Diana laughed and sprang up from her chair.
“Maybe!” she replied. “But—‘a man’s true love’—as I see it, seems hardly worth the missing! You are a dear, sentimental darling!—you have lived in the ‘early Victorian’ manner, finding an agreeable lover who gave you his heart, after the fashion of an antique Valentine, and whom you married in the proper and conventional style, and in due course gave him a baby. That’s it! And oh, SUCH a baby! Féodor Dimitrius!—doctor of sciences and master of innumerable secrets of nature—yet, after all, only your ‘baby!’ It is a miracle! But I wonder if it was worth while! Don’t mind my nonsense, dearest lady!—just think of me as hardening and shining!—like bits of the glacier we saw the other day which move only about an inch in a thousand years! There’s a ‘sports’ ball on the ice to-night—a full moon too!—and your wonderful son has agreed to skate with me—I wish you would come and look at us!”
“I’m too old,” said Madame Dimitrius, with a slight sigh. “I wish Féodor would make me young as he is making you!”
“He’s afraid!” and Diana stood, looking at her for a moment. “He’s afraid of killing you! But he’s not afraid of killing me!”
With that she went,—and Madame, laying down her work, folded her hands and prayed silently that no evil might come to her beloved son through the strange mysteries which he was seeking to solve, and which to her simple and uninstructed mind appeared connected with the powers of darkness rather than the powers of light.
That evening Diana scored a triumph as belle of the “sports” ball. Attired in a becoming skating costume of black velvet trimmed with white fur, with a charming little “toque” hat to match, set jauntily on her bright hair, and a bunch of edelweiss at her throat, she figured as an extremely pretty “girl,” and her admirers were many. When Dimitrius came to claim his promised “glissade” by her side, she welcomed him smilingly, yet with an indifference which piqued him.
“Are you tired?” he asked. “Would you rather not skate any more just now?”
She gave him an amused look.
“I am never tired,” she said. “I could skate for ever, if it were not, like all things, certain to become monotonous. And I’m sure it’s very good of you to skate with a woman ‘of mature years’ when there are so many nice girls about.”
“You are the prettiest ‘girl’ here,” he answered, with a smile. “Everyone says so!”