The jovial strains of the chorus broke on the stillness of the garden like a disturbing influence.
“And the music, cousin, how entrancingly gay! When I hear the music I must dance; the desire is stronger than I.”
Inspired by an impulse of wild mirth and the love of frolic, enlivened by the knowledge that Anne Barroy still kept an inquisitive watch at her shaded window, Diane began to circle and pirouette around the astonished young man. Gradually she surrendered herself to the influence of the music, allowing its rhythm to govern her movements. The lithe young form fell into flexible attitudes; it was a delight to mark the exquisite grace of her gestures, the suppleness of her limbs, the action of her swiftly twinkling feet. This was no wild whirl of abandonment; the smooth, swaying movement was stately and dignified; but to Pierre it meant the essence of sorcery. Was ever fairer creature formed? Her attractions were vivid, imperious, irresistible.
Diane herself was full of intense sensation and susceptibility to every new impression. The color deepened in her soft cheeks. She was no longer a heedless, guileless child; the soul of a woman, ardent and seductive, flamed in her sweet blue eyes. Pierre flushed with sudden mortification. For an instant he hated the girl and hated himself. His glance, first gently pleading, then sternly disapproving, changed swiftly to some keener emotion. He had been tolerably calm until he reached this point, then the blood began to course hotly through his veins; he found himself drifting upon wild unknown currents, carried beyond the safe limits of ecclesiastical restraint.
“Diane! Diane!” he cried, breaking in suddenly as if suffocated. All the girlish fun and mischief faded out of her eyes, Diane de Monesthrol’s cheeks flamed with shame and fierce resentment. What did this new light of revelation mean? In her carelessness had she cruelly injured the son of one who had been her protector? Who was Pierre that he should dare to look at her with such eyes? She could have killed him as he stood. With the keen quivering of heart and soul she gained a glimpse of some of the deeper things of life.
“Hola! Diane and—and Pierre!” As he parted the branches of the thicket and stood revealed before the actors in this extraordinary scene, his surprise quite as great as their own, du Chesne’s expression of utter consternation was so extremely comic that Diane broke into peals of ringing laughter.
This added the last touch to Pierre’s misery. A sudden panic and horror seized him, furrowing his countenance as if with the action of years. As his brother’s frank glance rested on him, giddy, as if buffeted by wind and tide in the midst of heat and passion, he paused with a convulsive shiver. He was conscious of falling from a great height to dread discomfiture and humiliation. The girl’s beauty had kindled an emotion which glowed in his brain, leaped like wildfire from conjecture to conclusion, and carried all before it in an irresistible exhilaration. This was succeeded by the inevitable reaction. A sob, suppressed yet unrestrainable, escaped him. All three, the girl and the two young men, moved by a common instinct, glanced apprehensively up at the window where, from the heights of superior sanctity, the recluse might be looking down upon the trivial worldly passions and interests of her kindred. Pierre disappeared. Diane would have been glad to do the same, but mentally pulling herself together she conquered the cowardly impulse and sank panting down on the grass, shamed to the depths of her soul by du Chesne’s look of mingled wonder and reproach.
CHAPTER XIV.
AN AWAKENING.