence, and he implored Dacier and Redworth by turns to be 
 careful when they married of how they behaved to the sainted 
 women their wives; never to lend ear to the devil, nor to be- 
 lieve, as he had done, that there is no such thing as a devil, 
 for he had been the victim of him, and he knew. The devil, 
 he loudly proclaimed, has a multiplicity of lures, and none 
 more deadly than when he baits with a petticoat. He had 
 been hooked, and had found the devil in person. He begged 
 them urgently to keep his example in memory. By following 
 
238 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 this and that wildfire he had stuck himself in a bog — ^a com- 
 mon result with those who w^ould not see the devil at work 
 npon them; and it required his dear suffering saint to be at 
 death's doors, cut to pieces and gasping, to open his eyes. 
 But, thank Heaven, they were opened at last! Now he saw the 
 beast he was — a filthy beast! unworthy of tying his wife's 
 shoestring. No confessions could expose to them the beast he 
 was. But let them not fancy there was no such thing as an 
 active Devil about the world. 
 
 Eedworth divined that the simply sensational man abased 
 himself before Providence and heaped his gratitude on the 
 awful power in order to render it difficult for the promise of 
 the safety of his wife to be withdrawn. 
 
 He said, "There is good hope"; and drew an admonition 
 upon himself. 
 
 "Ah! my dear good Eedworth," Sir Lukin sighed from 
 his elevation of out-spoken penitence, "you will see as I do 
 some day. It is the devil, think as you like of it. When you 
 have pulled down all the institutions of the country what do 
 you expect but ruins? That Radicalism of yours has its 
 day. You have to go through a wrestle like mine to under- 
 stand it. You say, the day is fine, let's have our game. Old 
 England pays for it! Then you'll find how you love the old 
 land of your birth — the noblest ever called a nation! — with 
 your Corn Law Repeals! — eh, Dacier? You'll own it was the 
 devil tempted you. I hear you apologizing. Pray God, it 
 mayn't be too late!" 
 
 He looked up at the windows. "She may be sinking!" 
 
 "Have no fears," Redworth said; "Mrs. Warwick would 
 send for you." 
 
 "She would. Diana Warwick would be sure to send. Next 
 to my wife, Diana Warwick's . . she'd send, never fear. I 
 dread that room. I'd rather go through a regiment of sabers 
 — though it's over now. And Diana Warwick stood it. The 
 worst is over, you told me. By Heaven! women are wonder- 
 ful creatures. But she hasn't a peer for courage. I could 
 trust her — most extraordinary thing, that marriage of hers! — 
 not a soul has ever been able to explain it — trust her to the 
 death." 
 
 Redworth left them, and Sir Lukin ejaculated on the 
 merits of Diana Warwick to Dacier. He laughed scornfully: 
 "And that's the woman the world attacks for want of virtue! 
 
DIANiA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 Wh}^ a fellow hasn't a chance with her — not a chance! She 
 comes out in Mazing armor if jou unmask a hattery. I don't 
 know how it might he if she were in love with a fellow. I 
 doubt her thinking men worth the trouble. I never met the 
 man. But if she were to take fire Troy'd be nothing to it. I 
 wonder whether we might go in: I dread the house." 
 
 Dacier spoke of departing. 
 
 "No, no — wait," Sir Lukin begged him. "I was talking 
 about woman. They are the devil — or he makes most use of 
 them: and you must learn to see the cloven foot under their 
 petticoats if you're to escape them. There's no protection in 
 being in love with your wife. I married for love; I am — I 
 always have been — in love with her; and I went to the deuce. 
 The music struck up and away I waltzed. A woman like 
 Diana Warwick might keep a fellow straight, because she's 
 all round you. She's man and woman in brains; and legged 
 like a deer, and breasted like a swan, and a regular sheaf of 
 arrows in her eyes. Dark women — ah! But she has a con- 
 tempt for us, you know. That's the secret of her. Kedworth's 
 at the door. Bad? Is it bad? I never was particularly fond 
 of that house — hated it. I love it now for Emmy's sake. I 
 couldn't live in another — though I should be haunted. Bath- 
 er her ghost than nothing — though I'm an infernal coward 
 about the next world. But if you're right with religion you 
 needn't fear. What I can't comprehend in Kedworth is his 
 Eadicalism, and getting richer and richer." 
 
 "It's not a vow of poverty," said Dacier. 
 
 "He'll find they don't coalesce, or his children will. Once 
 the masses are uppermost! It's a bad day, Dacier, when we've 
 no more gentlemen in the land. Emmy backs him, so I hold 
 my tongue. To-morrow's a Sunday. I wish you were staying 
 here; I'd take you to church with me — ^we shirk it when we 
 haven't a care. It couldn't do you harm. I've heard capital 
 sermons. I've always had the good habit of going to church, 
 Dacier. Now's the time for remembering them. Ah! my dear 
 fellow, I'm not a parson. It would have been better for me 
 if I had been." 
 
 And for you, too! his look added plainly. He longed to 
 preach; he was impelled to chatter. 
 
 Redworth reported the patient perfectly quiet, breathing 
 calmly. 
 
 "Laudanum?" asked Sir Lukin. "Now there's a poison 
 
240 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 we've got to bless! And we set up in our wisdom for knowing 
 what is good for us!" 
 
 He had talked his hearers into a stupefied assent to any- 
 thing he uttered. 
 
 "Mrs Warwick would like to see you in two or three min- 
 utes; she will come down/' Eedworth said to Dacier. 
 
 "That looks well, eh? That looks bravely!" Sir Lukin 
 cried. "Diana Warwick wouldn't leave the room without a 
 certainty. I dread the look of those men; I shall have to 
 
 shake their hands! And so I do, with all my heart: only 
 
 But God bless them! But we must go in if she's coming 
 down." 
 
 They entered the house, and sat in the drawing-room, where 
 Sir Lukin took up from the table one of his wife's Latin 
 books, a Persius, bearing her marginal notes. He dropped 
 his head on it, with sobs. 
 
 The voice of Diana recalled him to the present. She coun- 
 seled him to control himself: in that case he might for one 
 moment go to the chamber-door and assure himself by the 
 silence that his wife was resting. She brought permission 
 from the surgeons and doctor, on his promise to be still. 
 
 Eedworth supported Sir Lukin tottering out. 
 
 Dacier had risen. He was petrified by Diana's face, and 
 thought of her as whirled from him in a storm, bearing the 
 marks of it. Her underlip hung for short breaths; the big 
 drops of her recent anguish still gathered on her brows; her 
 eyes were tearless, lusterless; she looked ancient in youth, 
 and distant by a century, like a tall woman of the vaults, is- 
 suing white-ringed, not of our light. 
 
 She shut her mouth for strength to speak to him. 
 
 He said: "You are not ill? You are strong?" 
 
 "I ? Oh, strong. I will sit. I cannot be absent longer than 
 two minutes. The trial of her strength is to come. If it 
 were courage we might be sure. The day is fine?" 
 
 "A perfect August day." 
 
 "I held her through it. I am thankful to Heaven it was 
 no other hand than mine. She wished to spare me. She 
 was glad of her Tony when the time came. I thought I was 
 a coward — I could have changed with her to save her; I am 
 a strong woman, fit to submit to that work. I should not 
 have borne it as she did. She expected to sink under it. All 
 her dispositions were made for death — bequests to servants and 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 241 
 
 to ... to friends; every secret liking they had thought 
 of!" 
 
 Diana clenched her hands. 
 
 "I hope!" Dacier said. 
 
 "You shall hear regularly. Call at Sir William's house 
 to-morrow. He sleeps here to-night. The suspense must last 
 for days. It is a question of vital power to bear the shock. 
 She has a mind so like a flying spirit that, just before the mo- 
 ment, she made Mr. Lanyan Thomson smile by quoting some 
 saying of her Tony's." 
 
 "Try by-and-by to recollect it/' said Dacier. 
 
 "And you were with that poor man! How did he pass the 
 terrible time? I pitied him." 
 
 "He suffered; he prayed." 
 
 "It was the best he could do. Mr. Redworth was, as he 
 always is at the trial, a pillar. Happy the friend who knows 
 him for one! He never thinks of himself in a crisis. He is 
 sheer strength to comfort and aid. They will drive you to the 
 station with Mr. Thomson. He returns to relieve Sir William 
 to-morrow. I have learnt to admire the men of the knife! No 
 profession equals theirs in self-command and beneficence. Dr. 
 Bridgenorth is permanent here." 
 
 "I have a fly, and go back immediately," said Dacier. 
 
 "She shall hear of your coming. Adieu." 
 
 Diana gave him her hand. It was gently pressed. 
 
 A wonderment at the utter change of circumstances took 
 Dacier passingly at the sight of her vanishing figure. 
 
 He left the house, feeling he dared have no personal wishes. 
 It had ceased to be the lover's hypocrisy with him. 
 
 The crisis of mortal peril in that house enveloped its in- 
 mates, and so wrought in him as to enshroud the stripped out- 
 crying husband, of whom he had no clear recollection, save 
 of the man's agony. The two women, striving against death, 
 devoted in friendship, were the sole living images he brought 
 away; they were a new vision of the world and our life. 
 
 He hoped with Diana, bled with her. She rose above him 
 high, beyond his transient human claims. He envied Red- 
 worth the common friendly right to be near her. In reflec- 
 tion, long after, her simplicity of speech, washed pure of the 
 blood-emotions, for token of her great nature, during those 
 two minutes of their sitting together, was dearer, sweeter to 
 the lover than if she had shown by touch or word that a faint 
 
 16 
 
242 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 allusion to their severance was in her mind; and this despite 
 a certain vacancy it created. 
 
 He received formal information of Lady Dunstane's prog- 
 ress to convalescence. By degrees the simply official tone of 
 Diana's letters combined, with the ceasing of them and the 
 absence of her personal charm, to make a gentleman not re- 
 markable for violence in the passion so calmly reasonable as 
 to think the dangerous presence best avoided for a time. Sub- 
 ject to fits of the passion he certainly was, but his position in 
 the world was a counseling spouse, jealous of his good name. 
 He did not regret his proposal to take the leap; he would not 
 have regretted it if taken. On the safe side of the abyss, how- 
 ever, it wore a gruesome look to his cool blood. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXYII. 
 
 CONTAINS MATTER FOR SUBSEQUENT EXPLOSION. 
 
 Among the various letters inundating Sir Lukin Dunstane 
 upon the report of the triumph of surgical skill achieved by 
 Sir William Macpherson and Mr. Lanyan Thomson, was one 
 from Lady Wathin, dated Adlands, an estate of Mr. Quintin 
 Manx's in Warwickshire, petitioning for the shortest line of 
 reassurance as to the condition of her dear cousin, and an in- 
 timation of the period when it might be deemed possible for a 
 relative to call and offer her sincere congratulations: a let- 
 ter deserving a personal reply, one would suppose. She re- 
 ceived the following, in a succinct female hand corresponding 
 to its terseness; every t righteously crossed, every i punctil- 
 iously dotted, as she remarked to Constance Asper, to whom 
 the communication was transferred for perusal: — 
 
 "Dear Lady Wathin, 
 
 "Lady Dunstane is gaining strength. The measure of her 
 pulse indicates favorably. She shall be informed in good time 
 of your solicitude for her recovery. The day cannot yet be 
 named for visits of any kind. You will receive information as 
 soon as the house is open. 
 
 "I have undertaken the task of correspondence, and beg 
 you to believe me^ 
 
 '^ery truly yours, 
 
 "D. A. Warwick." 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 243 
 
 Miss Asper speculated on the hand-writing of her rival. 
 She obtained permission to keep the letter, with the inten- 
 tion of transmitting it per post to an advertising interpreter 
 of character in caligraphy. 
 
 Such was the character of the fair young heiress, exhibited 
 by her performances much more patently than the run of a 
 quill would reveal it. 
 
 She said, "It is rather a pretty hand, I think." 
 
 "Mrs. Warwick is a practiced writer," said Lady Wathin. 
 "Writing is her profession, if she has any. She goes to nurse 
 my cousin. Her husband says she is an excellent nurse. He 
 says what he can for her. But you must be in the last ex- 
 tremity, or she is ice. His appeal to her has been totally dis- 
 regarded. Until he drops down in the street, as his doctor ex- 
 pects him to do some day, she will continue her course; and 
 even then . . ." An adventuress desiring her freedom! 
 Lady Wathin looked. She was too devout a woman to say 
 w^hat she thought. But she knew the world to be very wicked. 
 Of Mrs. Warwick her opinion was formed. She would not 
 have charged the individual creature with a criminal design; 
 all she did was to stuff the person her virtue abhorred with 
 the wickedness of the world, and that is a common process 
 in antipathy. 
 
 She sympathized, moreover, with the beautiful devotedness 
 of the wealthy heiress to her ideal of man. It had led her to 
 make the acquaintance of old Lady "Oacier, at the house in 
 town, where Constance Asper had first met Percy; Mrs. 
 Grafton Winstanley's house, r<^presenting neutral territory or 
 debatable land for Ihe occasional intercourse of the upper 
 class and the climbing in the prof-^ssions or in commerce; Mrs. 
 Grafton Winstanley being on the edge of aristocracy by birth, 
 her husband, like Mr. Quin^in Manx, a lord of fleets. Old 
 Lady Dacier's bluntness in speaking of her grandson would 
 have shocked Lady Wathin as much as it astonished, had she 
 been less of an ardent absorber of aristocratic manners. Percy 
 was plainly called a donkey, for hanging off and on with a 
 handsome girl of such expectations as Miss Asper. "But what 
 you can't do with a horse you can't hope to do with a donkey." 
 She added that she had come for the purpose of seeing the 
 heiress, of whose points of person she delivered a judgment 
 critically appreciative as a horse-fancier's on the racing turf. 
 
244 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "If a girl like that holds to it, she's pretty sure to get him at 
 last. It's no use to pull his neck down to the water." 
 
 Lady AVathin delicately alluded to rumors of an entangle- 
 ment and admiration he had, ahem! 
 
 "A married woman/' the veteran nodded. "I thought that 
 was off? She must he a clever intriguer to keep him so long." 
 
 "She is undoubtedly clever/' said Lady Wathin, and it was 
 mumbled in her hearing: "the woman seems to have a taste 
 for our family." 
 
 They agreed that they could see nothing to he done. The 
 young lady must wither, Mrs. Warwick have her day. The 
 veteran confided her experienced why to Lady Wathin: "All 
 the tales you tell of a woman of that sort are sharp sauce to 
 the palates of men." 
 
 They might be, to the men of the dreadful, gilded idle 
 class! 
 
 Mrs. "Warwick's day appeared indefinitely prolonged, judg- 
 ing by Percy Dacier's behavior to Miss Asper. Lady Wathin 
 watched them narrowly when she had the chance, a little 
 ashamed of her sex, or indignant rather at his display of court- 
 liness in exchange for her open betrayal of her preference. It 
 was almost to be wished that she would punish him by sacri- 
 ficing herself to one of her many brilliant proposals of mar- 
 riage. But such are women! — precisely because of his hold- 
 ing back he tightened the cord attaching him to her tenacious 
 heart, ^his was the truth. For the rest, he was gracefully 
 courteous; an observer could perceive the charm he exercised. 
 He talked with a ready affability, latterly with greater social 
 ease; evidently not acting the indifferent conqueror, or so con- 
 summately acting it as to mask the air. And yet he was am- 
 bitious; and he was not rich. Notoriously was he ambitious, 
 and with wealth to back him, a great entertaining house, 
 troops of adherents, he would gather influence, be propelled 
 to leadership. The vexation of a constant itch to speak to him 
 on the subject, and the recognition that he knew it all as 
 well as she, tormented Lady Wathin. He gave her comfort- 
 ing news of her dear cousin in the winter. 
 
 "'You have heard from Mrs. Warwick?" she said. 
 
 He replied, "I had the latest from Mr. Eedworth." 
 
 'TVIrs. Warwick has relinquished her post?" 
 
 *When she does you may be sure that Lady Dunstane is 
 perfectly re-established." 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 245 
 
 "She is an excellent nurse.'' 
 
 "The best, I believe." 
 
 "It is a good quality in sickness." 
 
 "Proof of good all through." 
 
 "Her husband might have the advantage of it. His state is 
 really pathetic. If she has feeling, and could only be made 
 aware, she might perhaps be persuaded to pass from the friend- 
 ly to the wifely duty." 
 
 Mr. Dacier bent his head to listen, and he bowed. 
 
 He was fast in the toils; and, though we have assurances 
 that evil cannot triumph in perpetuity, the aspect of it thron- 
 ing provokes a kind of despair. How strange if ultimately the 
 lawyers, once busy about the uncle, were to take up the case 
 of the nephew, and this time reverse the issue, by proving it! 
 For poor Mr. Warwick was emphatic on the question of his 
 honor. It excited him dangerously. He was long-suffering, 
 but with the slightest clue terrible. The unknotting of the 
 entanglement might thus happen; and Constance Asper would 
 welcome her hero still. 
 
 Meanwhile there was actually nothing to be done: a de- 
 plorable absence of motive villainy; apparently an absence of 
 the beneficent Power directing events to their proper termi- 
 nation. Lady Wathin heard of her cousin's having been re- 
 moved to Cowes in May, for light Solent and Channel voyages 
 on board Lord Esquart's yacht. She heard also of heavy 
 failures and convulsions in the City of London, quite un- 
 conscious that the Fates, or agents of the Providence she in- 
 voked to precipitate the catastrophe, were then beginning 
 cavernously^ their performance of the part of villain in Diana's 
 history. 
 
 Diana and Emma enjoyed happy quiet saiKngs under May 
 breezes on the many-colored southwestern waters, heart in 
 heart again; the physical weakness of the one, the moral weak- 
 ness of the other, creating that mutual dependency which 
 makes friendship a pulsating tie. Diana's confession had come 
 of her letter to Emma. When the latter was able to examine 
 her correspondence, Diana brought her the heap for perusal — 
 her own sealed scribble, throbbing with all the fatal might- 
 have-been, under her eyes. She could have concealed and de- 
 stroyed it. She sat beside her friend, awaiting her turn, hear- 
 ing her say at the superscription, "Your writing, Tony?" and 
 she nodded. She was asked, "Shall I read it?" She an- 
 
246 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 swered, "Eead." They were soon locked in an embrace. 
 Emma had no perception of coldness through those brief dry 
 lines; her thought was of the matter. 
 
 "The danger is over now?^^ she said. 
 
 "Yes, that danger is over now.^' 
 
 "You have weathered it?'^ 
 
 "I love him." 
 
 Emma dropped a heavy sigh in pity of her, remotely in 
 compassion for Eedworth, the loving and unbeloved. She 
 was too humane and wise of our nature to chide her Tony 
 for having her sex's heart. She had charity to bestow on 
 women; in defense of them against men and the world it was 
 a charity armed with the weapons of battle. The wife madly 
 stripped hefore the world hy a jealous husband, and left chain- 
 ed to the rock, her youth wasting, her blood arrested, her sensi- 
 bilities chilled and assailing her uiider their multitudinous 
 disguises, and for whom the world is merciless, called forth 
 Emma's tenderest commiseration; and that wife being Tony, 
 and stricken with the curse of love, in other circumstances 
 the blessing, Emma bled for her. 
 
 "But nothing desperate?" she said. 
 
 "No; you have saved me." 
 
 "I would knock at death's doors again, and pass them, to 
 be sure of that." 
 
 "Kiss me; you may be sure. I would not put my lips to 
 your cheek if there were danger of my faltering." 
 
 "But you love him." 
 
 "I do: and because I love him I will not let him be fet- 
 tered to me." 
 
 "You will see him." 
 
 "Do not imagine that his persuasions undermined your 
 Tony. I am subject to panics." 
 
 "Was it your husband?" 
 
 "I had a visit from Lady Wathin. She knows him. She 
 came as peacemaker. She managed to hint at his authority. 
 Then came a letter from him — of supplication, interpene- 
 trated with the hint: a suffused atmosphere. Upon that, un- 
 expected by me, my — let me call him so once, forgive me! — 
 lover came. Oh! he loves me, or did then. Percy! He had 
 been told that I should be claimed. I felt myself the crea- 
 ture I am — a wreck of marriage. But I fancied I could 
 serve him: — I saw golden. My vanity was the chief traitor. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 247 
 
 Cowardice of course played a part. In few things that we 
 do, where self is concerned, will cowardice not be found. And 
 the hallucination colors it to seem a lovely heroism. That was 
 the second time Mr. Eedworth arrived. I am always at Cross- 
 ways, and he rescues me; on this occasion unknowingly." 
 
 "There's a divinity, . . ." said Emma, "When I think 
 of it I perceive that Patience is our beneficent fairy god- 
 mother, who brings us our harvest in the long result." 
 
 "My dear, does she bring us our laborers' rations to sus- 
 tain us for the day?" said Diana. 
 
 "Poor fare, but enough." 
 
 "I fear I was born godmotherless." 
 
 "You have stores of patience, Tony; only now and then fits 
 of desperation." 
 
 "My nature's frailty, the gap in it: we will give it no fine 
 names — they cover our pitfalls. I am open to be carried on 
 a tide of unreasonableness when the coward cries out. But 
 I can say, dear, that after one rescue a similar temptation is 
 unlikely to master me. I do not subscribe to the world's de- 
 crees for love of the monster, though I am beginning to un- 
 derstand the dues of allegiance. We have ceased to write let- 
 ters. You may have faith in me." 
 
 "I have, with my whole soul," said Emma. 
 
 So the confession closed; and in the present instance there 
 were not any forgotten chambers to be unlocked and ran- 
 sacked for addenda confessions. 
 
 The subjects discoursed of by the two endeared the hours 
 to them. They were aware that the English of the period 
 would have laughed a couple of women to scorn for ventur- 
 ing on them, and they were not a little hostile in consequence, 
 and shot their epigrams profusely, applauding the keener that 
 appeared to score the giant bulk of their intolerant enemv — 
 who holds the day but not the morrow. Us, too, he holds for 
 the day, to punish us if we have temporal cravings. He scat- 
 ters his gifts to the abject; tossing to us rebels bare dog- 
 biscuit. But the life of the spirit is beyond his region; we 
 have our morrow in his day when we crave nought of him. 
 Diana and Emma delighted to discover that they were each 
 the rebel of their earlier and less experienced years, each a 
 member of the malcontent minor faction, the salt of earth, to 
 whom their salt must serve for nourishment, as they admitted, 
 relishing it determinedly, not without gratification. 
 
248 DIAN;A OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 Sir Liikin was busy upon his estate in Scotland. They sum- 
 moned young Arthur Rhodes to the island that he might have 
 a taste of the new scenes. Diana was always wishing for his 
 instruction and refreshment; and Redworth came to spend a 
 Saturday and Sunday with them, and showed his disgust of the 
 idle boy, as usual, at the same time consulting them on the 
 topic of furniture for the Berkshire mansion he had recently 
 bought, rather vaunting the Spanish pictures his commis- 
 sioner in Madrid was transmitting. The pair of rebels, vexed 
 by his treatment of the respectful Junior, took him for an in- 
 carnation of their enemy, and pecked and worried the man 
 astonishingly. He submitted to it like the placable giant. 
 Yes, he was a Liberal, and furnishing and decorating the house 
 in the stability of which he trusted. Why not? We must 
 accept the world as it is, try to improve it by degrees. Not so: 
 humanity will not wait for you, the victims are shrieking be- 
 neath the bricks of your enormous edifice, behind the can- 
 vas of your pictures. "But you may really say that luxurious 
 3^achting is an odd kind of insurgency," avowed Diana. "It's 
 the tangle we are in." 
 
 "It's the coat we have to wear; and why fret at it for be- 
 ing comfortable?" 
 
 "I don't half enough when I think of my shivering neigh- 
 bors." 
 
 "Money is, of course, a rough test of virtue," said Red- 
 worth. "We have no other general test." 
 
 Money! The ladies proclaimed it a mere material test; Di- 
 ana, gazing on sunny sea, with an especial disdain. And name 
 us your sort of virtue. There is more virtue in poverty. He 
 denied that. Inflexibly British, he declared money, and also 
 the art of getting money, to be hereditary virtues, deserving 
 of their reward. The reward, a superior wealth and its fruits? 
 Yes, the power to enjoy and spread enjo3rment: and let idle- 
 ness envy both! He abused idleness, and by implication the 
 dilettante insurgency fostering it. However, he was compen- 
 satingly heterodox in his view of the law's persecution of wom- 
 en; their pertinacious harpings on the theme had brought him 
 to that; and in consideration of the fact, as they looked from 
 yacht .to shore, of their being rebels participating largely in 
 the pleasures of the tyrant's court, they allowed him to si- 
 lence them and forgave him. 
 
 Thoughts upon money and idleness were in confusion with 
 
DIANA OF THE CR0SSWAY3. 249 
 
 Diana. She had a household to support in London, and she 
 was not working; she could not touch The Cantatrice while 
 Emma was near. Possibly, she again ejaculated, the Eed- 
 worths of the w^orld were right: the fruitful labors were with 
 the mattock and hoe, or the mind directing them. It was a 
 crushing invasion of materialism; so she proposed a sail to the 
 coast of France, and thither they flew, touching Cherbourg, 
 Alderney, Sark, Guernsey, and sighting the low Brittany rocks. 
 Memorable days to Arthur Rhodes. He saw perpetually the 
 one golden center in new scenes. He heard her voice, he treas- 
 ured her sayings; her gestures, her play of lip and eyelid, her 
 lift of head, lightest movements, were imprinted on him, sure- 
 ly as the heavens are mirrored in the quiet seas, firmly and 
 richly as earth answers to the sprinkled grain. For he was 
 blissfully athirst, untroubled by a hope. She gave him more 
 than she knew of: a present that kept its beating heart into 
 the future; a height of sky, a belief in nobility, permanent 
 through manhood down to age. She was his foam-born god- 
 dess of those leaping waters; differently hued, crescented, a 
 different influence. He had a happy week, and it charmed 
 Diana to hear him tell her so. In spite of Redworth, she had 
 faith in the fruit-bearing powers of a time of simple happi- 
 ness, and shared the youth's in reflecting it. Only the hap- 
 piness must be simple, that of the glass to the lovely face: no 
 straining of arms to retain, no heaving of the bosom in vacancy. 
 His poverty and capacity for pure enjoyment led her to 
 think of him almost clingingly when hard news reached her 
 from the quaint old City of London, w^hich despises poverty 
 and authorcraft and all mean adventurers, and bows to the 
 lordly merchant, the mighty financier, Redworth's incarna- 
 tion of the \drtues. Happy days on board the yacht Clarissa! 
 Diana had to recall them with effort. They who sow their 
 money for a promising high percentage have built their habi- 
 tations on the sides of the most eruptive mountain in Europe. 
 Aetna supplies more certain harvests, wrecks fewer vineyards 
 and peaceful dwellings. The greed of gain is our volcano. 
 Her wonder leapt up at the slight inducement she had received 
 to embark her money in this company; a South American 
 mine, collapsed almost wdthin hearing of the trumpets of pros- 
 pectus, after two punctual pa3^ments of the half-yearly inter- 
 est. A Mrs. Ferdinand Cherson, an elder sister of the pretty 
 Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett, had talked to her of the cost of things 
 
250 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 one afternoon at Lady Singleby's garden-party, and spoken 
 of the City as the place to help to swell an income, if only you 
 had an acquaintance with some of the chief City men. The 
 great mine was named, and the rush for allotments. She 
 knew a couple of the directors. They vowed to her that ten 
 per cent, was a trifle; the fortune to be expected out of the 
 mine was already clearly estimable at forties and fifties. For 
 their part they anticipated cent, per cent. Mrs. Cherson said 
 she wanted money, and had therefore invested in the mine. 
 It seemed so consequent, the cost of things being enormous! 
 She and her sister, Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett, owned husbands who 
 did their bidding, because of their having the brains, it might 
 be understood. Thus five thousand pounds invested would 
 speedily bring five thousand pounds per annum. Diana had 
 often dreamed of the City of London as the seat of magic; 
 and taking the City's contempt for authorcraft and the in- 
 tangible as, from its point of view, justly founded, she had 
 mixed her dream strangely with an ancient notion of the City's 
 probity. Her broker's shaking head did not damp her ardor 
 for shares to the full amount of her ability to purchase. She 
 remembered her satisfaction at the allotment; the golden 
 castle shot up from this fountain mine. She had a frenzy for 
 mines and fished in some English with smaller sums. ''I am 
 now a miner," she had exclaimed, between dismay at her 
 audacity and the pride of it. Why had she not consulted Eed- 
 worth? He would peremptorily have stopped the frenzy in 
 its first intoxicating effervescence. She, like Mrs. Cherson, 
 like all women who have plunged upon the cost of things, 
 wanted money. She naturally went to the mine. Address 
 him for counsel in the person of dupe she could not; shame 
 was a barrier. Could she tell him that the prattle of a woman, 
 spendthrift as Mrs. Cherson, had induced her to risk her 
 money? Latterly the reports of Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett were 
 not of the flavor to make association of their names agreeable 
 to his hearing. 
 
 She had to sit down in the buzz of her self-reproaches and 
 amazement at the behavior of that reputable City, shrug, 
 and recommenced the labor of her pen. Material misfortune 
 had this one advantage; it kept her from speculative thoughts 
 of her lover, and the meaning of his absence and silence. 
 
 Diana's perusal of the incomplete Cantatrice was done with 
 the cold critical eye interpreting for the public. She was 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 251 
 
 forced to write on nevertheless, and exactly in the ruts of the 
 foregoing matter. It propelled her. No longer perversely, of 
 necessity she wrote her best, convinced that the work was 
 doomed to unpopularity, resolved that it should be at least a 
 victory in style. A fit of angry cynicism now and then set her 
 composing phrases as baits for the critics to quote, condemna- 
 tory of the attractiveness of the work. Her mood was bad. 
 In addition, she found Whitmonby cool; he complained of the 
 coolness of her letter of adieu; complained of her leaving 
 London so long. How could she expect to be his Queen of the 
 London Salon if she lost touch of the topics? He made no 
 other allusion. They were soon on amicable terms, at the ex- 
 pense of flattering arts that she had not hitherto practiced. 
 But Westlake revealed unimagined marvels of the odd corners 
 of the masculine bosom. He was the man of her circle the 
 neatest in epigram, the widest of survey, an Oriental traveler, a 
 distinguished writer, and, if not personally bewitching, re- 
 markably a gentleman of the world. He was wounded; he 
 said as much. It came to this; admitting that he had no 
 claims, he declared it to be unbearable for him to see another 
 preferred. The happier was unmentioned, and Diana scraped 
 his wound by rallying him. He repeated that he asked only 
 to stand on equal terms with the others; her preference of one 
 was past his tolerance. She told him that since leaving Lady 
 Dunstane she had seen but Whitmonby, Wilmers and him. 
 He smiled sarcastically, saying he had never had a letter from 
 her, except the formal one of invitation. 
 
 "Powers of blarney! have you forsaken a daughter of 
 Erin?" cried Diana. "Here is a friend who has a craving for 
 you, and I talk sense to him. I have written to none of my set 
 since I last left London." 
 
 She pacified him by doses of cajolery new to her tongue. 
 She liked him, abhorred the thought of losing any of her 
 friends, so the cajoling sentences ran until Westlake betrayed 
 an inflammable composition, and had to be put out, and 
 smoked sullenly. Her resources were tried in restoring him 
 to reason. The months of absence from London appeared to 
 have transformed her world. Tonans was moderate. The 
 great editor rebuked her for her prolonged absence from Lon- 
 don, not so much because it discrowned her as Queen of the 
 Salon, but candidly for its rendering her service less to him. 
 Everything she knew of men and affairs was to him stale. 
 
252 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "How do you get to the secrets?'^ she asked. 
 
 "By sticking to the center of them/' he said. 
 
 "But how do you manage to be in advance and act the 
 prophet?" 
 
 "Because I will have them at any price, and that is known." 
 
 She hinted at the peccant City Company. 
 
 "I think I have checked the mining mania, as I did the rail- 
 way," said he; "and so far it was a public service. There's no 
 checking of maniacs." 
 
 She took her whipping within and without. "On another 
 occasion I shall apply to you, Mr. Tonans." 
 
 "Ah, there was a time when you could have been a treasure 
 to me," he rejoined; alluding of course to the Dannisburgh 
 days. 
 
 In dejection, as she mused on those days, and on her fool- 
 ish ambition to have a London house where her light might 
 burn, she advised herself, with Eedworth's voice, to quit the 
 house, arrest expenditure, and try for happiness by burning 
 and shining in the spirit; devoting herself, as Arthur Ehodes 
 did, purely to literature. It became almost a decision. 
 
 Percy she had still neither written to nor heard from, and 
 she dared not hope to meet him. She fancied a wish to have 
 tidings of his marriage; it would be peace, if in desolation. 
 Now that she had confessed and given her pledge to Emma, 
 she had so far broken with him as to render the holding him 
 chained a cruelty, and his reserve whispered of a rational ac- 
 ceptance of the end between them. She thanked him for 
 it; an act whereby she was instantly melted to such softness 
 that a dread of him haunted her. Coward, take up your 
 burden for armor! she called to her poor dungeoned self wail- 
 ing to have common nourishment. She knew how pro- 
 digiously it waxed on crumbs; nay, on the imagination of 
 small morsels. By way of chastising it she reviewed her life, 
 her behavior to her husband, until she sank backward to a 
 depth deprived of air and light. That life with her husband 
 was a dungeon to her nature deeper than any imposed by pres- 
 ent conditions. She was then a revolutionary to reach to the 
 breath of day. She had now to be only not a coward, and she 
 could breathe as others did. "Women who sap the moral laws 
 pull down the pillars of the temple on their sex," Emma had 
 said. Diana perceived something of her personal debt to 
 emulation. Her struggles passed into the doomed Cantatrice 
 
DIANiA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 253 
 
 occupying days and nights under pressure for immediate pay- 
 ment; the silencing of friend Debit, ridiculously calling him- 
 self Credit, in contempt of sex and conduct, on the ground that 
 he was he solely by virtue of being she. He had got a trick of 
 singing operatic solos in the form and style of the delightful 
 tenor Tellio, and they were touching in absurdity, most real in 
 unreality. Exquisitely trilled, after Tellio's manner, 
 
 "The tradesmen all beseech ye. 
 The landlord, cook, and maid, 
 Complete The Cantatrice, 
 That they may soon be paid," 
 
 provoked her to laughter in pathos. He approached, posturing 
 himself operatically, with perpetual new verses, rhymes to 
 Danvers, rhymes to Madame Sybille, the cook. Seeing Tellio 
 at one of Henry Wilmer's private concerts, Diana's lips 
 twitched to dimples at the likeness her familiar had assumed. 
 She had to compose her countenance to talk to him; but the 
 moment of song was the trial. Lady Singleby sat beside her 
 and remarked, "You have always fun going on in you!" She 
 partook of the general impression that Diana Warwick was too 
 humorous to nurse a downright passion. 
 
 Before leaving, she engaged Diana to her annual garden- 
 party of the closing season, and there the meeting with Percy 
 occurred, not unobserved. Had they been overheard, very 
 little to implicate them would have been gathered. He 
 walked in full view across the lawn to her, and they presented 
 mask to mask. 
 
 "The beauty of the day tempts you at last, Mrs. Warwick." 
 
 "I have been finishing a piece of work." 
 
 Lovely weather, beautiful dresses; agreed. Diana wore a 
 yellow robe with a black bonnet, and he commented on the 
 becoming hues; for the first time he noticed her dress! 
 Lovely women? Dacier hesitated. One he saw. But surely 
 he must admire Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett ? And who steps beside 
 her, transparently fascinated, with visage at three-quarters to 
 the rays within her bonnet? Can it be Sir LuMn Dunstane? 
 and beholding none but his charmer! 
 
 Dacier withdrew his eyes thoughtfully from the spectacle, 
 and moved to woo Diana to a stroll. She could not restrain 
 her feet; she was out of the ring of her courtiers for the mo- 
 ment. He had seized his opportunity. 
 
1S54 /^ DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "It is nearly a year!" he said. 
 
 "I have been nursing nearly all the time, doing the work I 
 do best." 
 
 "Unaltered?" 
 
 "A year must leave its marks." 
 
 "Tony!" 
 
 "You speak of a madwoman, a good eleven months dead. 
 Let her rest. Those are the conditions." 
 
 "Accepted, if I may see her." 
 
 "Honestly accepted?" 
 
 "Imposed fatally, I have to own. I have felt with you; 
 you are the wiser. But, admitting that, surely we can meet. 
 I may see you?" 
 
 "My house has not been shut." 
 
 "I respected the house. I distrusted myself." 
 
 "What restores your confidence?" 
 
 "The strength I draw from you." 
 
 One of the beauties at a garden-party is lucky to get as 
 many minutes as had passed in quietness. Diana was met 
 and captured. But those last words of Percy's renewed her 
 pride in him by suddenly building a firm faith in herself. 
 Noblest of lovers! she thought, and brooded on the little that 
 had been spoken, the much conveyed, for a proof of perfect 
 truthfulness. 
 
 The world had watched them. It pronounced them dis- 
 creet if culpable; probably cold to the passion both. Of 
 Dacier's coldness it had no doubt, and Diana's was presumed 
 from her comical flights of speech. She was given to him 
 because of the known failure of her other adorers. He in the 
 front rank of politicians attracted her with the luster of his 
 ambition; she him with her mingling of talent and beauty. 
 An astute world; right in the main, owing to perceptions 
 based upon brute nafure; utterly astray in particulars, for the 
 reason that it takes no count of the soul of man or woman. 
 Hence its glee at a catastrophe; its poor stock of mercy. 
 And when no c^astrophe follows, the prophet, for the 
 honor of the profession, must decry her as cunning beyond 
 aught yet revealed of a serpent sex. 
 
 Save for a word or two the watchman might have over- 
 heard and trumpeted his report of their interview at Diana's 
 house. After the first pained breathing, when they found 
 themselves al^one in that room where thoy had plighted their 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 255 
 
 fortunes, they talked allusively to define the terms imposed 
 on them by Reason. The thwarted step was unmentioned; 
 it was a past madness. But Wisdom being recognized they 
 could meet. It would be hard if that were denied! They 
 talked very little of their position; both understood the mu- 
 tual acceptance of it; and, now, that he had seen her and was 
 again under the spell, Dacier's rational mind, together with 
 his delight in her presence, compelled him honorably to bow 
 to the terms. Only, as these were severe upon lovers, the in- 
 nocence of their meetings demanded indemnification in fre- 
 quency. 
 
 "Come whenever you think I can be useful,'^ said Diana. 
 
 They pressed hands at parting, firmly and briefly, not for 
 the ordinary dactylogy of lovers, but in sign of the treaty of 
 amity. 
 
 She soon learnt that she had tied herself to her costly 
 household. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 DIALOGUE ROUND THE SUBJECT OF A PORTRAIT, WITH 
 SOME INDICATIONS OF THE TASK FOR DIANA. 
 
 An enamored Egeria, who is not a princess in her worldy 
 state nor a goddess by origin, has to play one of those parts 
 which strain the woman's faculties past naturalness. She 
 must never expose her feelings to her lover; she must make 
 her counsel weighty; otherwise she is little his nymph of the 
 pure wells, and what she soon may be the world will say. 
 She has also, most imperatively, to dazzle him without the 
 betrayal of artifice, where simple spontaneousness is beyond 
 conjuring. But feelings that are constrained becloud the 
 judgment besides arresting the fine jet of delivery where- 
 with the mastered lover is taught through his ears to think 
 himself prompted, and submit to be controlled, by a creature 
 super-feminine. She must make her counsel so weighty in 
 poignant praises as to repress impulses that would rouse her 
 own; and her betraying impulsiveness was a subject of re- 
 flection to Diana after she had given Percy Dacier, meta- 
 phorically, the key of her house. Only as his true Egeria 
 could she receive him. She was therefore grateful, she 
 
256 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 thanked and venerated this noblest of lovers, for his not 
 pressing to the word of love, and so strengthening her to 
 point his mind, freshen his moral energies, and inspirit him. 
 His chivalrous acceptance of the conditions of their renewed 
 intimacy was a radiant knightliness to Diana, elevating her 
 with a living image for worship — he so near once to being 
 the absolute lord of her destinies! How to reward him was 
 her sole dangerous thought. She prayed and strove that she 
 might give him of her best, to practically help him; and she 
 had reason to suppose she could do it from the visible effect 
 of her phrases. He glistened in repeating them; he had 
 fallen into the habit — before witnesses too; in the presence 
 of Miss Paynham, who had taken earnestly to the art of paint- 
 ing, and obtained her dear Mrs. Warwick's promise of a few 
 sittings for the sketch of a portrait, near the close of the sea- 
 son. "A very daring thing to attempt,'' Miss Paynham said, 
 when he Avas comparing her first outlines, and the beautiful 
 breathing features. "Even if one gets the face, the lips will 
 seem speechless to those who know her." 
 
 "If they have no recollection," said Dacier. 
 
 "I mean, the endeavor should be to represent them at the 
 moment of speaking." 
 
 "Put it into the eyes." He looked at the eyes. 
 
 She looked at the mouth. "But it is the mouth more than 
 the eyes." 
 
 He looked at the face. "Where there is character you have 
 only to study it to be sure of a likeness." 
 
 "That is the task with one who utters jewels, Mr. Dacier." 
 
 "Bright wit, I fear, is above the powers of your art." 
 
 "Still I feel it could be done. See — now — that!" 
 
 Diana's lips had opened to say, "Confess me a model model; 
 I am dissected while I sit for portrayal. I must be for a 
 moment like the frog of the two countrymen who were dis- 
 puting as to the manner of his death, when he stretched to 
 yawn, upon which they agreed that he had defeated the truth 
 for both of them. I am not quite inanimate." 
 
 "Irish countrymen," said Dacier. 
 
 "The story adds that blows were arrested, so confer the na- 
 tionality as you please." 
 
 Diana had often to divert him from a too intent perusal of 
 her features with sparkles and stories, current or invented, to 
 serve the immediate purpose. 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 257 
 
 Miss Paynham was Mrs. Warwick's guest for a fortnight, 
 and observed them together. She sometimes charitably laid 
 down her pencil and left them, having forgotten this or that. 
 They were conversing of general matters with their usual 
 crisp precision on her return, and she was rather like the 
 two countrymen, in debating whether it was excess of cool- 
 ness or discreetness; though she was convinced of their in- 
 clinations, and expected love some day to be leaping up. 
 Diana noticed that she had no reminder for leaving the room 
 when it was Mr. Eedworth present. These two had become 
 very friendly, according to her hopes; and Miss Paynham was 
 extremely solicitous to draw suggestions from Mr. Eedworth 
 and win his approval. 
 
 "Do I appear likely to catch the mouth now, do you think, 
 Mr. Eedworth?" 
 
 He remarked, smiling at Diana's expressive dimple, that 
 the mouth was difficult to catch. He did not gaze intently. 
 Mr. Eedworth was the genius of friendship; "the friend of 
 women," Mrs. Warwick had said of him. Miss Paynham 
 discovered it, as regarded herself. The portrait was his com- 
 mission to her, kindly proposed, secretly of course, to give her 
 occupation and the chance of winning a vogue with the face 
 of a famous beauty. So many, however, were Mrs. Warwick's 
 visitors, and so lively the chatter she directed, that accurate 
 sketching was difficult to an amateurish hand. Whitmonby, 
 Sullivan Smith, Westlake, Henry Wilmers, Arthur Ehodes 
 and other gentlemen, literary and military, were almost daily 
 visitors when it became known that the tedium of the beautiful 
 sitter required beguiling and there was a certainty of finding 
 her at home. On Mrs. Warwick's Wednesday numerous ladies 
 decorated the group. Then was heard such a rillet of dia- 
 logue without scandal or politics as nowhere else in Britain; 
 all vowed it subsequently; for to the remembrance it seemed 
 magical. Not a breath of scandal and yet the liveliest flow. 
 Lady Pennon came attended by Mr. Alexander Hepburn, a 
 handsome Scot, at whom Dacier shot one of his instinctive 
 keen glances before seeing that the hostess had mounted a 
 transient color. Mr. Hepburn, in settling himself on his 
 chair rather too briskly, contrived the next minute to break 
 a precious bit of China standing by his elbow; and Lady Pen- 
 non cried out, with sympathetic anguish, "Oh, my dear, what 
 a trial for you!" 
 
 17 
 
258 DlANiA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "Brittle is foredoomed," said Diana unruffled. 
 
 She deserved compliments, and would have had them if 
 she had not wounded the most jealous and petulant of her 
 courtiers. 
 
 "Then the Turk is a sapient custodian!" said Westlake, 
 vexed with her flush at the entrance of the Scot. 
 
 Diana sedately took his challenge. "We, Mr. Westlake, 
 have the philosophy of ownership." 
 
 Mr. Hepburn penitentially knelt to pick up the fragments, 
 and Westlake murmured over his head: "As long as it is we 
 who are the cracked." 
 
 "Did we not start from China ?" 
 
 "We were consequently precipitated to Stamboul." 
 
 "You try to elude the lesson." 
 
 "I remember my first pedagogue telling me so when he 
 rapped the book on my cranium." 
 
 "The mark of the book is not a disfigurement." 
 
 It was gently worded, and the shrewder for it. The mark 
 of the book, if not a disfigurement, was a characteristic of 
 Westlake's fashion of speech. Whitmonby nodded twice for 
 signification of a palpable hit in that bout, and he noted 
 within him the foolishness of obtruding the remotest allusion 
 to our personality when crossing the foils with a woman. 
 She is down on it like the lightning, quick as she is in her con- 
 tracted circle; politeness guarding her from a riposte. 
 
 Mr. Hepburn apologized very humbly, after regaining his 
 chair. Diana smiled and said, "Incidents in a drawing-room 
 are prize-shots at Dullness." 
 
 "And in a dining-room, too," added Sullivan Smith. "I 
 was one day at a dinner-party, apparently of undertakers 
 hired to mourn over the joints and the birds in the dishes, 
 when the ceiling came down, and we all sprang up merry as 
 crickets. It led to a pretty encounter and a real prize-shot." 
 
 "Does that signify a duel?" asked Lady Pennon. 
 
 " 'Twould be the vulgar title, to bring it into discredit with 
 the populace, my lady." 
 
 "Eank me one of the populace then! I hate dueling and 
 rejoice that it is discountenanced." 
 
 "The citizens, and not the populace, I think, Mr. Sullivan 
 Smith means," Diana said. "The citizen is generally right 
 in morals. My father also was against the practice when it 
 raged at its ^prettiest.' I have heard him relate a story of a 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 259 
 
 poor friend of his, who had to march out for a trifle, and said, 
 as he accepted the invitation, 'It's all nonsense!' and walking 
 to the measured length, 'It's all nonsense, you know!' and 
 when lying on the ground, at his last gasp, 'I told you it was all 
 nonsense!' " 
 
 Sullivan Smith leaned over to Whitmonby and Dacier amid 
 the ejaculations, and whispered: "A lady's way of telling the 
 story! — and excusable to her — she had to Jonah the adjective. 
 What the poor fellow said was . . . ." he murmured 
 the sixty-pounder adjective, as in the belly of the whale, to 
 rightly emphasize his noun. 
 
 Whitmonby nodded to the superior relish imparted by the 
 vigor of masculine veracity in narration. "A story for its na- 
 tive sauce piquante," he said. 
 
 "Nothing without it!" 
 
 They had each a dissolving grain of contempt for women 
 compelled by their delicacy to spoil that kind of story which 
 demands the piquant accompaniment to flavor it racily and 
 make it passable. For to see insipid mildness complacently 
 swallowed as an excellent thing, knowing the rich smack of 
 savor proper to the story, is your anecdotal gentleman's annoy- 
 ance. But, if the anecdote had supported him, Sullivan Smith 
 would have let the expletive rest. 
 
 Major Carew Mahoney capped Mrs. Warwick's tale of the 
 unfortunate duelist with another, that confessed the practice 
 absurd though he approved of it; and he cited Lord Larrian's 
 opinion: "It keeps men braced to civil conduct." 
 
 "I would not differ with the dear old lord; but no! the 
 pistol is the scepter of the bully," said Diana. 
 
 Mr. Hepburn, with the widest of eyes on her in perpetuity, 
 warmly agreed; and the man was notorious among men for 
 his contrary action. 
 
 "Most righteously our Princess Egeria distinguishes her 
 reign by prohibiting it," said Lady Singleby. 
 
 "And how," Sullivan Smith sighed heavily, "how, I'd ask, 
 are ladies to be protected from the bully?" 
 
 He was beset: "So it was all for us? all in consideration 
 for our benefit?" 
 
 He mournfully exclaimed, "Why, surely!" 
 
 "That is the funeral apology of the Eod, at the close of 
 every barbarous chapter," said Diana. 
 
 "Too fine in mind, too fat in body; that is a consequence 
 
260 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 with men, dear madam. The conqueror stands to his weapons 
 or he loses his possessions." 
 
 "Mr. Sullivan Smith jumps at his pleasure from the spe- 
 cial to the general, and will be back, if we follow him. Lady 
 Pennon. It is the trick men charge to women, showing that 
 they can resemble us." 
 
 Lady Pennon thumped her knee. "Not a bit. There's no 
 resemblance, and they know nothing of us." 
 
 "Women are a blank to them, I believe," said Whitmonby, 
 treacherously bowing; and Westlake said, "Traces of a singu- 
 lar scrawl have been observed when they were held in close 
 proximity to the fire." 
 
 "Once, on the top of a coach," Whitmonby resumed, "I 
 heard a comely dame of the period when summers are ceasing 
 threatened by her husband with a divorce for omitting to 
 put sandwiches in their luncheon basket. She made him the 
 inscrutable answer: 'Ah, poor man! you will go down 
 ignorant to your grave!' We laughed, and to this day I can- 
 not tell you why." 
 
 "That laugh was from a basket lacking provision — and I 
 think we could trace our separation to it," Diana said to Lady 
 Pennon, who replied: "They expose themselves; they get 
 no nearer to the riddle." 
 
 Miss Courtney, a rising young actress, encouraged by a smile 
 from Mrs. Warwick, remarked: "On the stage we have each 
 our parts equally." 
 
 "And speaking parts; not personae mutae." 
 
 "The stage has advanced in verisimilitude," Henry Wil- 
 mers added slyly; and Diana rejoined: "You recognize a 
 verisimilitude of the mirror when it is in advance of reality. 
 Flatter the sketch. Miss Paynham, for a likeness to be seen. 
 Probably there are still Old Conservatives who would prefer 
 the personation of us by boys." 
 
 "I don't know," Westlake affected dubiousness. "I have 
 heard that a step to the riddle is gained by a serious contem- 
 plation of boys." 
 
 "Serious?" 
 
 "That is the doubt." 
 
 "The doubt throws its light on the step!" 
 
 "I advise them not to take any leap from their step," said 
 Lady Pennon. 
 
 "It would be a way of learning that we are no wiser than 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 261 
 
 our sires; but perhaps too painful a way," Whitmonby ob- 
 served. "Poor Mountford Wilts boasted of knowing women; 
 and he married. To jump into the mouth of the enigma is 
 not to read it." 
 
 "You are figures of conceit when you speculate on us, Mr. 
 Whitmonby." 
 
 "An occupation of our leisure, my lady, for your amuse- 
 ment." 
 
 "The leisure of the humming-top, a thousand to the min- 
 ute, with the pretense that it sleeps!" Diana said. 
 
 "The sacrilegious hand to strip you of your mystery is 
 withered as it stretches," exclaimed Westlake. "The sage 
 and the devout are in accord for once." 
 
 "And, w^hichever of the two I may be, I'm one of them, 
 happy to do my homage blindfold!" Sullivan Smith waved 
 the sign of it. 
 
 Diana sent her eyes over him and Mr. Hepburn, seeing 
 Dacier. "That rosy mediaevalism seems the utmost we can 
 expect." An instant she saddened, foreboding her words to 
 be ominous, because of suddenly thirsting for a modern cry 
 from him, the silent. She quitted her woman's fit of earnest- 
 ness, and took to the humor that pleased him. "Aslauga's 
 knight, at his blind man's buff of devotion, catches the hem 
 of the tapestry and is found by his lady kissing it in a trance 
 of homage five hours' long. Sir Hilary of Agincourt, re- 
 turned from the wars to his castle at midnight, hears that 
 the chatelaine is away dancing, and remains with all his men 
 mounted in the courtyard till the gray morn brings her back! 
 Adorable! We had a flag flying in those days. Since men 
 began to fret the riddle they have hauled it down half-mast. 
 Soon we shall behold a bare pole and hats on around it. That 
 is their solution." 
 
 A smile circled at the hearing of Lady Singleby say, '^ell! 
 I am all for our own times, however literal the men." 
 
 "We are tw^o different species!" thumped Lady Pennon, 
 swimming on the theme. "I am sure I read what they write 
 of women! And their heroines!" 
 
 Lady Esquart acquiesced: "We are utter fools or horrid 
 knaves.'^ 
 
 "Nature's original hieroglyphs — which have that appear- 
 ance to the peruser," W^estlake assented. 
 
 "And when they would decipher us, and they hit on one 
 
262 DIAN'A OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 of our ^arts/ the literary pirouette they perform is memor- 
 able. Diana looked invitingly at Dacier. "But I for one 
 discern a possible relationship and a likeness." 
 
 "I think it exists — behind a curtain," Dacier replied. 
 
 "Before the era of the Nursery. Liberty to grow; inde- 
 pendence is the key of the secret." 
 
 "And what comes after the independence?" he inquired. 
 
 "Whitmonby, musing that some distraction of an earnest 
 incentive spoilt Mrs. Warwick's wit, informed him: "The 
 two different species then break their shallow armistice and 
 join the shock of battle for possession of the earth, and we 
 are outnumbered and exterminated, to a certainty. So I am 
 against independence." 
 
 "Socially a Mussulman, subject to explosions!" Diana said. 
 *'So the eternal duel between us is maintained, and men will 
 protest that they are for civilization. Dear me, I should like 
 to write a sketch of the women of the future — don't be afraid! 
 the far future. What a different earth you will see!" 
 
 And very different creatures! the gentlemen unanimously 
 surmised. Westlake described the fairer portion, no longer 
 the weaker; frightful hosts. 
 
 Diana promised him a sweeter picture, if ever she brought 
 her hand to paint it. 
 
 "You would be offered up to the English national hangman, 
 Jehoiachim Sneer," interposed Arthur Ehodes, evidently fir- 
 ing a gun too big for him, of premeditated charging, as his 
 patroness perceived; but she knew him to be smarting under 
 recent applications of the swish of Mr. Sneer, and that he 
 rushed to support her. She covered him by saying, "If he 
 has to be encountered he kills none but the cripple," where- 
 with the dead pause ensuing from a dose of outlandish speech 
 in good company was bridged, though the youth heard West- 
 lake mutter unpleasantly, "Jehoiachim," and had to endure a 
 stare of Dacier's, who did not conceal his want of comprehen- 
 sion of the place he occupied in Mrs. Warwick's gatherings. 
 
 "They know nothing of us whatever!" Lady Pennon harped 
 on her dictum. 
 
 "They put us in a case and profoundly study the captive 
 creature," said Diana, '^ut would any man understand 
 this? . . ." She dropped her voice and drew in the heads 
 of Lady Pennon, Lady Singleby, Lady Esquart, and Miss 
 Courtney: "Eeal woman's nature speaks. A maid of mine 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 263 
 
 had a ^follower.' She was a good girl; I was anxious about 
 her and asked her if she could trust him. 'Oh, yes, ma'am,' 
 she replied, *I can; he's quite like a female/ I longed to see 
 the young man, to tell him he had received the highest of 
 eulogies." 
 
 The ladies appreciatingly declared that such a tale was be- 
 yond the understandings of men. Miss Paynham primmed 
 her mouth, admitting to herself her inability to repeat such a 
 tale; an act that she deemed not "quite like a lady." She had 
 previously come to the conclusion that Mrs. Warwick, with 
 all her generous qualities, was deficient in delicate sentiment — 
 owing perhaps to her coldness of temperament. Like Dacier, 
 also, she failed to comprehend the patronage of Mr. Ehodes; 
 it led to suppositions; indefinite truly, and not calumnious 
 at all; but a young poet, rather good-looking and well built, 
 is not the same kind of wing-chick as a young actress like Miss 
 Courtney — Mrs. Warwick's latest shieldling; he is hardly en- 
 rolled for the reason that was assumed to sanction Mrs. War- 
 wick's maid in the encouragement of her follower. Miss 
 Paynham sketched on, with her thoughts in her bosom; a 
 damsel castigatingly pursued by the idea of sex as the direct 
 motive of every act of every person surrounding her; deduc- 
 tively, therefore, that a certain form of the impelling passion, 
 mild or terrible, or capricious, or it might be less pardonable, 
 was unceasingly at work among the human couples up to de- 
 crepitude — and she too frequently hit the fact to doubt her 
 gift of reading into them. Mr. Dacier was plain, and the state 
 of young Mr. Rhodes; and the Scottish gentleman was at least 
 a vehement admirer. But she penetrated the breast of Mr. 
 Thomas Redworth as well — mentally tore his mask of friend- 
 ship to shreds. He was kind indeed in commissioning her 
 to do the portrait. His desire for it, and his urgency to have 
 the features exactly given, besides the inf requency of his visits 
 of late, when a favored gentleman was present, were the be- 
 traying signs. Deductively, moreover, the lady who inspired 
 the passion in numbers of gentlemen and set herself to win 
 their admiration with her lively play of dialogue must be 
 coquettish; she could hold them only by coldness. Anec- 
 dotes, epigrams, drolleries, do not bubble to the lips of a woman 
 who is under an emotional spell; rather they prove that she 
 has the spell for casting. It suited Mr. Dacier, Miss Paynham 
 thought; it was cruel to Mr. Redworth; at whom, of all her 
 
264 DIANA OF THE CROSS WAYS. 
 
 circle, the beautiful woman looked, when speaking to him, 
 sometimes tenderly. 
 
 "Beware the silent one of an assembly!" Diana had written. 
 She did not think of her words while Miss Paynham continued 
 mutely sketching. The silent ones, with much conversation 
 around them, have their heads at work, critically perforce; 
 the faster if their hands are occupied, and the point they lean 
 to do is the pivot of their thoughts. Miss Paynham felt for 
 Mr. Redworth. 
 
 Diana was unaware of any other critic present than him 
 she sought to enliven, not unsuccessfully, notwithstanding 
 his English objection to the pitch of the converse she led 
 and a suspicion of effort to support it; — just a doubt, with 
 all her easy voluble run, of the possibility of naturalness in 
 a continuous cleverness. But he signified pleasure, and in 
 pleasing him she was happy; in the knowledge that she 
 dazzled was her sense of safety. Percy hated scandal; he 
 heard none. He wanted stirring, cheering; in her house he 
 had it. He came daily; and, as it was her wish that new 
 themes, new flights of converse, should delight him and show 
 her exhaustless, to preserve her ascendency, she welcomed 
 him without consulting the world. He w^as witness of Mr. 
 Hepburn's presentation of a costly China vase, to repair the 
 breach in her array of ornaments, and excuse a visit. Judg- 
 ing by the absence of any blow within he saw not a sign of 
 coquetry. Some such visit had been anticipated by the pres- 
 cient woman, so there was no reddening. She brought about 
 an exchange of sentences between him and her furious ad- 
 mirer, sparing either of them a glimpse of which was the 
 sacrifice to the other, amusing them both. Dacier could allow 
 Mr. Hepburn to out-sit him; and he left them, proud of his 
 absolute confidence in her. 
 
 She was mistaken in imagining that her social vivacity, 
 mixed with comradeship of the active intellect, was the 
 charm which kept Mr. Percy Dacier temperate when he well 
 knew her to distinguish him above her courtiers. Her 
 powers of dazzling kept him tame; they did not stamp her 
 mark on him. He was one of the order of highly-polished 
 men, ignorant of women, who are impressed for long terms 
 by temporary flashes, that hold them bound until a fresh 
 impression comes, to confirm or obliterate the preceding. Af- 
 fairs of the world he could treat competently; he had a head 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 265 
 
 for liigli politics and the management of men; the feminine 
 half of the world was a confusion and a vexation to his intelli- 
 gence, characterless; and one woman at last appearing de- 
 cipherable he fancied it must be owing to her possession of 
 character, a thing prized the more in women because of his 
 latent doubt of its existence. Character, that v»-as the mark 
 he aimed at; that moved him to homage as neither sparkling 
 wit nor incomparable beauty, nor the unusual combination, 
 did. To be distinguished by a woman of character (beauty 
 and wit for jewelry) was his minor ambition in life, and if 
 Fortune now gratified it he owned to the flattery. It really 
 seemed by every test that she had the quality. Since the 
 day when he beheld her by the bedside of his dead uncle, and 
 that one on the French sea-sands, and again at Copsley, 
 ghostly white out of her wrestle with death, bleeding holy 
 sweat of brow for her friend, the print of her features had 
 been on him as an index of depth of character, imposing re- 
 spect and admiration — a sentiment imperiled by her consent 
 to fly with him. Her subsequent reserve until they met — by 
 an accident that the lady, at any rate, was not responsible for 
 — proved the quality positively. And the nature of her char- 
 acter, at first suspected, vanquished him more, by comparison, 
 than her vivid intellect, which he originally, and still linger- 
 ingly, appreciated in condescension, as a singular accomplish- 
 ment, thrilling at times, now and then assailably feminine. 
 But, after her consent to a proposal that caused him retrospec- 
 tive worldly shudders, and her composed recognition of the 
 madness, a character capable of holding him in some awe was 
 real majesty, and it rose to the clear heights, with her mental 
 attributes for satellites. His tendency to despise women was 
 wholesomely checked by the experience to justify him in say- 
 ing. Here is a worthy one! She was health to him, as well as 
 trusty counsel. Furthermore, where he respected he was a 
 governed man, free of the common masculine craze to scale 
 fortresses for the sake of lowering flags. Whilst under his 
 impression of her character he submitted honorably to the 
 ascendency of a lady whose conduct suited him and whose 
 preference flattered; whose presence was very refreshing; 
 whose letters were a stimulant. Her letters were really run- 
 ning well-waters, not a lover's delusion of the luminous mind 
 of his lad}^ They sparkled in review and preserved their 
 integrity under critical analysis. The reading of them hur- 
 
266 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 ried him in pursuit of her from house to house during the 
 autumn; and, as she did not hint at the shadow his coming 
 cast on her, his conscience was easy. Regarding their future, 
 his political anxieties were a mountainous defile, curtaining 
 the outlook. They met at Lockton, where he arrived after a 
 recent consultation with his chief, of whom, and the murmurs 
 of the Cahinet, he spoke to Diana openly, in some dejection. 
 
 *^They might see he has heen breaking with his party for 
 the last four years," she said. "The plunge to be taken is 
 tremendous." 
 
 "But will he? He appears too despondent for a header." 
 
 "We cannot dance on a quaking floor." 
 
 "No; it's exactly that quake of the floor which gives ^much 
 qualms' to me as well," said Dacier. 
 
 "A treble Neptune's power!" she rejoined, for his particular 
 delectation. "Enough if he hesitates. I forgive him his 
 nausea. He awaits the impetus, and it will reach him, and 
 soon. He will not wait for the mob at his heels I am certain. 
 A Minister who does that is a post, and goes down with the 
 first bursting of the dam. He has tried compromise and dis- 
 covered that it does not appease the Fates; is not even a make- 
 shift-m ending at this hour. He is a man of nerves, very 
 sensitively built; as quick — quicker than a woman, I could 
 almost say — to feel the tremble of the air — forerunner of im- 
 perative changes." 
 
 Dacier brightened fondly. "You positively describe him; 
 paint him to the life, without knowing him!" 
 
 "I have seen him; and, if I paint, whose are the colors?" 
 
 "Sometimes I repeat you to him, and I get all the credit," 
 said Dacier. 
 
 "I glow with pride to think of speaking anything that you 
 repeat," said Diana, and her eyes were proudly lusterful. 
 
 Their love was nourished on these mutual flatteries. Thin 
 food for passion! The innocence of it sanctioned the meet- 
 ings and the appointments to meet. When separated they 
 were interchanging letters, formally worded in the apostrophe 
 and the termination, but throbbingly full; or Diana thought 
 so of Percy's letters with grateful justice; for his manner of 
 opening his heart in amatory correspondence was to con- 
 fide important secret matters, up to which mark she sprang 
 to reply in counsel. He proved his affection by trusting her; 
 his respect by his tempered style: — "A Greenland style of 
 
DIAN'A OF THE CROSSWAYS. 267" 
 
 writing/' she had said of an unhappy gentleman's epistolary 
 compositions resembling it; and now the same official bald- 
 ness was to her mind Italianly rich; it called forth such 
 volumes. 
 
 Flatteries that were thin food for passion appeared the 
 simplest exchanges of courtesy; and her meetings with her 
 lover, judging by the nature of the discourse they held, so 
 consequent to their joint interest in the great crisis antici- 
 pated, as to rouse her indignant surprise and a turn for down- 
 right rebellion when the Argus world signified the fact of its 
 having one eye, or more, wide open. 
 
 Debit and Credit, too, her buzzing familiars, insisted on an 
 audience at each ear, and at the house-door, on her return to 
 London. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 SHOWS THE APPROACHES OF THE POLITICAL AND THE 
 DOMESTIC CRISIS IN COMPANY. 
 
 There was not much talk of Diana between Lady Dunstane 
 and her customary visitor Tom Redworth now. She was 
 shy in speaking of the love-stricken woman, and more was in 
 his mind for thought than for speech. She sometimes won- 
 dered how much he might know, ending with the reflection 
 that little passing around was unknown to him. He had to 
 shut his mind against thought, against all meditation upon 
 Mrs. Warwick; it was based scientifically when speculating 
 and calculating, on the material element — a talisman. Men 
 and women crossing the high seas of life he had found most 
 readable under that illuminating inquiry — as to their means. 
 An inspector of seaworthy ships proceeds in like manner. 
 Whence could the money come? He could not help the bent 
 of his mind; but he could avoid subjecting her to the talis- 
 manic touch. The girl at the Dublin ball, the woman at the 
 fire-grate of The Crossways, both in one w^ere his Diana. Now 
 and then, hearing an ugly whisper, his manful sympathy with 
 the mere woman in her imprisoned liberty defended her des- 
 perately from charges not distinctly formulated within him: — 
 ''She's not made of stone." That was a height of self-abne- 
 gation to shake the poor fellow to his roots; but, then, he had 
 
268 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 no hopes of his own; and he stuck to it. Her choice of a 
 man like Dacier, too, of whom Redworth judged highly, 
 showed nobility. She irradiated the man; but no baseness 
 could be in such an alliance. If allied, they were bound to- 
 gether for good. The tie — supposing a villain world not 
 wrong — was only not the sacred tie because of impediments. 
 The tie! — he deliberated, and said stoutly. No. ^len of Red- 
 worth's nature go through sharp contests, though the dura- 
 tion of them is short; and the tussle of his worship of this 
 woman with the materialistic turn of his mind was closed by 
 the complete shutting up of the latter under lock and bar; 
 BO that a man, very little of an idealist, was able to sustain her 
 in the pure imagination — where she did almost belong to him. 
 She was his, in a sense, because she might have been his — 
 but for an incredible extreme of folly. The dark ring of the 
 eclipse cast bv some amazing foolishness round the shining 
 crescent perpetually in secret claimed the whole sphere of 
 her, by what might have been, while admitting her lost to 
 him in fact. To Thomas Redworth's mind the lack of perfect 
 sanity in his conduct at any period of manhood was so entirely 
 past belief that he flew at the circumstances confirming the 
 charge, and had wrestles with the angel of reality, who did 
 but set him dreaming backward, after flinging him. 
 
 He heard at Lady Wathin's that Mrs. Warwick was in town 
 for the winter. "Mr. Dacier is also in town," Lady Wathin 
 said, with an acid indication of the needless mention of it. 
 "We have not seen him." She invited Redworth to meet a 
 few friends at dinner. "I think you admire Miss Asper; in 
 my idea a very saint among young women; — and you know 
 what the young women of our days are. She will be present. 
 She is, you are aware, England's greatest heiress. Only yes- 
 terday, hearing of that poor man, Mr. Warwick's desperate at- 
 tack of illness — heart! — and of his having no relative or friend 
 to soothe his pillow, — he is lying in absolute loneliness, — she 
 oifered to go and nurse him! Of course it could not be done. 
 It is not her place. The beauty of the character of a dear in- 
 nocent young girl, with every gratification at command, who 
 could make the offer, strikes me as unparalleled. She was per- 
 fectly sincere — she is sincerity. She asked at once, Where is 
 he? She wished me to accompany her on a first visit. I saw 
 a tear." 
 
 Redworth had called at Lady Wathin's for information of 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 269 
 
 the state of Mr. Warwick, concerning which a rumor was 
 abroad. No stranger to the vagrant compassionateness of 
 sentimentalists — rich, idle, conscience-pricked or praise-catch- 
 ing — he was unmoved by the tale that Miss Asper had pro- 
 posed to go to Mr. Warwick's sick-bed in the uniform of a 
 Sister of Charity: — "Speaking French!" Lady W^athin ex- 
 claimed; and his head rocked as he said, "An EngUshman 
 would not be likely to know better." 
 
 "She speaks exquisite French — all European languages, Mr. 
 Eed worth. She does not pretend to wit. To my thinking, 
 depth of sentiment is a far more feminine accomplishment. 
 It assuredly will be found a greater treasure." 
 
 The modest man (modest in such matters) was led by de- 
 grees to fancy himself sounded regarding Miss Asper; a piece 
 of sculpture glacially decorative of the domestic mansion in 
 person, to his thinking; and as to the nature of it — not a 
 Diana, with all her faults! 
 
 If Diana had any faults, in a world and a position so heavily 
 against her! He laughed to himself, when alone, at the 
 neatly implied bitter reproach cast on the wife by the for- 
 saken young lady, who proposed to nurse the abandoned hus- 
 band of the woman bereaving her of the man she loved. Sen- 
 timentalists enjoy these tricks, the conceiving or the doing 
 of them — the former mainly, which are cheaper and equally 
 effective. Miss Asper might be deficient in wit; this was a 
 form of practical wit, occasionally exhibited by creatures act- 
 ing on their instincts. Warwick he pitied, and he put com- 
 pulsion on himself to go and see the poor fellow, the sub- 
 ject of so sublime a generosity. Mr. Warwick sat in an arm- 
 chair, his legs out straight on the heels, his jaw dragging 
 hollow cheeks, his hands loosely joined; improving in health, 
 he said. A demure woman of middle age was in attendance. 
 He did not speak of his wife. Three times he said discon- 
 nectedly, "I hear reports," and his eyelids worked. Redworth 
 talked of general affairs, without those consolatory efforts, 
 useless between men, which are neither medicine nor good 
 honest water: — he judged by personal feelings. In conse- 
 quence he left an invalid the sourer for his visit. 
 
 Next day he received a briefly-worded summons from Mrs. 
 Warwick. 
 
 Crossing the Park on the line to Diana's house he met 
 Miss Paynham, who grieved to say that Mrs. Warwick could 
 
270 DIANA OP THE CROSS WAYS. 
 
 not give her a sitting; and, in a still mournfuller tone, imag- 
 ined he would iind her at home, and alone by this time. "I 
 left no one but Mr. Daeier there/' she observed. 
 
 "Mrs. Warwick will be disengaged to-morrow, no doubt," 
 he said consolingly. 
 
 Her head performed the negative. "They talk politics, 
 and she becomes animated, loses her pose. I will persevere, 
 though I fear I have undertaken a task too much for me." 
 
 "I am deeply indebted to you for the attempt." Redworth 
 bowed to her and set his face to the Abbey towers, which 
 wore a different aspect in the smoked gray light since his two 
 minutes of colloquy. He had previously noticed that meet- 
 ings with Miss Paynham produced a similar effect on him, a 
 not so very impressionable man. And how was it done? She 
 told him nothing he did not know or guess. 
 
 Diana was alone. Her manner, after the greeting, seemed 
 feverish. She had not to excuse herself for abruptness when 
 he heard the nature of the subject. Her counselor and friend 
 was informed, in feminine style, that she had requested him to 
 call, for the purpose of consulting him with regard to a matter 
 she had decided upon; and it was, the sale of The Crossways. 
 She said that it would have gone to her heart once; she sup- 
 posed she had lost her affection for the place, or had got the 
 better of her superstitions. She spoke lamely as well as 
 bluntly. The place was hers, she said; her own property. 
 Her husband could not interdict a sale. 
 
 Redworth addressed himself to her smothered antagonism. 
 "Even if he had rights, as they are termed .... I 
 think you might count on their not being pressed." 
 
 "I have been told of illness." She tapped her foot on the 
 floor. 
 
 "His present state of health is unequal to his ordinary 
 duties." 
 
 "Emma Dunstane is fully supplied with the latest intelli- 
 gence, Mr. Redworth. You know the source." 
 
 "I mention it simply . . . ." 
 
 "Yes, yes. What I have to protest is, that in this respect 
 I am free. The law has me fast, but leaves me its legal view 
 of my small property. I have no authority over me. I can do 
 as I please in this, without a collision, or the dread of one. 
 It is the married woman's perpetual dread when she ventures 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 271 
 
 a step. Your law originally presumed her a China-footed 
 animal. And more, I have a claim for maintenance." 
 
 She crimsoned angrily. 
 
 Eedworth showed a look of pleasure hard to understand. 
 "The application would be sufficient, I fancy/' he said. 
 
 "It should have been offered." 
 
 "Did you not decline it?" 
 
 "I declined to apply for it. I thought But, Mr. 
 
 Eedworth, another thing concerning us all; I want very much 
 to hear your ideas of the prospects of the League — ^because 
 I know you have ideas. The leaders are terrible men; they 
 fascinate me. They appear to move with an army of facts. 
 They are certainly carrying the country. I am obliged to 
 think them sincere. Common agitators would not hold to- 
 gether as they do. They gather strength each year. If their 
 statistics are not illusory — an army of phantoms instead of one 
 of facts — and they knock at my head without admission, I 
 have to confess — they must win." 
 
 "Ultimately, it is quite calculable that they will win/^ said 
 Eedworth; and he was led to discourse of rates and duties and 
 prohibitive tariffs to a woman surprisingly athirst, curious 
 for every scrap of intelligence relating to the power, organiza- 
 tion, and schemes of the League. "Common sense is the 
 secret of every successful civil agitation," he said. "Eap it 
 unremittingly on crowds of the thickest of human heads, and 
 the response comes at last to sweep all before it. You may 
 reckon that the country will beat the landlords — for that is our 
 question. Is it one of your political themes ?" 
 
 "I am not presumptuous to such a degree — a poor scholar," 
 Diana replied. "Women striving to lift their heads among 
 men deserve the sarcasm." 
 
 He denied that any sarcasm was intended, and the lesson 
 continued. When she had shaped in her mind some portion 
 of his knowledge of the subject she reverted casually to her 
 practical business. Would he undertake to try to obtain a 
 purchaser of The Crossways, at the price he might deem rea- 
 sonable? She left the price entirely to his judgment. And, 
 now she had determined to part with the old place, the sooner 
 the better! She said that smiling; and Eedworth smiled, out- 
 wardly and inwardly. Her talk of her affairs was clearer to 
 him than her curiosity for the mysteries of the League. He 
 gained kind looks besides warm thanks by the proniise to seek 
 
272 DIAN\A OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 a purchaser; especially by his avoidance of prying queries. 
 She wanted just this excellent automaton factotum; and she 
 referred him to Mr. Braddock for the title-deeds, et cetera — 
 the chirping phrase of ladies happily washing their hands of 
 the mean details of business. 
 
 "How of your last work?^^ he asked her. 
 
 Serenest equanimity rejoined, "As I anticipated, it is not 
 popular. The critics are of one mind with the public. You 
 may have noticed, they rarely flower above that rocky sur- 
 face. The Cantatrice sings them a false note. My next will 
 probably please them less." 
 
 Her mobile lips and brows shot the faint upper wreath of 
 a smile hovering. It was designed to display her philosophy. 
 
 "And what is the name of your next ?" said he. 
 
 "I name it ^The Man of Two Minds,' if you can allow that 
 to be in nature.'' 
 
 "Contra-distinguished from the woman?" 
 
 "Oh! you must first believe the woman to have one." 
 
 "You are working on it ?" 
 
 "By fits. And I forgot, Mr. Redworth: I have mislaid my 
 receipts, and must ask you for the address of your wine- 
 merchant; — or, will you? Several dozen of the same wines. 
 I can trust him to be in awe of you, and the good repute of my 
 table depends on his honesty." 
 
 Redworth took the definite order for a large supply of 
 wine. 
 
 She gave him her hand: a lost hand, dear to hold, needing 
 to be guided, he feared. For him, it was merely a hand, cut 
 off from the wrist; and he had performed that executive part. 
 A wiser man would now have been the lord of it. . . . So 
 he felt, with his burning wish to protect and cherish the be- 
 loved woman, while saying: "If we find a speedy bidder for 
 The Crossways you will have to thank our railways." 
 
 "You!" said Diana, confident in his ability to do every- 
 thing of the practical kind. 
 
 Her ingenuousness tickled him. He missed her comic 
 touches upon men and things, but the fever shown by her 
 manner accounted for it. 
 
 As soon as he left her she was writing to the lover who 
 had an hour previously been hearing her voice, the note of 
 her theme being Party and how to serve it, when to sacrifice 
 it to the country. She wrote caroling bars of the Puritani 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 273 
 
 marches; and such will passion do, that her choice of music 
 was quite in harmony with her theme. The martially-amor- 
 ous melodies of Italian opera in those days fostered a passion 
 challenged to intrepidity from the heart of softness; gilding 
 at the same time, and putting warm blood even into dull arith- 
 metical figures which might be important to her lover, her 
 hero fronting battle. She condensed Redworth's information 
 skillfully, heartily giving it and whatever she had imbibed, as 
 her own, down to the remark: "Common sense in questions of 
 justice is a weapon that makes way into human heads, and wins 
 the certain majority, if we strike with it incessantly.^^ Whether 
 anything she wrote was her own mattered little: the savor of 
 Percy's praise, which none could share with her, made it in- 
 stantly all her own. Besides, she wrote to strengthen him; she 
 naturally laid her friends and the world under contribution; 
 and no other sort of writing was possible. Percy had not a 
 common interest in fiction; still less for high comedy. He 
 liked the broad laugh when he deigned to open books of that 
 sort; puns and strong flavors and harlequin surprises; and 
 her work would not admit of them, however great her wil- 
 lingness to force her hand for his amusement, consequently 
 her inventiveness deadened. She had to cease whipping it. 
 "My poor old London cabhorse of a pen shall go to grass!" 
 she sighed, looldng to the sale of The Crossways for money — 
 looking no further. 
 
 Those marshaled battalions of Debit and Credit were in 
 hostile order, the weaker simply devoted to fighting for de- 
 lay, when a winged messenger bearing the form of old Mr. 
 Braddock descended to her with the reconciling news that a 
 hermit bachelor, an acquaintance of Mr. Eedworth's — ^both 
 of whom wore a gloomy hue in her mind immediately — had 
 offered a sum for the purchase of The Crossways. Consider- 
 ing the out-of-the-way district, Mr. Braddock thought it an 
 excellent price to get. She thought the reverse, but confessed 
 that double the sum would not have altered her opinion. 
 Double the sum scarcely counted for the service she required 
 of it for much more than a year. The money was paid short- 
 ly after into her bank, and then she enjoyed the contemptuous 
 felicity of tossing meat to her lions, tigers, wolves, and jack- 
 als, who, but for the fortunate intervention, would have been 
 feeding on her. These menagerie beasts of prey were the 
 lady's tradesmen — Debit's hungry brood. She had a rapid 
 
 18 
 
274 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 glimpse of a false position in regarding that legitimate band 
 so scornfully: another glimpse likewise of a day to come 
 when they might not be stopped at the door. She was running 
 a race with something; — with what? It was unnamed; it 
 ran in a shroud. 
 
 At times she surprised her heart violently beating when 
 there had not been a thought to set it in motion. She traced 
 it once to the words, ^next year/ incidentally mentioned. 
 ^Free' was a word that checked her throbs, as at a question of 
 life or death. Her solitude, excepting the hours of sleep, if 
 then, was a time of irregular breathing. The something un- 
 named, running beside her, became a dreadful familiar; the 
 race between them past contemplation for ghastliness. "But 
 this is your Law!^' she cried to the world, while blinding her 
 eyes against a peep of the shrouded features. 
 
 Singularly, she had but to abandon hope and the shadowy 
 figure vanished, the tragic race was ended. How to live and 
 think, and not to hope: the slave of passion had this prob- 
 lem before her. 
 
 Other tasks were supportable, though one seemed hard at 
 moments and was not passive; it attacked her. The men and 
 women of her circle derisively, unanimously, disbelieved in an 
 innocence that forfeited reputation. Women were compli- 
 mentarily assumed to be not such gaping idiots. And, as the 
 weeks advanced, a change came over Percy. The gentleman 
 had grown restless at covert congratulations, hollow to his 
 knowledge, however much caressing vanity, and therefore se- 
 cretly a wound to it. One day, after sitting silent, he bluntly 
 proposed to break "this foolish trifling"; just in his old man- 
 ner, though not so honorably — not very definitely either. Her 
 hand was taken. 
 
 '1 feared that dumbness!" Diana said, letting her hand 
 go, but keeping her composure. "My friend Percy, I am 
 not a lion-tamer, and, if you are of those animals, we break 
 the chapter. Plainly, you think that where there appears 
 to be a choice of fools the woman is distinctly designed for the 
 person. Drop my hand, or I shall repeat the fable of the Goose 
 with the Golden Eggs." 
 
 ^Tables are applicable only in the schoolroom," said he; 
 and he ventured on "Tony!" 
 
 "I vowed an oath to my dear Emma — as good as to the 
 heavens! and that of itself would stay me from being insane 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. /275. 
 
 U^ 
 again." She released herself. "Signer Percy, you teach me 
 to suspect you of having an idle ^7ish to pluck your play- 
 thing to pieces: — to boast of it? Ah! my friend, I fancied 
 I was of more value to you. You must come less often; even 
 to not at all, if you are one of those idols with feet of clay 
 which leave the print of their steps in a room; or fall and 
 crush the silly idolizer." 
 
 "But surely you know . . '^ said he. "We can't have to 
 wait long." He looked full of hopeful meanings. 
 
 "A reason! . . '' She kept down her breath. A long- 
 drawn sigh followed, through parted lips. She had a sensa- 
 tion of horror. "And I cannot propose to nurse him— Emma 
 will not hear of it," she said. "I dare not. Hypocrite to that 
 extreme? Oh, no! But I must hear nothing. As it is, I 
 am haunted. Now let this pass. Tony me no Tonies; I am 
 atony to cuch whimpering business now we are in the van of 
 the struggle. All round us it sounds like war. Last night I 
 had Mr. Tonans dining here; he wished to meet you; and 
 you must have a private meeting with Mr. Whitmonby — he 
 will be useful; others as well. You are wrong in affecting 
 contempt of the Press. It perches you on a rock; but the 
 swimmer in politics knows what draws the tides. Your own 
 people, your set, your class, are a drag to you, like inherited 
 superstitions to the wakening brain. The greater the glory! 
 For you see the lead you take? You are saving your class. 
 They should lead, and will, if they prove worthy in the crisis. 
 Their curious error is to believe in the instability of a moau- 
 mental position." 
 
 "Perfectly true!" cried Dacier; and the next minute, heated 
 by approbation, was begging for her hand earnestly. She 
 refused it. 
 
 "But you say things that catch me!" he pleaded. "Remem- 
 ber, it was nearly mine. It soon will be mine. I heard yes- 
 terday from Lady Wathin . . well, if it pains you!" 
 
 "Speak on," said Diana, resigned to her thirsty ears. 
 
 "He is not expected to last through the autumn." 
 
 "The calculation is hers?" 
 
 "Not exactly: — judging from the symptoms." 
 
 Diana flashed a fiery eye into Dacier's and rose. She was 
 past danger of melting, with her imagination darkened by the 
 funeral image: but she craved solitude, and had to act the 
 callous to dismiss him. 
 
276 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "Good. Enough for the day. Now leave me, if you please. 
 When we meet again, stifle that raven's croak. I am not a 
 ^Sister of Charity/ but neither am I a vulture hovering for 
 the horse in the desert to die. A poor simile! — ^when it is 
 my own and not another's breath that I want. Nothing in 
 nature, only gruesome German stories, will fetch comparisons 
 for the yoke of this law of yours. It seems the nightmare dream 
 following an ogre's supper." 
 
 She was not acting the shiver of her frame. 
 
 To-morrow was open to him, and prospect of better fortune, 
 so he departed, after squeezing the hand she ceremoniously ex- 
 tended. 
 
 But her woman's intuition warned her that she had not 
 maintained the sovereign impression which was her security. 
 And hope had become a flame in her bosom that would no 
 longer take the common extinguisher. The race she ran was 
 with a shrouded figure no more, but with the figure of the 
 shroud; she had to summon paroxysms of a pity hard to feel, 
 images of sickness, helplessness, the vaults, the last human 
 silence — for the stilling of her passionate heart. And, when 
 this was partly effected, the question. Am I going to live? 
 renewed her tragical struggle. Who was it under the vaults, 
 in the shroud, between the planks? and with human sensi- 
 bility to swell the horror! Passion whispered of a vaster sor- 
 row needed for herself; and the hope conjuring those fright- 
 ful perplexities was needed to soothe her. She pitied the man, 
 but she was an enamored woman. Often of late she had been 
 sharply stung, relaxed as well, by the observations of Danvers 
 assisting at her toilet. Had she beauty and charm, beauty and 
 rich health in the young summer blooming of her days? and 
 all doomed to waste? No insurgency of words arose in de- 
 nunciation of the wrong done to her nature. An undefined 
 heavy feeling of wrong there was, just perceptive enough to 
 let her know, without grave shaming, that one or another 
 must be slain for peace to come; for it is the case in which 
 the world of the Laws overloading her is pitiless to women, 
 deaf past ear-trumpets, past intercession; detesting and re- 
 viling them for a feeble human cry, and for one apparent step 
 of revolt piling the pelted stones on them. It will not dis- 
 criminate shades of hue, it massacres all the shadowed. They 
 are honored, after a fashion, at a certain elevation. Descencl- 
 ing from it, and purely to breathe common air (thus in her 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 277 
 
 mind) they are scourged and outcast. And alas! the very 
 pleading for them excites a sort of ridicule in their advocate. 
 How ? She was utterly, even desperately, nay personally, earn- 
 est, and her humor closed her lips; though comical views of 
 the scourged and outcast coming from the opposite party — 
 the huge bully world — she would not have tolerated. Diana 
 raged at a prevailing strength on the part of that huge bully 
 world, which seemed really to embrace the atmosphere. Emma 
 had said: "The rules of Christian society are a blessed Gov- 
 ernment for us women. We owe it so much that there is not 
 a brick of the fabric we should not prop." Emma's talk of 
 obedience to the Laws, being Laws, was repeated by the rebel, 
 with an involuntary unphrased comparison of the vessel in 
 dock and the vessel at sea. 
 
 When Dacier next called to see Mrs. Warwick he heard that 
 she had gone to Copsley for a couple of weeks. The lesson 
 was emphasized by her not writing: and was it the tricky sex, 
 or the splendid character of the woman which dealt him this 
 punishment? Knowing how much Diana forfeited for him, 
 he was moved to some enthusiasm, despite his inclination to 
 be hurt. 
 
 She, on her return to London, gained a considerable in- 
 crease of knowledge as to her position in the eye of the 
 world; and, unlike the result of her meditations derived from 
 the clamoring tradesmen, whom she could excuse, she was 
 neither illuminated nor cautioned by that dubious look; she 
 conscientiously revolted. Lady Pennon hinted a word for 
 her government. "A good deal of what you so capitally call 
 'Green tea talk' is going on, my dear." Diana replied, without 
 pretending to misunderstand: "Gossip is a beast of prey 
 that does not wait for the death of the creature it devours. 
 They are welcome to my shadow, if the liberty I claim casts 
 one, and it feeds them." To which the old lady rejoined: "Oh! 
 I am with you through thick and thin. I presented you at 
 Court, and I stand by you. Only, walk carefully. Women 
 have to walk with a train. You are too famous not to have 
 your troops of watchers." 
 
 "But I mean to prove," said Diana, "that a woman can 
 walk with her train independent of the common reserves and 
 artifices." 
 
 "Not on highways, my dear!" 
 
278 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 Diana, praising the speaker, referred the whole truth in 
 that to the material element of her metaphor. 
 
 She was more astonished hy Whitmonhy's candid chiding; 
 but with him she could fence, and men are easily diverted. 
 Sh3 had sent for him, to bring Mm and Percy Dacier to- 
 gether to a conference. Unaware of the project he took the 
 opportunity of their privacy to speak o:f the great station open 
 to her in London being imperiled; and he spoke of "tongues," 
 and ahem! A very little would have induced him to fill that 
 empty vocable with a name. 
 
 She had to pardon the critic in him for an unpleasant re- 
 view of her hapless "Cantatrice;" and, as a means of evasion, 
 she mentioned the poor book and her slaughter of the heroine, 
 that he had complained of. 
 
 "I killed her; I could not let her live. You were unjust 
 in accusing the authoress of heartlessness.'^ 
 
 "If I did, I retract," said he. "She steers too evidently 
 from the center of the vessel. She has the organ in excess." 
 
 "Proof that it is not squandered." 
 
 "The point concerns direction." 
 
 "Have I made so bad a choice of my friends?" 
 
 "It is the common error of the sprightly to suppose that in 
 parrying a thrust they blind our eyes." 
 
 "The world sees always what it desires to see, Mr. Whit- 
 monby." 
 
 "The world, my dear Mrs. Warwick, is a blundering ma- 
 chine upon its own affairs, but a cruel sleuth-hound to rouse 
 in pursuit." 
 
 "So now you have me chased by sight and scent. And if 
 I take wing?" 
 
 "Shots! volleys! You are lawful game. The choice you 
 have made of your friends should oblige you to think of them." 
 
 "I imagine I do. Have I offended any, or one?" 
 
 "I will not say that. You know the commotion in a French 
 kitchen when the guests of the house declined a particular 
 dish furnished them by command. The cook and his crew 
 were loyal to their master, but, for the love of their art, they 
 sent him notice. It is ill serving a mad sovereign." 
 
 Diana bowed to the compact little apologue. 
 
 "I will tell you another story, traditional in our family from 
 my great-grandmother, a Spanish woman," she said. "A cav- 
 alier serenaded his mistress, and rascal mercenaries fell upon 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 279 
 
 him before he could draw sword. He battered his guitar on 
 their pates till the lattice opened with a cry, and startled them 
 to flight. 'Thrice blessed and beloved!' he called to her above, 
 in reference to the noise, 'it was merely a diversion of the ac- 
 companiment.' Now there was loyal service to a sovereign!" 
 
 "You are certainly an angel!" exclaimed Whitmonby. "I 
 swallow the story, and leave it to digestion to discover tTie 
 appositeness. Whatever tuneful instrument one of your 
 friends possesses shall solace your slumbers or batter the 
 pate of your enemy. But discourage the habitual serenader." 
 
 "The musician you must mean is due here now, by appoint- 
 ment to meet you," said Diana, and set him momentarily 
 agape with the name of Mr. Percy Dacier. 
 
 That was the origin of the alliance between the young 
 statesman and a newspaper editor. Whitmonby, accepting 
 proposals which suited him, quitted the house, after an hour 
 of political talk, no longer inclined to hint at the "habitual 
 serenader," but very ready to fall foul of those who did, as he 
 proved when the numbers buzzed openly. Times were mas- 
 culine; the excitement on the eve of so great a crisis, and Di- 
 ana's comprehension of it and fine heading cry, put that weak 
 matter aside. Moreover, he was taught to suppose himself as 
 welcome a guest as Dacier; and the cook could stand criti- 
 cism; the wines — wonderful to say of a lady's table — were 
 trusty; the talk, on the political evenings and the social and 
 anecdotal supper-nights, ran always in perfect accord with 
 his ideal of the conversational orchestra: an improvised har- 
 mony, unmatched elsewhere. She did not, he considered, so 
 perfectly assort her dinner-guests; that was her one fault. 
 She had, therefore, to strain her adroitness to cover their de- 
 ficiencies and fuse them. But what other woman could have 
 done it! She led superbly. If an Irishman was present she 
 kept him from overflooding, managed to extract just the flavor 
 of him, the smack of salt. She did even, at Whiimonby's 
 table, on a red-letter Sunday evening, in concert with him and 
 the Dean, bring down that cataract, the Bodleian, to the lev- 
 els of interchanging dialogue by seasonable touches, inim- 
 itably done, and never done before. Sullivan Smith, un- 
 bridled in the middle of dinner, was docile to her. "Irishmen," 
 she said, pleading on their behalf to Whitmonby, who pro- 
 nounced the race too raw for an Olympian feast, "are inval- 
 uable if you hang them up to smoke and cure;" and the 
 
280 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 master of social converse could not deny that they were re- 
 sponsive to her magic. The supper-nights were mainly de- 
 voted to Percy's friends. He brought as many as he pleased, 
 and as often as it pleased him; and it was her pride to pro- 
 vide Cleopatra banquets for the lover whose anxieties were 
 soothed by them, and to whom she sacrificed her name willing- 
 ly in return for a generosity that certain chance whispers of 
 her heart elevated to the pitch of measureless. 
 
 So they wore through the Session and the autumn, clouds 
 heavier, the League drumming, the cry of Ireland "omi- 
 nously Banshee," as she wrote to Emma. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 IN WHICH THERE IS A TASTE OF A LITTLE DINNER AND 
 AN AFTERTASTE. 
 
 "But Tony lives!'' Emma Dunstane cried, on her solitary 
 height, with the full accent of envy marking the verb; and, 
 when she wrote enviously to her friend of the life among 
 bright intelligences, and of talk worth hearing, it was a 
 happy signification that health, frail though it might be, had 
 grown importunate for some of the play of life. Diana sent 
 her word to name her day, and she would have her choicest 
 to meet her dearest. They were in the early days of Decem- 
 ber, not the best of times for improvised gatherings. Emma 
 wanted, however, to taste them as they cropped; she was 
 also, owing to her long isolation, timid at a notion of encoun- 
 tering the pick of the London world, prepared by Tony to 
 behold "a wonder more than worthy of them," as her friend 
 unadvisedly wrote. That was why she came unexpectedly, 
 and, for a mixture of reasons, went to an hotel. Fatality 
 designed it so. She was reproached, but she said: "You 
 have to write or you entertain at night; I should be a clog 
 and fret you. My hotel is Maitland's; excellent; I believe I 
 am to lie on the pillow where a crowned head reposed! You 
 will perceive that I am proud as well as comfortable. And 
 I would rather meet your usual set of guests." 
 
 "The reason why I have been entertaining at night is, that 
 Percy is harassed and requires enlivening," said Diana. "He 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 281 
 
 brings his friends. My house is open to them, if it amuses 
 him. What the world says is past a thought. I owe him too 
 much." 
 
 Emma murmured that the world would soon be pacified. 
 
 Diana shook her head. "The poor man is better; able to 
 go about his affairs; and I am honestly relieved. It lays a 
 specter. As for me, I do not look ahead. I serve as a kind 
 of secretary to Percy. I labor at making abstracts by day, 
 and at night preside at my supper-table. You would think 
 it monotonous; no incident varies the course we run. I have 
 not time to ask whether it is happiness. It seems to bear a 
 resemblance.^^ 
 
 Emma replied: "He may be everything you tell me. He 
 should not have chosen the last night of the opera to go to 
 your box and sit beside you till the fall of the curtain. The 
 presence at the opera of a man notoriously indifferent to music 
 was enough in itself.^' 
 
 Diana smiled with languor. "You heard of that? But 
 the opera was The Puritani, my favorite. And he saw me sit- 
 ting in Lady Pennon's box alone. We were compromised 
 neck-deep already. I can kiss you, my own Emma, till I 
 die; but what the world sajs is what the wind says. Be- 
 sides, he has his hopes. . . If I am blackened ever so 
 thickly he can make me white. Dear me! if the world knew 
 that he comes here almost nightly! It will; and does it mat- 
 ter? I am his in soul; the rest U waste-paper — a half-printed 
 sheet.'' 
 
 "Provided he is worthy of such devotion!" 
 
 "He is absolute worthiness. He is the prince of men: — I 
 dread to say, mine! for fear. But Emmy will not judge him 
 to-morrow by contrast with more voluble talkers. I can do 
 anything but read poetry now. That kills me! See him 
 through me. In nature, character, intellect, he has no rival. 
 Whenever I despond — and it comes now and then — I rebuke 
 myself with this one admonition: Simply to have known him! 
 Admit that for a woman to find one who is worthy among 
 the opposite creatures is a happy termination of her quest, 
 and in some sort dismisses her to the shades, an uncomplaining 
 ferry-bird. If my end were at hand I should have no cause 
 to lament it. We women miss life only when we have to con- 
 fess we have never met the man to reverence." 
 
 Emma had to bear a very great deal of Mr. Percy. Diana's 
 
282 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 comparison of herself to "the busy bee at a window-pane" 
 was more in her old manner; and her friend would have 
 barkened to the marvels of the gentleman less unrefreshed 
 had it not appeared to her that her Tony gave in excess for 
 what was given in return. She hinted her view. 
 
 "It is expected of our sex," Diana said. 
 
 The work of busy bee at a window-pane had at any rate 
 not spoilt her beauty, though she had voluntarily, profitlessly, 
 become this man's drudge, and her sprightly fancy, her ready 
 humor and darting look all round in discussion, were rather 
 deadened. 
 
 But the loss was not perceptible in the circle of her guests. 
 Present at a dinner little indicating the last, where Whit- 
 monby, in lively trim for shuffling, dealing, cutting, trumping 
 or drawing trumps; Westlake, polishing epigrams under his 
 eyelids; Henry Wilmers, who timed an anecdote to strike as 
 the passing hour without freezing the current; Sullivan 
 Smith, smoked, cured, and ready to flavor; Percy Dacier, 
 pleasant listener, measured speaker; and young Arthur 
 Ehodes, the neophyte of the hostess's training, of whom she 
 had said to Emma, "The dear boy very kindly serves to frank 
 an unlicensed widow," and whom she prompted and made her 
 utmost of, with her natural tact. These she mixed and 
 leavened. The talk was on high levels and low; an enchant- 
 ment to Emma Dunstane: now a story; a question opening 
 new routes; sharp sketches of known personage*; a paradox 
 shot by laughter as soon as uttered; and all so smoothly; not 
 a shadow of the dominant holder-f orth, or a momentary pros- 
 pect of dead flats; the mellow ring of appositeness being the 
 concordant note of deliveries running linked as they flashed, 
 and a tolerant philosophy of the sage in the world recurrently 
 the keynote. 
 
 Once only had Diana to protect her nurseling. He cited a 
 funny line from a recent popular volume of verse, in perfect 
 a propos, looking at Sullivan Smith; who replied, that the 
 poets had become too many for him, and he read none now. 
 Diana said: "There are many Alexanders, but Alexander of 
 Macedon is not dwarfed by the number." She gave him an 
 opening for a smarter reply, but he lost it in a comment — 
 against Whitmonby's cardinal rule: "The neatest turn of the 
 wrist that ever swung a hero to crack a crown!" and lie bowed 
 to young Rhodes : "I'll read your versicler to-morrow morn- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 283 
 
 ing early." The latter expressed a fear that the hour was too 
 critical for poetry. 
 
 "I have taken the dose at a very early hour/' said Whit- 
 monby, to bring conversation to the flow again, "and it ef- 
 faced the critical mind completely." 
 
 "But did not silence the critical nose," observed Westlake. 
 
 Wilmers named the owner of the longest nose in Europe. 
 
 "Potentially, indeed a critic!" cried Diana. 
 
 "Nights beside it must be fearful, and good matter for a 
 divorce, if the poor dear lady could hale it to the doors of 
 the Vatican!" Sullivan Smith exclaimed. "'But there's char- 
 acter in noses." 
 
 "Calculable by inches?" Dacier asked. 
 
 "More than in any other feature," said Lady Dunstane. 
 "The Eiffords are all prodigiously gifted and amusing: sus- 
 peiidens omnia naso. It should be prayed for in families." 
 
 '^Totum ut te faciant, FabuUe, nasum," rejoined "Whit- 
 monby. "Lady Isabella was reading the tale of the German 
 princess, who had a sentinel stationed some hundred yards 
 away to whisk off the flies, and she owned to me that her hand 
 instinctively traveled upward." 
 
 "Candor is the best concealment, when one has to carry 
 a saddle of absurdity," said Diana. "Touchstone's 'poor thing, 
 but mine own,' is godlike in its enveloping fold." 
 
 "The most comforting sermon ever delivered on property in 
 poverty," said Arthur Rhodes. 
 
 Westlake assented. "His choice of Audrey strikes me as 
 an exhibition of the sure instinct for pasture of the philoso- 
 phical jester in a forest." 
 
 "With nature's woman, if he can find her, the urban seems 
 equally at home," said Lady Dunstane. 
 
 "Baron Pawle is an example," added Whitmonby. "His 
 cook is a pattern wife to him. I heard him say at table that 
 she was responsible for all except the wines. ^I wouldn't 
 have them on my conscience, with a judge!' my lady retorted." 
 
 "When poor Madame de Jacquieres was d3dng," said Wil- 
 mers, "her confessor sat by her bedside, prepared for his min- 
 istrations. Tour commencer, mon ami, jamais je n'ai f ais rien 
 hors nature.' " 
 
 Lord Wadaster had uttered something tolerably similar. 
 "I am a sinner, and in good society." Sir Abraham Hartis- 
 ton, a minor satellite of the Eegent, diversified this: "I am a 
 
284 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 sinner, and go to good society/' Madame la Comtesse de la 
 Roche- Aigle, the cause of many deaths, declared it unwomanly 
 to fear anything save "les revenants." Yet the countess 
 could say the pretty thing: "Foot on a flower, then think 
 of me!" 
 
 "Sentimentality puts up infant hands for absolution," said 
 Diana. 
 
 "But tell me," Lady Dunstane inquired generally, "why 
 men are so much happier than women in laughing at their 
 spouses?" 
 
 They are humaner, was one dictum; they are more frivol- 
 ous, ironically another. 
 
 "It warrants them for blowing the bugle-horn of masculine 
 superiority night and morning from the castle-walls," Diana 
 said. 
 
 "I should imagine it is for joy of heart that they still have 
 cause to laugh!" said Westlake. 
 
 On the other hand, are women really pained by having to 
 laugh at their lords? Curious little speeches flying about the 
 great world affirmed the contrary. But the fair speakers were 
 chartered libertines, and their laugh admittedly had a biting 
 acid. The parasite is concerned in the majesty of the tree. 
 
 "We have entered Botany Bay," Diana said to Emma; who 
 answered: "A metaphor is the Deus ex machina of an argu- 
 ment;" and Whitmonby, to lighten a shadow of heaviness, re- 
 lated allusively an anecdote of the law courts. Sullivan Smith 
 begged permission to "black cap" it with Judge Fitz Gerald's 
 sentence upon a convicted criminal, "Your plot was perfect 
 but for One above." Dacier cited an execrable impromptu line 
 of the chief of the Opposition in Parliament. The Premier, it 
 was remarked, played him like an angler his fish on the hook; 
 or say, Mr. Sergeant Eufus his witness in the box. 
 
 "Or a French journalist an English missionary," said 
 Diana; and as the instance was recent it was relished. 
 
 The talk of Premiers offered Whitmonby occasion for a 
 flight to the Court of Vienna and Kaunitz. Wilmers told a 
 droll story of Lord Busby's missing the Embassy there. West- 
 lake furnished a sample of the tranquil sententiousness of 
 Busby's brother Eobert during a stormy debate in the House 
 of Commons. 
 
 "I remember," Dacier was reminded, "hearing him say, 
 when the House resembled a Chartist riot, 'Let us stand aside 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 285 
 
 and meditate on Life. If Youth could know, in the season 
 of its reaping of the Pleasures, that it is but sowing Doctor's 
 bills!' " 
 
 Latterly a malady had supervened, and Bob Busby had re- 
 tired from the universal to the special; — his mysterious case. 
 
 "Assure him, that is endemic. He may be cured of his 
 desire for the exposition of it," said Lady Dunstane. 
 
 Westlake chimed with her: "Yes, the charm in discoursing 
 of one's case is over when the individual appears no longer at 
 odds with Providence." 
 
 "But then we lose our Tragedy," said Whitmonby. 
 
 "Our Comedy too," added Diana. "We must consent to be 
 Busbied for the sake of the instructive recreations." 
 
 "A curious idea, though," said Sullivan Smith, "that some 
 of the grand instructive figures were in their day colossal 
 bores!" 
 
 "So you see the marvel of the poet's craft at last?" Diana 
 smiled on him, and he vowed, "I'll read nothing else for a 
 month!" Young Rhodes bade him beware of a deluge in 
 proclaiming it. 
 
 They rose from table at ten, with the satisfaction of know- 
 ing that they had not argued, had not wrangled, had never 
 stagnated, and were digestingly refreshed; as it should be 
 among grown members of the civilized world, who mean to 
 practice philosophy, making the hour of the feast a balanced 
 recreation and a regeneration of body and mind. 
 
 "Evenings like these are worth a pilgrimage," Emma said, 
 embracing Tony outside the drawing-room door. "I am so 
 glad I came; and, if I am strong enough, invite me again in 
 the spring. To-morrow early I start for Copsley, to escape this 
 London air. I shall hope to have you there soon." 
 
 She was pleased by hearing Tony ask her whether she did 
 not think that Arthur Rhodes had borne himself well; for it 
 breathed of her simply friendly soul. 
 
 The gentlemen followed Lady Dunstane in a troop, Dacier 
 yielding perforce the last adieu to young Rhodes. 
 
 Five minutes later Diana was in her dressing-room, where 
 she wrote at night, on the rare occasions now when she was 
 left free for composition. Beginning to dwell on "The Man 
 of Two Minds," she glanced at the woman likewise divided, if 
 not similarly; and she sat brooding. She did not accuse her 
 marriage of being the first fatal step; her error was the step 
 
286 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 into Society without the wherewithal to support her position 
 there. Girls of her kind, airing their wings ahove the sphere 
 of their birth, are cryingly adventuresses. As adventuresses 
 they are treated. Vain to be shrewish with the world! Eath- 
 er let us turn and scold our nature for irrefiectively rushing 
 to the cream and honey! Had she subsisted on her small in- 
 come in a country cottage this task of writing would have been 
 holiday. Or better, if, as she preached to Mary Paynham, she 
 had apprenticed herself to some productive craft. The sim- 
 plicity of the life of labor looked beautiful. What will not 
 look beautiful contrasted with the fly in the web? She had 
 chosen to be one of the flies of life. 
 
 Instead of running to composition, her mind was eloquent 
 with a sermon to Arthur Ehodes, in Redworth's vein; more 
 sympathetically, of course. "For I am not one of the lectur- 
 ing Mammonites!" she could say. 
 
 She was far from that. Penitentially, in the thick of her 
 disdain of the arrogant money-getters, she pulled out a drawer 
 where her bank-book lay, and observed it contemplatively; 
 jotting down a reflection before the dread book of facts was 
 opened: "Gaze on the moral path you should have taken: you 
 are asked for courage to commit a sanctioned suicide, by walk- 
 ing back to it stripped — a skeleton self.'^ She sighed forth: 
 "But I have no courage; I never had!" 
 
 The book revealed its tale in a small penciled computation 
 of the bank-clerk's, on the peccant side. Credit presented 
 many pages blanks. She seemed to have withdrawn from the 
 struggle with such a partner. 
 
 It signified an immediate appeal to the usurers, unless the 
 publisher could be persuaded, with three parts of the book in 
 his hands, to come to the rescue. Work! roared old Debit, the 
 sinner turned slave-driver. 
 
 Diana smoothed her wrists, compressing her lips not to 
 laugh at the simulation of an attitude of combat. She took 
 up her pen. 
 
 And, strange to think, she could have flowed away at once 
 on the stuff that Danvers delighted to read! — wicked princes, 
 rogue noblemen, titled wantons, daisy and lily innocents, 
 traitorous marriages, murders, a gallows dangling a corpse 
 dotted by a moon, and a woman bowed beneath. She could 
 have written, with the certainty that in the upper and the 
 middle as well as in the lower classes of the country there 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 287 
 
 would be a multitude to read that stuff, so cordially, despite 
 the gaps between them, are they one in their literary tastes. 
 And why should they not read it? Her present mood was a 
 craving for excitement — for incident, wild action, the primi- 
 tive machinery of our species — any amount of theatrical he- 
 roics, pathos, and clown-gabble. A panorama of scenes came 
 sweeping round her. 
 
 She was, however, harnessed to a different kind of vehicle, 
 and had to drag it. The sound of the house-door shutting, 
 imagined perhaps, was a fugitive distraction. Now to animate 
 "The Man of Two Minds." 
 
 He is courting, but he is burdened with the task of tasks. 
 He has an ideal of womanhood and of the union of couples, a 
 delicacy extreme as his attachment: and he must induce the 
 lady to school herself to his ideal, not allowing her to suspect 
 him less devoted to her person; while she, an exacting idol, will 
 drink any quantity of idealization as long as he starts it from 
 a full acceptance of her acknowledged qualities. Diana could 
 once have tripped the scene along airily. She stared at the 
 opening sentence, a heavy bit of moralized manufacture, fit 
 to yoke beside that on her view of her bank-book. 
 
 "It has come to this — I have no head!" she cried. 
 
 And is our public likely to muster the slightest taste for 
 comic analysis that does not tumble to farce? The doubt re- 
 duced her whole MS. to a leaden weight, composed for sink- 
 ing. Percy's addiction to burlesque was a further hindrance, 
 for she did not perceive how her comedy could be strained to 
 gratify it. 
 
 There was a knock, and Danvers entered. 
 
 "You have apparently a liking for late hours,'' observed her 
 mistress. "I told you to go to bed." 
 
 "It is Mr. Dacier," said Danvers. 
 
 "He wishes to see me?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am. He apologized for disturbing you." 
 
 "He must have some good reason." 
 
 What could it be! Diana's glass approved her appearance. 
 She pressed the black swell of hair above her temples, rather 
 amazed, curious, inclined to a beating of the heart. 
 
288 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXI. 
 
 A CHAPTER CONTIAINING GREAT POLITICAL NEWS AND 
 THEREWITH AN INTRUSION OF THE LOVE-GOD. 
 
 Dacier was pacing about the drawing-room, as in a place 
 too narrow for him. 
 
 Diana stood at the door. "Have you forgotten to tell me 
 anything I ought to know?" 
 
 He came up to her and shut the door softly behind her, hold- 
 ing her hand. "You are near it. I returned . . . But 
 tell me first: You were slightly under a shadow this evening — 
 dejected." 
 
 "Did I show it?" 
 
 She was growing a little suspicious, but this cunning touch 
 of lover-like interest dispersed the shade. 
 
 "To me you did." 
 
 "It was unpardonable to let it be seen." 
 
 "No one else could have observed it." 
 
 Her woman's heart was thrilled; for she had concealed the 
 dejection from Emma. 
 
 "It was nothing," she said; "a knot in the book I am writ- 
 ing. We poor authors are worried now and then. But you?" 
 
 His face rippled by degrees brightly, to excite a reflection 
 in hers. 
 
 "Shall I tune you with good news? I think it will excuse me 
 for coming back." 
 
 "Very good news?" 
 
 "Brave news, as far as it goes." 
 
 "Then it concerns you!" 
 
 "Me, you, the country." 
 
 "Oh! do I guess?" cried Diana. "But speak, pray; I burn." 
 
 "What am I to have for telling it?" 
 
 "Put no price. You know my heart. I guess, or fancy. 
 It relates to your chief?" 
 
 Dacier smiled in a way to show the lock without the key; 
 and she was insensibly drawn nearer to him, speculating on 
 the smile. 
 
 "Try again," said he, keenly appreciating the blindness to 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 289 
 
 his motive of her studious dark eyes, and her open-lipped 
 breathing. 
 
 "Percy! I must be right.'^ 
 
 "Well, you are. He has decided!" 
 
 "Oh! that is the bravest possible. When did you hear?" 
 
 "He informed me of his final decision this afternoon." 
 
 "And you were charged with the secret all the evening, and 
 betrayed not a sign! I compliment the diplomatic statesman. 
 But when will it be public ?" 
 
 "He calls Parliament together the first week of next month." 
 
 "The proposal is ? No more compromises!" 
 
 "Total!" 
 
 Diana clapped hands; and her aspect of enthusiasm was in- 
 toxicating. "He is a wise man and a gallant Minister! And 
 while you were reading me through I was blind to you," she 
 added meltingly. 
 
 "I have not made too much of it?" said he. 
 
 "Indeed you have not." 
 
 She was radiant with her dark lightnings, yet visibly sub- 
 ject to him under the spell of the news he had artfully length- 
 ened out to excite and overbalance her; and her enthusiasm 
 was all pointed to his share in the altered situation, as he 
 well knew and was flattered in knowing. 
 
 "So Tony is no longer dejected? I thought I could freshen 
 you and get my excuse." 
 
 "Oh! a high wind will make a dead leaf fly like a bird. T 
 soar. Now I do feel proud. I have longed for it — to have you 
 leading the country: not tugged at like a wagon with a treble 
 team uphill. We two are a month in advance of all England. 
 You stand by him? — only to hear it, for I am sure of it!" 
 
 "We stand or fall together." 
 
 Her glowing look doted on the faithful lieutenant. 
 
 "And, if the henchman is my hero, I am but a waiting-wom- 
 an. But I must admire his leader." 
 
 "Tony!" 
 
 "Ah! no" — she joined her hands, wondering whither her 
 armed majesty had fled — "no softness! no payments! Flat- 
 ter me by letting me think you came to a head — not a silly 
 woman's heart, with one name on it, as it has not to betray. 
 I have been frank; you need no proofs . ." The suppli- 
 cating hands left her figure an easy prey to the storm, and 
 were crushed in a knot on her bosom. She could only shrink. 
 
 19 
 
(^ 
 
 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 A^Ah! Percy . . you undo my praise of you — ^my pride 
 /in receiving you." 
 
 They were speechless perforce. 
 
 "You see, Tony, my dearest, I am flesh and blood after all." 
 
 "You drive me to be ice and door-bolts!" 
 
 Her eyes broke over him reproachfully. 
 
 "It is not so much to grant," he murmured. 
 
 "It changes everything between us." 
 
 "Not me. It binds me the faster." 
 
 "It makes me a loathsome hypocrite." 
 
 "But, Tony! is it so much?" 
 . "ISTot if you value it low." 
 
 ^*But how long do you keep me in this rag-puppet's state 
 of suspension?" 
 
 "Patience!" 
 
 "Dangling and swinging day and night!" 
 
 "The rag-puppet shall be animated and repaid if I have life. 
 I wish to respect my hero. Have a little mercy. Our day 
 will come: perhaps as wonderfully as this wonderful news. 
 My friend, drop your hands. Have you forgotten who I am? 
 I want to think, Percy." 
 But you are mine." 
 
 "You are abasing your own." 
 
 "No, by Heaven!" 
 
 "Worse, dear friend; you are lowering yourself to the 
 woman who loves you." 
 
 You must imagine me superhuman." 
 
 "I worship you — or did." 
 
 "Be reasonable, Tony. What harm! Surely a trifle of 
 recompense? Just to let me feel I live! You own you love 
 me. Then I am your lover." 
 
 "My dear friend Percy, when I have consented to be your 
 paramour this kind of treatment of me will not want apolo- 
 gies." 
 
 The plain speaking from the wound he dealt her was ef- 
 fective with a gentleman who would never have enjoyed his 
 privileges had he been of a nature unsusceptible to her dis- 
 tinct wish and meaning. 
 
 He sighed. "You know how my family bother me. The 
 woman I want, the only woman I could marry, I can't have." 
 
 "You have her in soul." 
 
DIAN-A OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 ,C^ 
 
 "Body and soul it must be! I believe you were made witb 
 out fire." 
 
 "Perhaps. The element is omitted with some of us — ^hap- 
 pily, some think. Now we can converse. There seems to be 
 a measurement of distances required before men and women 
 have a chance with their brains — or before a man will under- 
 stand that he can be advised and seconded. When will the 
 Cabinet be consulted?" 
 
 "Oh, a few days. Promise me . . ." 
 
 "Any honorable promise!" 
 
 "You will not keep me waiting longer than the end of the 
 Session?" 
 
 "Probably there will be an appeal to the country." 
 
 "In any case, promise me: have some compassion." 
 
 "Ah^ the compassion! You do not choose your words, 
 Percy, or forget who is the speaker." 
 
 "It is Tony who forgets the time she has kept her lover 
 dangling. Promise, and I will wait." 
 
 "You hurt my hand, sir." 
 
 "I could crack the knuckles. Promise!" 
 
 "Come to me to-morrow." 
 
 "To-morrow you are in your armor — triple brass! All 
 creation cries out for now. We are mounted on barbs, and 
 you talk of ambling." 
 
 "Arthur Rhodes might have spoken that." 
 
 "Rhodes!" he shook off the name in disgust. "Pet him as 
 muGh as you like; don't . . ." he was unable to phrase his 
 objection. 
 
 She cooled him further with eulogies of the chevaleresque 
 manner of speaking which young Mr. Rhodes could assume; 
 till for very wrath of blood — not jealousy: he had none of 
 any man with her; and not passion; the little he had was a 
 fitful gust — he punished her coldness by taking what hastily 
 could be gathered. 
 
 Her shape was a pained submission; and she thought: 
 Where is the woman who ever knows a man! as women do 
 think when one of their artifices of evasion with a lover, or 
 the trick of imposingness, has apparently been subduing him. 
 But the pain was less than previously, for she was now mistress 
 V)f herself, fearing no abysses. 
 
 Dacier released her quickly, saying: "If I come to-morrow 
 shall I have the promise?" 
 
292 DIAN(A OF THE CROBSWAYS. 
 
 She answered; "Be sure I shall not lie." 
 
 "Why not let me have it before I go?" 
 
 "My friend, to tell you the truth, you have utterly dis- 
 tracted me." 
 
 "Forgive me if I did hurt your hand." 
 
 "The hand? You might strike it off." 
 
 "I can't be other than a mortal lover, Tony. There's the 
 fact." 
 
 "N"o; the fault is mine when I am degraded. I trust you; 
 there's the error." 
 
 The trial for Dacier was the sight of her quick-lifting bosom 
 under the mask of cold language: an attraction and repulsion 
 in union; a delirium to any lover impelled to trample on weak 
 defenses. But the evident pain he inflicted moved his pity, 
 which helped to restore his conception of the beauty of her 
 character. She stood so nobly meek. And she w-as never 
 prudish, only self-respecting. Although the great news he 
 imparted had roused an ardent, thirst for holiday and a dash 
 out of harness, and he could hardly check it, he yielded her 
 the lead. 
 
 "Trust me you may," he said. "But you know we are one. 
 The world has given you to me, me to you. Why should we 
 be asunder? There's no reason in it." 
 
 She replied: "But still I wish to burn a little incense in 
 honor of myself, or else I cannot live. It is the truth. You 
 make death my truer friend, and at this moment I would 
 willingly go out. You would respect me more dead than alive. 
 I could better pardon you, too." 
 
 He pleaded for the red mouth's pardon, remotely irritated 
 by the suspicion that she swayed him overmuch: and he had 
 deserved the small benevolences and donations of love, crumbs 
 and heavenly dues! 
 
 "Not a word of pardon," said Diana. "I shall never count 
 an iota against you ^in the dark backward and abysm of 
 Time.' This news is great, and I have sunk beneath it. Come 
 to-morrow. Then we will speak upon whatever you can prove 
 rational. The hour is getting late." 
 
 Dacier took a draught of her dark beauty with the crim- 
 son he had kindled over the cheeks. Her lips were firmly 
 closed, her eyes grave; dry, but seeming to waver tearfully in 
 their heavy fullness. He could not doubt her love of him; 
 and, although chafing at the idea that she swayed him ab- 
 
DIANA OF THE CR03SWAYS. 293 
 
 surdly — ^beyond the credible in his world of wag-tongues — he 
 resumed his natural soberness, as a garment, not very uneasily 
 fitting: whence it ensued — for so are we influenced by the 
 garb we put on us — ^that his manly sentiment of revolt in be- 
 ing condemned to play second was repressed by the refresh- 
 ment breathed on him from her lofty character, the pure jewel 
 proffered to his inward ownership. 
 
 "Adieu for the night," he said, and she smiled. He pressed 
 for a pressure of her hand. She brightened her smile instead, 
 and said only, "Good night, Percy." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 WHEREIN WE BEHOLD A GIDDY TURN AT THE SPECTRAL 
 CROSSWAYS. 
 
 Danvers accompanied Mr. Dacier to the house-door. Climb- 
 ing the stairs, she found her mistress in the drawing-room still. 
 
 "You must be cold, ma'am," she said, glancing at the fire- 
 grate. 
 
 "Is it a frost?" said Diana. 
 
 "It's midnight and midwinter, ma'am." 
 
 "Has it struck midnight?" 
 
 The mantel-piece clock said five minutes past. 
 
 *^ou had better go to bed, Danvers, or you will lose your 
 bloom. Stop; you are a faithful soul. Great things are hap- 
 pening and I'm agitated. Mr. Dacier has told me news. He 
 came back purposely." 
 
 "Yes, ma'am," said Danvers. "He had a great deal to tell." 
 
 "Well, he had." Diana colored at the first tentative imper- 
 tinence she had heard from her maid. "What is the secret 
 of you, Danvers? What attaches you to me?" 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know, ma'am. I'm romantic." 
 
 "And you think me a romantic object?" 
 
 "I'm sure I can't say, ma'am. I'd rather serve you than 
 any other lady; and I wish you was happy." 
 
 "Do you suppose I am unhappy?" 
 
 "I'm sure — but if I may speak, ma'am: so handsome and 
 clever a lady! and young! I can't bear to see it." 
 
 "Tush, you silly woman! You read your melting tales, and 
 
294 DIANA OF THE CROSS WAYS. 
 
 imagine. I must go and write for mone}^: it is my profession. 
 And I haven't an idea in my head. This news disturbs me. 
 Ruin if I don't write; so I must. I can't!" 
 
 Diana beheld the ruin. She clasped ihe great news for suc- 
 cor. Great indeed; and known but to ner of all the outer 
 world. She was ahead of all — ahead of Mr, Tonans! 
 
 The visionary figure of Mr. Tonans petrified oy the great 
 news, drinking it, and confessing her ahead of him in the 
 race for secrets, arose toweringly. She had not ever seen the 
 editor in his den at midnight. With the rumble of his machin- 
 ery about him, and fresh matter arriving and flying into the 
 printing-press, it must be like being in the very furnace-hissing 
 of Events: an Olympian Council held in Vulcan's smithy. 
 Consider the bringing to the Jove there news of such magni- 
 tude as to stupefy him! He, too, who bad admonished her 
 rather sneeringly for staleness in her information. But this 
 news, great though it was, and throbbing like a heart plucked 
 out of a breathing body, throbbed but for a brief term, a day 
 or two; after which, great though it was, immense, it re- 
 lapsed into a common organ, a possession of the multitude, 
 merely historically curious. 
 
 "You are not afraid of the streets at night?" Diana said 
 to her maid, as they were going upstairs. 
 
 "Not when we're driving, ma'am," was the answer. 
 
 "The Man of Two Minds" faced his creatrix in the dressing- 
 room, still delivering that most ponderous of sentences — a 
 smothering pillow! 
 
 I have mistaken my vocation, thought Diana: I am certain- 
 ly the flattest proser who ever penned a line. 
 
 She sent Danvers into the bedroom on a trifling errand, 
 unable to bear the woman's proximity and oddly unwilling to 
 dismiss her. She pressed her hands on her eyelids. Would 
 Percy have humiliated her so if he had respected her? Tie 
 took advantage of the sudden loss of her habitual queenly in- 
 itiative at the wonderful news to debase and stain their inti- 
 macy. The lover's behavior was judged by her sensations: she 
 felt humiliated, plucked violently from the throne where she 
 had long been sitting securely, very proudly. That was at 
 an end. If she was to be better than the loathsomest of 
 hypocrites she must deny him his admission to the house. And 
 then what was her life! 
 
 Something that was pressing her low, she knew not how. 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 295 
 
 and left it unquestioned, incited her to exaggerate the indig- 
 nity her pride had suffered. She was a dethroned woman. 
 Deeper within, an unmasked actress, she said. Oh, she for- 
 gave him! But clearly he took her for the same as other wom- 
 en consenting to receive a privileged visitor. And, sounding 
 herself to the soul, was she so magnificently better? Her face 
 flamed. She hugged her arms at her breast to quiet the beat- 
 ing, and dropped them when she surprised herself embracing 
 the memory. He had brought political news, and treated her 
 as — name the thing! Not designedly, it might be: her position 
 invited it. "The world had given her to him." The world is 
 always a prophet of the mire; but the world is no longer an 
 utterly mistaken world. She shook before it. 
 
 She asked herself why Percy or the world should think high- 
 ly of an adventuress, who was a denounced wife, a wretched 
 author, and on the verge of bankruptcy. She was an ad- 
 venturess. When she held The Crossways she had at least a 
 bit of solid footing — ^now gone. An adventuress without an 
 idea in her head: witness her dullard, "The Man of Two 
 Minds," at his work of sermonizing his mistress. 
 
 The tremendous pressure upon our consciousness of the ma- 
 terial cause — when we find ourselves cast among the breakers 
 of moral difficulties and endeavor to elude that mud-visaged 
 monster, chiefly by feigning unconsciousness — was an experi- 
 ence of Diana's in the crisis to which she was wrought. Her 
 wits were too acute, her nature too direct, to permit of a 
 lengthened confusion. She laid the scourge on her flesh smart- 
 ly. I gave him these privileges because I am weak as the weak- 
 est, base as my enemies proclaim me. I covered my woman's 
 vile weakness with an air of intellectual serenity that he, 
 choosing his moment, tore away, exposing me to myself, as 
 well as to him, the most ordinary of reptiles. I kept up a costly 
 household for the sole purpose of seeing him and having him 
 near me. Hence this bitter need of money! Either it must 
 be money or disgrace. Money would assist her quietly to 
 amend and complete her work. Yes, and this want of money, 
 in a review of the last two years, was the material cause of her 
 recklessness. It was — her revived and uprising pudency de- 
 clared — the principal, the only cause. Mere want of money. 
 
 And she had a secret worth thousands! The secret of a 
 day, no more: anybody's secret after some four-and-twenty 
 hours. 
 
t% DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 She smiled at the fancied elongation and stare of the fea- 
 tures of Mr. Tonans in his editorial midnight den. 
 
 What if he knew it and could cap it with something novel 
 and stranger? Hardly. But it was an inciting suggestion. 
 
 She began to tremble as a lightning-flash made visible her 
 fortunes recovered, disgrace averted, hours of peace for com- 
 position stretching before her: a summer afternoon's vista. 
 
 It seemed a duel between herself and Mr. Tonans, and she 
 sure of her trumph — Diana victrix! 
 
 "Dan vers!" she called. 
 
 "Is it to undress, ma'am?" said the maid, entering to her. 
 
 "You are not afraid of the streets, you tell me. I have to 
 go down to the City, I think. It is urgent. Yes, I must go. 
 If I were to impart the news to you your head would be a 
 tolling bell for a month." 
 
 "You will take a cab, ma'am." 
 
 "We must walk out to find one. I must go, though I should 
 have to go on foot. Quick with bonnet and shawl; muf- 
 fle up warmly. We have never been out so late: but does it 
 matter? You're a brave soul, I'm sure, and you shall have your 
 fee." 
 
 "I don't care for money, ma'am." 
 
 "When we get home you shall kiss me." 
 
 Danvers clothed her mistress in furs and rich wrappings. 
 Not paid for! was Diana's desperate thought; and a wrong 
 one: but she had to seem the precipitated bankrupt and suc- 
 ceeded. She was near being it. The boiling of her secret car- 
 ried her through the streets rapidly and unobservantly except 
 of such small things as the glow of the lights on the pavements 
 and the hushed cognizance of the houses, in silence to a thor- 
 oughfare where a willing cabman was met. The destination 
 named, he nodded alertly: he had driven gentlemen there at 
 night from the House of Commons, he said. 
 
 "Our Parliament is now sitting, and you drive ladies," Diana 
 replied. 
 
 "I hope I know one, never mind the hour," said he of the 
 capes. 
 
 He was bidden to drive rapidly. 
 
 "Complexion a tulip: you do not often see a pale cabman," 
 she remarked to Danvers, who began laughing, as she always 
 expected to do on an excursion with her mistress. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 297 
 
 "Do you remember, ma'am, the cabman taking us to the 
 coach, when you thought of going to the Continent?" 
 
 "And I went to The Crossways ? I have forgotten him." 
 
 "He declared you was so beautiful a lady he would drive 
 you to the end of England for nothing." 
 
 "It must have been when I was paying him. Put it out of 
 your mind, Danvers, that there are individual cabmen. They 
 are the painted flowers of our metropolitan thoroughfares, and 
 we gather them in rows." 
 
 "They have their feelings, ma'am." 
 
 "Brandied feelings are not pathetic to me." 
 
 "I like to think kindly of them," Danvers remarked, in re- 
 proof of her inhumanity; adding, "They may overturn us!" 
 at which Diana laughed. 
 
 Her eyes were drawn to a brawl of women and men in the 
 street. "Ah! that miserable sight!" she cried. "It is the ever- 
 lasting nightmare of London." 
 
 Danvers humped, femininely injured by the notice of it. 
 She wondered her mistress should deign to. 
 
 Eolling on between the blind and darkened houses, Diana 
 transferred her sensations to them, and in a fit of the nerves 
 imagined them beholding a funeral convoy without followers. 
 
 They came in view of the domed cathedral, hearing, in a 
 pause of the wheels, the bell of the hour. "Faster! faster! my 
 dear man," Diana murmured, and they entered a small still 
 square of many lighted windows. 
 
 "This must be where the morrow is manufactured," she 
 said. "Tell the man to wait. Or rather it's the mirror of yes- 
 terday: we have to look backward to see forward in life." 
 
 She talked her cool philosophy to mask her excitement 
 from herself. 
 
 Her card, marked "Imperative — two minutes," was taken up 
 to Mr. Tonans. They ascended to the editorial ante-room. 
 Doors opened and shut, hasty feet traversed the corridors, a 
 dull hum in dumbness told of mighty business at work. Diana 
 received the summons to the mighty head of the establishment. 
 . Danvers was left to speculate. She heard the voice of Mr. 
 Tonans, "Not more than two!" This was not a place for com- 
 pliments. Men passed her, hither and yonder, cursorily no- 
 ticing the presence of a woman. She lost, very strangely to 
 her, the sense of her sex, and became an object — a disregard- 
 ed object. Things of more importance were about. Her f emi- 
 
298 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 nine self-esteem was troubled; all idea of attractiveness ex- 
 pired. Here was manifestly a spot where women had dropped 
 from the secondary to the cancelled stage of their extraordi- 
 nary career in a world either blowing them aloft like soap- 
 bubbles or quietly shelving them as supernumeraries. A gen- 
 tleman — sweet vision! — shot by to the editor^s door, without 
 even looking cursorily. He knocked. Mr. Tonans appeared 
 and took him by the arm, dictating at a great rate; perceived 
 Danvers, frowned at the female, and requested him to wait 
 in the room, which the gentleman did, not once casting eye 
 upon a woman. At last her mistress returned to her, es- 
 corted so far by Mr. Tonans, and he refreshingly bent his 
 back to bow over her hand: so we have the satisfaction of 
 knowing that we are not such poor creatures after all! Suffer- 
 ing in person, Danvers was revived by the little show of hom- 
 age to her sex. 
 
 They descended the stairs. 
 
 "You are not an editor of a paper, but you may boast that 
 you have been near the nest of one," Diana said, when they 
 resumed their seats in the cab. She breathed deeply from time 
 to time, as if under a weight, or relieved of it, but she seemed 
 animated, and she dropped now and again a funny observation 
 of the kind that tickled Danvers and caused the maid to boast 
 of her everywhere as better than a play. 
 
 At home, Danvers busied her hands to supply her mistress 
 a cup of refreshing tea and a plate of biscuits. Diana had 
 stunned herself with the strange weight of the expedition, and 
 had not a thought. In spite of tea at that hour, she slept 
 soundly through the remainder of the night, dreamlessly, till 
 late into the morning. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIII. 
 
 EXHIBITS THE SPRINGING OF A MINE IN A NEWSPAPER 
 
 ARTICLE. 
 
 The powers of harmony would seem to be tried to their 
 shrewdest pitch when Politics and Love are planted together 
 in a human breast. This apparently opposite couple can nev- 
 ertheless chant a very sweet accord, as was shown by Dacier 
 on his homeward walk from Diana's house. Let Love lead, 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 299 
 
 the god will make music of any chamber-comrade. He was 
 able to think of affairs of State while feeling the satisfied 
 thirst of the lover, whose pride, irritated by confidential wild 
 eulogies of the beautiful woman, had recently clamored for 
 proofs of his commandership. The impression she stamped 
 on him at Copsley remained, but it could not occupy the fore- 
 ground for ever. He did not object to play second to her 
 sprightly wits in converse if he had some warm testimony to 
 his mastery over her blood. For the world had given her to 
 him, enthusiastic friends had congratulated him: she had 
 exalted him for true knightliness; and he considered the 
 proofs well earned, though he did not value them low. They 
 were little by comparison. They lighted, instead of staining, 
 her unparalleled high character. 
 
 She loved him. Full surely did she love him, or such a 
 woman would never have consented to brave the world; once 
 in their project of flight, and next, even more endearingly 
 when contemplated, in the sacrifice of her good name; not 
 omitting that fervent memory of her pained submission, but 
 a palpitating submission, to his caress. She was in his arms 
 again at the thought of it. He had melted her, and won the 
 confession of her senses by a surprise, and he owned that never 
 had woman been so vigilantly self-guarded or so watchful to 
 keep her lover amused and aloof. Such a woman deserved 
 long service. But then the long service deserved its time of 
 harvest. Her surging look of reproach in submission pointed 
 to the golden time; and, as he was a man of honor, pledged 
 to her for life, he had no remorse, and no scruple in deter- 
 mining to exact her dated promise, on this occasion deliber- 
 ately. She was the woman to be his wiie: she was his mind's 
 mate: they had hung apart in deference to mere scruples too 
 long. During the fierce battle of the Session she would be 
 his help, his fountain of counsel; and she would be the rosy 
 gauze-veiled more than cold helper and adviser, the being 
 which would spur her womanly intelligence to acknowledge, 
 on this occasion deliberately, the wisdom of the step. They 
 had been so close to it! She might call it madness then: now 
 it was wisdom. Each had complete experience of the other, 
 and each vowed the step must be taken. 
 
 As to the secret communicated, he exulted in the pardon- 
 able cunning of the impulse turning him back to her house 
 after the guests had gone, and the dexterous play of bis bait 
 
300 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 on the line tempting her to guess and quit her queenly guard. 
 Though it had not been distinctly schemed, the review of it 
 in that light added to the enjoyment. It had been dimly 
 and richly conjectured as a hoped result. Small favors from 
 her were really worth, thrice worth, the utmost from other 
 women. They tasted the sweeter for the winning of them 
 artfully — an honorable thing in love. Nature, rewarding 
 the lover's ingenuity and enterprise, inspires him with old 
 Greek notions of right and wrong: and love is indeed a fluid 
 mercurial realm, continually shifting the principles of recti- 
 tude and larceny. As long as he means nobly, what is there 
 to condemn him? Not she in her heart. She was the pre- 
 siding divinity. 
 
 And she, his Tony, that splendid Diana, was the woman 
 the world abused! Whom will it not abuse? 
 
 The slough she would have to plunge in before he could 
 make her his own with the world's consent was already up 
 to her throat. She must, and without further hesitation, be 
 steeped, that he might drag her out, washed of the imputed 
 defilement, and radiant, as she was in character. Eeflection 
 now said this; not impulse. 
 
 Her words rang through him. At every meeting she said 
 things to confound his estimate of the wits of women, or be 
 remembered for some spirited ring they had: — A high wind 
 will make a dead leaf fly like a bird. He murmured it and 
 flew with her. She quickened a vein of imagination that gave 
 him entrance to a strangely brilliant sphere, above his own, 
 where, she sustaining, he too could soar; and he did, scarce 
 conscious of walking home, undressing, falling asleep. 
 
 The act of waking was an instantaneous recovery of his emo- 
 tional rapture of the overnight; nor was it a bar to graver 
 considerations. His chief had gone down to a house in the 
 country; his personal business was to see and sound the fol- 
 lowers of their party — after another sight of his Tony. She 
 would be sure to counsel sagaciously; she alwa3^s did. She 
 had a marvelous intuition of the natures of the men he 
 worked with, solely from his chance descriptions of them: it 
 was as though he started the bird and she transfixed it. And 
 she should not have matter to ruflie her smooth brows: that 
 he swore to. She should sway him as she pleased, be respected 
 after her prescribed manner. The promise must be exacted; 
 nothing besides tlie promise. You see, Tony, you cannot be 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 301 
 
 less than Tony to me now, he addressed the gentle phantom 
 of her. Let me have your word, and I am your servant till 
 the Session ends. Tony blushes her swarthy crimson: Diana 
 fluttering rebukes her — but Diana is the appeasable goddess: 
 Tony is the woman, and she loves him. The glorious god- 
 dess need not cut them adrift; they can show her a book of 
 honest pages. 
 
 Dacier could truthfully say he had worshipped, done knight- 
 ly service to the beloved woman, homage to the aureole en- 
 circling her. Those friends of his, covertly congratulating 
 him on her preference, doubtless thought him more priv- 
 ileged than he was; but they did not know Diana; and they 
 were welcome, if they would only believe, to the knowledge 
 that he was at the feet of this most sovereign woman. He 
 despised the particular satyr-world, which, whatever the na- 
 ture or station of the woman, crowns the desecrator, and be- 
 stows the title of Fool on the worshipper. He could have 
 answered veraciously that she had kept him from folly. 
 
 Nevertheless the term must come to service. Id. the as- 
 surance of the approaching term he stood braced against a 
 blowing world; happy as men are when their muscles arc 
 strung for a prize they pluck with the energy and aim of 
 their whole force. 
 
 Letters and morning papers were laid for him to peruse in 
 his dressing-room. He read his letters before the bath. Not 
 much public news was expected at the present season. While 
 dressing, he turned over the sheets of Whitmonby's journal. 
 Dull comments on stale tidings. Foreign news. Home news, 
 with the leaders on them, identically dull. Behold the effect 
 of Journalism: a witty man, sparkling overnight, gets into 
 his pulpit and proses — because he must say something and 
 he really knows nothing. Journalists have an excessive over- 
 estimate of their influence. They cannot — as Diana said, 
 comparing them with men on the Parliamentary platform — 
 cannot feel they are aboard the big vessel; they can only 
 strive to raise a breeze, or find one to sw^ll; and they cannot 
 measure the stoutness or the greatness of the good ship Eng- 
 land. Dacier's personal ambition was inferior to his desire 
 to extend and strengthen his England. Parliament was the 
 field. Government the office. How many conversations had 
 passed between him and Diana on that patriotic dream! She 
 had often filled his drooping sails; he owned it proudly — and 
 
302 DIANiA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 while the world, both the hoofed and the rectilinear portions, 
 were biting at her character! Had he fretted her self-respect? 
 He blamed himself, but a devoted service mnst have its term. 
 
 The paper of Mr. Tonans was reserved for perusal at break- 
 fast. He reserved it because Tonans was an opponent, tricksy 
 and surprising now and then, amusing too; unlikely to afford 
 him serious reflections. The recent endeavors of his journal 
 to whip the Government-team to a right-about-face were an- 
 noying, preposterous. Dacier had admitted to Diana that 
 Tonans merited the thanks of the country during the dis- 
 creditable Eailway mania, when his articles had a fine ex- 
 hortative and prophetic twang, and had done marked good. 
 Otherwise, as regarded the Ministry, the veering gusts of 
 Tonans were objectionable: he "raised the breeze" wantonly 
 as well as disagreeably. Any one can whip up the populace if 
 he has the instruments; and Tonans frequently intruded on 
 the Ministry's prerogative to govern. The journalist was 
 bidding against the statesman. But such is the condition of 
 a rapidly Eadicalizing country! We must take it as it is. 
 
 With a complacent. What now, Dacier fixed his indifferent 
 eyes on the first column of the leaders. 
 
 He read, and his eyes grew horny. He jerked back at each 
 sentence, electrified, staring. The article was shorter than 
 usual. Total Eepeal was named; the precise date when the 
 Minister intended calling Parliament together to propose it. 
 The "Total Eepeal" might be guesswork — an editor's- bold 
 stroke; but the details, the date, were significant of positive 
 information. The Minister's definite and immediate instruc- 
 tions were exactly stated. 
 
 Where could the fellow have got hold of that? Dacier asked 
 the blank ceiling. 
 
 He frowned at vacant corners of the room in an effort to 
 conjure some speculation indicative of the source. 
 
 Had his chief confided the secret to another and a traitor? 
 Had they been overheard in his library when the project de- 
 termined on was put in plain speech? 
 
 The answer was No, impossible, to each question. 
 
 He glanced at Diana. She? But it was past midnight 
 when he left her. And she would never have betrayed him, 
 never, never. To imagine it a moment was an injury to her. 
 ^ Where else could he look? It had been specially men- 
 tioned in the communication as a secret by his chief, who 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 303 
 
 trusted him and no others. Up to the consultation with the 
 Cabinet it was a thing to be guarded like hfe itself. Not to 
 a soul except Diana would Dacier have breathed syllable of 
 any secret — and one of this weight! 
 
 He ran down the article again. There were the facts; 
 undeniable facts; and they detonated with audible roaring 
 and rounding echoes of them over England. How did they 
 come there? As well inquire how man came on the face of 
 the earth. 
 
 He had to wipe his forehead perpetually. Think as he 
 would in exaltation of Diana to shelter himself, he was the 
 accused. He might not be the guilty, but he had opened his 
 mouth: and, though it was to her only — and she, as Dunstane 
 had sworn, true as steel — he could not escape condemnation. 
 He had virtually betrayed his master. Diana would never 
 betray her lover, but the thing was in the air as soon as uttered: 
 and off to the printing press! Dacier's grotesque fancy under 
 annoyance pictured a stream of small printer's devils in flight 
 from his babbling lips. 
 
 He consumed bits of breakfast, Avith a sour confession that 
 a newspaper article had hit him at last, and stunningly. 
 
 Hat and coat were called for. The state of aimlessness in 
 hot perplexity demands a show of action. Whither to go 
 first was as obscure as what to do. Diana said of the Eng- 
 lishman's hat and coat, that she supposed they were to make 
 him a walking presentment of the house he had shut up be- 
 hind him. A shot of the eye at the glass confirmed the like- 
 ness, but with a ruefully wry-faced repudiation of it inter- 
 nally. Not so shut up; the reverse of that — a common bab- 
 bler. 
 
 However, there was no doubt of Diana. First he would 
 call on her. The pleasantest dose in perturbations of the 
 kind is instinctively taken first. She would console, perhaps 
 direct him to guess how the secret had leaked. But so sud- 
 denly, immediately! It was inexpUcable. 
 
 Sudden and immediate consequences were experienced. 
 On the steps of his house his way was blocked by the arrival 
 of Mr. Quintin Manx, who jumped out of a cab, bellowing in- 
 terjections and interrogations in a breath. Was there any- 
 thing in that article? He had read it at breakfast, and it had 
 choked him. Dacier was due at a house and could not wait; 
 he said, rather sharply, he was not responsible for newspaper 
 
304 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 articles. Quintin Manx, a senior gentleman and junior land- 
 owner, vowed that no Minister intending to sell the country 
 should treat him as a sheep. The shepherd might go; he 
 would not carry his flock with him. But was there a twinkle 
 of probability in the story? . . . that article! Dacier 
 was unable to inform him; he was very hurried, had to keep 
 an appointment. 
 
 ^^If I let you go will you come and lunch with me at two ?" 
 said Quintin. 
 
 To get rid of him, Dacier nodded and agreed. 
 
 "Two o'clock, mind!" was bawled at his heels as he walked 
 off with his long stride, unceremoniously leaving the pursy 
 gentleman of sixty to settle with his cabman far to the rear. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 IN WHICH IT IS DARKLY SEEN HOW THE CRIMINAL'S 
 JUDGE MAY BE LOVE'S CRIMINAL. 
 
 When we are losing balance on a precipice we do not think 
 much of the thing we have clutched for support. Our bal- 
 ance is restored and we have not fallen — that is the com- 
 fortable reflection; we stand as others do, and we will for the 
 future be warned to avoid the dizzy stations which cry for re- 
 sources beyond a common equilibrium, and where a slip precipi- 
 tates us to ruin. 
 
 When, further, it is a woman planted in a burning blush, 
 having to idealize her feminine weakness, that she may not 
 rebuke herself for groveling, the mean material acts by which 
 she sustains a tottering position are speedily swallowed in the 
 one pervading flame. She sees but an ashen curl of the path 
 she has traversed to safety, if anything. 
 
 Knowing her lover was to come in the morning, Diana's 
 thoughts dwelt wholly upon the way to tell him, as tenderly 
 as possible without danger to herself, that her time for enter- 
 taining was over until she had finished her book; indefinitely, 
 therefore. The apprehension of his complaining pricked the 
 memory that she had something to forgive. He had sunk 
 her in her own esteem by compelling her to see her woman's 
 softness. But how high above all other men her experience 
 of him could place him notwithstanding! He had bowed to 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 305 
 
 the figure of herself, dearer than herself, that she set before 
 him: and it was a true figure to the world; a too fictitious to 
 any but the most knightly of lovers. She forgave; and a 
 shudder seized her. Snake! she rebuked the delicious run 
 of fire through her veins; for she was not like the idol woman 
 of imperishable type, who is never for a twinkle the prey of 
 the blood : statues created by man's common desire to impress 
 upon the sex his possessing pattern of them as domestic 
 decorations. 
 
 When she entered the room to Dacier and they touched 
 hands she rejoiced in her coolness, without any other feeling 
 or perception active. Not to be unkind, not too kind: this 
 was her task. She waited for the passage of common-places. 
 "You slept well, Percy?" 
 "Yes; and you?" 
 "I don't think I even dreamed." 
 
 They sat. She noticed the cloud on him and waited for 
 his allusion to it, anxious concerning him simply. 
 
 Dacier flung the hair off his temples. Words of Titanic 
 formation were hurling in his head at journals and journal- 
 ists. He muttered his disgust of them. 
 
 "Is there anything to annoy you in the papers to-day?" she 
 asked, and thought how handsome his face was in anger. 
 
 The paper of Mr. Tonans was named by him. "You have 
 not seen it?" 
 
 "I have not opened it yet.'' 
 
 He sprang up. "The truth is, those fellows can now afford 
 to buy right and left, corrupt every soul alive! There must 
 have been a spy at the keyhole. I'm pretty certain — I could 
 swear it was not breathed to any ear but mine; and there it is 
 this morning in black and white." 
 
 "What is?" cried Diana, turning to him on her chair. 
 "The thing I told you last night." 
 
 Her lips worked, as if to spell the thing. "Printed, do you 
 say?" She rose. 
 
 "Printed. In a leading article, loud as a trumpet; a hue- 
 and-cry running from end to end of the country. And my 
 chief has already had the satisfaction of seeing the secret he 
 confided to me yesterday roared in all the thoroughfares this 
 morning. They've got the facts: his decision to propose it, 
 and the date — the whole of it! But who could have betrayed 
 it?" 
 
306 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 For the first time since her midnight expedition she felt a 
 sensation of the full weight of the deed. She heard thunder. 
 
 She tried to disperse the growing burden by an inward 
 summons to contempt of the journalistic profession, but noth- 
 ing would come. She tried to minimize it, and her brain suc- 
 cumbed. Her views of the deed last night and now throttled 
 reason in two contending clutches. The enormity swelled its 
 dimensions, taking shape, and pointing magnetically at her. 
 She stood absolutely, amazedly, bare before it. 
 
 "Is it of such very great importance?" she said, like one 
 supplicating him to lessen it. 
 
 "A secret of State? If you ask whether it is of great im- 
 portance to me, relatively it is of course. Nothing greater. 
 Personally, my conscience is clear. I never mentioned it — 
 couldn't have mentioned it — to any one but you. I'm not 
 the man to blab secrets. He spoke to me because he knew he 
 could trust me. To tell you the truth, I'm brought to a dead 
 stop. I can't make a guess. I'm certain — from what he said 
 that he trusted me only with it — perfectly certain. I know 
 him well. He was in his library, speaking in his usual conver- 
 sational tone, deliberately, not overloud. He stated that it 
 was a secret between us." 
 
 "Will it affect him?" 
 
 "This article? Why, naturally it will. You ask strange 
 questions. A Minister coming to a determination like that! 
 It affects him vitally. The members of the Cabinet are not 
 so devoted. ... It affects us all — the whole party may 
 split it to pieces! There's no reckoning the upset right and 
 left. If it were false it could be refuted; we could despise it as 
 a trick of journalism. It's true. There's the mischief. 
 Tonans did not happen to call here last night? — ^absurd! I 
 left later than half past twelve." 
 
 "No, but let me hear," Diana said hurriedly, for the sake of 
 uttering the veracious negative and to slur it over. "Let me 
 hear . . ." She could not muster an idea. 
 
 Her delicious thrilling voice was a comfort to him. He 
 lifted his breast high and thumped it, trying to smile. "After 
 all, it's pleasant being with you, Tony. Give me your hand — 
 you may: I'm bothered — confounded by this morning surprise. 
 It was like walking against the muzzle of a loaded cannon 
 suddenly unmasked. One can't fathom the mischief it will 
 do. And I shall be suspected, and can't quite protest myself 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 307 
 
 the spotless innocent. Not even to one's heart's mistress! to 
 the wife of the bosom! I suppose I'm no Roman. You won't 
 give me your hand? Tony, you might, seeing I am rather . . ." 
 
 A rush of scalding tears flooded her eyes. 
 
 "Don't touch me," she said, and forced her sight to look 
 straight at him through the fierj^ shower. "I have done posi- 
 tive mischief." 
 
 "You, my dear Tony?" He doted on her face. "I don't 
 blame you, I blame myself. These things should never be 
 breathed. Once in the air, the devil has hold of them. Don't 
 take it so much to heart. The thing's bad enough to bear as 
 it is. Tears! Let me have the hand. I came, on my honor, 
 with the most honest intention to submit to your orders: but 
 if I see you weeping in sympathy!" 
 
 "Oh! for Heaven's sake," she caught her hands away from 
 him, "don't be generous. Wliip me with scorpions. And 
 don't touch me," cried Diana. "Do you understand? You 
 did not name it as a secret. I did not imagine it to be a secret 
 of immense, immediate importance." 
 
 "But — what?" shouted Dacier, stiffening. 
 
 He wanted her positive meaning, as she perceived, having 
 hoped that it was generally taken and current, and the shock 
 to him over. 
 
 "I had . . I had not a suspicion of doing harm, Percy." 
 
 "But what harm have you done? No riddles!" 
 
 His features gave sign of the break in their common 
 ground, the widening gulf. 
 
 "I went ... it was a curious giddiness: I can't account 
 for it. I thought . . ." 
 
 "Went ? You went where ?" 
 
 "Last night. I would speak intelligibly: my mind has 
 gone. Ah! you look. It is not so bad as my feelings." 
 
 "But where did you go last night? What! — to Tonans?" 
 
 She drooped her head: she saw the track of her route cleav- 
 ing the darkness in a demoniacal zig-zag and herself in demon's 
 grip. 
 
 "Yes," she confronted him. "I went to Mr. Tonans." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I went to him ^" 
 
 'You went alone?" 
 
 "I took my maid." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
SOS DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "It was late when you left me ..." 
 
 "Speak plainly!" 
 
 "I am trying: I will tell you all." 
 
 "At once, if you please." 
 
 "I went to him — why? There is no accounting lor it. He 
 sneered constantly at any stale information." 
 
 "You gave him constant information?" 
 
 "No; in our ordinary talk. He railed at me for being 
 'out of it.' I must be childish; I went to show him — oh! my 
 vanity! I think I must have been possessed." 
 
 She watched the hardening of her lover's eyes. They pene- 
 trated, and through them she read herself insufferably. 
 
 But it was with hesitation still that he said, "Then you be- 
 trayed me?" 
 
 "Percy! I had not a suspicion of mischief." 
 
 "You went straight to this man?" 
 
 "Not thinking . . ." 
 
 "You sold me to a journalist!" 
 
 "I thought it was a secret of a day. I don't think you — 
 no, you did not tell me to keep it secret. A word from you 
 would have been enough. I was in extremity." 
 
 Dacier threw his hands up and broke away. He had an 
 impulse to dash from the room, to get a breath of different air. 
 He stood at the window, observing tradesmen's carts, house- 
 maids, blank doors, dogs, a beggar fifer. Her last words re- 
 curred to him. He turned: "You were in extremity, you said. 
 What is the meaning of that? What extremity?" 
 
 Her large dark eyes flashed powerlessly; her shape appeared 
 to have narrowed; her tongue, too, was a feeble penitent. 
 
 "You ask a creature to recall her acts of insanity." 
 
 "There must be some signification in your words, I suppose." 
 
 "I will tell you as clearly as I can. You have the right to 
 be my judge. I was in extremity — that is, I saw no means 
 . . . I could not write: it was ruin coming." 
 
 "Ah! you took payment for playing spy?" 
 
 "I fancied I could retrieve . . . Now I see the folly, the 
 baseness. I was blind." 
 
 "Then you sold me to a journalist for money?" 
 
 The intolerable scourge fetched a stifled scream from her 
 and drove her pacing, but there was no escape; she returned to 
 meet it. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 309 
 
 The room was a cage to both of them, and every word of 
 either was a sting. 
 
 "Percy, I did not imagine he would use it — make use of it 
 as he has done." 
 
 "Not? And when he paid for it?" 
 
 "I fancied it would be merely of general service — if any." 
 
 "Distributed; I see: not leading to the exposure of the 
 communicant!" 
 
 "You are harsh; but I would not have you milder." 
 
 The meekness of such a mischief-doer was revolting and 
 called for the lash. 
 
 "Do me the favor to name the sum. I am curious to learn 
 what my imbecility was counted worth." 
 
 "No sum was named." 
 
 "Have I been bought for a song?" 
 
 "It was a suggestion — no definite . . . nothing stipulated." 
 
 "You were to receive money!" 
 
 "Leave me a bit of veiling! No, you shall behold me the 
 thing I am. Listen ... I was poor . . ." 
 
 "You might have applied to me." 
 
 "For money! That I could not do." 
 
 "Better than betraying me, believe me." 
 
 "I had no thought of betraying. I hope I could have died 
 rather than consciously betray." 
 
 "Money! My whole fortune was at your disposal." 
 
 "I was beset with debts, unable to write, and, last night 
 when you left me, abject. It seemed to me that you disre- 
 spected me . . ." 
 
 "Last night!" Dacier cried with lashing emphasis. 
 
 "It is evident to me that I have the reptile in me, Percy. 
 Or else I am subject to lose my reason. I went ... I went 
 like a bullet: I cannot describe it; I was mad. I need a strong 
 arm, I want help. I am given to think that I do my best and 
 can be independent; I break down. I went blindly — ^now I 
 see it— for the chance oi recovering my position, as the gam- 
 bler casts; and he wins or loses. With me it is the soul that 
 is lost. No exact sum was named; thousands were hinted." 
 
 "You are hardly practical on points of business." 
 
 "I was insane." 
 
 "I think you said you slept wxll after it," Dacier remarked. 
 
 "I had so little the idea of having done evilly that I slept 
 without a dream." 
 
310 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 He shrugged: the consciences of women are such smooth 
 deeps or running shallows. 
 
 "I have often wondered how your newspaper men got their 
 information/' he said, and muttered: "Money — women!" 
 adding: "Idiots to prime them! And I one of the leaky ves- 
 sels! Well, we learn. I have been rather astonished at times 
 of late at the scraps of secret knowledge displayed by Tonans. 
 If he flourishes his thousands! The wonder is he doesn't cor- 
 rupt the Ministers' wives. Perhaps he does. Marriage will 
 become a danger-sign to Parliamentary members. Foreign 
 women do these tricks . . . women of a well-known stamp. 
 It is now a full year, I think, since I began to speak to you of 
 secret matters — and congratulated myself, I recollect, on your 
 thirst for them." 
 
 "Percy, if you suspect that I have uttered one word before 
 last night you are wrong. I cannot paint my temptation or 
 my loss of sense last night. Previously I was blameless. I 
 thirsted, yes; but in the hope of helping you." 
 
 He looked at her. She perceived how glitteringly loveless 
 his eyes had grown. It was her punishment; and, though 
 the enamored woman's heart protested it excessive, she ac- 
 cepted it. 
 
 "I can never trust you again," he said. 
 
 "I fear you will not," she replied. 
 
 His coming back to her after the departure of the guests 
 last night shone on him in splendid colors of single-minded 
 lover-Hke devotion. "I came to speak to my own heart. I 
 thought it would give you pleasure; thought I could trust you 
 utterly. I had not the slightest conception I was imperiling 
 my honor! ..." 
 
 He stopped. Her bloodless fixed features revealed an in- 
 tensity of anguish that checked him. Only her mouth, a 
 little open for the sharp breath, appeared dumbly beseeching. 
 Her large eyes met his like steel to steel, as of one who would 
 die fronting the weapon. 
 
 He strangled a loathsome inclination to admire. 
 
 "So good-bye," he said. 
 
 She moved her lips. 
 
 He said no more. In half a minute he was gone. 
 
 To her it was the plucking of life out of her breast. 
 
 She pressed her hands where heart had been. The pallor 
 and cold of death took her body. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 311 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 REVEALS HOW THE TRUE HEROINE OF ROMANCE COMES 
 FINALLY TO HER TIME OF TRIUMPH. 
 
 The shutting of her housedoor closed for Dacier that 
 woman's history in connection with himself. lie set his mind 
 on the consequences of the act of folly — the trusting a secret 
 to a woman. All were possibly not so bad: none should be 
 trusted. 
 
 The air of the street fanned him agreeably as he revolved 
 the horrible project of confession to the man who had put 
 faith in him. Particulars might be asked. She would be 
 unnamed, but an imagination of the effect of naming her 
 placarded a notorious woman in fresh paint: two members of 
 the same family her victims! 
 
 And last night — no later than last night — he had swung 
 round at this very corner of the street to give her the fullest 
 proof of his affection. He beheld a dupe trotting into a 
 carefully-laid pitfall. She had him by the generosity of his 
 confidence in her. Moreover, the recollection of her recent 
 feeble phrasing, when she stood convicted of the treachery, 
 when a really clever woman would have developed her re- 
 sources, led him to doubt her being so finely gifted. She 
 was just clever enough to hoodwink. He attributed the 
 dupery to a trick of imposing the idea of her virtue upon 
 men. Attracted by her good looks and sparkle, they entered 
 the circle of her charm, became delightfully intimate, suf- 
 fered a rebuff, and were from that time prepared to serve 
 her purpose. How many other wretched dupes had she 
 dangling? He spied at Westlake, spied at Red worth, at 
 the departed old Lord Larrian, at Lord Dannisburgh, at 
 Arthur Rhodes, dozens. Old and young were alike to her if 
 she saw an end to be gained by keeping them hooked. 
 Tonans, too, and Whitmonby. Newspaper editors were 
 especially serviceable. Perhaps "a young Minister of State" 
 held the foremost rank in that respect; if completely duped 
 and squeezable he produced more substantial stuff. 
 
312 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 The background of ice in Dacier's composition was brought 
 to the front by his righteous contempt of her treachery. No 
 explanation of it would have appeased him. She was guilty, 
 and he condemned her. She stood condemned by all the 
 evil likely to ensue from her misdeed. Scarcely had he left 
 her house last night when she was away to betray him! — He 
 shook her from him without a pang. Crediting her with 
 the one merit she had — that of not imploring for mercy — he 
 the more easily shook her off. Treacherous, she had not 
 proved theatrical. So there was no fuss in putting out her 
 light, and it was done. He was justified by the brute facts. 
 Honorable, courteous, kindly gentleman, highly civilized, an 
 excellent citizen and a patriot, he was icy at an outrage 
 to his principles; and in the dominion of Love a sultan of 
 the bow-string and chopper period, sovereignly endowed to 
 stretch a finger ''or the scimitared Mesrour to make the erring 
 woman head and trunk with one blow: and iway with those 
 remnants! This internally he did. Enough that the brute 
 ■facts Justified him. 
 
 St. James's Park was crossed, and the grass of the Green 
 Park, to avoid inquisitive friends. He was obliged to walk; 
 exercise, action of any sort, was imperative, and but for some 
 engagement he would have gone to his fencing-rooms for a 
 bout with the master. He remembered his engagement and 
 grew doubly embittered. He had absurdly pledged him- 
 self to lunch with Quintin Manx; that was, to pretend to 
 eat while submitting to be questioned by a political dullard 
 strong on his present right to overhaul and rail at his supe- 
 riors. The house was one of a block along the north- 
 western line of Hyde Park. He kicked at the subjection to 
 go there, but a promise was binding, though he gave it when 
 stunned. He could have silenced Mr. Manx with the posing 
 interrogation: Why have I so long consented to put myself 
 at the mercy of a bore? For him, he could not answer it, 
 though Manx, as leader of the shipping interest, was influen- 
 tial. The man had to be endured, like other doses in politics. 
 Dacier did not once think of the great shipowner's niece 
 till Miss Constance Asper stepped into her drawing-room to 
 welcome him. She was an image of repose to his mind. 
 The calm pure outline of her white features refreshed him 
 as the Alps the Londoner newly alighted at Berne; smoke, ^ 
 wrangle, the wrestling city's wickedness, behind him. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 313 
 
 "My uncle is very disturbed/' she said. "Is the news — 
 if I am not very indiscreet in inquiring?" 
 
 "I have a practice of never paying attention to newspaper 
 articles/' Dacier replied. 
 
 "I am only affected by living with one who does/' Miss 
 Asper observed, and the lofty isolation of her head above 
 politics gave her a moral attractiveness in addition to phys- 
 ical beauty. Her water-color sketches were on her uncle's 
 walls: the beautiful in nature claimed and absorbed her. 
 She dressed with a pretty rigor, a lovely simplicity, pic- 
 turesque of the nunnery. She looked, indeed, a high-born 
 young lady-abbess. 
 
 "It's a dusty game for ladies/' Dacier said, abhorring the 
 women defiled by it. 
 
 And, when one thinks of the desire of men to worship 
 women, there is a pathos in a man's discovery of the fair 
 young creature undefiled by any interest in public affairs, 
 virginal amid her bower's environments. ^ 
 
 The angelical beauty of a virgin mind and person capti- 
 vated him, by contrast. His natural taste was to admire it, 
 shunning the lures and tangles of the women on high seas, 
 notably the married: who, by the way, contrive to ensnare 
 us through wonderment at a cleverness caught from their 
 traffic with the masculine world: often — if we did but know 
 — a parrot-repetition of the last male visitor's remarks. But 
 that which the fair maiden speaks, though it may be simple, 
 is her own. 
 
 She, too, is her own: or vowed but to one. She is on all 
 sides impressive in purity. The world worships her as its 
 perfect pearl: and we are brought refreshingly to acknowl- 
 edge that the world is right. 
 
 By contrast, the white radiation of Innocence distinguished 
 Constance Asper celestially. As he was well aware, she had 
 long preferred him — the reserved among many pleading, 
 pressing suitors. Her steady faithfulness had fed on the 
 poorest crumbs. 
 
 He ventured to express the hope that she was well. 
 
 "Yes/' she answered, with eyelids ^ lifted softly to thank 
 him for his concern in so humble a person. 
 
 "You look a little pale," he said. 
 
 She colored like a sea-water shell. "I am inclined to pale- 
 ness by nature/' 
 
314 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 Her uncle disturbed them. Lunch was ready. He apolo- 
 gized for the absence of Mrs. Markland, a maternal aunt of 
 Constance, who kept house for them. Quintin Manx fell 
 upon the meats and then upon the Minister. Dacier found 
 himself happily surprised by the accession of an appetite. He 
 mentioned it to escape from the worrying of his host, as 
 unusual with him at midday: and Miss Asper, supporting 
 him in that effort, said benevolently, "Gentlemen should 
 eat: they have so many fatigues and troubles.'^ She herself 
 did not like to be seen eating in public. Her lips opened 
 to the morsels as with a bird's bill, though with none of 
 the pecking eagerness we complacently observe in poultry. 
 
 "But now, I say, positively, how about that article?" said 
 Quintin. 
 
 Dacier visibly winced, and Constance immediately said, 
 "Oh! spare us politics, dear uncle.'* 
 
 Her intercession was without avail, but by contrast with 
 the woman implicated in the horrible article it was a carol 
 of the seraphs. 
 
 "Come, you can say whether there's anything in it," 
 Dacier's host pushed him. 
 
 "I should not say it if I could," he replied. 
 
 The mild sweetness of Miss Asper's look encouraged him. 
 
 He was touched to the quick by hearing her say, "You 
 ask for Cabinet secrets, uncle. All secrets are holy, but 
 secrets of State are under a seal next to divine." 
 
 "Next to divine! She was the mouthpiece of his ruling 
 principle. 
 
 "I'm not prying into secrets," Quintin persisted. "All I 
 want to know is, whether there's any foundation for that 
 article — all London's boiling about it, I can tell you — or if 
 it's only a new.^paper's humbug." 
 
 "Clearly the oracle for you is the editor's office," rejoined 
 Dacier. 
 
 "A pretty sort of answer I should get." 
 
 "It would at least be complimentary." 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "The net was cast for you — and the sight of a fish in 
 it!" • ^ ^ 
 
 Miss Asper almost laughed. "Have you heard the choir 
 at St. Catherine's?" she asked. 
 
 Dacier had not, He repented of his worldliness, and. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 315 
 
 drinking persuasive claret, said he would go to hear it next 
 Sunday. 
 
 "Do," she murmured. 
 
 "Well, you seem to be a pair against me," her uncle 
 grumbled. "Anyhow I think it's important. People have 
 been talking for some time, and I don't want to be taken 
 unawares; I won't be a yoked ox, mind you." 
 
 "Have you been sketching lately?" Dacier asked Miss 
 Asper. 
 
 "She generally filled a book in the autumn," she said. 
 
 "May I see it*?" 
 
 "If you wish." 
 
 They had a short tussle with her uncle, and escaped. He 
 was conducted to a room midway upstairs: an heiress's con- 
 ception of a saintly little room; and more impressive in 
 purity, indeed it was, than a saint's, with the many cruci- 
 fixes, gold and silver emblems, velvet prie-Dieu chairs, jewel- 
 clasped sacred volumes : every invitation to meditate in luxury 
 on an ascetic religiousness. 
 
 She depreciated her sketching powers. "I am impatient 
 with my imperfections. I am therefore doomed not to ad- 
 vance." 
 
 "On the contrary, that is the state guaranteeing ultimate 
 excellence," he said, much disposed to drone about it. 
 • She sighed: "I fear not." 
 
 He turned the leaves, comparing her modesty with the 
 performance. The third of the leaves was a subject instantly 
 recognized by him. It represented the place he had inherited 
 from Lord Dannisburgh. 
 
 He named it. 
 
 She smiled: "You are good enough to see a likeness? My 
 aunt and I were passing it last October, and I waited for a 
 day, to sketch." 
 
 "You have taken it from my favorite point of view." 
 
 "I am glad." 
 
 "How much I should like a copy!" 
 
 "If you will accept that?" 
 
 "I could not rob you." 
 
 "I can make a duplicate." 
 
 "The look of the place pleases you?" 
 
 "Oh! yes; the pines behind it; the sweet little village 
 
316 DIANiA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 church; even the appearance of the rustics; — it is all impress- 
 ively old English. I suppose you are very seldom there?" 
 
 "Does it look like a home to you?" 
 
 "N'o place more!" 
 
 "I feel the loneliness." 
 
 "Where I live I feel no loneliness!" 
 
 "You have heavenly messengers near you." 
 
 "They do not always come." 
 
 "Would you consent to make the place less lonely to me?" 
 
 Her hosom rose. In deference to her maidenly under- 
 standing she gazed inquiringly. 
 
 "If you love it!" said he. 
 
 "The place?" she said, looking soft at the possessor. 
 
 "Constance!" 
 
 "Is it true?" 
 
 "As you yourself . Could it be other than true? This hand 
 is mine?" 
 
 "Oh! Percy.'' 
 
 Borrowing the world's poetry to describe them, the long 
 prayed-for summer enveloped the melting snows. 
 
 So the recollection of Diana's watch beside his uncle's 
 death-bed was wiped out. Ay, and the hissing of her 
 treachery silenced. This maidenly hand put him at peace 
 with the world, instead of his defying it for a worthless 
 woman — who could not do better than accept the shelter of 
 her husband's house, as she ought to be told, if her friends 
 wished her to save her reputation. 
 
 Dacier made his way downstairs to Quintin Manx, by 
 whom he was hotly congratulated and informed of the extent 
 of the young lady's fortune: on the strength of which it was 
 expected that he would certainly speak a private word in 
 elucidation of that newspaper article. 
 
 "I know nothing of it," said Dacier, but promised to come 
 and dine. 
 
 Alone in her happiness, Constance Asper dispatched various 
 brief notes under her gold-symbolled crest to sisterly friends: 
 one to Lady Wathin, containing the single line: 
 
 "Your prophecy is confirmed." 
 
 Dacier was comfortably able to face his club after the 
 excitement of a proposal, with a bride on his hands. He 
 was assaulted concerning the article, and he parried capi- 
 tally. Say that her lips were rather cold: at any rate, they 
 
DlANiA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 317 
 
 invigorated him. Her character was guaranteed — not the 
 hazy idea of a dupe. And her fortune would be enormous: a 
 speculation merely due to worldly prudence and prospective 
 ambition. 
 
 At the dinner-table of four, in the evening, conversation 
 would have seemed dull to him, by contrast, had it not been 
 for the presiding grace of his bride, whose habitually eminent 
 feminine air of superiority to the repast was throned by her 
 appreciative receptiveness of his looks and utterances. Before 
 leaving her he won her consent to a very early marriage — on 
 the plea of a possibly approaching Session, and also that they 
 had waited long. The consent, notwithstanding the hurry 
 of preparations it involved, besides the annihilation of her 
 desire to meditate on so solemn a change in her life and savor 
 the congratulation of her friends and have the choir of St. 
 Catherine's rigorously drilled in her favorite anthems, was 
 beautifully yielded to the pressure of circumstances. 
 
 There lay on his table at night a letter — a bulky letter. No 
 need to tear it open for sight of the signature: the superscrip- 
 tion was redolent of that betraying woman. He tossed it 
 unopened into the fire. 
 
 As it was thick, it burned sullenly, discoloring his name 
 on the address, as she had done, and still offering him a 
 last chance of viewing the contents. She fought on the 
 consuming fire to have her exculpation heard. 
 
 But was she not a shameless traitor? She had caught 
 him by his love of his country and hope to serve it. She 
 had wound into his heart to bleed him of all he knew and 
 sell the secrets for money. A wonderful sort of eloquence 
 lay there, on those coals, no doubt. He felt a slight move- 
 ment of curiosity to glance at two or three random sentences: 
 very slight. And why read them now? They w^ere valueless 
 to him, mere outcries. He judged her by the brute facts. She 
 and her slowly-consuming letter were of a common blackness. 
 Moreover, to read them when he was plighted to another 
 woman would be senseless. In the discovery of her baseness 
 she had made a poor figure. Doubtless during the afternoon 
 she had trimmed her intuitive Belial art of making "the 
 worse appear the better cause": queer to peruse^ and instruct- 
 ive in an unprofitable department of knowledge — the tricks of 
 her sex. 
 
 He said to himself, with little intuition of the popular 
 
S18 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 taste: She wouldn't be a bad heroine of Eomance! He said 
 it derisively of the Eomantic. But the right worshipful hero- 
 ine of Romance was the front-face female picture he had 
 won for his walls. Poor Diana was the flecked heroine of 
 Reality: not always the same; not impeccable; not an igno- 
 rant innocent, nor a guileless: good under good leading; de- 
 voted to the death in a grave crisis; often wrestling with her 
 terrestrial nature nobly; and a growing soul; but not one 
 whose purity was carved in marble for the assurance to an 
 Englishman that his possession of the changeless thing defies 
 time and his fellows — is the pillar of his home and universally 
 enviable. Your fair one of Romance cannot suffer a mishap 
 without a plotting villain, perchance many of them, to wreak 
 the dread iniquity: she cannot move without him; she is 
 the marble block, and, if she is to have a feature, he is the 
 sculptor; she depends on hirn for life, and her human history 
 at least is married to him far more than to the rescuing lover. 
 No wonder, then, that men should find her thrice cherishable 
 featureless, or with the most moderate possible indication of 
 a countenance. Thousands of the excellent simple creatures 
 do; and every reader of her tale. On the contrary, the heroine 
 of Reality is that woman whom you have met or heard of 
 once in j^our course of years, and very probably despised for 
 bearing in her composition the motive principle; at best, you 
 say, a singular mixture of good and bad; anything but the 
 feminine ideal of man. She is shamelessly independent of the 
 world's wickedness. Feature to some excess, you think, dis- 
 tinguishes her. Yet she furnishes not any of the sweet sensual 
 excitement pertaining to her spotless rival pursued by villainy. 
 She knocks at the doors of the mind, and the mind must open 
 to be interested in her. Mind and heart must be widely open 
 to excuse her sheer descent from the pure ideal of man. 
 
 Dacier's wandering reflections all came back in crowds to 
 the judicial Bench of the Black Cap. He felt finely, apart 
 from the treason, that her want of money degraded her: him, 
 too, by contact. Money she might have had to any extent: 
 upon application for it, of course. How was he to imagine 
 that she wanted money? Smilingly, as she welcomed him and 
 his friends, entertaining them royally, he was bound to think 
 she had means. A decent propriety bound him not to think 
 of the matter at all. He naturally supposed she was capable 
 of conducting her affairs. And — ^money! It soiled his mem- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 319 
 
 ory: though the hour at Eovio was rather pretty, and the 
 scene at Copsley touching: other times also short glimpses 
 of the woman were taking. The flood of her treachery effaced 
 them. And why reflect? Constance called to him to look 
 her way. 
 
 Diana's letter died hard. The corners were burnt to black 
 tissue, with an edge or two of discolored paper. A small 
 frayed central heap still resisted, and, in kindness to the neces- 
 sity for privacy, he impressed the fire-tongs to complete the 
 execution. After which he went to his desk and worked, 
 under the presidency of Constance. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 IS CONCLUSIVE AS TO THE HEARTLESSNESS OF WOMEN 
 WITH BRAINS. 
 
 Hymeneal rumors are those which might be backed to run 
 a victorious race with the tale of evil fortune, and clearly for 
 the reason that man's livelier half is ever alert to speed them. 
 They travel with an astonishing celerity over the land, like 
 flames of the dry beacon-faggots of old time in announcement 
 of the invader or a conquest, gathering as they go: wherein, 
 to say nothing of their vastly wider range, they surpass the 
 electric wires. Man's nuptial half is kindlingly concerned 
 in the launch of a new couple; it is the business of the sex: 
 and man himself (very strangely, but nature quickens him 
 still) lends a not unfavoring eye to the preparations of the 
 matrimonial vessel for its oily descent into the tides, where 
 billows will soon be rising, captain and mate soon discussing 
 the fateful question of who is commander. We consent, it 
 appears, to hope again for mankind; here is another chance! 
 Or else, assuming the happiness of the pair, that pomp of 
 ceremonial, contrasted with the little wind-blown candle they 
 carry between them, catches at our weaker fibers. After so 
 many ships have foundered, some keel up, like poisoned fish at 
 the first drink of water, it is a gallant spectacle, let us avow; 
 and either the world perpetuating it is heroical, or nature 
 incorrigible in the species. Marriages are unceasing. Friends 
 
320 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 do it, and enemies; the unknown contractors of this engage- 
 ment, or armistice, inspire an interest. It certainly is both 
 exciting and comforting to hear that man and woman are 
 ready to join in a mutual affirmative, say Yes together again. 
 It sounds like the end of the war. 
 
 The proclamation of the proximate marriage of a young 
 Minister of State and the greatest heiress of her day — noto- 
 riously *'T7ie young Minister of State" of a famous book writ- 
 ten by the beautiful, now writhing, woman madly enamored 
 of him, and the heiress whose dowry could purchase a duchy 
 — this was a note to make the gossips of England leap from 
 their beds at the midnight hour and wag tongues in the 
 market-place. It did away with the political hubbub over the 
 Tonans article, and let it noise abroad like nonsense. The Hon. 
 Percy Dacier espouses Miss Asper; and she rescues him from 
 the snares of a siren, he her from th«^ toils of the Papists. She 
 would have gone over to them; she was going when luckily 
 for the Protestant Faith, Percy Dacier intervened with his 
 proposal. Town and country buzzed the news; and, while 
 that dreary League trumped about the business of the nation, 
 a people suddenly become Oriental chattered of nothing but 
 the blissful union to be celebrated in princely state, with 
 every musical accessory, short of operatic. 
 
 Lady Wathin was an active agent in this excitement. The 
 excellent woman enjoyed marriages of High Life: which, as 
 there is presumably wealth to support them, are manifestly 
 under sanction: and a marriage that she could consider one 
 of her own contrivance had a delicate flavor of a marriage in 
 the family; not quite equal to the seeing a dear daughter of 
 her numerous progeny conducted to the altar, but excelling 
 it in the pomp that bids the heavens opsn. She and no other 
 spread the tidings of Miss Asper's debating upon the step to 
 Rome at the very instant of Percy Dacier's declaration of 
 his love; and it was a beautiful struggle, that of the half- 
 dedicated nun and her deep-rooted earthly passion, love pre- 
 vailing! She sent word off to Lady Dunstane: "You know 
 the interest I have always taken in dear Constance Asper,'' 
 etc.; inviting her to come on a visit a week before the end of 
 the month, that she might join in the ceremony of a wedding 
 "likely to be the grandest of our time." Pitiful though it 
 was to think of the bridal pair having but eight or ten days 
 at the outside for a honeymoon, the beauty of their "mutual 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 321 
 
 devotion to duty" was urged by Lady Wathin upon all 
 hearers. 
 
 Lady Dunstane declined the invitation. She waited to hear 
 from her friend, and the days went by; she could only sorrow 
 for her poor Tony, divining her state. However little of 
 wrong in the circumstances, they imposed a silence on her 
 decent mind, and no conceivable shape of writing would trans- 
 mit condolences. She waited, with a dull heartache — by no 
 means grieving at Dacier's engagement to the heiress — until 
 Redworth animated her, as the bearer of rather startling intel- 
 ligence, indirectly relating to the soul she loved. An accident 
 in the street had befallen Mr. AYarwick. Redworth wanted to 
 know whether Diana should be told of it, though he had no 
 particulars to give; and, somewhat to his disappointment. 
 Lady Dunstane said she would write. She delayed, thinking 
 the accident might not be serious; and the information of it to 
 Diana surely would be so. 
 
 Next day at noon her visitor was Lady Wathin, evidently 
 perturbed and anxious to say more than she dared: but she 
 received no assistance. After beating the air in every direction, 
 especially dwelling on the fond reciprocal affection of the two 
 devoted lovers, to be united within three days' time, Lady 
 Wathin said at last: "And is it not shocking! I talk of a 
 marriage and am appalled by a death. That poor man died 
 last night in the hospital. I mean poor Mr. Warwick. He 
 was recovering, getting strong and well, and he was knocked 
 down at a street-crossing and died last night. It is a warning 
 to us!" 
 
 "Mr. Eedworth happened to hear of it at his club, near 
 which the accident occurred, and he called at the hospital. Mr. 
 Warwick was then aHve," said Lady Dunstane; adding, "Well, 
 if prevention is better than cure, as we hear, accidents are the 
 specific for averting the maladies of age, which are a certain 
 crop!" 
 
 Lady Wathin's eyelids worked and her lips shut fast at 
 the cold-hearted remark void of meaning. 
 
 She sighed. "So ends a life of misery, my dear!" 
 
 "You are compassionate." 
 
 "I hope so. But . . . Indeed I must speak, if you will 
 let me. I think of the living." 
 
 Lady Dunstane widened her eyes. "Of Mrs. Warwick?" 
 
 "She has now the freedom she desired. I think of others. 
 
 21 
 
322 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 Forgive me, but Constance Asper is to me as a daughter. I 
 have perhaps no grounds for any apprehension. Love so 
 ardent, so sincere, was never shown by bridegroom elect: and 
 it is not extraordinary to those acquainted with dear Con- 
 stance. But one may be a worshiped saint and experience 
 defection. The terrible stories one hears of a power of fas- 
 cination almost . . .!" Lady Wathin hung for the word. 
 
 "Infernal," said Lady Dunstane, whose brows had been bent 
 inquiringly. "Have no fear. The freedom you allude to will 
 not be used to interfere with any entertainment in prospect. 
 It was freedom my friend desired. Now that her jewel is 
 restored to her she is not the person to throw it away, be sure. 
 And pray, drop the subject." 
 
 "One may rely . . . you think?" 
 
 "Oh! oh!" 
 
 "This release coming just before the wedding! . . ." 
 
 "I should hardly suppose the man to be the puppet you 
 depict or indicate." 
 
 "It is because men — so many — are not puppets that one is 
 conscious of alarm." 
 
 "Your previous remark," said Lady Dunstane, "sounded 
 superstitious. Your present one has an antipodal basis. But, 
 as for your alarm, check it; and spare me further. My friend 
 has acknowledged powers. Considering that she does not use 
 them you should learn to respect her." 
 
 Lady "Wathin bowed stiffly. She refused to partake of 
 lunch, having, she said, satisfied her conscience by the per- 
 formance of a duty and arranged with her flyman to catch a 
 train. Iler cousin Lady Dunstane smiled loftily at every- 
 thing she uttered; and she felt that if a woman like this Mrs. 
 Warwick could put division between blood-relatives she could 
 do worse, and was to be dreaded up to the hour of the nup- 
 tials. 
 
 "I meant no harm in coming," she said, at the shaking of 
 hands. 
 
 "No, no; I understand," said her hostess: "you are hen- 
 hearted over your adopted brood. The situation is percep- 
 tible and your intention creditable." 
 
 As one of the good women of the world. Lady Wathin in 
 departing was indignant at the tone and dialect of a younger 
 woman not modestly concealing her possession of the larger 
 brain. Brains in women she both dreaded and detested; she 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 323 
 
 believed them to be devilish. Here were instances: they had 
 driven poor Sir Lukin to evil courses and that poor Mr. War- 
 wick straight under the wheels of a cab. Sir Lukin's name 
 was trotting in public with a naughty Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett's. 
 Mrs. Warwick might still trim her arts to baffle the marriage. 
 Women with brains, moreover, are all heartless : they have no 
 pity for distress, no horror of catastrophes, no joy in the hap- 
 piness of the deserving. Brains in men advance a household 
 to station; but brains in women divide it and are the wrecking 
 of society. Fortunately Lady Wathin knew she could rally 
 a powerful moral contingent, the aptitude of which for a one- 
 minded cohesion enabled it to crush those fractional daughters 
 of mischief. She was a really good woman of the world, head- 
 ing a multitude; the same whom you are accustomed to hear 
 exalted; lucky in having had a guided girlhood, a thick-cur- 
 tained prudence; and in having stock in the moral funds, 
 shares in the sentimental tramways. Wherever the world laid 
 its hoards or ran its lines she was found, and forcible enough 
 to be eminent; though at fixed hours of the day, even as 
 she washed her hands, she abjured worldliness: a perform- 
 ance that cleansed her. If she did not make morality appear 
 lovable to the objects of her dislike it was owing to her want 
 of brains to see the origin, nature, and right ends of morality. 
 But a world yet more deficient than she esteemed her cordially 
 for being a bulwark of the present edifice: which looks a solid 
 structure when the microscope is not applied to its com- 
 ponents. 
 
 Supposing Percy Dacier a dishonorable tattler as well as an 
 icy lover, and that Lady Wathin, through his bride, had 
 become privy to the secret between him and Diana? There 
 is reason to think that she would have held it in terror over 
 the baneful woman, but not have persecuted her: for she 
 was by no means the active malignant of theatrical plots. 
 No, she would have charged it upon the possession of brains 
 by women, and have had a further motive for inciting the 
 potent dignitary her husband to employ his authority to re- 
 press the sex's exercise of those fell weapons, hurtful alike 
 to them and all coming near them. 
 
 So extreme was her dread of Mrs. Warwick that she drove 
 from the London railway station to see Constance and be re- 
 assured by her tranquil aspect. 
 
^24 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 Sweet Constance and her betrothed Percy were together, 
 examining a missal. 
 
 Lady Dunstane dispatched a few words of the facts to Diana. 
 She hoped to hear from her: rather hoped, for the moment, 
 not to see her. No answer came. The great day of the nup- 
 tials came and passed. She counted on her husband's appear- 
 ance the next morning, as the good gentleman made a point of 
 visiting her, to entertain the wife he adored, whenever he 
 had a wallet of gossip that would overlay the blank of his 
 absence. He had been to the church of the wedding — he did 
 not say with whom — all the world was there; and he raptur- 
 ously described the ceremony, stating that it set women weep- 
 ing and caused him to behave like a fool. 
 
 "You are impressionable," said his wife. 
 
 He murmured something in praise of the institution of 
 marriage — when celebrated impressively, it seemed. 
 
 "Tony calls the social world ^the theater of appetites,' as 
 we have it at present," she said; "and the world at a wedding 
 is, one may reckon, in the second act of the hungry tragi- 
 comedy." 
 
 "Yes, there's the breakfast," Sir Lukin assented. Mrs. 
 Fryar-Gunnett was much more intelligible to him: in fact, 
 quite so, as to her speech. 
 
 Emma's heart now yearned to her Tony. Consulting her 
 strength, she thought she might journey to London, and on 
 the third morning after the Dacier-Asper marriage she 
 started. 
 
 Diana's door was open to Arthur Ehodes when Emma 
 reached it. 
 
 "Have you seen her?" she asked him. 
 
 His head shook dolefully. "Mrs. Warwick is unwell; she 
 has been working too hard." 
 
 "You also, I'm afraid." 
 
 "No." He could deny that, whatever the look of him. 
 
 "Come to me at Copsley soon," said she, entering to Dan- 
 vers in the passage. 
 
 "My mistress is upstairs, my lady," said Danvers. "She 
 is lying on her bed." 
 
 "She is ill?" 
 
 "She has been lying on her bed ever since." 
 
 "Since what?" Lady Dunstane spoke sharply. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 325 
 
 Danvers retrieved her indiscretion. ^'Since she heard of 
 the accident, my lady." 
 
 "Take my name to her. Or, no: I can venture." 
 
 "I am not allowed to go in and speak to her. You will 
 find the room quite dark, my lady, and very cold. It is her 
 command. My mistress will not let me light the fire; and 
 she has not eaten or drank of anything since. . . She will 
 die if you do not persuade her to take nourishment; a little, 
 for a beginning. It wants the beginning." 
 
 Emma went upstairs, thinking of the enigmatical maid, 
 that she must be a good soul after all. Diana's bedroom 
 door was opened slowly. 
 
 "You will not be able to see at first, my lady," Danvers 
 whispered. "The bed is to the left, and a chair. I would 
 bring in a candle, but it hurts her eyes. She forbids it." 
 
 Emma stepped in. The chill, thick air of the unlighted 
 London room was cavernous. She almost forgot the beloved 
 of her heart in the thought that a living woman had been 
 lying here more than two days and nights, fasting. The 
 proof of an uttermost misery revived the circumstances within 
 her to render her friend's presence in this desert of darkness 
 credible. She found the bed by touch, silently, and distin- 
 guished a dark heap on the bed; she heard no breathing. She 
 sat and listened; then she stretched her hand and met her 
 Tony's. It lay open. It was the hand of a drowned woman. 
 
 Shutters and curtains and the fireless grate gave the room 
 an appalling likeness to the vaults. 
 
 So like to the home of death it seemed that in a few 
 minutes the watcher had lost count of time and kept but a 
 wormy memory of the daylight. She dared not speak, for 
 some fear of startling; for the worse fear of never getting 
 answer. Tony's hand was lifeless. Her clasp of it struck 
 no warmth. 
 
 She stung herself with bitter reproaches for having let com- 
 mon mundane sentiments, worthy of a Lady Wathin, bar her 
 instant offer of her bosom to the beloved who suffered m this 
 depth of mortal agony. Tony's love of a man, as she should 
 have known, would be wrought of the elements of our being: 
 when other women named Happiness, she said Life; in divi- 
 sion. Death. Her body lying still upon the bed here was a 
 soul borne onward by the river of Death. 
 
 The darkness gave her sight after a while, like a curtain 
 
326 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 lifting on a veil; the dead light of the underworld. Tony lay 
 with her face up, her underlip dropped; straight from head 
 to feet. The outline of her face, without hue of it, could be 
 seen : sign of the hapless women that have souls in love. Hate- 
 ful love of men! Emma thought, and was moved to feel at the 
 wrist for her darling's pulse. He has killed her! the thought 
 flashed, as, with pangs chilling her frame, the pressure at 
 the wrist continued insensible of the faintest beat. She 
 clasped it, trembling, in pain to stop an outcry. 
 
 "It is Emmy," said the voice. 
 
 Emma's heart sprang to Heaven on a rush of thanks. 
 
 "My Tony," she breathed softly. 
 
 She hung for a further proof of life in the motionless body. 
 "Tony!" she said. 
 
 The answer was at her hand, a thread-like return of her 
 clasp. 
 
 "It is Emmy come to stay with you, never to leave you." 
 
 The thin, still answer was at her hand a moment; the 
 fingers fell away. A deep breath was taken twice to say, "Don't 
 talk to me." 
 
 Emma retained the hand. She was warned not to press 
 it by the deadness following its effort to reply. 
 
 But Tony lived; she had given proof of life. Over 'this 
 little wavering taper in the vaults Emma cowered, cherishing 
 the hand, silently hoping for the voice. 
 
 It came, "Winter." 
 
 "It is a cold winter, Tony." 
 
 "My dear will be cold." 
 
 "I will light the fire." 
 
 Emma lost no time in deciding to seek the matchbox. The 
 fire was lit and it flamed; it seemed a revival in the room. 
 Coming back to the bedside she discerned her Tony's lack- 
 luster, large dark eyes and her hollow cheeks; her mouth open 
 to air as to the dra wing-in of a sword — rather as to the releaser 
 than the sustainer. Her feet were on the rug her maid had 
 placed to cover them. Emma leaned across the bed to put 
 them to her breast, beneath her fur mantle; and held them 
 there despite the half -animate tug of the limbs and the shaft 
 of iciness they sent to her very heart. When she had restored 
 them to some warmth she threw aside her bonnet, and, lying 
 beside Tony, took her in her arms, heaving now and then a 
 deep sigh. 
 
DIA-NA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 327 
 
 She kissed her cheek. 
 
 "It is Emmy. Kiss her." 
 
 "I have no strength." 
 
 Emma laid her face on the lips. They were cold; even 
 the hreath between them cold. 
 
 "Has Emmy been long . . .?" 
 
 "Here, dear? I think so. I am with my darling." 
 
 Tony moaned. The warmth and the love were bringing 
 back her anguish. 
 
 She said, "I have been happy. It is not hard to go." 
 
 Emma strained to her. "Tony will wait for her soul's own 
 soul to go — the two together." 
 
 There was a faint convulsion in the body. "If I cry, I 
 shall go in pain." 
 
 "You are in Emmy's arms, my beloved." 
 
 Tony's eyes closed for forgetfulness under that sensation. 
 A tear ran down from her, but the pain was lax and neigh- 
 bored sleep, like the pleasure. 
 
 So passed the short winter day, little spoken. 
 
 Then Emma bethought her of a way of leading Tony to take 
 food, and she said, "I shall stay with you; I shall send for 
 clothes; I am rather hungry. Don't stir, dear. I will be mis- 
 tress of the house." 
 
 She went below to the kitchen, where a few words in the 
 ear of a Frenchwoman were sufficient to. waken immediate 
 comprehension of what was wanted, and smart service: within 
 ten minutes an appetizing bouillon sent its odor over the bed- 
 room. Tony, days back, had said her last to the act of eat- 
 ing; but Emma, sipping at the spoon and expressing satisfac- 
 tion, was a pleasant picture. The bouillon smelt pleasantly. 
 
 "Your servants love you," Emma said. 
 
 "Ah, poor good souls!" 
 
 "They crowded up to me to hear of you. Madame, of 
 course, at the first word was off to her pots. And we English 
 have the habit of calling ourselves the practical people! This 
 bouillon is consummate. However, we have the virtues of bar- 
 barians; we can love and serve for love. I never tasted any- 
 thing so good. I could become a glutton." 
 
 "Do," said Tony. 
 
 "I should be ashamed to 'drain the bowl' all to myself: a 
 solitary toper is a horrid creature, unless he makes a song 
 of it." 
 
32S DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "Emmy makes a song of it to me." 
 
 "But 'pledge me' is a noble saying, when yon think of 
 humanity's original hunger for the whole. It is there that 
 our civilizing commenced, and I am particularly fond of 
 hearing the call. It is grandly historic. So pledge me, Tony. 
 We two can feed from one spoon; it is a closer bond than the 
 loving-cup. I want you just to taste it and excuse my glut- 
 tony." 
 
 Tony murmured, "N"o." The spoon was put to her mouth. 
 She sighed to resist. The stronger will compelled her to move 
 her lips. Emma fed her as a child, and nature sucked for 
 life. 
 
 The first effect was a gush of tears. 
 
 Emma lay with her that night, when the patient was the 
 better sleeper. But during the night, at intervals, she had 
 the happiness of feeling Tony's hand traveling to make sure 
 of her. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 AN EXHIBITION OF SOME CHAMPIONS OP THE STRICKEN 
 
 LADY. 
 
 Close upon the hour of ten every morning the fortuitous 
 meeting of two gentlemen at Mrs. Warwick's house-door was 
 a signal for punctiliously stately greetings, the salutation of 
 the raised hat and a bow of the head from a position of mili- 
 tary erectness, followed by the remark: "I trust you are well, 
 sir;" to which the reply, "I am very well, sir, and trust you 
 are the same," was deemed a complimentary fulfillment of 
 their mutual obligation in presence. Mr. Sullivan Smith's 
 initiative imparted this exercise of formal manners to Mr. 
 Arthur Rhodes, whose renewed appearance, at the minute 
 of his own arrival, he viewed, as he did not conceal, with a 
 disappointed and a reproving eye. The inquiry after the state 
 of Mrs. Warwick's health having received its tolerably com- 
 forting answer from the footman, they left their cards in turn, 
 then descended the doorsteps, faced for the performance of the 
 salute, and departed their contrary ways. 
 
 The pleasing intelligence refreshed them one morning that 
 they would be welcomed by Lady Dunstane. Thereupon Mr. 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 329 
 
 Sullivan Smith wheeled about to Mr. Arthur Rhodes, and 
 ob-^^erved to him: "Sir, I might claim, by right of seniority, 
 to be the foremost of us two in offering my respects to the lady, 
 but the way is open to you." 
 
 "Sir," said Mr. Arthur Rhodes, "permit me to defer to your 
 many superior titles to that distinction." 
 
 "The honor, sir, lies rather in the bestowing than in the 
 taking." 
 
 "I venture to think, sir, that, though I cannot speak pure 
 Castilian, I require no lesson from a grandee of Spain in 
 acknowledging the dues of my betters." 
 
 "I will avow myself conquered, sir, by your overpowering 
 condescension," said Mr. Sullivan Smith; "and I entreat you to 
 ascribe my acceptance of your brief retirement to the urgent 
 character of the business I have at heart." 
 
 He laid his fingers on the panting spot, and bowed. 
 
 Mr. Arthur Rhodes, likewise bowing, deferentially fell to 
 rearward. 
 
 "If I mistake not," said the Irish gentleman, "I am in- 
 debted to Mr. Rhodes; and we have been joint participators 
 in the hospitality of Mrs. Warwick's table." 
 
 The English gentleman replied: "It was there that I first 
 had the pleasure of an acquaintance which is graven on my 
 memory as the words of the wise king on tablets of gold 
 and silver." 
 
 Mr. Sullivan Smith gravely smiled at the unwonted match 
 he had found in ceremonious humor in Saxonland, and say- 
 ing, "I shall not long detain you, Mr. Rhodes," he passed 
 through the doorway. 
 
 Arthur waited for him, pacing up and down, for a quarter 
 of an hour, when a totally different man reappeared in the 
 same person, and was the Sullivan Smith of the rosy, beam- 
 ing features and princely heartiness. He was accosted: "Now, 
 my dear boy, it's your turn to try if you have a chance, and 
 good luck go with ye. I've said what I could on your behalf, 
 for you're one of ten thousand in this country, you are." 
 
 Mr. Sullivan Smith had solemnified himself to proffer a 
 sober petition within the walls of the newly widowed lady's 
 house, namely, for nothing less than that sweet lady's now 
 unfettered hand: and it had, therefore, been perfectly natu- 
 ral to him, until his performance ended with the destruction 
 of his hopes, to deliver himself in the high Castilian manner. 
 
330 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 Quite unexpected, however, was the reciprocal loftiness of tone 
 spontaneously adopted by the young English squire, for whom, 
 in consequence, he conceived a cordial relish; and as he paced 
 in the footsteps of Arthur, anxious to quiet his curiosity by 
 hearing how it had fared with one whom he had to suppose 
 the second applicant, he kept ejaculating, "Not a bit! The 
 fellow can't be Saxon! And she had a liking for him. She's 
 nigh coming of the age when a woman takes to the chicks. 
 Better he than another, if it's to be any one. For he's got fun 
 m him; he carries his own condiments, instead of borrowing 
 from the popular castors, as is their way over here. But I might 
 have known there's always sure to be salt and savor in the 
 man she covers with her wing. Excepting, if you please, my 
 dear lady, a bad vshot you made at a rascal cur, no more worthy 
 of you than Beelzebub of Paradise. No matter! The daugh- 
 ters of Erin must share the fate of their mother isle, that their 
 tears may shine in the burst of sun to follow. For personal 
 and patriotic motives I would have cheered her; and been like 
 a wild ass, combed and groomed and tamed by the adorable 
 creature. But her friend says there's not a whisk of a chance 
 for me, and I must roam the desert, kicking up, and worship- 
 ing the star I hail brightest. They know me not who think 
 I can't worship. Why, what were I without my star? At 
 best a pickled porker." 
 
 Sullivan Smith became aware of a ravishing melodious- 
 ness in the soliloquy, as well as a clean resemblance in the 
 simile. He would certainly have proceeded to improvise im- 
 passioned verse if he had not seen Arthur Rhodes on the 
 pavement. "So, here's the boy. Query, the face he wears." 
 
 "How kind of you to wait," said Arthur. 
 
 "We'll call it sympathy, for convenience," rejoined Sullivan 
 Smith. "Well, and what next?" 
 
 "You know as much as I do. Thank Heaven, she is recov- 
 ering." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 "Why, what more?" 
 
 Arthur was jealously inspected. 
 
 "You look open-hearted, my dear boy." Sullivan Smith 
 blew the sound of a reflective ahem. "Excuse me for corne- 
 musing in your company," he said. "But, seriously, there was 
 only one thing to pardon your hurrying to the lady's door at 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 331 
 
 such a season, when the wind tells tales to the world. She's 
 down with a cold, you know." 
 
 "An influenza/' said Arthur. 
 
 The simplicity of the acquiescence was vexatious to a cham- 
 pion desirous of hostilities, to vindicate the lady, in addition 
 to his anxiety to cloak her sad plight. 
 
 "She caught it from contact with one of the inhabitants of 
 this country. 'Tis the fate of us Irish, and we're condemned 
 to it for the sin of getting tired of our own. I begin to sneeze 
 when I land at Holyhead. Unbutton a waistcoat here, in the 
 hope of meeting a heart, and you're lucky in escaping a pul- 
 monary attack of no common severity, while the dog that 
 infected you scampers off, +o celebrate his honeymoon may- 
 hap. Ah, but call at her house in shoals, the world'll soon be 
 saying it's worse than a coughing cold. If you came to lead 
 her out of it in triumph the laugh 'd be with you, and the 
 lady well covered. D'ye understand?" 
 
 The allusion to the dog's honeymoon had put Arthur 
 Ehodes on the track of the darting cracker-metaphor. 
 
 "I think I do," he said. "She will soon be at Copsley — 
 Lady Dunstane's house, on the hills — and there we can see 
 her." 
 
 "And that's next to the happiness of consoling — if only it 
 had been granted! She's not an ordinary widow, to be caught 
 Avhen the tear of lamentation has opened a practicable path or 
 water-way to the poor nightcapped jewel within. So, and 
 you're a candid admirer, Mr. Ehodes! Well, and I'll be one 
 with you; for there's not a star in the firmament more deserv- 
 ing of homage than that lady." 
 
 "Let's walk in the Park and talk of her," said Arthur. 
 "There's no sweeter subject to me." 
 
 His boyish frankness rejoiced Sullivan Smith. "As long 
 as you like! — nor to me!" he exclaimed. "And that ever 
 since I first beheld her on the night of a ball in Dublin: be- 
 fore I had listened to a word of her speaking: and she bore 
 her father's Irish name: — none of your Warwicks and your 
 . . . But let the cur go barking. He can't tell what he's 
 lost; perhaps he doesn't care. And after inflicting his hydro- 
 phobia on her tender fame! Pooh! sir; you call it a civilized 
 country, where you and I and dozens of others are ready to 
 start up as brothers of the lady, to defend her, and are par- 
 
332 DIAN'A OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 alyzed by the law. 'Tis a law they've instituted for the protec- 
 tion of dirty dogs — their majority!'' 
 
 ^^I owe more to Mrs. Warwick than to any soul I know," 
 said Arthur. 
 
 "Let's hear/' quoth Sullivan Smith; proceeding: "She's 
 the Arabian Nights in person, that's sure; and Shakespeare's 
 Plays, tragic and comic; and the Book of Celtic History; and 
 Erin incarnate — down with a cold, no matter where; but we 
 know where it was caught. So there's a pretty library for 
 who's to own her now she's enfranchised by circumstances; — 
 and a poetical figure, too!" 
 
 He subsided for his companion to rhapsodize. 
 
 Arthur was overcharged with feeling, and could say only, 
 "It would be another world to me if I lost her." 
 
 "True; but what of the lady?" 
 
 "No praise of mine could do her justice." 
 
 "That may be, but it's negative of yourself, and not a 
 portrait of the object. Hasn't she the brain of Socrates — or, 
 better, say Minerva — on the bust of Venus, and the remain- 
 der of her finished oif to an exact resemblance of her patro- 
 nymic goddess of the bow and quiver?" 
 
 "She has a wise head and is beautiful." 
 
 "And chaste." 
 
 Arthur reddened: he was prepared to maintain it, could 
 not speak it. 
 
 "She is to us in this London what the run of water was 
 to Theocritus in Sicily: the nearest to the visibly divine," 
 he said, and was applauded. 
 
 "Good, and on you go. Top me a few superlatives on 
 that, and I'm your echo, my friend. Isn't the seeing and 
 listening to her like sitting under the silvery canopy of a 
 fountain in high summer?" 
 
 "All the comparisons are yours," Arthur said enviously. 
 
 "Mr. Rhodes, you are a poet, I beheve, and all you require 
 to loosen your tongue is a drop of Bacchus, so if you will do 
 me the extreme honor to dine with me at my club this 
 evening we'll resume the toast that should never be uttared 
 dry. You reprove me justly, my friend." 
 
 Arthur laughed and accepted. The club was named, and 
 the hour, and some items of the little dinner: the birds and 
 the year of the wines. 
 
 It surprised him to meet m. Redworth at the table of his 
 
DIANiA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 333 
 
 host. A greater surprise was the partial thaw in Eedworth's 
 bearing toward him. But, as it was partial, and he a youth 
 and poor, not even the genial influences of Bacchus could 
 lift him to loosen his tongue under the repressing presence of 
 the man he knew to be his censor, though Sullivan Smith 
 encouraged him with praises and opportunities. He thought 
 of the many occasions when Mrs. Warwick's art of manage- 
 ment had produced a tacit harmony between them. She had 
 no peer. The dinner failed of the pleasure he had expected 
 from it. Redworth's bluntness killed the flying metaphors, 
 and at the end of the entertainment he and Sullivan Smith 
 were drumming upon politics. 
 
 "Fancies he has the key of the Irish difficulty!" said the 
 latter, clapping hand on his shoulder, by way of blessing, as 
 they parted at the club-steps. 
 
 Redworth asked Arthur Rhodes the way he was going, 
 and walked beside him. 
 
 "I suppose you take exercise: don't get colds and that 
 kind of thing," he remarked in the old bullying fashion: and 
 changed it abruptly. "I am glad to have met you this even- 
 ing. I hope you'll dine with me one day next week. Have 
 you seen Mrs. Warwick lately?" 
 
 "She is unwell; she has been working too hard," said 
 Arthur. 
 
 "Seriously unwell, do you mean?" 
 
 "Lady Dunstane is at her house, and speaks of her recov- 
 ering." 
 
 "Ah! You've not seen her?" 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "Well, good-night." 
 
 Redworth left him, and only when moved by gratitude to 
 the lad for his mention of Mrs. Warwick's "working too hard," 
 as the cause of her illness, recollected the promised dinner 
 and the need for having his address. 
 
 He had met Sullivan Smith accidentally in the morning 
 and accepted the invitation to meet young Rhodes, because 
 these two, of all men living, were for the moment dearest to 
 him, as Diana W^arwick's true and simple champions; and 
 he had intended a perfect cordiality towards them both; the 
 end being a semi-wrangle with the patriot, and a patronizing 
 bluntness with the boy; who, by the way, would hardly think 
 him sincere in the offer of a seat at his table. He owned him- 
 
334 ' DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 self incomplete. He never could do the thing he meant, in 
 the small matters not leading to fortune. But they led to 
 happiness! Eedworth was guilty of a sigh: for now Diana 
 Warwick stood free; doubly free, he was reduced to reflect in 
 a waving dubiousness. Her more than inclination for Dacier, 
 witnessed by him, and the shot of the world, flying randomly 
 on the subject, had struck this cuirassier, making light of his 
 armor, without causing any change of his habitual fresh coun- 
 tenance. As for the scandal, it had never shaken his faith 
 in her nature. He thought of the passion. His heart struck at 
 Diana's, and whatever might by chance be true in the scandal 
 affected him little, if but her heart were at liberty. That 
 was the prize he coveted, having long read the nature of the 
 woman and wedded his spirit to it. She would complete him. 
 Of course, infatuated men argue likewise, and scandal does 
 not move them. At a glance, the lower instincts and the 
 higher spirit appear equally to have the philosophy of over- 
 looking blemishes. The difference between appetite and love 
 is shown when a man, after years of service, can hear and see, 
 and admit the possible, and still desire in worship; knowing 
 that we of earth are begrimed and must be cleansed for pres- 
 entation daily on our passage through the miry ways, but that 
 our souls, if flame of a soul shall have come of the agony of 
 flesh, are beyond the baser mischances: partaking of them 
 indeed, but sublimely. Now Eedworfh believed in the 
 soul of Diana. For him it burned, and it was a celestial radi- 
 ance about her, unquenched by her shifting fortunes, her wil- 
 fullness, and, it might be, errors. She was a woman and weak; 
 that is, not trained for strength. She was a soul; therefore 
 perpetually pointing to growth in purification. He felt it, and 
 even discerned it of her, if he could not have phrased it. The 
 something sovereignly characteristic that aspired in Diana 
 enchained him. With her, or, rather, with his thought of her 
 soul, he understood the right union of women and men, from 
 the roots to the flowering heights of that rare graft. She gave 
 him comprehension of the meaning of love: a word in many 
 mouths, not of ten explained. With her, wound in his idea of 
 her, he perceived it to signify a new start in our existence, a 
 finer shoot of the tree stoutly planted in good gross earth; 
 the senses running their live sap, and the minds companioned, 
 and the spirits made one by the whole-natured conjunction. 
 In sooth, a happy prospect for the sons and daughters of 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 335 
 
 Earth, divinely indicating more than happiness: the speed- 
 ing of "US, compact of what we are, between the ascetic rocks 
 and the sensual whirlpools, to the creation of certain nobler 
 races, now very dimly imagined. 
 
 Singularly enough, the man of these feelings was far from 
 being a social rebel. His Diana conjured them forth in re- 
 lation to her, but was not on his bosom to enlighten him gen- 
 erally. His notions of citizenship tolerated the female Phari- 
 sees, as ladies offering us an excellent social concrete where 
 quicksands abound; and, without quite justifying the Lady 
 Wathins and Constance Aspers of the world, whose virtues 
 he could set down to accident or to acid blood, he considered 
 them supportable and estimable where the Mrs. Fryar-Gun- 
 netts were innumerable, threatening to become a majority; 
 as they will constantly do while the sisterhood of the chaste 
 are wattled in formalism and throned in sourness. 
 
 Thoughts of Diana made phantoms of the reputable and 
 their reverse alike. He could not choose but think of her. 
 She was free — and he too; and they were as distant as the 
 horizon sail and the raft-floating castaway. Her passion for 
 Dacier might have burnt out her heart. And at present he 
 had no claim to visit her, dared not intrude. He would have 
 nothing to say if he went, save to answer questions upon points 
 of business: as to which. Lady Dunstane would certainly sum- 
 mon him when he was wanted. 
 
 Riding in the Park on a frosty morning, he came upon Sir 
 Lukin, who looked gloomy and inquired for news of Diana 
 Warwick, saying that his wife had forbidden him to call at 
 her house just yet. "She's got a cold, you know," said Sir 
 Lukin; adding, "confoundedly hard on women! — eh? 
 Obliged to keep up a show. And Fd swear, by all that's 
 holy, Diana Warwick hasn't a spot, not a spot, to reproach 
 herself with. I fancy I ought to know women by this time. 
 And look here, Eedworth, last night — that is, I mean, yester- 
 day evening, I broke with a woman — a lady of my acquaint- 
 ance, you know, because she would go on scandal-mongering 
 about Diana Warwick. I broke with her. I told her I'd have 
 out any man who abused Diana Warwick, and I broke with 
 her. By Jove! Eedworth, those women can prove spitfires. 
 They've bags of venom under their tongues, barley sugar 
 though they look — and that's her color. But I broke with 
 
336 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 her for good. I doubt if I shall ever call on her again. And, 
 in point of fact, I won't." 
 
 Mrs. Fryar-Giinnett was described in the coloring of the 
 lady. 
 
 Sir Lukin, after some further remarks, rode on, and Red- 
 worth mused on a moral world that allows a woman of Mrs. 
 Fryar-Gunnett's like to hang on to it, and to cast a stone at 
 Diana; forgetful, in his championship, that Diana was not 
 disallowed a similar license, and was only more forbearing and 
 less obtuse. 
 
 When he saw Emma Dunstane, some days later, she was in 
 her carriage, driving, as she said, to Lawyerland, for an inter- 
 view with old Mr. Braddock, on her friend's affairs. He took 
 a seat beside her. "No, Tony is not well," she replied to his 
 question, under the veil of candor. "She is recovering, but 
 she — you can understand — suffered a shock. She is not able 
 to attend to business, and certain things have to be done." 
 
 "I used to be her man of business," Eedworth observed. 
 
 "She speaks of your kind services. This is mere matter for 
 lawyers." 
 
 "She is recovering?" 
 
 "You may see her at Copsley next week. You can come 
 down on Wednesdays or Saturdays?" 
 
 "Any day. Tell her I want her opinion upon the state of 
 things." 
 
 "It will please her; but you will have to describe the state 
 of things." 
 
 Emma feared she had said too much. She tried candor 
 again for concealment. "My poor Tony has been struck 
 down low. I suppose it is like losing a diseased limb — she 
 has her freedom at the cost of a blow to the system." 
 
 "She may be trusted for having strength," said Eedworth. 
 
 "Yes." Emma's mild monosyllable was presently followed 
 by an exclamation: "One has to experience the irony of Fate 
 to comprehend how cruel it is!" Then she remembered that 
 such language was peculiarly abhorrent to him. 
 
 "Irony of Fate!" he echoed her. "I thought you were 
 above that literary jargon." 
 
 ^ "And I thought I was: or thought it could be put in a 
 dialect practically explicable," she answered, smiling at the 
 lion roused. 
 
 "Upon my word," he burst out, "I should like to write a 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 337 
 
 Book of Fables, showing how donkeys get into grinding har- 
 ness, and dogs lose their bones, and fools have their sconces 
 cracked, and all run jabbering of the irony of fate, to escape 
 the annoyance of tracing the causes. And what are they? 
 Nine times out of ten, plain want of patience or some debt for 
 indulgence. There's a subject. Let some one write, Fables 
 in Illustration of the Irony of Fate, and I'll undertake to tack 
 on my grandmother's maxims for a moral to each of 'em. 
 We prate of that irony when we slink away from the lesson — 
 the rod we conjure. And you to talk of Fate! It's the seed 
 we sow, individually or collectively. I'm bound up in the 
 prosperity of the country, and if the ship is wrecked it ruins 
 my fortune, but not me, unless I'm bound up in myself. At 
 least I hope that's my case." 
 
 He apologized for intruding Mr. Thomas Eedworth. 
 
 His hearer looked at him, thinking he required a more 
 finely pointed gift of speech for the ironical tongue, but 
 relishing the tonic directness of his faculty of reason while 
 she considered that the application of the phrase might be 
 brought home to him so as to render "my grandmother's 
 moral" a conclusion less comfortingly, if quite intelligibly, 
 summary. And then she thought of Tony's piteous instance; 
 and, thinking with her heart, the tears insisted on that bitter 
 irony of the heavens, which bestowed the long-withheld and 
 coveted boon when it was empty of value or was but as a 
 handful of spices to a shroud. 
 
 Perceiving the moisture in her look, Eedworth understood 
 that it was foolish to talk rationally. But on her return to 
 her beloved the real quality of the man had overcome her 
 opposing state of sentiment, and she spoke of him with an 
 iteration and throb in the voice that set a singular querj'' 
 whirring round Diana's ears. Her senses were too heavy for 
 a suspicion. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 CONVALESCENCE OF A HEALTHY MIND DISTRAUGHT. 
 
 From an abandonment that had the last pleasure of life in 
 a willingness to yield it up, Diana rose with her friend's help 
 in some state of fortitude, resembling the effort of her feet 
 
 22 
 
338 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 to bear the weight of her body. She plucked her courage 
 out of the dust to which her heart had been scattered, and 
 tasked herself to walk as the world does. But she was indis- 
 posed to compassionate herself in the manner of the burdened 
 world. She lashed the creature who could not raise a head 
 like others, and made the endurance of torture a support, such 
 as the pride of being is to men. She would not have seen 
 any similarity to pride in it — would have deemed it the re- 
 verse. It was, in fact, the painful gathering of the atoms 
 composing pride. For she had not only suffered — she had 
 done wrongly: and, when that was acknowledged, by the 
 light of her sufferings the wrong-doing appeared gigantic, 
 chorusing eulogies of the man she had thought her lover: 
 and who was her lover once, before the crime against him. 
 In the opening of her bosom to Emma he was painted a noble 
 figure, one of those that Eomance delights to harass for the 
 sake of ultimately the more exquisitely rewarding. He hated 
 treachery: she had been guilty of doing what he most hated. 
 She glorified him for the incapacity to forgive; it was to her 
 mind godlike. And her excuses of herself ? 
 
 At the first confession she said she had none, and sullenly 
 maintained that there was none to exonerate. Little by little 
 her story was related — ^her version of the story: for not even 
 as woman to woman, friend to great-hearted friend, pure soul 
 to soul, could Diana tell of the state of shivering abjection in 
 which Dacier had left her on the fatal night; of the many 
 causes conducing to it, and of the chief. That was an un- 
 utterable secret, bound by all the laws of feminine civilization 
 not to be betrayed. Her excessive self-abasement and ex- 
 altation of him who had struck her down rendered it difficult 
 to be understood; and not till Emma had revolved it and let 
 it ripen in the mind some days could she perceive with any 
 clearness her Tony's motives or mania. The very word 
 Money thickened the riddle; for Tony knew that her friend's 
 purse was her own to dip in at her pleasure; yet she, to escape 
 so small an obligation, had committed the enormity for which 
 she held the man blameless in spurning her. 
 
 "You see what I am, Emmy," Diana said. 
 
 '^hat I do not see is, that he had grounds for striking so 
 cruelly.'^ 
 
 "I proved myself unworthy of him.'' 
 
 But does a man pretending to love a woman cut at one 
 
DIANA OF THE) CROSSWAYS. S39 
 
 blow, for such a cause, the ties uniting her to him? Un- 
 worthiness of that kind is not commonly the capital offense 
 in love. Tony's deep prostration and her resplendent picture 
 of her judge and executioner kept Emma questioning within 
 herself. Gradually she became enlightened enough to dis- 
 tinguish in the man a known, if not common type, of the ex- 
 ternally soft and polished, internally hard and relentless, who 
 are equal to the trials of love only as long as favoring circum- 
 stances and seemings nurse the fair object of their courtship. 
 
 Her thoughts recurred to the madness driving Tony to be- 
 tray the secret; and the ascent, unhelped, to get a survey of 
 it and her and the conditions was mountainous. She toiled 
 up but to enter the regions of cloud — sure nevertheless that 
 the obscurity was penetrable and excuses to be discovered 
 somewhere. Having never wanted money herself, she was 
 unable perfectly to realize the urgency of the need: she be- 
 gan, however, to comprehend that the very eminent gentle- 
 man, before whom all human creatures were to bow in humil- 
 ity, had for an extended term considerably added to the ex- 
 penses of Tony's household, by inciting her to give those little 
 dinners to his political supporters, and bringing comrades 
 perpetually to supper parties, careless of how it might affect 
 her character and her purse. Surely an honorable man was 
 bound to her in honor? Tony's remark, "I have the reptile 
 in me, dear," — her exaggeration of the act in her resigned 
 despair, — was surely no justification for his breaking from 
 her — even though he had discovered a vestige of the common 
 "reptile" — to leave her with a stain on her name? There 
 would not have been a question about it if Tony had not ex- 
 alted him so loftily, refusing, in visible pain, to hear him 
 blamed. 
 
 Danvers had dressed a bed for Lady Dunstane in her mis- 
 tress's chamber, where often during the night Emma caught 
 a sound of stifled weeping or the long falling breath of wake- 
 ful grief. One night she asked whether Tony would like to 
 have her by her side. 
 
 "No, dear," was the answer in the dark; "but you know my 
 old pensioners, the bhnd fifer and his wife; I've been think- 
 ing of them." 
 
 "They were paid as they passed down the street yesterday, 
 my love." 
 
 "Yes, dear, I hope so. But he flourishes his tune so ab- 
 
340 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 surdly. I've been thinking that is the part I have played, 
 instead of doing the female's duty of handing round the tin 
 cup for pennies. I won't cry any more." 
 
 She sighed and turned to sleep, leaving Emma to disburden 
 her heart in tears. 
 
 For it seemed to her that Tony's intellect was weakened. 
 She not merely abased herself and exalted Dacier preposter- 
 ously, she had sunk her intelligence in her sensations: a state 
 th^t she used to decry as the sin of mankind, the origin of 
 error and blood. 
 
 Strangely, too, the proposal came from her, or the sugges- 
 tion of it, notwithstanding her subjeetedness to the nerves, 
 that she should show her face in public. She said, "I shall 
 have to run about, Emmy, when I can fancy I am able to rattle 
 up to the old mark. At present I feel like a wrestler who 
 has had a fall. As soon as the stiifness is over it's best to 
 make an appearance, for the sake of one's backers, though I 
 shall never be in the wrestling-ring again." 
 
 "That is a good decision — ^when you feel quite yourself, 
 dear Tony," Emma replied. 
 
 "I dare say I have disgraced my sex, but not as they sup- 
 pose. I feel my new self already, and can make the poor brute 
 go through fire on behalf of the old. What is the task? — 
 merely to drive a face!" 
 
 "It is not known." 
 
 "It will be known." 
 
 "But this is a sealed secret." 
 
 "Nothing is a secret that has been spoken. It's in the air, 
 and I have to breathe to live by it. And I would rather 
 it were out. 'She betrayed him.' Eather that, than have 
 them think — anything! They will exclaim, How could she! 
 I have been unable to answer it to you — ^my own heart. How? 
 Oh! our weakness is the swiftest dog to hunt us; we cannot 
 escape it. But I have the answer for them, that I trust with 
 my whole soul none of them would have done the like." 
 
 "None, my Tony, would have taken it to the soul as you 
 do." 
 
 '1 talk, dear. If I took it honestly I should be dumb, soon 
 dust.^ The moment we begin to speak, the guilty creature is 
 running for cover. She could not otherwise exist. I am 
 sensible of evasion when I open my lips." 
 
 "But Tony has told me all." 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 341 
 
 "I think I have. But if you excuse my conduct I am cer- 
 tain I have not." 
 
 "Dear girl, accounting for it is not the same as excusing." 
 
 "Who can account for it? I was caught in a whirl! — Oh! 
 nothing supernatural: my weakness; which it pleases me to 
 call a madness — shift the ninety-ninth! When I drove down 
 that night to Mr. Tonans I am certain I had my clear wits, 
 but I felt like a bolt. I saw things, but at too swift a rate for 
 the conscience of them. Ah! let never Necessity draw*the 
 bow of our weakness: it is the soul that is winged to its per- 
 dition. I remember I was writing a story, named 'The Man 
 of Two Minds.' I shall sign it. By the Woman of Two Na- 
 tures — if ever it is finished. Capacity for thinking should 
 precede the act of writing. It should; I do not say that it 
 does. Capacity for assimilating the public taste and reproduc- 
 ing it is the commonest. The stuff is perishable, but it pays 
 us for our labor, and in so doing saves us from becoming 
 tricksters. Now I can see that Mr. Eedworth had it in that 
 big head of his — the authoress outliving her income!" 
 
 "He dared not speak." 
 
 "Why did he not dare?" 
 
 "Would it have checked you?" 
 
 "I was a shot out of a gun, and I am glad he did not stand 
 in my way. What power charged the gun is another ques- 
 tion. Dada used to say that it is the devil's masterstroke to 
 get us to accuse him. 'So fare ye well, old Mckie Ben.' ^ly 
 dear, I am a black sheep; a creature with a spotted reputation; 
 I must wash and wash; and not with water — ^with sulphur- 
 flames." She sighed. "I am down there where they bum. 
 You should have let me lie and die. You were not kind. I 
 was going quietly." 
 
 "My love!" cried Emma, overborne by a despair that she 
 traced to the woman's concealment of her bleeding heart, — 
 "you live for me. Do set your mind on that. Think of what 
 you are bearing, as your debt to Emma. Will you?" 
 
 Tony bowed her head mechanically. 
 
 "But I am in love with King Death, and must confess it," 
 she said. "That hideous eating you forced on me snatched 
 me from him. And I feel that if I had gone I should have 
 been mercifully forgiven by everybody." 
 
 "Except by me," said Emma, embracing her. "Tony would 
 
342 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 have left her friend for her last voyage in mourning. And 
 my dearest will live to know happiness/' 
 
 "I have no more belief in it, Emmy." 
 
 "The mistake of the world is to think happiness possible to 
 the senses." 
 
 "Yes; we distill that fine essence through the senses; and 
 the act is called the pain of life. It is the death of them. 
 So much I understand of what our existence must be. But I 
 may grieve for having done so little." 
 
 "That is the sound grief, with hope at the core — not in love 
 with itself and wretchedly mortal, as we find self is under 
 every shape it takes; especially the chief one." 
 
 "Name it." 
 
 "It is best named Amor." 
 
 There was a writhing in the frame of the hearer, for she did 
 want Love to be respected — not shadowed by her misfortune. 
 Her still fiushed senses protested on behalf of the eternalness 
 of the passion, and she was obliged to think Emma's cold con- 
 demnatory mtellect came of the no knowledge of it. 
 
 A letter from Mr. Tonans, containing an inclosure, was a 
 sharp trial of Diana's endurance of the irony of fate. She 
 had spoken of the irony in allusion to her freedom. Now 
 that, according to a communication from her lawyers, she 
 was independent of the task of writing, the letter which paid 
 the price of her misery bruised her heavily. 
 
 "Read it and tear it all to strips," she said, in an abhor- 
 rence to Emma, who rejoined, "Shall I go at once and see 
 him?" 
 
 "Can it serve any end? But throw it into the fire. Oh! 
 no simulation of virtue. There was not, I think, a stipulated 
 return for what I did. But I perceive clearly — I can read 
 only by events — that there was an understanding. You be- 
 hold it. I went to him to sell it. He thanks me, says I served 
 the good cause well. I have not that consolation. If I had 
 thought of the cause — of anything high — ^it would have ar- 
 rested me. On the fire with it!" 
 
 The letter and square slip were consumed. Diana watched 
 the blackening papers. 
 
 "So they cease their sinning, Emmy; and, as long as I am 
 in torment, I may hope for grace. We talked of the irony. 
 It means, the pain of fire." 
 
DIAN<A OF THE CROSSWAYS. 343 
 
 "I spoke of the irony to Eedworth," said Emma; "inci- 
 dentally, of course." 
 
 "And he fumed?" 
 
 "He is really not altogether the Mr. Cuthbert Bering of 
 your caricature. He is never less than acceptably rational. 
 I won't repeat his truisms; but he said, or I deduced from 
 what he said, that a grandmother's maxims would expound 
 the enigma." 
 
 "Probably the simple is the deep, in relation to the mys- 
 teries of life," said Diana, whose wits had been pricked to a 
 momentary activity by the letter. "He behaves wisely; so 
 perhaps we are bound to take his words for wisdom. Much 
 nonsense is talked and written, and he is one of the world's 
 reserves, who need no more than enrolling to make a sturdy 
 phalanx of common sense. It's a pity they are not enlisted 
 and drilled to express themselves." She relapsed. "But 
 neither he nor any of them could understand my case!" 
 
 "He puts the idea of an irony down to the guilt of im- 
 patience, Tony." 
 
 "Could there be a keener irony than that? A friend of 
 dada's waited patiently for a small fortune, and when it ar- 
 rived he was a worn-out man — just assisted to go decently to 
 his grave." 
 
 "But he may have gained in spirit by his patient waiting." 
 
 "Oh! true. We arc warmer if we travel on foot sunward, 
 but it is a discovery that we are colder if we take to ballooning 
 upward- The material good reverses its benefits the more 
 nearly we clasp it. All life is a lesson that we live to enjoy 
 but in the spirit. I will brood on your saying." 
 
 "It is your own saying, silly Tony, as the only things worth 
 saying always are!" exclaimed Emma, as she smiled happily to 
 see her friend's mind reviving, though it was faintly and in the 
 dark. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIX. 
 
 OF NATURE WITH ONE OF HER CULTIVATED DAUGH- 
 TERS AND A SHORT EXCURSION IN ANTI-CLIMAX. 
 
 A mind that after a long season of oblivion in pain returns 
 to wakefulness without a keen edge for the world is much in 
 
344 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 danger of souring permanently. Diana's love of nature saved 
 her from the dire mischance during a two months' residence 
 at Copsley, by stupefying her senses to a state like the barely 
 conscious breathing on the verge of sleep. February blew 
 southwest for the pairing of the birds. A broad warm wind 
 rolled clouds of every ambiguity of form in magnitude over 
 peeping azure, or skimming upon lakes of blue and lightest 
 green, or piling the amphitheater for majestic sunset. Or 
 sometimes those daughters of the wind flew linked and low, 
 semi-purple, threatening the shower they retained and teach- 
 ing gloom to rouse a songful nest in the bosom of the viewer. 
 Sometimes they were April, variable to soar with rain-skirts 
 and sink with sun-shafts. Or they drenched wood and field 
 for a day and opened on the high southwestern star. Daugh- 
 ters of the wind, but shifty daughters of this wind of the 
 dropping sun, they have to be watched to be loved in their 
 transformations. 
 
 Diana had Arthur Ehodes and her faithful Leander for 
 walking companions. If Arthur said, "Such a day would be 
 considered melancholy by London people," she thanked him 
 in her heart, as a benefactor who had revealed to her things 
 of the deepest. The simplest were her food. Thus does 
 Nature restore us, by drugging the brain and making her 
 creature confidingly animal for its new growth. She im- 
 agined herself to have lost the power to think; certainly she 
 had not the striving or the wish. Exercise of her limbs to 
 reach a point of prospect, and of her ears and eyes to note what 
 bird had piped, what flower was out on the banks, and the 
 leaf of what tree it was that lay beneath the budding, satiated 
 her daily desires. She gathered unknowingly a sheaf of land- 
 scapes, images, keys of dreamed horizons, that opened a world 
 to her at any chance breath altering shape or hue — a different 
 world from the one of her old ambition. Her fall had brought 
 her renovatingly to earth, and the saving naturalness of the 
 woman re-created her childlike, with shrouded recollections 
 of her strange taste of life behind her; with a tempered fresh 
 blood to enjoy aimlessly, and what would erewhile have been 
 a barrenness to her sensibilities. 
 
 In time the craving was evolved for positive knowledge, 
 and shells and stones and weeds were deposited on the library 
 table at Copsley, botanical and geological books comparingly 
 examined, Emma Dunstane always eager to assist; for the 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS, 345 
 
 samples wafted her into the heart of the woods. Poor Sir 
 Lukin tried three da3^s of their society, and was driven away 
 headlong to club-life. He sent down Redworth, with whom 
 the walks of the zealous inquirers were profitable, though 
 Diana, in acknowledging it to herself, reserved a decided 
 preference for her foregone ethereal mood, larger, and un- 
 troubled by the presence of a man. The suspicion Emma had 
 sown was not excited to an alarming activity; but she began 
 to question: Could the best of men be simply a woman's 
 friend? — Was not long service rather less than a proof of 
 friendship? She could be blind when her heart was on fire 
 for another. Her passion for her liberty, however, received 
 no ominous warning to look to the defenses. He was the 
 same blunt speaker, and knotted his brows as queerly as ever 
 at Arthur, in a transparent calculation of how this fellow 
 meant to gain his livelihood. She wilfully put it to the credit 
 of Arthur's tact that his elder was amiable, without denying 
 her debt to the good man for leaving her illness and her 
 appearance unmentioned. He forebore even to scan her 
 features. Diana's wan contemplativeness, in which the spar- 
 kle of meaning slowly rose to flash, as we see a bubble rising 
 from the deeps of crystal waters, caught at his heart while he 
 talked his matter-of-fact. But her instinct of a present safety 
 was true. She and Arthur discovered — and it set her first 
 meditating whether she did know the man so very accurately — 
 that he had printed, for private circulation, when at Harrow 
 School, a little book, a record of his observations in nature. 
 Lady Dunstane was the casual betrayer. He shrugged at the 
 nonsense of a boy's publishing; anybody's publishing he held 
 for a doubtful proof of sanity. His excuse was, that he had 
 not published opinions. Let us observe, and assist in our 
 small sphere; not come mouthing to the footlights! 
 
 "We retire," Diana said, for herself and Arthur. 
 
 "The wise thing is to avoid the position that enforces pub- 
 lishing," said he, to the discomposure of his raw junior. 
 
 In the fields he was genially helpful; commending them to 
 the study of the southwest wind if they wanted to forecast 
 the weather and understand the climate of our country. "We 
 have no seasons, or only a shuffle of them. Old calendars 
 give seven months of the year to the southwest, and that's 
 about the average. Count on it, you may generally reckon 
 what to expect. When you don't have the excess for a year 
 
346 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 or two you are drenched the year following." He knew every 
 bird by its flight and its pipe, habits, tricks, hints of sagacity 
 homely with the original human: and his remarks on the 
 sensitive life of trees and herbs were a spell to his thirsty hear- 
 ers. Something of astronomy he knew; but in relation to 
 that science he sank his voice touchingly to Diana, who felt 
 drawn to kinship with him when he had a pupil's tone. An 
 allusion by Arthur to the poetical work of Aratus led to a 
 memorably pleasant evening's discourse upon the long reading 
 of the stars by these our mortal eyes. Altogether the mind 
 of the practical man became distinguishable to them as that of 
 a plain brother of the poetic. Diana said of him to Arthur, 
 "He does not supply me with similes; he points to the source 
 of them." Arthur, with envy of the man of positive knowl- 
 edge, disguised an unstrung heart in agreeing. 
 
 Eedworth alluded passingly to the condition of public af- 
 fairs. Neither of them replied. Diana was wondering how 
 one who perused the eternal of nature should lend a thought 
 to the dusty temporary of the world. Subsequently she re- 
 flected that she was asking him to confine his great male appe- 
 tite to the nibble of bread which nourished her immediate 
 sense of life. Her reflections were thin as mist, coming and 
 going like the mist, with no direction upon her brain, if they 
 sprang from it. When he had gone, welcome though Arthur 
 had seen him to be, she rebounded to a broader and cheerf uller 
 liveliness. Arthur was flattered by an idea of her casting off 
 incubus — a most worthy gentleman, and a not perfectly sym- 
 pathetic associate. Her eyes had their lost sight in them, her 
 step was brisker; she challenged him to former games of con- 
 versation, excursions in blank verse here and there, as the 
 mood dictated. They amused themselves and Emma too. 
 She reveled in seeing Tony's younger face and hearing some 
 of her natural outbursts. That Dacier never could have been 
 the man for her would have compressed and subjected her, 
 and inflicted a further taste of bondage in marriage, she was 
 assured. She hoped for the day when Tony would know it, 
 and haply that another, whom she little comprehended, was 
 her rightful mate. 
 
 March continued southwesterly and grew rainier, as Eed- 
 worth had foretold, bidding them look for gales and storm, 
 and then the change of wind. It came, after wettings of a 
 couple scorning the refuge of dajnty townsfolk under um- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 347 
 
 brellas, and proud of their likeness to dripping wayside wild- 
 flowers. Arthur stayed at Copsley for a week of the crisp 
 northeaster; and what was it, when he had taken his leave, 
 that brought Tony home from her solitary walk in dejection? 
 It could not be her seriously regretting the absence of the 
 youthful companion she had parted with gajdy, appointing a 
 time for another meeting on the heights, and recommending 
 him to repair idle hours with strenuous work. The fit passed 
 and was not explained. The winds are sharp with memory. 
 The hard shrill wind crowed to her senses of an hour on the 
 bleak sands of the French coast: the beginning of the cur- 
 tained misery, inscribed as her happiness. She was next day 
 prepared for her term in London with Emma, who promised 
 her to make an expedition at the end of it by way of holiday, 
 to see The Crossways, which Mr. Redworth said was not 
 tenanted. 
 
 "You won't go through it like a captive," said Emma. 
 
 '^1 don't like it, dear" — Diana put up a comic mouth. "The 
 debts we owe ourselves are the hardest to pay. That is the 
 discovery of advancing age: and I used to imagine it was quite 
 the other way. But they are the debts of honor — imperative. 
 I shall go through it grandly, you will see. If I am stopped 
 at my first recreancy and turned directly the contrary way, I 
 think I have courage." 
 
 "You will not fear to meet . . . any one?" Emma said. 
 
 "The world and all it contains! I am robust, eager for the 
 fray, an Amazon, a brazen-faced hussy. Fear and I have 
 parted. I shall not do you discredit. Besides, you intend to 
 have me back here with you? And besides again, I burn to 
 make a last brave appearance. I have not outraged the world, 
 dear Emmy, whatever certain creatures in it may fancy." 
 
 She had come out of her dejectedness with a shrewder view 
 of Dacier; equally painful, for it killed her romance, and 
 changed the garden of their companionship in imagination to 
 a waste. Her clearing intellect prompted it, whilst her nature 
 protested, and reviled her to uplift him. He 7iad loved her. 
 "I shall die knowing that a man did love me once," she said 
 to her widowed heart, and set herself blushing and blanching. 
 But the thought grew inveterate: "He could not bear much." 
 And in her quick brain it shot up a crop of similitudes for the 
 quality of that man's love. She shuddered, as at a swift 
 cleaving of cold steel. He had not given her a chance; h^ 
 
348 DIANA OP THE CROSSWtAYS. 
 
 had not replied to her letter written with the pen dipped in 
 her heart's blood; he mnst have gone straight away to the wom- 
 an he married. This after almost justifying the scandalous 
 world: — after . . . She realized her sensations of that night 
 when the house door had closed ©n him; her feeling of lost 
 sovereignty, degradation, feminine danger, friendlessness: and 
 she was unaware, and never knew, nor did the world ever 
 know, what cunning had inspired the frosty Cupid to return 
 to her and he warmed by striking a bargain for his weighty 
 secret. She knew too well that she was not of the snows 
 which do not melt, however high her conceit of herself might 
 place her. Happily she now stood out of the sun, in a bracing 
 temperature. Polar; and her compassion for women was deep- 
 ly sisterly in tenderness and understanding. She spoke of it 
 to Emma as her gain. 
 
 "I have not seen that you required to suffer to be consider- 
 ate," Emma said. 
 
 "It is on my conscience that I neglected Mary Paynham, 
 among others — and because you did not take to her, Emmy." 
 
 "The reading of it appears to me that she has neglected 
 you." 
 
 "She was not in my confidence, and so I construe it as 
 delicacy. One never loses by believing the best." 
 
 "If one is not duped." 
 
 "Expectations dupe us, not trust. The light of every soul 
 burns upward. Of course, most of them are candles in the 
 wind. Let us allow for atmospheric disturbance. Xow I 
 thank you, dear, for bringing me back to life. I see that I 
 was really a selfish suicide, because I feel I have power to do 
 some good, and belong to the army. When we are beginning 
 to reflect, as I do now, on a recovered basis of pure health, we 
 have the world at the dawn and know we are young in it, with 
 great riches, great things gained and greater to achieve. Per- 
 sonally I behold a queer little wriggling worm for myself; 
 but as one of the active world I stand high and shapely; and 
 the very thought of doing work is like a draught of the desert- 
 springs to me — instead of which I have once more to go about 
 presenting my face to vindicate my character. Mr. Eed worth 
 would admit no irony in that! At all events, it is anti- 
 climax." 
 
 "I forgot to tell you, Tony, you have been proposed for," 
 said Emma; and there was a rush of savage color over Tony's 
 cheeks. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 349 
 
 Her apparent apprehensions were reKeved by hearing the 
 name of Mr. Sullivan Smith. 
 
 "My poor dear countryman! And he thought me worthy, 
 did he? Some day, when we are past his repeating it, I'll 
 thank him." 
 
 The fact of her smiling happily at the narration of Sullivan 
 Smith's absurd proposal by mediatrix proved to Emma how 
 much her nature thirsted for the smallest support in her self- 
 esteem. 
 
 The second campaign of London was of bad augury at the 
 commencement, owing to the ridiculous intervention of a 
 street-organ, that ground its pipes in a sprawling roar of one 
 of the Puritani marches just as the carriage was landing them 
 at the door of her house. The notes were harsh, dissonant, 
 drunken, interlocked, and horribly torn asunder, intolerable 
 to ears not keen to extract the tune through dreadful mem- 
 ories. Diana sat startled and paralyzed. The melody crashed 
 a revival of her days with Dacier, as in gibes — and yet it 
 reached to her heart. She imagined a Providence that was 
 trying her on the threshold, striking at her feebleness. She 
 had to lock herself in her room for an hour of deadly abandon- 
 ment to misery, resembling the run of poison through her 
 blood, before she could bear to lift eyes on her friend; to 
 whom subsequently she said, "Emmy, there are wounds that 
 cut sharp as the enchanter's sword, and we don't know we are 
 in halves till some rough old intimate claps us on the back 
 merely to ask us how we are! I have to join myself together 
 again as well as I can. It's done, dear; but don't notice the 
 cement." 
 
 "You will be brave," Emma petitioned. 
 
 "I long to show you I will." 
 
 The meeting with those who could guess a portion of her 
 story did not disconcert her. To Lady Pennon and Lady 
 Singleby she was the brilliant Diana of her nominal luminary 
 issuing from cloud. Face and tongue she was the same; and, 
 once in the stream, she soon gathered its current topics and 
 scattered her arrowy phrases. Lady Pennon ran about with 
 them, declaring that the beautiful speaker, if ever down, was 
 up, and up to her finest mark. Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett had then 
 become the blazing regnant anti-social star — a distresser of 
 domesticity, the magnetic attraction in the spirituous flames 
 of that wild snapdragon bowl called the upper class; and she 
 
350 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 was angelically blonde^ a straw-colored beauty. "A lovely 
 wheatsheaf if the head were ripe/' Diana said of her. 
 
 "Threshed, says her fame, my dear/' Lady Pennon replied, 
 otherwise allusive. 
 
 "A wheatsheaf of contention for the bread of wind/' said 
 Diana, thinking of foolish Sir Lukin; thoughtless of talking to 
 a gossip. 
 
 She would have shot a lighter dart had she meant it to fly 
 and fix. 
 
 Proclaim, ye classics, what minor goddess, or primal Iris or 
 Ate, sped straight away on wing to the empty wheatsheaf- 
 ears of the golden-visaged Amabel Fryar-Gunnett, daughter 
 of Demeter in the field to behold, of Aphrodite in her rosy 
 incendiarism for the many of men; filling that pearly con- 
 cave with a perversion of the uttered speech, such as never 
 lady could have repeated, nor man, if less than a reaping har- 
 vester: which verily for women to hear is to stamp a sub- 
 stantial damnatory verification upon the delivery of the say- 
 ing:— 
 
 "Mrs. Warwick says of you that you're a bundle of straws 
 for everybody and bread for nobody." 
 
 Or, stranger speculation, through what, and what number 
 of conduits — curious, and variously coloring — did it reach 
 the fair Amabel of the infant-in-cradle smile, in that deforma- 
 tion of the original utterance! To pursue the thing would 
 be to enter the subtersensual perfumed caverns of a Eomance 
 of Fashionable Life, with no hope of coming back to light 
 other than by tail of lynx, like the great Arabian seaman at 
 the last page of the final chapter. A prospectively popular 
 narrative indeed! and coin to reward it, and applause. 
 
 But I am reminded that a story properly closed on the 
 marriage of the heroine Constance and her young Minister of 
 State has no time for conjuring chemists' bouquet of aristoc- 
 racy to lure the native taste. When we have satisfied Eng- 
 lish sentiment our task is done, in every branch of art, I hear : 
 and it will account to posterity for the condition of the 
 branches. Those yet wakeful eccentrics interested in such a 
 person as Diana, to the extent of remaining attentive till the 
 curtain falls, demand of me to gather up the threads con- 
 cerning her: which my gardener, sweeping his pile of dead 
 leaves before the storm and night, advises me to do speedily. 
 But it happens that her resemblance to her sex and species 
 
DIAN.A OF THE CROSSWAYS. 351 
 
 of a civilized period plants the main threads in her bosom. 
 Eogues and a policeman, or a hurried change of front of all 
 the actors, are not a part of our slow machinery. 
 
 Nor is she to show herself to advantage. Only those who 
 read her woman^s blood and character with the head will 
 care for Diana of The Crossways now that the knot of her 
 history has been unraveled. Some httle love they must have 
 for her likewise; and how it can be quickened on behalf of a 
 woman who never sentimentalizes publicly, and has no dolly- 
 dolly compliance, and muses on actual life, and fatigues with 
 the exercise of brains, and is in sooth an alien — a princess of 
 her kind and time, but a foreign one, speaking a language 
 distinct from the mercantile, trafficking in ideas — this is the 
 problem. For to be true to her one cannot attempt at pro- 
 pitiation. She said worse things of the world than that which 
 was conveyed to the boxed ears of Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett. Ac- 
 cepting the war declared against her a second time, she per- 
 formed the common mental trick in adversity of setting her 
 personally known innocence to lessen her generally unknown 
 error: but, anticipating that this might become known, and 
 the other not — and feeling that the motives of the acknowl- 
 edged error had served to guard her from being the culprit of 
 the charge she writhed under — she rushed out of a meditation 
 compounded of mind and nerves, with derision of the world's 
 notion of innocence and estimate of error. It was a mood 
 lasting through her stay in London, and longer, to the dis- 
 comfort of one among her friends; and it was worthy of The 
 Anti-Climax Expedition, as she called it. 
 
 For the rest, her demeanor to the old monster world exact- 
 ing the servility of her, in repaj^ment for its tolerating coun- 
 tenance, was faultless. Emma beheld the introduction to Mrs. 
 Warwick of his bride by Mr. Percy Dacier. She had watched 
 their approach up the ballroom, thinking how differently 
 would Eedworth and Tony have looked. Differently, had it 
 been Tony and Dacier: but Emma could not persuade her- 
 self of a possible harmony between them, save at the cost of 
 Tony's expiation of the sin of the greater heart in a per- 
 formance equivalent to suttee. Perfectly an English gentle- 
 man of the higher order, he seemed the effigy of a tombstone 
 one, fixed upright, and civilly proud of his effigy bride. So 
 far, Emma considered them fitted. She perceived his quick 
 eye on her corner of the room; necessarily, for a man of his 
 
352 DIAN'A OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 breeding, without a change of expression. An emhlem per- 
 taining to her creed was on the heroine's neck; also de- 
 pendent at her waist. She was white from head to foot; a 
 symbol of purity. Her frail smile appeared deeply studied in 
 purity. Judging from her look and her reputation, Emma 
 divined that the man was justly mated with a devious filmy 
 sentimentalist, likely to "fiddle harmonies on the sensual 
 strings" for him at a mad rate in the years to come. Such 
 fiddling is indeed the peculiar diversion of the opulent of a 
 fatly prosperous people; who take it, one may concede to them, 
 for an inspired elimination of the higher notes of life: the 
 very highest. That saying of Tony's ripened with full signifi- 
 cance to Emma now. Not sensualism, but sham spiritualism, 
 was the meaning; and, however fine the notes, they come 
 skillfully evoked of the under-brute in us. Eeasoning it so, 
 she thought it a saying for the penetration of the most pol- 
 ished and deceptive of the later human masks. She had be- 
 sides, be it owned, a triumph in conjuring a sentence of her 
 friend's, like a sword's edge, to meet them; for she was boil- 
 ing angrily at the ironical destiny which had given to those 
 two a beclouding of har beloved, whom she could have re- 
 buked in turn for her insane caprice of passion. 
 
 But when her beloved stood up to greet Mrs. Percy Dacier 
 all idea save tremulous admiration of the valiant woman, who 
 had been wounded nigh to death, passed from Emma's mind. 
 Diana tempered her queenliness to address the favored lady 
 with smiles and phrases of gentle warmth, of goodness of 
 nature; and it became a halo rather than a personal eclipse 
 that she cast. 
 
 Emma looked at Dacier. He wore the prescribed conven- 
 tional air, subject in half-a-minute to a rapid blinking of the 
 eyelids. His wife could have been inimically imagined fas- 
 cinated and dwindling. A spot of color came to her cheeks. 
 She likewise began to blink. 
 
 The happy couple bowed, proceeding; and Emma had 
 Dacier's back for a study. We score on that flat slate of man — 
 unattractive as it is to hostile observations, and unprotected — 
 the device we choose. Her harshest, was the positive thought 
 that he had taken the woman best suited to him. Doubtless, 
 he was a man to prize the altar-candle above the lamp of day. 
 She fancied the back view of him shrunken and straitened — 
 perhaps a mere hostile fancy; though it was conceivable that 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSS WAYS. 353 
 
 he should desire as little of these meetings as possible. 
 Eclipses are not courted. 
 
 The specially womanly exultation of Emma Dunstane in 
 her friend's noble attitude, seeing how their sex had been 
 struck to the dust for a trifling error, easily to be overlooked 
 by a manful lover, and had asserted its dignity in physical and 
 moral splendor, in self-mastery and benignness, was unshared 
 by Diana. As soon as the business of the expedition was over, 
 her orders were issued for the sale of the lease of her house 
 and all it contained. "I would sell Danvers too," she said, 
 "but the creature declines to be treated as merchandise. It 
 seems I have a faithful servant; very much like my life, not 
 quite to my taste; the one thing out of the wreck! — with my 
 dog!" 
 
 Before quitting her house for the return to Copsley she had 
 to grant Mr. Alexander Hepburn, post-haste from his Cale- 
 donia, a pjivate interview. She came out of it noticeably 
 shattered. Nothing was related to Emma beyond the re- 
 mark, "I never knew till this morning the force of No in 
 earnest." The weighty little word — woman's native watch- 
 dog and guardian, if she calls it to her aid in earnest — had 
 encountered and withstood a fiery ancient host, astonished at 
 its novel power of resistance. 
 
 Emma contented herself with the result. "Were you much 
 supplicated?" 
 
 "An Operatic Fourth Act," said Diana, by no means feeling 
 so flippantly as she spoke. 
 
 She received, while under the impression of this man's 
 honest, if primitive, ardor of courtship, or effort to capture, 
 a characteristic letter from Westlake, choicely phrased, con- 
 taining presumably an application for her hand, in the gener- 
 ous offer of his own. Her reply to a pursuer of that sort was 
 easy. Comedy, after the barbaric attack, refreshed her wits 
 and reliance on her natural fencing weapons. To Westlake, 
 the unwritten No was conveyed in a series of kindly ironic 
 subterfuges, that played it like an impish flea across the pages, 
 just giving the bloom of the word; and rich smiles came to 
 Emma's life in reading the dexterous composition; which, 
 however, proved so thoroughly to Westlake's taste, that a 
 second and a third exercise in the Comedy of the negative 
 had to be despatched to him from Copsley. 
 
354 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XL. 
 
 IN WHICH WE SEE NATURE MAKING OF A WOMAN A 
 MAID AGAIN, AND A THRICE WHIMSICAL. 
 
 On their way from London, after leaving the station, the 
 drive through the valley led them past a field, w.here cricketers 
 were at work howling and batting under a vertical sun: not a 
 very comprehensible sight to ladies, whose practical tenden- 
 cies, as observers of the other sex, inchne them to question the 
 gain of such an expenditure of energy. The dispersal of the 
 alphabet over a printed page is not less perplexing to the 
 illiterate. As soon as Emma Dunstane discovered the Cops- 
 ley head gamekeeper at one wicket, and, actually, Thomas 
 Redworth facing him, bat in hand, she sat up, greatly inter- 
 ested. Sir Lukin stopped the carriage at the gate, and re- 
 minded his wife that it was the day of the year for the men 
 of his estate to encounter a valley Eleven. Redworth, like 
 the good fellow he was, had come down by appointment in 
 the morning out of London, to fill the number required, Cops- 
 ley being weak this year. Eight of their wickets had fallen 
 for a lamentable figure of twenty-nine runs; himself clean- 
 bowled the first ball. But Tom Redworth had got fast hold 
 of his wicket, and already scored fifty to his bat. "There! 
 grand hit!" Sir Lukin cried, the ball flying hard at the rails. 
 "Once a cricketer always a cricketer, if you've legs to fetch 
 the runs. And Pullen's not doing badly. His business is to 
 stick. We shall mark them a hundred yet. I do hate a score 
 on our side without the two OO's." He accounted for Red- 
 worth's mixed colors by telling the ladies he had lent him 
 his flannel Jacket; which, against black trousers, looked odd 
 but not ill. 
 
 Gradually the enthusiasm of the booth and bystanders con- 
 verted the flying of a leather ball into a subject of honorable 
 excitement. 
 
 "And why are you doing nothing?" Sir Lukin was asked; 
 and he explained: 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. ( 355 
 
 "My stumps are down: I'm married.'^ He took his wife's 
 hand prettily. 
 
 Diana had a maUcious prompting. She smothered the 
 wasp, and said, "Oh, look at that!" 
 
 "Grand hit again! Oh! good! good!" cried Sir Lukin, 
 clapping to it, while the long-hit-off ran spinning his legs into 
 one for an impossible catch; and the batsmen were running 
 and stretching bats, and the ball flying away, flying back and 
 others after it, and still the batsmen running, till it seemed 
 that the ball had escaped control and was leading the fielders 
 on a coltish innings of its own, defiant of the bowlers. 
 
 Diana said merrily, "Bravo our side!" 
 
 "Bravo, old Tom Eedworth," rejoined Sir Lukin. "Four 
 and a three! And capital weather haven't we? Hope we 
 shall have same sort of day next month — return match, my 
 ground. I've seen Tom Eedworth score — old days — over 
 two hundred t' his bat. And he used to bowl too. But 
 bowling wants practice. And, Emmy, look at the old fellows 
 lining the booth, pipe in mouth and cheering. They do en- 
 joy a day like this. We'll have a supper for fifty at Copsley's — 
 it's fun. By Jove! we must have reached up to near the 
 hundred." 
 
 He commissioned a neighboring boy to hie to the booth for 
 the latest figures, and his emissary taught lightning a lesson. 
 
 Diana praised the little fellow. 
 
 "Yes, he's a real English boy," said Emma. 
 
 "We've thousands of 'em^ thousands, ready to your hand," 
 exclaimed Sir Lukin, "and a confounded Eadicalized coun- 
 try . . ." he muttered gloomily of "let us be kicked! . . . 
 any amount of insult, meek as gruel! . . . making of the 
 finest army the world has ever seen! You saw the papers 
 this morning? Good Heaven! how a nation with an atom of 
 self-respect can go on standing that sort of bullying from 
 foreigners! We do. We're insulted and we're threatened, 
 and we call for a hymn! Now then, my man, what is it?" 
 
 The boy had flown back. "Ninety-two marked, sir; ninety- 
 nine runs; one more for the hundred." 
 
 "Well reckoned; and mind you're up at Copsley for the 
 return match. And Tom Eedworth says they may bite their 
 thumbs to the bone — they don't hurt us. I tell him he has 
 no sense of national pride. He says we're not prepared for 
 war. We never are. And whose the fault? Says we're a 
 
f^m) 
 
 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 peaceful people, but 'ware who touches us! He doesn't feel 
 a kick. Oh! clever snick! Hurrah for the hundred! Two — 
 three. No; don't force the running, you fools! — though 
 they're wild with the ball: ha! — no! — all right!" The wicket 
 stood. Hurrah! 
 
 The heat of the noonday sun compelled the ladies to drive 
 on. 
 
 "Enthusiasm has the privilege of not knowing monotony," 
 said Emma. "He looks well in flannels." 
 
 "Yes, he does," Diana replied, aware «f the reddening de- 
 spite her having spoken so simply. "I think the chief ad- 
 vantage men have over us is in their amusements." . 
 
 "Their recreations." 
 
 "That is the better word." Diana fanned her cheeks and 
 said she was warm. "I mean the permanent advantage. For 
 you see that age does not affect them." 
 
 "Tom Redworth is not a patriarch, my dear." 
 
 "Well, he is what would be called mature." 
 
 "He can't be more than thirty-two or three; and that, for 
 a man of his constitution, means youth." 
 
 "Well, I can imagine him a patriarch playing cricket." 
 
 "I should imagine you imagine the possible chances. He 
 is the father who would play with his boys." 
 
 "And lock up his girls in the nursery." Diana murmured 
 of the extraordinary heat. 
 
 Emma begged her to remember his heterodox views of the 
 education for girls. 
 
 "He bats admirably," said Diana. "I wish I could bat 
 half as well." 
 
 "Your batting is with the tongue." 
 
 "Not so good. x\nd a solid bat, or bludgeon, to defend 
 the poor stumps, is surer. But there is the difference of 
 cricket: when your stumps eve down you are idle, at leisure — - 
 not a miserable prisoner." 
 
 "Supposing all marriages miserable." 
 
 "To the mind of me," said Diana, and observed Emma's 
 rather saddened eyelids for a proof that schemes to rob her 
 of dear liberty were certainly planned. 
 
 They conversed of expeditions to Eedworth's Berkshire 
 mansion, and to The Crossways, untenanted at the moment, 
 as he had informed Emma, who fancied it would please Tony 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 357 
 
 to pass a night in the house she loved; but as he was to be 
 of the party she coldly acquiesced. 
 
 The woman of flesh refuses pliancy when we want it of 
 her, and will not, until it is her good pleasure, be bent to the 
 development called a climax, as the puppet-woman mother 
 of Fiction and darling of the multitude ever amiably does 
 at a hint of the nuptial chapter. Diana, in addition, sus- 
 tained the weight of brains. Neither with waxen optics nor 
 with subservient jointings did she go through her pathways 
 of the world. Her direct individuality rejected the per- 
 formance of simpleton, and her lively blood, the warmer for 
 its containment, quickened her to penetrate things and 
 natures; and if as yet, in justice to the loyal male friend, 
 she forbore to name him conspirator, she read both him and 
 Emma, whose inner bosom was revealed to her, without an 
 effort to see. But her characteristic chasteness of mind — 
 not coldness of the blood — which had supported an arduous 
 conflict, past all existing rights closely to depict, and which 
 barbed her to pierce to the wishes threatening her freedom, 
 deceived her now to think her flaming in blushes came of 
 her relentless divination on behalf of her recovered treasure: 
 whereby the clear reading of others distracted the view of 
 herself. For one may be the cleverest alive and still hood- 
 winked while blood is young and warm. 
 
 The perpetuity of the contrast presented to her reflections, 
 of Redworth's healthy, open, practical, cheering life, and her 
 own freakishly interwinding, darkly penetrative, simulacrum 
 of a life, cheerless as well as useless, forced her humiliated 
 consciousness by degrees, in spite of pride, to the knowledge 
 that she was engaged in a struggle with him; and that he 
 was the stronger — it might be the worthier: she thought 
 him the handsomer. He throve to the light of day, and she 
 spun a silly web that meshed her in her intricacies. Her 
 intuition of Emma's wishes led to this; he was constantly 
 before her. She tried to laugh at the image of the concrete 
 cricketer, half-flanneled and red of face — the "lucky cal- 
 culator," as she named him to Emma, who shook her head, 
 and sighed. The abstract, healthful, and powerful man, 
 able to play besides profitably working, defied those poor 
 efforts. Consequently, at once she sent up a bubble to the 
 skies, where it became a spheral realm, of far too fine an 
 atmosphere for men to breathe in it; and thither she trans- 
 
358 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 ported herself at will whenever the contrast, with its accom- 
 panying menace of a tyrannic subjugation, overshadowed 
 her. In the above, the kingdom composed of her shattered 
 romance of life and her present aspirings, she was free and 
 safe. Nothing touched her there — ^nothing that Redworth 
 did. She could not have admitted there her ideal of a hero. 
 It was the sublimation of a virgin's conception of life, better 
 fortified against the enemy. She peopled it with souls of 
 the great and pure, gave it illimitable horizons, dreamy nooks, 
 ravishing landscapes, melodies of the poets of music. Higher 
 and more celestial than the Salvatore, it was likewise — now 
 she could assure herself serenely — independent of the horrid 
 blood-emotions. Living up there she had not a feeling. 
 
 The natural result of this habit of ascending to a super- 
 lunary home was the loss of an exact sense of how she was 
 behaving below. At the Berkshire mansion she wore a 
 supercilious air, almost as icy as she accused the place of 
 being. Emma knew she must have seen in the library a 
 row of her literary ventures, exquisitely bound; but there 
 was no allusion to the books. Mary Paynham's portrait of 
 Mrs. Warwick hung staring over the fireplace, and was criti- 
 cized as though its occupancy of that position had no sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 "He thinks she has a streak of genius," Diana said to 
 Emma. 
 
 "It may be shown in time,'^ Emma replied, for a comment 
 on the work. "He should know, for the Spanish pictures 
 are noble acquisitions." 
 
 "They are, doubtless, good investments." 
 
 He had been foolish enough to say, in Diana's hearing, that 
 he considered the purchase of the Berkshire estate a good 
 investment. It had not yet a name. She suggested various 
 titles for Emma to propose: "The Funds"; or "Capital 
 Towers"; or "Dividend Manor"; or "Eailholm"; blind to 
 the evidence of inflicting pain. Emma, from what she had 
 guessed concerning the purchaser of The Crossways, appre- 
 hended a discovery there which might make Tony's treatment 
 of him unkinder, seeing that she appeared actuated contra- 
 riously; and only her invalid's new happiness in the small 
 excursions she was capable of taking to a definite spot, of 
 some homely attractiveness, moved her to follow her own pro- 
 posal for the journey. Diana pleaded urgently, childishly in 
 
DIANA OP THE3 CHOSSWAYS. 359 
 
 tone, to have Arthur Rhodes with them, "so as to be sure of a 
 sympathetic companion for a walk on the downs." At The 
 Crossways they were soon aware that Mr. Eedworth's 
 domestics were in attendance to serve them. Manifestly the 
 house was his property, and not much of an investment! 
 The principal bedroom, her father's once, and her own, 
 devoted now to Emma's use, appalled her with a resemblance 
 to her London home. She had noticed some of her furniture 
 at "Dividend Manor," and chosen to consider it in the light 
 of a bargain from a purchase at the sale of her goods. Here 
 was her bed, her writing-table, her chair of authorship, 
 desks, books, ornaments, water-color sketches. And the 
 drawing-room was fitted with her brackets and etageres, hold- 
 ing every knick-knack she had possessed and scattered, small 
 bronzes, antiques, ivory junks, quaint ivory figures — Chinese 
 and Japanese, bits of porcelain, silver incense-urns, dozens of 
 dainty sundries. She had a shamed curiosity to spy for an 
 omission of one of them; all were there. The Crossways had 
 been turned into a trap. 
 
 Her reply to this blunt wooing — conspired, she felt just- 
 ified in thinking, between him and Emma — was emphatic in 
 muteness. She treated it as if unobserved. At night, in bed, 
 the scene of his mission from Emma to her under this roof, 
 barred her customary ascent to her planetary kingdom. Next 
 day she took Arthur after breakfast for a walk on the downs 
 and remained absent till ten minutes before the hour of din- 
 ner. As to that young gentleman, he was near to being 
 caressed in public. Arthur's opinions, his good sayings, were 
 quoted; his excellent companionship on really poetical walks, 
 and perfect sympathy, praised to his face. Challenged by 
 her initiative to a kind of language that threw Eedworth out, 
 he declaimed: "We pace with some who make young morn- 
 ing stale." 
 
 "Oh! stale as peel of fruit long since consumed," she 
 chimed. 
 
 And so they proceeded; and they laughed, Emma smiled a 
 little, Eedworth did the same beneath one of his questioning 
 frowns — a sort of fatherly grimace. 
 
 A suspicion that this man, when infatuated, was able to 
 practice the absurdest benevolence, the burlesque of chivalry, 
 as a man-admiring sex esteems it, stirred very naughty depths 
 of the woman in Diana, laboring under her perverted mood. 
 
360 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 She put Hm to proof, for the chance of arming her wickedest 
 to despise him. Arthur was petted, consulted, cited, flattered 
 all round — all but caressed. She played, with a reserve, the 
 mature young woman smitten by an adorable youth; and 
 enjoyed doing it because she hoped for a visible effect — some 
 paternal benevolence — and could do it so dispassionately. 
 Coquetry, Emma thought, was most unworthily shown; and 
 it was of the worst description. Innocent of conspiracy, she 
 had seen the array of Tony's lost household treasures; she 
 wondered at a heartlessness that would not even utter com- 
 mon thanks to the friendly man for the compliment of prizing 
 her portrait and the things she had owned; and there seemed 
 an effort to wound him. 
 
 The invalided woman, charitable with allowance for her 
 erratic husband, could offer none for the woman of a long- 
 widowhood, that had become a trebly sensitive maidenhood; 
 abashed by her knoAvledge of the world, animated by her 
 abounding blood; cherishing her new freedom, dreading the 
 menacer; feeling that, though she held the citadel, she was 
 daily less sure of its foundations, and that her hope of some 
 last romance in life was going; for in him shone not a 
 glimpse. He appeared to Diana as a fatal power, attracting 
 her without sympathy, benevolently overcoming: one of 
 those good men, strong men, who subdue and do not kindle. 
 The enthralment revolted a nature capable of accepting sub- 
 jection only by burning. In return for his moral excellence 
 she gave him the moral sentiments: esteem, gratitude, ab- 
 stract admiration, perfect faith. But the man? She could 
 not now say she had never been loved; and a flood of tender- 
 ness rose in her bosom, swelling from springs that she had 
 previously reproved with a desperate severity: the unhappy, 
 unsatisfied yearning to be more than loved, to love. It was 
 alive, out of the wreck of its first trial. This, the secret of 
 her natural frailty, was bitter to her pride: chastely-minded 
 as she was it whelmed her. And then her comic imagination 
 pictured Eedworth, dramatically making love. And to a 
 widow! It proved him to be senseless of romance. Poetic men 
 take aim at maidens. His devotedness to a widow was charged 
 against him by the widow's shudder at antecedents distasteful 
 to her soul, a discoloration of her life. She wished to look 
 entirely forward, as upon a world washed clear of night, not 
 to be cast back on her antecedents by practical wooings or 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 361 
 
 words of love; to live spiritually; free of the shower at her 
 eyelids attendant on any idea of her loving. The woman who 
 talked of the sentimentalist's "fiddling harmonics" herself 
 stressed the material chords in her attempt to escape out of 
 herself and away from her pursuer. 
 
 Meanwhile she was as little conscious of what she was doing 
 as of how she appeared. Arthur went about with a moony 
 air of surcharged sweetness, and a speculation on it, alternately 
 tiptoe and prostrate. More of her intoxicating wine was ad- 
 ministered to him, in utter thoughtlessness of consequences 
 to one who was but a boy and a friend, almost of her own 
 rearing. She told Emma, v;hen leaving The Crossways, that 
 she had no desire to look on the place again: she wondered 
 at Mr. Eedworth's liking such a solitude. In truth, the look 
 back on it let her perceive that her husband haunted it, and 
 disfigured the man, of real generosity, as her heart confessed, 
 but whom she accused of a lack of prescient delicacy for not 
 kno"wdng she would and must be haunted there. Blaming 
 him, her fountain of color shot up at a murmur of her unjust- 
 ness and the poor man's hopes. 
 
 A week later the youth she publicly named "her Arthur" 
 came down to Copsle}^ with the news of his having been rec- 
 ommendea by Mr. Redworth for the post of secretary to an 
 old Whig nobleman famous for his patronage of men of let- 
 ters. And besides, he expected to inherit, he said, and gazed 
 in a way to sharpen her instincts. The wine he had drunk 
 of late from her flowing vintage was in his eyes. They were 
 on their usual rambles out along the heights. "Accept, by 
 all means, and thank Mr. Eedworth," said she, speeding her 
 tongue to intercept him. "Literature is a good stick and a bad 
 horse. Indeed, I ought to know. You can always write; I 
 hope you will." 
 
 She stepped fast, hearing, "Mrs. Warwick — Diana! May 
 I take your hand?" 
 
 This was her pretty piece of work! "Why should you? 
 If you speak my Christian name, no: you forfeit any pretext. 
 And pray don't loiter. We are going at the pace of the firm 
 of Potter and Dawdle, and you know they never got their 
 shutters down till it was time to put them up again." 
 
 Nimble-footed as she was, she pressed ahead too fleetly for 
 amorous elo(^uence to have a chance. She heard "Diana!" 
 
362 DIANA. OF THE CRQSSWAYS. 
 
 twice, through the rattling of her discourse and flapping of 
 her dress. 
 
 "Christian names are coin that seem to have an indifferent 
 valuation of the property they claim/' she said in the Cops- 
 ley garden; "and as for hands, at meeting and parting, here 
 is the friendliest you could have. Only don't look rueful. 
 My dear Arthur, spare me that, or I shall blame myself hor- 
 ribly." 
 
 His chance had gone, and he composed his face. No hope 
 in speaking had nerved him; merely the passion to speak. 
 Diana understood the state, and pitied the naturally modest 
 young fellow, and chafed at herself as a senseless incendiary, 
 who did mischief right and left, from seeking to shun the 
 apparently inevitable. A side-thought intruded, that he 
 would have done his wooing poetically — not in the burly 
 storm, or bull-Saxon,, she apprehended. Supposing it im- 
 perative with her to choose? She looked up, and the bird 
 of broader wing darkened the whole sky, bidding her know 
 that she had no choice. 
 
 Emma was requested to make Mr. Redworth acquainted 
 with her story, all of it — "So that this exalted friendship of 
 his may be shaken to a common level. He has an unbear- 
 ably high estimate of me, and it hurts me. Tell him all; 
 and more than even you have known. But for his coming to 
 me, on the eve of your passing under the surgeons' hands, I 
 should have gone — flung the world my glove! A matter of 
 minutes. Ten minutes later! The train was to start for 
 France at eight, and I was awaited. I have to thank Heaven 
 that the man was one of those who can strike icily. Tell 
 him what I say. You two converse upon every subject. One 
 may be too loftily respected — ^in my case. By-and-by — ^for 
 he is a tolerant reader of life and women, I think — ^we shall 
 be humdrum friends of the lasting order." 
 
 Emma's cheeks were as red as Diana's. "I fancy Tom 
 Redworth has not much to learn concerning any person he 
 cares for," she said. "You like him? I have lost touch of 
 you, my dear, and ask." 
 
 "I like him: that I can say. He is everything I am not. 
 But, now I am free, the sense of being undeservedly over- 
 esteemed imposes fetters, and I don't like them. I have been 
 called a Beauty. Rightly or other, I have had a Beauty's 
 career; and a curious caged beast's life I have found it. Will 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 363 
 
 you promise me to speak to him? And also thank him for 
 helping Arthur Rhodes to a situation." 
 
 At this the tears fell from her. And so enigmatical had 
 she grown to Emma that her bosom friend took them for a 
 confessed attachment to the youth. 
 
 Diana's wretched emotion shamed her from putting any 
 inquiries whether Eedworth had been told. He came re- 
 peatedly, and showed no change of face, always continuing 
 in the form of huge hovering griffin until an idea, instead 
 of the monster bird, struck her. Might she not, after all, be 
 cowering under imagination? The very maidenly idea 
 wakened her womanliness — to reproach her remainder of 
 pride, not to see more accurately. It was the reason why 
 she resolved, against Emma's extreme entreaties, to take 
 lodgings in the south valley below the heights, where she 
 could be independent of fancies and perpetual visitors, but 
 near her beloved at any summons of urgency; which Emma 
 would not habitually send because of the coming of a par- 
 ticular gentleman. Dresses were left at Copsley for dining 
 and sleeping there upon occasion; and poor Danvers, despair- 
 ing over the riddle of her mistress, was condemned to the 
 melancholy descent. "It's my belief," she confided to Lady 
 Dunstane's maid Bartlett, "she'll hate men all her life after 
 that Mr. Dacier." 
 
 If women were deceived, and the riddle deceived herself, 
 there is excuse for a plain man like Eedworth in not having 
 the slightest clue to the daily shifting feminine maze he 
 beheld. The strange thing was, that during her maiden time 
 she had never been shifty or flighty, invariably limpid and 
 direct. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 CONTAINS A REVELATION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE 
 TIGRESS IN DIANA. 
 
 An afternoon of high summer blazed over London through 
 the City's awning of smoke, and the three classes of the popu- 
 lation, relaxed by the weariful engagement with what to them 
 was a fruitless heat, were severally bathing their ideas in 
 dreams of the contrast possible to embrace: breezy seas or 
 
364 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 moors, aerial Alps, cool beer. The latter, if confessedly the 
 lower comfort, is the readier at command; and Thomas Eed- 
 worth, whose perspiring frame was directing his inward vision 
 to fly for solace to a trim new yacht, built on his lines, beck- 
 oning from Southampton Water, had some of the amusement 
 proper to things plucked off the levels in the conversation 
 of a couple of journeymen close ahead of him, as he made his 
 way from a quiet street of brokers' offices to a City bank. 
 One asked the other if he had ever tried any of that cold 
 stuff they were now selling out of barrows, with cream. His 
 companion answered that he had not got much opinion of stuff 
 of the sort; and what was it like? 
 
 "Well, it's cheap, it ain't bad; it's cooling. But it ain't 
 refreshing." 
 
 "Just what I reckoned all that newf angle rubbish." 
 Without a consultation, the conservatives in beverage filed 
 with a smart turn about, worthy of veterans at parade on 
 the drill-ground, into a public-house; and a dialogue, chiefly 
 remarkable for absence of point, furnished matter to the 
 politician's head of the hearer. Provided that their beer was 
 unadulterated! Beer they would have; and why not, in 
 weather like this? But how to make the publican honest? 
 And he was not the only trickster preying on the multitu- 
 dinous poor copper crowd, rightly to be protected by the silver 
 and the golden. Eevelations of the arts practiced to plump 
 them with raw earth and minerals in the guise of nourishment 
 had recently knocked at the door of the general conscience 
 and obtained a civil reply from the footman. Eepulsive as 
 the thought was to one still holding to Whiggish Liberalism, 
 though flying various Eadical kites, he was caught by the 
 decisive ultra-torrent, and whirled to admit the necessity for 
 the interference of the State to stop the poisoning of the poor. 
 Upper classes have never legislated systematically in their 
 interests; and quid . . . rabidae tradis ovile lupae? says 
 one of the multitude. We may be seeing fangs of wolves 
 where fleeces waxed. The State that makes it a vital principle 
 to concern itself with the helpless poor meets instead of 
 waiting for Democracy; which is a perilous flood bnt when it 
 is dammed. Or else, in course of time luxurious yachting, 
 my friend, will encounter other reefs and breakers than briny 
 ocean's! Capital — whereat Diana AYarwick aimed her superb- 
 est sneer — has its instant duties. She theorized on the side of 
 
MANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 365 
 
 poverty, and might do so: lie had no right to be theorizing 
 on the side of riches. Across St. George's Channel the cry 
 for humanity in capital was an agony. He ought to be there, 
 doing, not cogitating. The post of Irish Secretary must be 
 won by real service founded on absolute local knowledge. 
 Yes, and sympathy, if you like; but sympathy is for proving, 
 not prating. . . . 
 
 These were the meditations of a man in love; veins, 
 arteries, headpiece in love, and constantly brooding at a soli- 
 tary height over the beautiful coveted object; only too bewil- 
 dered by her multifarious evanescent feminine evasions, as of 
 colors on a ruffled water, to think of pouncing: for he could 
 do nothing to soften, nothing that seemed to please her: and 
 all the while the motive of her mind impelled him in reflec- 
 tion beyond practicable limits — even pointing him to apt quo- 
 tations! Either he thought within her thoughts or his own 
 were at her disposal. Nor was it sufficient for him to be sensi- 
 ble of her influence to restrain the impetus he took from her. 
 He had already wedded her morally, and much that he did, as 
 well as whatever he debated, came of Diana; more than if 
 they had been coupled, when his downright practical good 
 sense could have spoken. She held him suspended, swaying 
 him in that posture; and he was not a whit ashamed of it. 
 The beloved woman w^as throned on the very highest of the 
 man. 
 
 Furthermore, not being encouraged, he had his peculiar 
 reason for delay, though now he could offer her wealth. She 
 had once in his hearing derided the unpleasant hiss of the 
 ungainly English matron's title of Mrs. There was no harm 
 in the accustomed title, to his taste; but, she disliking it, he 
 did the same, on her special behalf; and the prospect, fune- 
 really draped, of a title sweeter-sounding to her ears was 
 above his horizon. Bear in mund, that he underwent the 
 reverse of encouragement. Any small thing to please her 
 was magnified, and the anticipation of it nerved the modest 
 hopes of one who deemed himself and any man alive deeply 
 her inferior. 
 
 Such was the mood of the lover condemned to hear another 
 malignant scandal defiling the name of the woman he wor- 
 shiped. Sir Lukin Dunstane, extremely hurried, bumped 
 him on the lower step of the busy bank, and said, "Pardon!" 
 and "Ha! Redworth! making money?" 
 
366 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "Why, what are you up to down here?" he was asked, 
 and he answered, "Down to the Tower, to an officer quar- 
 tered there. Not bad quarters, but an infernal distance. 
 Business." 
 
 Having cloaked his expedition to the distance with the 
 comprehensive word he repeated it; by which he feared he 
 had rendered it too significant, and he said, "No, no; nothing 
 particular;" and that caused the secret he contained to swell 
 in his breast rebelliously, informing the candid creature of the 
 fact of his hating to lie: whereupon thus he poured himself 
 out, in the quieter bustle of an alley off the main thoroughfare. 
 "You're a friend of hers. I'm sure you care for her reputa- 
 tion; you're an old friend of hers, and she's my wife's dearest 
 friend; and I'm fond of her too; and I ought to be, and ought 
 to know, and do know: — pure? Strike off my fist if there's 
 a spot on her character! And a scoundrel like that fellow 
 Wroxeter! — Damnedest rage I ever was in! — Swears . . . 
 down at Lockton . . . when she was a girl. Why, Red- 
 worth, I can tell you, when Diana Warwick was a girl " 
 
 Eedworth stopped him. "Did he say it in your presence?" 
 
 Sir Lukin was drawn up by the harsh question. "Well, 
 no; not exactly." He tried to hesitate, but he was in the 
 hot vein of a confidence, and he wanted advice. "The cur 
 said it to a woman — hang the woman! And she hates Diana 
 Warwick: I can't tell why — a regular snake's hate. By Jove! 
 how women can hate!" 
 
 "Who is the woman?" said Eedworth. 
 
 Sir Lukin complained of the mob at his elbows. '^I don't 
 like mentioning names here." 
 
 A convenient open door of offices invited him to drag his 
 receptacle, and possible counselor, into the passage, where 
 immediately he bethought him of a postponement of the dis- 
 tinct communication; but the vein was too hot. "I say, Eed- 
 worth, I wish you'd dine with me. Let's drive up to my club. 
 — Very well, two words. And I warn you, I shall call him 
 out, and make it appear it's about another woman, who'll 
 like nothing so much, if I know the Jezebel. Some women 
 are hussies let 'em be handsome as houris. And she's a fire- 
 ship; by Heaven, she is! Come, you're a friend of my wife's, 
 but you're a man of the world and my friend, and you know 
 how fellows are tempted, Tom Eedworth. — Cur though he is. 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 367 
 
 lie's likely to step out and receive a lesson. — ^Well, he's the 
 favored cavalier for the present. . . . h'm . . . 
 Fryar-Gunnett. Swears he told her, circumstantially; and it 
 was down at Lockton, when Diana Warwick was a girl. Swears 
 she'll spit her venom at her so that Diana Warwick shan't 
 hold her head up in London society, what with that cur 
 Wroxeter, old Dannisburgh, and Dacier. And it does count 
 a list, doesn't it? — confound the handsome hag! She's jeal- 
 ous of a dark rival. I've been down to Colonel Hartswood at 
 the Tower, and he thinks Wroxeter deserves horsewhipping, 
 and we may manage it. I know you're dead against dueling; 
 and so am I, on my honor. But you see there are cases where 
 a lady must be protected; and anything new, left to circu- 
 late against a lady who has been talked of twice — oh, by Jove! 
 it must be stopped. If she has a male friend on earth it must 
 be stopped on the spot." 
 
 Eedworth eyed Sir Lukin curiously through his wrath. 
 
 "We'll drive up to your club," he said. 
 
 "Hartswood dines with me this evening, to confer," re- 
 joined Sir Lukin. "Will you meet him?" 
 
 "I can't," said Redworth; "I have to see a lady, whose 
 affairs I have been attending to in the City; and I'm engaged 
 for the evening. You perceive, my good fellow," he resumed, 
 as they rolled along, "this is a delicate business. You have 
 to consider your wife. Mrs. Warwick's name won't come up, 
 but another woman's will." 
 
 "I meet Wroxeter at a gambling-house he frequents, and 
 publicly call him a cheat — slap his face if need be." 
 
 "Sure to!" repeated Eedworth. "No stupid pretext will 
 quash the woman's name. Now, such a thing as a duel 
 would give pain enough." 
 
 "Of course; I understand," Sir Lukin nodded his clear 
 comprehension. "But what is it you advise, to trounce the 
 scoundrel and silence him?" 
 
 "Leave it to me for a day. Let me have your word that 
 you won't take a step: positively — neither you nor Colonel 
 Hartswood. I'll see you by appointment at your club." Red- 
 worth looked up over the chimneys. "We're going to have 
 a storm and a gale I can tell you." 
 
 "Gale and storm!" cried Sir Lukin; "what has that got 
 to do with it?" 
 
 "Think of something else for a time," 
 
368 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "And that brute of a woman — deuced handsome she is! — ■ 
 if you care for fair women, Eedworth: — she's a Venus jumped 
 slap out of the waves, and the devil for sire — that you learn 
 — running about, sowing her lies. She's a yellow witch! Oh! 
 but she's a shameless minx. And a black-leg cur like Wroxe- 
 ter! Any woman intimate with a fellow like that stamps 
 herself. I loathe her. Sort of woman who swears in the 
 morning you're the only man on earth; and next day — that 
 evening — engaged! — ^fee to Polly Hopkins — and it's a gentle- 
 man, a nobleman, my lord! — been going on behind your back 
 half the season! — and she isn't hissed when she abuses a lady, 
 a saint in comparison! You know the world, old fellow — 
 Brighton, Eichmond, visits to a friend as deep in the bog. 
 How Fryar-Gunnett — a man, after all — can stand it! And 
 drives of an afternoon for an airing — ^by Heaven! You're out 
 of that mess, Eedworth: not much taste for the sex; and 
 you're right, you're lucky. Upon my word, the corruption of 
 society in the present day is awful; it's appalling. — I rattled 
 at her: and oh! dear me, perks on her hind heels and defies 
 me to prove: and she's no pretender, but hopes she's as good 
 as any of my "^chaste Dianas.' My dear old friend, it's when 
 you come upon women of that kind you have a sickener. And 
 I'm bound by the best there is in a man — ^honor, gratitude, 
 all the list — to defend Diana Warwick." 
 
 "So, you see, for your wife's sake, your name can't be hung 
 on a woman of that kind," said Eedworth. "I'll call here the 
 day after to-morrow at three p. m." 
 
 Sir Lukin descended, and vainly pressed Eedworth to run 
 up into his club for refreshment. Said he roguishly, "Who's 
 the lady?" 
 
 The tone threw Eedworth on his frankness. "The lady 
 I've been doing business for in the City is Miss Paynham." 
 
 "I saw her once at Copsley; good-looking. Cleverish?" 
 
 "She has ability." 
 
 Entering his club. Sir Lukin was accosted in the reading- 
 room by a cavalry officer, a Colonel Launay, an old Har- 
 rovian, who stood at the window and asked him whether it 
 was not Tom Eedworth in the cab. Another, of the same 
 school, standing squared before a sheet of one of the evening 
 newspapers, heard the name and joined them, saying, "Tom 
 Eedworth is going to be married some fellow told me." 
 
 "He'll make a deuced good husband to any woman— if 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 369 
 
 it's true/' said Sir Lukin, with Miss Paynham ringing in his 
 head. "He's a cold-blooded old boy, and likes women for their 
 intellects." 
 
 Colonel Launay hummed in meditative emphasis. He stared 
 at vacancy with a tranced eye, and turning a similar gaze on 
 Sir Lukin, as if through him, burst out, "Oh, by George, I 
 say, what a hugging that woman'll get!'' 
 
 The cocking of ears and queries of Sir Lukin put him to 
 the test of his right to the remark: for it sounded of occult 
 acquaintance with interesting subterranean facts: and there 
 was a communication, in brief syllables and the dot language, 
 crudely masculine. Immensely surprised. Sir Lukin exclaimed, 
 "Of course! when fellows live quietl}^ and are careful of them- 
 selves. Ah! you may think you know a man for years, and 
 you don't: you don't know more than an inch or two of him. 
 Why, of course, Tom Eedworth 'd be uxorious — the very 
 man! And tell us what has become of the Firefly now. One 
 never sees her. Didn't complain?" 
 
 "Very much to the contrary." 
 
 Both gentlemen were gr^ve, believing their knowledge in 
 the subterranean world of a wealthy city to give them a posi- 
 tive cognizance of female humanity; and the substance of 
 Colonel Launay's communication had its impressiveness for 
 them. 
 
 "Well, it's a turn right-about-face for me," said Sir Lukin. 
 "What a world we live in! I fancy I've hit on the woman 
 he meaite to marry — had an idea of another woman once; but 
 he's one of your friendly fellows with women. That's how 
 it was I took him for a fish. Great mistake, I admit. But 
 Tom Eedworth's a man of morals after all; and when these 
 men do break loose for a plunge — ha! Have you ever boxed 
 with him? Well, he keeps himself in training, I can tell 
 you." 
 
 Sir Lukin's round of visits drew him at night to Lady 
 Singleby's, where he sighted the identical young lady of his 
 thoughts. Miss Paynham, temporarily a guest of the house; 
 and he talked to her of Redworth, and had the satisfaction 
 to spy a blush, a raging blush: which avowal presented her 
 to his views as an exceedingly good-looking girl; so that he 
 began mentally to praise Eedworth for a manly superiority to 
 small trifles and the world's tattle. 
 
 "You saw him to-day," he said. 
 
 24 
 
S70 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 She answered: "Yes. He goes down to Copsley to-mor- 
 row." 
 
 "I think not/' said Sir Lukin. 
 
 "I have it from him." She closed her eyelids in speaking. 
 
 "He and I have some rather serious business in town." 
 
 "Serious?" 
 
 "Don't be alarmed: not concerning him." 
 
 "Whom, then? You have told me so much — I have a right 
 to know." 
 
 "Not an atom of danger, I assure you." 
 
 "It concerns Mrs. Warwick!" said she. 
 
 Sir Lukin thought the guess extraordinary. He preserved 
 an impenetrable air. But he had spoken enough to set that 
 giddy head spinning. 
 
 Nowhere during the night was Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett visible. 
 Earlier than usual she was riding next day in the Row, alone 
 for perhaps two minutes, and Sir Lukin passed her, formally 
 saluting. He could not help the look behind him, she sat so 
 bewitchingly on horseback! He looked, and behold, her rid- 
 ing-whip was raised erect from the elbow. It was his horse 
 that wheeled; compulsorily he was borne at a short canter to 
 her side. 
 
 "Your commands?" 
 
 The handsome Amabel threw him a somber glance from 
 the corners of her uplifted eye-lids: and snakish he felt it; 
 but her color and the line of her face went well with sullen- 
 ness; and, her arts of fascination cast aside, she fascinated 
 him more in seeming homelier, girlish. If the trial of her 
 beauty of a woman in a temper can bear the strain she has 
 attractive lures indeed; irresistible to the amorous idler: and 
 when, in addition, being the guilty person, she plays the in- 
 jured, her show of temper on the taking face pitches him 
 into perplexity with his own emotions, creating a desire to 
 strike and be stricken, howl and set howling, which is of the 
 happiest augury for tender reconcilement, on the terms of the 
 gentleman on his kneecap. 
 
 "You've been doing a pretty thing!" she said, and briefly 
 she named her house and half-an-hour, and flew. Sir Lukin 
 was left to admire the figure of the horsewoman. Eeally, her 
 figure had an air of vindicating her successfully, except for 
 the poison she spat at Diana Warwick. And what pretty 
 thing had he been doing? He reviewed dozens of speculations 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 371 
 
 until the impossibility of seizing one determined him to go 
 to Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett at the end of the half-hour — "Just 
 to see what these women have to say for themselves." 
 
 Some big advance-drops of Eedworth's thunderstorm draw- 
 ing gloomily overhead warned him to be quick and get his 
 horse into stables. Dismounted, the sensational man was 
 irresolute, suspecting a female trap. But curiosity, combined 
 with the instinctive turning of his nose in the direction of 
 the lady's house, led him thither, to an accompaniment of 
 celestial growls, which impressed him, judging by that 
 naughty-girl face of hers and the woman's tongue she had, as 
 a likely prelude to the scene to come below. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 THE PENULTIMATE: SHOWING A FINAL STRUGGLE FOR 
 LIBERTY AND RUN INTO HARNESS. 
 
 The prophet of the storm had forgotten his prediction; 
 which, however, was of small concern to him, apart from the 
 ducking he received midway between the valley and the 
 heights of Copsley, whither he was bound on a mission so 
 serious, that, according to his custom in such instances, he 
 chose to take counsel of his active legs — an advisable course 
 when the brain wants clearing and the heart fortifying. 
 Diana's face was clearly before him through the deluge; now 
 in single features, the dimple running from her mouth, the 
 dark bright eyes and cut of eyelids, and nostrils alive under 
 their lightning; now in her whole radiant smile, or musefully, 
 nursing a thought. Or she was obscured, and he felt the face. 
 The individuality of it had him by the heart, beyond his 
 powers of visioning. On his arrival he stood in the hall, adrip 
 like one of the trees of the lawn, laughing at Lady Dunstane's 
 anxious exclamations. His portmanteau had come and he 
 was expected; she hurried out at the first ringing of the bell 
 to greet and reproach him for walking in such weather. 
 
 "Diana has left me," she said, when he reappeared in dry 
 clothing. "We are neighbors; she has taken cottage-lodgings 
 at Selshall, about an hour's walk — one of her wild dreams of 
 independence. Are you disappointed?" 
 
372 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "I am/' Eedworth confessed. 
 
 Emma colored. "She requires an immense deal of humor- 
 ing at present. The fit will wear off; only we must wait for 
 it. Any menace of her p^-ecious liberty makes her prickly. 
 She is passing the day with the Pettigrews, who have taken a 
 place near her village for a month. She promised to dine 
 and sleep here if she returned in time. What is your news?" 
 
 "Nothing; the world wags on." 
 
 "You have nothing special to tell her?" 
 
 "Nothing," he hummed; "nothing, I fancy, that she does 
 not know." 
 
 "You said you were disappointed." 
 
 "It's always a pleasure to see her." 
 
 "Even in her worst moods I find it so.'' 
 
 "Oh! moods!" quoth Eedworth. 
 
 "My friend, they are to be reckoned, with women." 
 
 "Certainly; what I meant was, that I don't count them 
 against women." 
 
 "Good: but my meaning was ... I think I remember 
 your once comparing them and the weather; and you spoke 
 of the ^one point more variable in women.' You may fore- 
 stall your storms. There is no calculating the effect of a few 
 little words at a wrong season." 
 
 "With women! I suppose not. I have no pretension to a 
 knowledge of the sex." 
 
 Emma imagined she had spoken plainly enough if he had 
 immediate designs: and she was not sure of that, and wished 
 rather to shun his confidences while Tony was in her young 
 widowhood, reveling in her joy of liberty. By-and-by was 
 her thought — perhaps next year. She dreaded Tony's refusal 
 of the yoke, and her iron-hardness to the dearest of men pro- 
 posing it; and, moreover, her further to be apprehended 
 holding to the refusal, for the sake of consistency, if it was 
 once uttered. For her own sake she shrank from hearing in- 
 tentions that, distressing the good man, she would have to 
 discountenance. His candor in confessing disappointment, 
 and his open face, his excellent sense too, gave her some assur- 
 ance of his not being foolishly impetuous. After he had read 
 to her for an hour, as his habit was on evenings and wet days, 
 their discussion of this and that in the book lulled any doubts 
 she had of his prudence, enough to render it even a dubious 
 point whether she might be speculating upon a wealthy 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 373 
 
 bachelor in the old-fashioned ultra-feminine manner; the 
 which she so abhorred that she rejected the idea. Conse- 
 quently, Kedworth's proposal to walk down to the valley for 
 Diana, and bring her back, struck her as natural when a 
 shaft of western sunshine from a whitened edge of raincloud 
 struck her windows. She let him go without an intimated 
 monition or a thought of one: thinking simply that her Tony 
 would be more likely to come, having him for escort. Those 
 are silly women who are always imagining designs and in- 
 trigues and future palpitations in the commonest actions of 
 either of the sex. Emma Dunstane leaned to the contrast 
 between herself and them. 
 
 Danvers was at the house about sunset, reporting her mis- 
 tress to be on her way, with Mr. Redworth. The maid's tale 
 of the dreadful state of the lanes accounted for their tardiness; 
 and besides, the sunset had been magnificent. Diana knocked 
 at Emma's bedroom door, to say, outside, hurriedly in passing, 
 how splendid the sunset had been, and beg for an extra five 
 minutes. Taking full fifteen, she swam into the drawing- 
 room, lively with kisses on Emma's cheeks, and excuses, refer- 
 ring her misconduct in being late to the seductions of "Sol" 
 in his glory. Redworth said he had rarely seen so wonderful 
 a sunset. The result of their unanimity stirred Emma's 
 bosom to match-making regrets; and the walk of the pair 
 together, alone under the propitious flaming heavens, appeared 
 to her now as an opportunity lost. From sisterly sympathy 
 she fancied she could understand Tony's liberty-loving reluc- 
 tance: she had no comprehension of the backwardness of 
 the man beholding the dear woman handsomer than in her 
 maiden or her married time, and sprightlier as well. She 
 chatted deliciously, and drew Eed worth to talk his best on 
 his choicer subjects, playing over them like a fire-wisp, deter- 
 mined at once to flounder him and to make him shine. Her 
 tender esteem for the man was transparent through it all; 
 and Emma, whose evening had gone happily between them, 
 said to her, in their privacy, before parting, "You seemed 
 to have been inspired by *SoV niy dear. You do like him, 
 don't you?" 
 
 Diana vowed she adored him; and, with a face of laughter 
 in rosy suffusion, put Sol for Eedworth, Redworth for Sol; 
 but, watchful of Emma's visage, said finally, "If you mean 
 the mortal man, I think him up to almost all your hyper- 
 
374 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 boles — as far as men go; and he departed to his night's rest, 
 which I hops will be good, like a king. Not to admire him 
 would argue me senseless, heartless. I do; I have reason to." 
 
 "And you make him the butt of your ridicule, Tony.'' 
 
 "No; I said *like a king,' and he is one. He has, to me, 
 morally the grandeur of your Sol sinking, Caesar stabbed, 
 Cato on the sword-point. He is Eoman, Spartan, Imperial; 
 English, if you like — the pick of the land. It is an honor 
 to call him friend, and I do trust he will choose the pick 
 among us, to make her a happy woman — if she's for running 
 in harness. There, I can't say more." 
 
 Emma had to be satisfied with it, for the present. 
 
 They were astonished at breakfast by seeing Sir Lukin 
 ride past the windows. He entered with the veritable appe- 
 tite of a cavalier who had ridden from London fasting: and 
 why he had come at that early hour he was too hungry to 
 explain. The ladies retired to read their letters by the morn- 
 ing's post; whereupon Sir Lukin called to Redworth. "I 
 met that woman in the Park yesterday, and had to stand a 
 volley. I went beating about London for you all the after- 
 noon and evening. She swears you rated her like a scullery- 
 wench, and threatened to ruin Wroxeter. Did you see him? 
 She says the story's true in one particular — that he did snatch 
 a kiss and got mauled. Not so much to pay for it! But 
 what a ruffian — eh?" 
 
 "I saw him," said Redworth. "He's one of the new set 
 of noblemen who take bribes to serve as baits for transac- 
 tions in the City. They help to the ruin of their order, or 
 are signs of its decay. We won't judge it by him. He favored 
 me witk his Vord of honor' that the thing you heard was 
 entirely a misstatement, and so forth — apologized, I suppose. 
 He mumbled something." 
 
 "A thorough cur!" 
 
 "He professed his readiness to fight if either of us was 
 not contented." 
 
 "He spoke to the wrong man. I've half a mind to ride 
 back and have him out for that rascal ^osculation' — and the 
 lady unwilling! — and she a young one, a girl, under the pro- 
 tection of the house! By Jove, Redworth, when you come 
 to consider the scoundrels men can be it stirs a fellow's bile. 
 There's a deal of that sort of villainy going — and succeeding 
 sometimes! He deserves the whip or a bullet." 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 375 
 
 "A sermon from Lukin Dunstane might punish him." 
 
 "Oh! I'm a sinner, I know. But, go and tell one woman 
 of another — and that a lie! That's beyond me." 
 
 'The gradations of the deeps are perhaps measurable to 
 those who are in them." 
 
 "The sermon's at me — pop!" said Sir Lukin. "By-the- 
 way, I'm coming round to think Diana Warwick was right 
 when she used to jibe at me for throwing up my commission. 
 Idleness is the devil — or mother of him. I manage my 
 estates; but the truth is it doesn't occupy my mind." 
 
 "Your time." 
 
 "My mind, I say." 
 
 "Whichever you please." 
 
 "You're crusty to-day, Eedworth. Let me tell you, I think 
 — and hard, too, when the fit's on me. However, you did right 
 in stopping — I'll own — a piece of folly, and shutting the 
 mouths of those two; though it caused me to come in for a 
 regular drencher. But a pretty woman in a right-down terma- 
 gant passion is good theater; because it can't last, at that 
 pace; and you're sure of your agreeable tableau. Not that I 
 trust her ten minutes out of sight — or any woman, except one 
 or two — my wife and Diana Warwick. Trust those you've 
 tried, old boy. Diana Warwick ought to be taught to thank 
 you; though I don't know how it's to be done." 
 
 "The fact of it is," Eedworth frowned and rose, "I've done 
 mischief. I had no right to mix myself in it. I'm seldom 
 caught off my feet by an impulse; but I was. I took the 
 fever from you." 
 
 He squared his figure at the window, and looked up on a 
 driving sky. 
 
 "Come, let's play open cards, Tom Eedworth,'' said Sir 
 Lukin, leaving the table and joining his friend by the window. 
 "You moral men are doomed to be marrying men, alvv^ays; 
 and quite right. Not that one doesn't hear a roundabout 
 thing or two about you — no harm. Very much the contrary: 
 — as the world goes. But you're the man to marry a wife; 
 and, if I guess the lady, she's a sensible girl and won't be 
 jealous. I'd swear she only waits for asking." 
 
 "Then you don't guess the lady," said Eedworth. 
 
 "Mary Paynham?" 
 
 The desperate half-laugh greeting the name convinced more 
 than a dozen denials. 
 
376 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 Sir Liikin kept edging round for a full view of the friend 
 who shunned inspection. *^But is it? . . . can it be? it 
 must be after all! . . . why, of course it is! But the 
 thing staring us in the face is just what we never see. Just 
 the husband for her! — and she's the wife? Why, Diana War- 
 wick's the very woman, of course! I remember I used to 
 think so before she was free to wed." 
 
 "She is not of that opinion." Redworth blew a heavy 
 breath, and it should be chronicled as a sigh; but it was 
 hugely masculine. 
 
 ''Because you didn't attack the moment she was free; 
 that's what upset my calculations," the sagacious gentleman 
 continued, for a vindication of his acuteness: then seizing 
 the reply, "Refuses? You don't mean to say you're the man 
 to take a refusal? and from a green widow in the blush? 
 Did you see her cheeks when she was peeping at the letter 
 in her hand? She colors at half a word — takes the lift of 
 a linger for Hymen coming. And lots of fellows are after, 
 her; I know it from Emmy. But you're not the man to be 
 refused. You're her friend — her champion. That woman 
 Fr^^ar-Gunnett Avould have it you were the favored lover, 
 and sneered at my talk of old friendship. Women are always 
 down dead on the facts; can't put them off a scent!" 
 
 "There's the mischief!" Redworth blew again. "I had 
 no right to be championing Mrs. Warwick's name. Or the 
 world won't give it, at all events. I'm a blundering donkey. 
 Yes, she wishes to keep her liberty. And, upon my soul, 
 I'm in love with everything she wishes! I've got the habit." 
 
 "Habit be hanged!" cried Sir Lukin. "You're in love 
 with the woman. I know a little more of you now, Mr. Tom. 
 You're a fellow in earnest about what you do. You're feeling 
 it now on the rack, by Heaven! though you keep a bold face. 
 Did she speak positively? — sort of feminine of 'you're the 
 monster, not the man?' or measured little doctor's dose of 
 pity? — worse sign! You're not going?" 
 
 "If you'll drive me down in half-an-hour," said Redworth. 
 
 "Give me an hour," Sir Lukin replied, and went straight 
 to his wife's blue-room. 
 
 Diana was roused from a meditation on a letter she held 
 by the entrance of Emma in her bed-chamber, to whom she 
 said, "I have here the very craziest bit of writing! — but what 
 is disturbing you, dear?" 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 377 
 
 Emma sat beside her, panting and composing her lips to 
 speak. "Do you love me? I throw policy to the winds, if 
 only I can batter at you for your heart and find it! Tony, 
 do you love me? But don't answer: give me your hand. You 
 have rejected him?" 
 
 "He has told you?" 
 
 "No. He is not the man to cry out for a wound. He 
 heard in London — Lukin has had the courage to tell me, 
 after his fashion — Tom Redworth heard an old story, coming 
 from one of the baser kind of women — grossly false, he knew. 
 I mention only Lord Wroxeter and Lockton. He went to 
 man and woman both, and had it refuted, and stopped their 
 tongues, on peril; as he of all men is able to do when he 
 wills it." 
 
 Observing the quick change in Tony's eyes, Emma ex- 
 claimed, "How you looked disdain when you asked whether 
 he had told me! But why are you the handsome tigress to 
 him, of all men living! The dear fellow, dear to me at 
 least! since the day he first saw you, has worshiped you and 
 striven to serve you: — and harder than any Scriptural service 
 to have the beloved woman to wife. I know nothing to com- 
 pare with it, for he is a man of warmth. He is one of those 
 rare men of honor who can command their passion; who ven- 
 erate when they love: and those are the men that women 
 select for punishment! Yes, you! It is to the woman he loves 
 that he cannot show himself as he is, because he is at her 
 feet. You have managed to stamp your spirit on him; and, as 
 a consequence, he defends you now, for flinging him off. And 
 now his chief regret is that he has caused his name to be 
 coupled with yours. I suppose he had some poor hope, seeing 
 you free. Or else the impulse to protect the woman of his 
 heart and soul was too strong. I have seen what he suffered, 
 years back, at the news of your engagement." 
 
 "Oh, for God's sake, don't!" cried Tony, tears running 
 over, and her dream of freedom, her visions of romance, 
 drowning. 
 
 "It was like the snapping of the branch of an oak when 
 the trunk stands firm," Emma resumed, in her desire to 
 scourge as well as to soften. "But similes applied to him 
 will strike you as incongruous." Tony swayed her body, for 
 a negative, very girlishly and consciously. "He probably 
 did not woo you in a poetic style, or the courtly by prescrip- 
 
378 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 tion.'^ Again Tony swayed; she had to Img herself under 
 the stripes, and felt as if alone at sea, with her dear heavens 
 pelting. "Yon have sneered at him for his calculating — to 
 his face: and it was when he was comparatively poor that he 
 calcnlated — to his cost! — that he dared not ask yon to marry 
 a man who could not offer you a tithe of what he considered 
 lit for the peerless woman. Peerless, I admit, there he was 
 not wrong. But if he had valued 3^ou half a grain less he 
 might have won you. You talk much of chivalry; you con- 
 ceive a superhuman ideal, to which you fit a very indifferent 
 wooden model, while the man of all the world the most 
 chivalrous! . . . He is a man quite other from what you 
 think him: anything hut a 'Cuthhert Bering' or a *Man of 
 Two Minds.' He was in the drawing-room below, on the day 
 I received your last maiden letter from The Crossways — now 
 his property, in the hope of making it yours." 
 
 "I behaved abominably there!" interposed Tony, with a 
 gasp. 
 
 "Let it pass. At any rate, that was the prick of a needle, 
 not the blow of a sword." 
 
 "But marriage, dear Emmy! marriage! Is marriage to 
 be the end of me ?" 
 
 "What amazing apotheosis have you in prospect? x\nd 
 are you steering so particularly well by yourself?" 
 
 "Miserably! But I can dream. And the thought of a 
 husband cuts me from any dreaming. It's all dead flat earth 
 at once!" 
 
 "Would you have rejected him when vou were a girl?" 
 
 "I thinlc so." 
 
 "The superior merits of another? . . ." 
 
 "Oh, no, no, no, no! I might have accepted him: and I 
 might not have made him happy. I wanted a hero, and the 
 jeweled garb and the feather did not suit him." 
 
 "No; he is not that description of lay figure. You have 
 dressed it, and gemmed it, and — ^made your discovery. Here 
 is a true man; and if you can find me any of your heroes to 
 match him I will thank you. He came on the day I speak 
 of, to consult me as to whether, with the income he then 
 had . . . Well, I had to tell him yon were engaged. The 
 man has never wavered in his love of you since that day. He 
 has had to bear something." 
 
 This was an electrical bolt into Tony's bosom, shaking her 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 379 
 
 from self-pity and shame to remorseful pity of the suffering 
 lover; and the tears ran in streams as she said, "He bore it, 
 Emmy, he bore it." She sobbed out, "And he ^ent on huild- 
 ing a fortune and batting! Whatever he undertakes he does 
 perfectly — approve of the pattern or not. Oh! I have no 
 doubt he had his nest of wishes piping to him all the while: 
 only it seems quaint, dear, quaint, and against everything 
 we've been reading of lovers! Love was his bread and butter!" 
 Her dark eyes showered. "And to tell you what you do not 
 know of him, his way of making love is really," she sobbed, 
 "pretty. It ... it took me by surprise; I was expecting 
 a bellow and an assault of horns; and if, dear — ^you will say, 
 what boarding-school girl have you got with you! and I feel 
 myself getting childish — if Sol in his glory had not been so 
 m . . . majestically m . . . magnificent, nor seemed 
 to show me the king . . . kingdom of my dreams, I 
 might have stammered the opposite word to the one he 
 heard. Last night, when he took my hand kindly before 
 going to bed, I had a fit for dropping on my knees to him. 
 I saw him bleed, and he held himself right royally. I told 
 you he did — Sol in his moral grandeur! How inlhiitely above 
 the physical monarch — is he not, Emmy? What one dislikes 
 is, the devotion of all that grandeur to win a widow. It 
 should be a maiden princess. You feel it so, T am sure. And 
 here am I, as if a maiden princess were I, demanding roman- 
 tic accessories of rubious vapor in the man condescending 
 to implore the widow to wed him. But, tell me, does he know 
 everything of his widow — everything? I shall not have 
 to go through the frightful chapter?" 
 
 "He is a man with his eyes awake; he knows as much as 
 any husband could require to know," said Emma; adding, 
 "My darling, he trusts you. It is the soul of the man that 
 loves you, as it is mine. You will not tease him? Promise 
 me. Give yourself frankly. You see it clearly before you." 
 
 "I see compulsion, my dear. What I see is a regiment 
 of proverbs, bearing placards instead of guns, and each one 
 a taunt at women, especially at widows. They march; they 
 form square; they inclose me in the middle, and I have their 
 inscriptions to digest. Bead that crazy letter from Mary 
 Paynham while I am putting on my bonnet. I perceive I 
 have been crying like a raw creature in her teens. I don't 
 
380 DIANA OB^ THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 know myself. An advantage of the darker complexions is our 
 speedier concealment of the traces." 
 
 Emma read Miss Paynham's letter, and returned it with 
 the comment, "Utterly crazy." Tony said: "Is it not? I 
 am to 'pause before 1 trifle with a noble heart too long.' She 
 is 'to have her happiness in the constant prayer for ours'; 
 and she is 'warned by one of those intimations, never faihng 
 her, that he runs a serious danger.' It reads like a Wizard's 
 Ahnanac. And here: 'Homogeneity of sentiment the most 
 perfect is unable to contend with the fatal charm which, exer- 
 cised by an indifferent person, must be ascribed to original 
 predestination.' She should be under the wing of Lady 
 Wathin. There is the mother for such chicks! But I'll own 
 to you, Emmy, that, after the perusal, I did ask myself a 
 question as to my likeness of late to the writer. I have 
 driveled ... I was shuddering over it when you came 
 in. I have sentimentalized up to thin smoke. And she tells 
 the truth when she says I am not to 'count social cleverness' — 
 she means volubility — 'as a warrant for domineering a capa- 
 cious intelligence' — because of the gentleman's modesty. 
 Agreed: I have done it: I am contrite. I am going into 
 slavery to make amends for presumption. Banality, thy name 
 is marriage!" 
 
 "Your business is to accept life as we have it," said Emma; 
 and Tony shrugged. She was precipitate in going forth to her 
 commonplace fate, and scarcely looked at the man requested 
 by Emma to escort her to her cottage. After their departure, 
 Emma fell into laughter at the last words with the kiss of 
 her cheeks, "Here goes old Ireland!" But, from her look 
 and from what she had said upstairs, Emma could believe 
 that the singular sprite of girlishness invading and governing 
 her latterly had yielded place to the woman she loved. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 NUPTIAL CHAPTER; AND OF HOW A BARELY WILLING 
 
 WOMAN WAS LED TO BLOOM WITH THE 
 
 NUPTIAL SENTIMENT. 
 
 Emma watched them on their way through the park till 
 they rounded the beechwood, talking, it could be surmised, 
 of ordinary matters; the face of the gentleman turning at 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 381 
 
 times to his companion's, which steadily fronted tiie gale. 
 She left the ensuing to a prayer for their good direction, with 
 a chuckle at Tony's evident feeling of a ludicrous posture, 
 and the desperate rush of her agile limhs to have it over. But 
 her prayer throbbed almost to a supplication that the wrong 
 done to her beloved by Dacier — the wound to her own sisterly 
 pride rankling as an injury to her sex — might be canceled 
 through the union of the woman noble in the sight of God 
 with a more manlike man. 
 
 Meanwhile the feet of the couple were going faster than 
 their heads to the end of the journey. Diana knew she 
 would have to hoist the signal — and how? The prospect was 
 dumbfounding. She had to think of appeasing her Emma. 
 Eedworth, for his part, actually supposed she had accepted 
 his escorting in proof of the plain friendship offered him 
 over-night. 
 
 "What do your ^birds' do in weather like this?" she said. 
 
 "Cling to their perches and wait patiently. It's the bad 
 time with them when you don't hear them chirp." 
 
 "Of course you foretold the gale?" 
 
 "Oh, well, it did not require a shepherd or a skipper for 
 that." 
 
 "Your grand gift will be useful to a yachtsman." 
 
 "You like yachting. When I have tried my new schooner 
 in the Channel she is at your command for as long as you 
 and Lady Dunstane please." 
 
 "So you acknowledge that birds — things of nature — have 
 their bad time?" 
 
 "They profit ultimately by the deluge and the wreck. Noth- 
 ing on earth is "^tucked-up' in perpetuity." 
 
 "Except the dead. But why should the schooner be at our 
 command?" 
 
 "I shall be in Ireland." 
 
 He could not have said sweeter to her ears or more touching. 
 
 "We shall hardly feel safe without the weatherwi&e on 
 board." 
 
 "You may count on my man Barnes; I have proved him. 
 He is up to his work even when he's bilious: only, in that 
 case, occurring about once a fortnight, you must leave him 
 to fight it out with the elements." 
 
 "I rather like men of action to have a temper." 
 
 **I can't say much for a bilious temper." 
 
382 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 The weather to-day really seemed of that kind, she re- 
 marked. He assented, in the shrug manner — not to dissent: 
 she might say what she would. He helped nowhere to a 
 lead; and so quick are the changes of mood at such moments 
 that she was now far from him under the failure of an effort 
 to come near. But thoughts of Emma pressed. 
 
 "The name of the new schooner? Her name is her picture 
 to me." 
 
 "I wanted you to christen her." 
 
 "Launched without a name?" 
 
 "I took a liberty." 
 
 Needless to ask, but she did. "With whom?" 
 
 "I. named her Diana." 
 
 "May the goddess of the silver bow and crescent protect 
 her! To me the name is ominous of mischance." 
 
 "I would commit my fortunes and life . . .!" He 
 checked his tongue, ejaculating, "Omens!" 
 
 She had veered straight away from her romantic aspira- 
 tions to the blunt extreme of thinking that a widow should 
 be wooed in unornamented matter-of-fact, as she is wedded, 
 with a "Wilt thou?" and "I will," and no decorative illusions. 
 Downright, for the unpoetic creature, if you please! So 
 she rejected the accompaniment of the silver goddess and high 
 seas for an introduction of the crisis. 
 
 "This would be a thunderer on our coasts. I had a trial 
 of my sailing powers in the Mediterranean." 
 
 As she said it her musings on him then, with the contrast 
 of her position toward him now, fierily brushed her cheeks; 
 and she wished him the man to make one snatch at her poor 
 last small butterfly bit of freedom, so that she might t^ud- 
 denly feel in haven, at peace with her expectant Emma. He 
 could have seen the inviting consciousness, but he was ab- 
 surdly watchful lest the flying sprays of border trees should 
 strike her. He mentioned his fear, and it became an excuse 
 for her seeking protection of her veil. "It is our natural 
 guardian," she said. 
 
 "Not much against timber," said he. 
 
 The worthy creature's anxiety was of the pattern of cava- 
 liers escorting dames — an exaggeration of honest zeal; a 
 present example of clownish goodness, it might seem; until 
 entering the larch and firwood along the beaten heights there 
 was a rocking and straining of the shallow-rooted trees in a 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 383 
 
 tremendous gust that quite pardoned liim for curving his 
 arm in a hoop about her and holding a shoulder in front. The 
 veil did her positive service. 
 
 He was honorably scrupulous not to presume. A right good 
 unimpulsive gentleman: the same that she had always taken 
 him for and liked. 
 
 "These firs are not taproots/' he observed, by way of apol- 
 ogy. 
 
 Her dress volumed and her ribands rattled and chirruped 
 on the verge of the slope. "I will take your arm here," she 
 said. 
 
 Eedworth received the little hand, saying, "Lean to me." 
 
 They descended upon great surges of wind piping and 
 driving every light surface-atom as foam; and they blinked 
 and shook; even the man was shaken. But their arms were 
 interlinked and they grappled; the battering enemy made 
 them one. It might mean nothing, or everj^thing: to him it 
 meant the sheer blissful instant. 
 
 At the foot of the hill he said, "It's harder to keep to the 
 terms of yesterday." 
 
 "What were they?" said she, and took his breath more 
 than the fury of the storm had done. 
 
 "Eaise the veil, I beg." 
 
 "Widows do not wear it." 
 
 The look revealed to him was a fugitive of the wilds, no 
 longer the glittering shooter of arrows. 
 
 "Have you? . . ." changed to me, was the signification 
 understood. "Can you? — for life! Do you think you can?" 
 
 His poverty in the pleading language melted her. "What 
 I cannot do, my best of friends, is to submit to be seated on 
 a throne, with you petitioning. Yes, as far as concerns this 
 hand of mine, if you hold it worthy of you. We will speak 
 of that. Now tell me the name of the weed trailing along 
 the hedge there." 
 
 He knew it well — a common hedgerow weed; but the placid 
 diversion baffled him. It was clematis, he said. 
 
 "It drags in the dust when it has no firm arm to cling to. 
 I passed it beside you yesterday with a flaunting mind and 
 not a suspicion of a likeness. How foolish I was! I could 
 volubly sermonize; only it should be a young maid to listen. 
 Forgive me the yesterday." 
 
 "You have never to ask. You withdraw your hand — ^was I 
 rough?" 
 
384 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "No/' she smiled demurely; "it must get used to the 
 shackles: but my cottage is in sight. I have a growing love 
 for the place. We will enter it like plain people — if you 
 think of coming in.'' 
 
 As she said it she had a slight shock of cowering under 
 eyes tolerably hawkish in their male glitter; but her cool- 
 ness was not disturbed, and without any apprehensions she 
 reflected on what has been written of the silly division and 
 war of the sexes: — which two might surely enter on an en- 
 gagement to live together amiably, unvexed by that bar- 
 barous old fowl and falcon interlude. Cool herself, she imag- 
 ined the same of him, having good grounds for the delusion; 
 so they passed through the cottage-garden and beneath the 
 low porchway into her little sitting-room, where she was pro- 
 ceeding to speak composedly of her preference for cottages 
 while untying her bonnet-strings: — "If I had begun my life 
 in a cottage!" — when really a big storm-wave caught her from 
 shore and whirled her to midsea, out of every sensibility but 
 the swimming one of her loss of self in the man. 
 
 "You would not have been here!" was all he said. She 
 was up at his heart, fast-locked, undergoing a change greater 
 than the sea works; her thoughts one blush, her brain a fire- 
 fount. This was not like being seated on a throne. 
 
 "There," said he, loosening his hug, "now you belong to 
 me! I know you from head to foot. After that, my darling, 
 I could leave you for years and call you wife, and be sure of 
 you. I could swear it for you — my life on it! That's what I 
 think of you. Don't wonder that I took my chance — the 
 first: — I have waited!" 
 
 Truer word was never uttered, she owned, coming into some 
 harmony with man's kiss on her mouth: the man violently 
 metamorphosed to a stranger acting on rights she had given 
 him. And who was she to dream of denying them? Not an 
 idea in her head! Bound verily to be thankful for such love, 
 on hearing that it dated from the night in Ireland. . . "So 
 in love with you that, on my soul, your happiness was my mar- 
 row — whatever you wished; anything you chose. It's reck- 
 oned a fool's part. No, it's love: the love of a woman — ^the 
 one woman! I was like the hand of a clock to the springs. I 
 taught this old watch-dog of a heart to keep guard and bury 
 the bones you tossed him." 
 
 "Ignorantly, admit," said she, and could have bitten her 
 tongue for the empty words that provoked, "Would you have 
 
DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 385 
 
 flnng hkn nothing?'' and caused a lowering of her eye-lids 
 and shamed glimpses of recollections. '^I hear you have again 
 been defending me. I told you, I think, I wished I had begun 
 my girl's life in a cottage. All that I have had to endure! 
 . . . . or so it seems to me: it may be my way of excus- 
 ing myself: — I know my cunning in that peculiar art. I would 
 take my chance of mixing among the highest and the bright- 
 est." 
 
 "Naturally." 
 
 "Culpably." 
 
 "It brings you to me." 
 
 "Through a muddy channel." 
 
 "Your husband has full faith in you, my own." 
 
 "The faith has to be summoned and is buffeted, as we were 
 just now on the hill. I wish he had taken me from a cot- 
 tage." 
 
 "You pushed for the best society, like a fish to its native 
 sea." 
 
 "Pray say, a salmon to the riverheads." 
 
 "Better," Eedworth laughed joyfully, between admiration 
 of the tongue that always outflew him, and of the face he red- 
 dened. 
 
 By degrees her apter and neater terms of speech helped 
 her to a notion of regaining some steps of her sunken ascen- 
 dancy, under the weight of the novel masculine pressure on 
 her throbbing blood; and when he bent to her to take her 
 lord's farewell of her, after agreeing to go and delight Emma 
 with a message, her submission and her personal pride were 
 not so much at variance: perhaps because her buzzing head 
 had no ideas. "Tell Emma you have undertaken to wash the 
 blackamoor as white as she can be," she said perversely, in her 
 spite at herself for not coming, as it were, out of the dawn to 
 the man she could consent to wed: and he replied, "I shall 
 tell her my dark girl pleads for a fortnight's grace before she 
 and I set sail for the west coast of Ireland:" conjuring a pic- 
 ture that checked any protest against the shortness of time — 
 and Emma would surely be his ally. They talked of the Dub- 
 lin ball — painfully to some of her thoughts. But Eedworth 
 kissed that distant brilliant night as freshly as if no belaboring 
 years rolled in the chasm: which led her to conceive partly, 
 and wonderingly, the nature of a strong man's passion; and it 
 subjugated the woman knowing of a contrast. The smart of 
 the blow dealt her by hinx who had fired the passion in her be- 
 
L 
 
 386 DIANA OP THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 came a burning regret for the loss of that fair fame she had 
 sacrificed to him, and could not bring to her truer lover — 
 though it was but the outer view of herself — the world's view; 
 only she was generous and of honest conscience, and but for 
 the sake of the truer lover she would mentally have allowed 
 the world to la^h and abuse her, without a plea of material 
 purity. Could it be named? The naming of it in her clear 
 mind lessened it to accidental: — By good fortune she was no 
 worse! She said to Eedworth when finally dismissing him, "I 
 bring no real disgrace to you, my friend." To have had this 
 sharp spiritual battle at such a time was proof of honest con- 
 science, rarer among women, as the world has fashioned them 
 yet, than the purity demanded of them. His answer, "You 
 are my wife!" rang in her hearing. 
 
 When she sat a^ne at last she was incapable, despite her 
 nature's imaginative leap to brightness, of choosing any sin- 
 gle period, auspicious or luminous or flattering, since the hour 
 of her first meeting this man, rather than the gray light he 
 cast on her, promising helpfulness, and inspiring a belief in 
 her capacity to help. JSTot the Salvatore high raptures nor the 
 nights of social applause could appear preferable — she strained 
 her shattered wits to try them. As for her superlunary sphere 
 it was in fragments; and she mused on the singularity, con- 
 sidering that she was not deeply enamored. Was she so at all? 
 The question drove her to embrace the dignity of being rea- 
 sonable — under Emma's guidance. For she did not stand 
 firmly alone; her story confessed it. Marriage might be the 
 archway to the road of good service, even as our passage 
 through the flesh may lead to the better state. She had 
 thoughts of the kind, and had them while encouraging her- 
 self to deplore the adieu to her little musk-scented sitting- 
 room, where a modest freedom breathed, and her individual- 
 ity had seemed pointing to a straighter growth. 
 
 She nodded subsequently to the truth of her happy Em- 
 ma's remark, "You were created for the world, Tony." A 
 woman of blood and imagination in the warring world, with- 
 out a mate whom she can revere, subscribes to a likeness with 
 those independent minor realms between greedy mighty 
 neighbors, which conspire and undermine when they do not 
 openly threaten to devour. So, then, this union, the return 
 to the wedding yoke, received sanction of graytoned reason. 
 She was not enamored: she could say it to herself. She had, 
 however, been surprised, both by the man and her unprotest- 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 387 
 
 ing submission; surprised and warmed, unaccountably 
 warmed. Clearness of mind in the woman chaste by nature, 
 however little ignorant it allowed her to be in the general re- 
 view of herself, could not compass the immediately personal, 
 with its acknowledgment of her subserviency to touch and 
 pressure — and more, stranger, her readiness to kindle. She 
 left it unexplained. Unconsciously the image of Dacier was 
 effaced. Looking backward, her heart was moved to her long- 
 constant lover with most pitying tender wonderment — stormy 
 man, as her threatened senses told her that he was. Looking 
 at him, she had to mask her being abashed and mastered. 
 And looking forward, her soul fell in prayer for this true 
 man^s never repenting of his choice. Sure of her now, Mr. 
 Thomas Eedworth had returned to the station of the courtier, 
 and her feminine sovereignty was not ruffled to make her feel 
 too feminine. Another revelation was his playful talk when 
 they were more closely intimate. He had his humor as well as 
 his hearty relish of hers. 
 
 '•If all Englishmen were like him!" she chimed with Emma 
 Dunstane's eulogies, under the influence. 
 
 ''My dear,'' the latter replied, *'we should simply march 
 over the Eour Quarters and be blessed by the nations! Only, 
 avoid your trick of dashing headlong to the other extreme. 
 He has his faults." 
 
 "Tell me of them," Diana cooed for an answer. "Do! I 
 want the flavor. A girl would be satisfied with superhuman 
 excellence. A widow asks for feature." 
 
 "To my thinking the case is, that if it is a widow who sees 
 the superhuman excellence in a man she m_ay be very well 
 contented to cross the bridge with him," rejoined Emma. 
 
 "Suppose the bridge to break, and for her to fall into the 
 water, he rescuing her — then, perhaps!" 
 
 "But it has been happening!" 
 
 "But piecemeal, in extension, so slowly. I go to him a 
 derelict, bearing a story of the sea; empty of ideas. I remem- 
 ber sailing out of harbor passably well freighted for com- 
 merce." 
 
 "When Tom Redw^orth has had command of the 'derelict' 
 a week I should like to see her!" 
 
 The mention of that positive captaincy drowned Diana in 
 morning colors. She was dominated, physically and moral- 
 ly, submissively too. What she craved, in the absence of the 
 public whiteness which could have caused her to rejoice in 
 
388 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 herself as a noble gift, was the spring of enthusiasm. Emma 
 touched a quivering chord of pride with her hint at the good 
 augury, and foreshadowing of the larger union, in the Irish- 
 woman's bestowal of her hand on the open-minded English- 
 man she had learned to trust. The aureole glimmered tran- 
 siently: she could neither think highly of the woman about to 
 be wedded nor poetically of the man; nor, therefore, rosily 
 of the ceremony, nor other than vacuously of life. And yet, 
 as she avowed to Emma, she had gathered the three rarest 
 good things of life: a faithful friend, a faithful lover, a faith- 
 ful servant: the two latter exposing an unimagined quality of 
 emotion. Danvers, on the night of the great day for Red- 
 worth, had undressed her with trembling fingers, and her mis- 
 tress was led to the knowledge that the maid had always been 
 all eye; and on reflection to admit that it came of a sym- 
 pathy she did not share. 
 
 But when Celtic brains are reflective on their emotional 
 vassal they shoot direct as the arrow of logic. Diana's glance 
 at the years behind lighted every moving figure to a shrewd 
 transparency, herself among them. She was driven to the con- 
 clusion that the granting of any of her heart's wild wishes in 
 those days would have lowered her — or frozen. Dacier was 
 a coldly luminous image; still a tolling name — no longer con- 
 ceivably her mate. Recollection rocked, not she. The poli- 
 tician and citizen was admired: she read the man — more to 
 her own discredit than to his — but she read him; and if that 
 is done by the one of two lovers who was true to love it is 
 the god of the passion pronouncing a final release from the 
 shadow of his chains. 
 
 Three days antecedent to her marriage she went down the 
 hill over her cottage chimneys with Redworth, after hearing 
 him praise and cite to Emma Dunstane sentences of a morn- 
 ing's report of a speech delivered by Dacier to his constituents. 
 She alluded to it that she might air her power of speaking of 
 the man coolly to him, or else for the sake of stirring afresh 
 some sentiment he had roused; and he repeated his high opin- 
 ion of the orator's political wisdom: whereby was revived in 
 her memory a certain reprehensible view, belonging to her 
 period of mock-girlish naughtiness — too vile! — as to his pater- 
 nal benevolence, now to clear vision the loftiest manliness. 
 What did she do? She was Irish; therefore intuitively de- 
 corous in amatory challen,s:es and interchanges. But she was 
 an impulsive woman and foliage was thick around, only a few 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 389 
 
 small birds and Heaven seeing; and penitence and admiration 
 sprang the impulse. It had to be this or a burst of weeping: 
 she put a kiss upon his arm. 
 
 She had omitted to think that she was dealing with a lover 
 a man of smothered fire, who would be electrically alive to 
 the act through a coat-sleeve. Redworth had his impulse. He 
 kept it under; she felt the big breath he drew in. Imagina- 
 tion began busily building a nest for him, and enthusiasm was 
 not sluggish to make a home of it. The impulse of each had 
 wedded — in expression and repression; her sensibility told her 
 of the stronger. 
 
 She rose on the morning of her marriage day with his fav- 
 orite Planxty Kelly at her lips, a natural bubble of the notes. 
 Emma drove down to the cottage to breakfast and superin- 
 tend her bride's adornment, as to which Diana had spoken 
 slightingly, as well as of the ceremony, and the institution, 
 and this life itself: she would be married out of her cottage — 
 a widow, a cottager, a woman under a cloud; yes, u sober per- 
 son taking at last a right practical step to please her two best 
 friends. The change was marked. She wished to hide it, 
 wished to confide it. Emma was asked, "How is he this morn- 
 ing?" and at the answer, describing his fresh and spirited 
 looks, and his kind ways with Arthur Rhodes and his fun with 
 Sullivan Smith, and the satisfaction with the bridegroom de- 
 clared by Lord Larrian (invalided from his Rock and unex- 
 pectingly informed of the wedding), Diana forgot that she had 
 kissed her, and this time pressed her lips in a manner to convey 
 the secret bridally. 
 
 '*He has a lovely day." 
 
 '*And bride," said p]mma. 
 
 "If you two think so! I should like to agree with my 
 dear old lord and bless him for the prize he takes, though 
 it feels itself at present rather like a Christmas bon-bon — a 
 piece of sugar in the wrap of a rhymed motto. He is kind to 
 Arthur, you say?" 
 
 "Like a cordial elder brother." 
 
 "Dear love, I have it at heart that I was harsh upon Mary 
 Paynham for her letter. She meant well — and I fear she suf- 
 fers. And it may have been a bit my fault. Blind that I was! 
 When you say 'cordial elder brother' you make him appear 
 beautiful to me. The worst of that is, one becomes aware of 
 the inability to match him." 
 
390 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 "Read with his eyes when you meet him this morning, my 
 Tony." 
 
 The secret was being clearly perceived by Emma, whose 
 pride in assisting to dress the beautiful creature for her mar- 
 riage with the man of men had a tinge from the hymeneal 
 brand, exulting over Dacier, and in the compensation coming 
 to her beloved for her first luckless footing on this road. 
 
 "How does he go down to the church?" said Diana. 
 
 "He walks down. Lukin and his chief drive. He walks, 
 with your Arthur and Mr. Sullivan Smith. He is on his way 
 now." 
 
 Diana looked through the window in the direction of the 
 hill. "That is so like him, to walk to his wedding!" 
 
 Emma took the place of Danvers in the office of robing, 
 for the maid, as her mistress managed to hint, was too 
 steeped 'in the color of the occasion' to be exactly tasteful, 
 and had the art, no doubt through sympathy, of charging per- 
 missible common words with explosive meanings — she was in 
 an amorous palpitation, of the reflected state. After several 
 knockings and enterings of the bed-chamber-door she came 
 hurriedly to say, "And your pillow, ma'am? I had almost for- 
 gotten it!" A question that caused her mistress to drop the 
 gaze of a moan on Emma, with patience trembling. Diana pre- 
 ferred a hard pillow, and usually carried her own about. "Take 
 it," she had to reply. 
 
 The friends embraced before descending to step into the 
 fateful carriage. "And tell me," P^mma said, "are not your 
 views of life brighter to-day?" 
 
 "Too dazzled to know! It may be a lamp close to the eyes 
 or a radiance of sun. I hope they are." 
 
 "You are beginning to think hopefully again?" 
 
 "Who can really think, and not think hopefully? You were 
 in my mind last night, and you brought a little boat to sail 
 me past despondency of life and the fear of extinction. When 
 we despair or discolor things it is our senses in revolt, and they 
 have made the sovereign brain their drudge. I heard you 
 whisper, with your very breath in my ear, 'There is nothing 
 the body suffers that the soul may not profit by.' That is 
 Emma's history. With that I sail into the dark; it is my prom- 
 ise of the immortal: teaches me to see immortality for us. It 
 comes from you, my Emmy." 
 
 If not a great saying, it was in the heart of deep thoughts: 
 proof to Emma that her Tony's mind had resumed its old clear 
 
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 391 
 
 high-aiming activity; therefore that her nature was working 
 sanely, and that she accepted her happiness, and bore love for 
 a dower to her husband. No blushing confession of the wom- 
 an's love of the man would have told her so much as the re- 
 turn to mental harmony with the laws of life shown in her dar- 
 ling^s pellucid little sentence. 
 
 She revolved it long after the day of the wedding. To Emma, 
 constantly on the dark decline of the unillumined verge, be- 
 tween the two worlds, those words were a radiance and a nour- 
 ishment. Had they waned she would have trimmed them to 
 feed her during her soul-sister^s absence. They shone to her 
 of their vitality. She was lying along her sofa, facing her 
 southwestern window, one afternoon of late November, ex- 
 pecting Tony from her lengthened honeymoon trip, while a 
 sunset in the van of frost, not without celestial musical re- 
 minders of Tony's husband, began to deepen; and as her 
 friend was coming she mused on the scenes of her friend's de- 
 parture, and how Tony, issuing from her cottage porch, had 
 betrayed her feelings in the language of her sex by stooping to 
 lift above her head and kiss the smallest of her landlady's chil- 
 dren ranged up the garden-path to bid her farewell over their 
 strewing of flowers; — and of her murmur to Tony, entering 
 the churchyard, among the gravemounds, "Old Ireland won't 
 repent it!" and Tony's rejoinder, at the sight of the bride- 
 groom advancing, beaming, "A singular transformation of Old 
 England!" — and how, having numberless ready sources of 
 laughter and tears down the run of their heart-in-heart inti- 
 macy, all spouting up for a word in the happy tremor of the 
 moment, they had both bitten their lips and blinked on a 
 moisture of the eyelids. Now the dear woman was really 
 wedded, wedded and mated. Her letters breathed, in their 
 own lively or thoughtful flow, of the perfect mating. Emma 
 gazed into the depths of the waves of crimson, where brilliancy 
 of color came out of central heaven preternaturally near on 
 earth, till one shade less brilliant seemed an ebbing away to 
 boundless remoteness. Angelical and mortal mixed, making 
 the glory overhead a sign of the close union of our human con- 
 ditions with the etherial and psychically divined. Thence it 
 grew that one thought in her breast became a desire for such 
 extension of days as would give her the blessedness to clasp in 
 her lap — if those kind heavens vrould grant it! — a child of the 
 marriage of the two noblest of human souls, one the dearest; 
 and so have proof at heart that her country and our earth 
 
392 DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 
 
 are fruitful in the good, for a glowing future. She was deeply 
 a woman, dumbly a poet. True poets and true women have 
 the native sense of the divineness of what the world deems 
 gross material substance. Emma^s exaltation in fervor had not 
 subsided when she held her beloved in her arms under the dusk 
 of the withdrawing redness. They sat embraced, with hands 
 locked, in the unlighted room, and Tony spoke of the splendid 
 sky. "You watched it knowing 1 was on my way to you?'' 
 
 "Praying, dear." 
 
 "Forme?" 
 
 "That I might live long enough to be a godmother." 
 
 There was no reply: there was an involuntary little twitch 
 of Tony's fingers. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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