She could not keep the tone of anxiety out of her voice, but Diane answered, with ready briskness:
"George? I don't know. Hasn't he come home?"
"You must know he hasn't come home. Weren't you together?"
"We were together till—let me see!—whose house was it?—till after the cotillon at Madame de Vaudreuil's. He left me there and went to the Jockey Club with Monsieur de Melcourt, while I drove on to the Rochefoucaulds'."
She turned away toward the dining-room, but it was impossible not to catch the tremor in her voice over the last words. In her ready English there was a slight foreign intonation, as well as that trace of an Irish accent which quickly yields to emotion. Standing at the table in the dining-room where refreshments had been laid, she poured out a glass of wine, and Mrs. Eveleth could see from the threshold that she drank it thirstily, as one who before everything else needs a stimulant to keep her up. At the entrance of her mother-in-law she was on her guard again, and sank languidly into the nearest chair. "Oh, I'm so hungry!" she yawned, pulling off her gloves, and pretending to nibble at a sandwich. "Do sit down," she went on, as Mrs. Eveleth remained standing. "I should think you'd be hungry, too."
"Aren't you surprised to see me sitting up, Diane?"
"I wasn't, but I can be, if that's my cue," Diane laughed.
At the nonchalance of the reply Mrs. Eveleth was, for a second, half deceived. Was it possible that she had only conjured up a waking nightmare, and that there was nothing to be afraid of, after all? Possessing the French quality of frankness to an unusual degree, it was difficult for Diane to act a part at any time. With all her Parisian finesse her nature was as direct as lightning, while her glance had that fulness of candor which can never be assumed. Looking at her now, with her elbows on the table, and the sandwich daintily poised between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, it was hard to connect her with tragic possibilities. There were pearls around her neck and diamonds in her hair; but to the wholesomeness of her personality jewels were no more than dew on the freshness of a summer morning.
"I thought you'd be surprised to find me sitting up," Mrs. Eveleth began again; "but the truth is, I couldn't go to bed while—"
"I'm glad you didn't," Diane broke in, with an evident intention to keep the conversation in her own hands. "I'm not in the least sleepy. I could sit here and talk till morning—though I suppose it's morning now. Really the time to live is between midnight and six o'clock. One has a whole set of emotions then that never come into play during the other eighteen hours of the day. They say it's the minute when the soul comes nearest to parting with the body, so I suppose that's the reason we can see things, during the wee sma' hours, by the light of the invisible spheres."