“I’m going away for a little while with Madame Dimitrius, who needs change of air and scene, but I will let you know directly I come back. I shall think of you very often while absent!
“Affectionately yours,
“Diana.”
Chauvet put by these brief lines very preciously in the safe where he kept his jewels,—“Affectionately yours” was a great consolation, he thought!—they almost touched the verge of tenderness!—there was surely hope for him! And he amused himself in his solitary hours with the drawing of an exquisite design for a small coronal to be worn in Diana’s hair, wherein he purposed having some of his rarest jewels set in a fashion of his own.
Meanwhile the frozen stillness of an exceptionally dreary and bitter winter enveloped the Château Fragonard and its beautiful gardens, and no one was ever seen to go to it, or come from it, though there were certain residents on the opposite side of the lake who could perceive its roof and chimneys through the leafless trees and who declared that its great glass dome was always more or less illumined as though a light were constantly kept burning within. Rumour was busy at first with all sorts of suggestions and contradictions, but as there appeared to be no foundation for any one of them, the talk gradually wore itself out, most people being always too much interested in themselves to keep up any interest in others for long.
But, had Rumour a million eyes, as it is said to have a million tongues, it might well have had occasion to use them all during the full swing of that particular “season” at Davos Platz, where, in the “winter sports” and gaieties of the time, Diana was an admired “belle” and universal favourite. She, who only three or four months previously had been distinctly “on the shelf” or “in the way,” was now flattered and sought after by a whole train of male admirers, who apparently could never have enough of her society. She conversed brilliantly, danced exquisitely, and skated perfectly,—so perfectly indeed that one fatuous elderly gentleman nicknamed her “the Ice Queen,” and another, younger but not less enterprising, addressed her as “Boule de Neige,” conceiving the title prettier in French than in rough English as “Snowball.” She accepted the attentions lavished upon her with amused indifference, which made her still more attractive to men whose “sporting” tendencies are invariably sharpened by obstacles in the way of securing their game, and, much to her own interest, found herself the centre of all sorts of rivalries and jealousies.
“If they only knew my age!” she thought one day. “If they only knew!”
But they did not know. And it would have been quite impossible for them to guess. Thus much Diana herself was now forced to concede. Every day her mirror showed her a fair, unworn face, with the softly rounded outline of youth, and the clear eyes which betoken the unconscious joy of perfect health and vitality, and the change in her was so marked and manifest that she no longer hesitated to speak to Madame Dimitrius about it when they were alone together. At first the old lady was very nervous of the subject, and fearful lest she should in some way displease her masterful son,—but Diana reassured her, promising that he should never know the nature or extent of their confidences. It was a great relief to them both when they entered into closer mutual relations and decided to talk to each other freely—especially to Madame Dimitrius, who was anxious to be made certain that Diana was not in any physical suffering or mental distress through the exercise of Féodor’s extraordinary and, as she imagined, almost supernatural powers. She was soon satisfied on that score, for Diana could assure her, with truth, that she had never felt better or brighter.
“It’s like a new life,” she said, one day, as she sat at the window of their private sitting-room in the hotel, which commanded a fine view of the snowy mountain summits. “I feel as if I had somehow been born again! All my past years seem rolled away like so much rubbish! I’ve often thought of those words: ‘Except ye be born again ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of God.’ They used to be a mystery to me, but they’re not so mysterious now! And it is just like ‘entering the Kingdom of God’ to look out on this glorious beauty of the mountains, the snow and the pine trees, and to feel alive to it all, grateful for it all, loving it all,—as I do!”
Madame Dimitrius regarded her earnestly.
“You do not think, then,” she suggested, “that my son is guilty of any offence against the Almighty by his dealings with these strange, unknown forces——”