"Tell me, Derek," she insisted; "tell me, and I'll believe you."
He retreated a pace or two, as if trying to get out of her presence.
"I'm listening, Derek; go on; I'm willing to take your word."
"Then I repeat," he said, weakly, "that I believe her, I know her, to be one of the best women in the world."
"Like Louise de la Vallière?"
"Yes," he shouted, maddened to the retort, "like Louise de la Vallière! And what then?" He stood as if demanding a reply. "Nothing. I have no more to say." "Then I have; and I'll ask you to listen." He drew near to her again and spoke slowly. "There were doubtless many good women in Jerusalem in the time of Herod and Pilate and Christ; but not the least held in honor among us to-day is—the Magdalen. That's one thing; and here's something more. There is joy, so we are told, in the presence of the angels of God—plenty of it, let us hope!—but it isn't over the ninety-and-nine just persons who need no repentance, so much as over the one poor, deserted, lonely sinner that repenteth—that repenteth, Lucilla, do you hear?-and you know whom I mean." With this as his confession of faith he left her, to go in search of Diane. He had formed the ultimatum before which, as he believed, she should find herself obliged to surrender.
It was a day on which Diane's mood was one of comparative peace. She was engrossed in an occupation which at once soothed her spirits and appealed to her taste. Madame Cauchat, the land-lady, bewailing the continued illness of her lingère, Diane had begged to be allowed to take charge of the linen-room of the hotel, not merely as a means of earning a living, but because she delighted in such work. Methodical in her habits and nimble with her needle, the neatness, smoothness, and purity of piles of white damask stirred all those house-wifely, home-keeping instincts which are so large a part of every Frenchwoman's nature. Her fingers busy with the quiet, delicate task of mending, her mind could dwell with the greater content on such subjects as she had for satisfaction.
They were more numerous than they had been for a long time past. The meeting at Lakefield had changed her mental attitude toward Derek Pruyn, taking a large part of the pain out of her thoughts of him, as well as out of his thoughts of her. She had avoided seeing him after that one night, and she had heard nothing from him since; but she knew it was impossible for him to go on thinking of her altogether harshly. She had been useful to him; she had saved Dorothea from a great mistake; she had done it in such a way that no hint of the escapade was likely to become known outside of the few who had taken part in it; she had put herself in a relation toward him which, as a final one, was much to be preferred to that which had existed before. She could therefore pass out of his life more satisfied than she had dared hope to be with the effect that she had had upon it. As she stitched she sighed to herself with a certain comfort, when, glancing up, she saw him standing at the door. The nature of her thoughts, coupled with his sudden appearance, drew to her lips a quiet smile.
"They shouldn't have shown you in here," she protested, gently, letting her work fall to her lap, but not rising from her place.
"I insisted," he explained, briefly, from the threshold.