“You mistake!” she said—“I am not your creation. You, of yourself, can create nothing. I am only a result of your science which you never dreamed of!—which you could not foresee!—and which you will never master! Good-bye!”
She left him at once with this word, despite his last entreating call, “Diana!” and passing through the private gate to the high road, so disappeared. Like a man in a trance, he stood watching till the last glimpse of her dress had vanished—then, with a mist of something like tears in his eyes, he realised that a sudden blank loneliness had fallen upon him like a cloud.
“Something I shall never master!” he repeated, as he went slowly homeward. “If woman I shall!—but if not——”
And here he checked his thoughts, not daring to pursue them further.
So they parted,—he more bewildered and troubled by the “success” of his experiment than satisfied,—while she, quite unconscious of any particular regret or emotion, started on her journey to England. Never had she received so much attention, and the eagerness displayed by every man she met to wait upon her and assist her in some way or other, amused her while it aroused a certain scorn.
“It is only looks that move them!” she said to herself. “The same old tale!—Youth and beauty!—and never a care whether I am a good or an evil thing! And yet one is asked to ‘respect’ men!”
She went on her way without trouble. The chef de gare at Geneva was full of gentle commiseration at the idea of so young and lovely a creature travelling alone, and placed her tenderly, as though she were a hot-house lily to be carried “with care,” in a first-class compartment of “Dames Seules” where a couple of elderly ladies received her graciously, with motherly smiles, and remarked that she was “very young to travel alone.” She deprecated their attention with becoming grace—but said very little. She looked at their wrinkles and baggy throats, and wondered, whether, if they knew of Dr. Dimitrius and went to him, he could ever make them young and beautiful again? It seemed impossible,—they were too far gone! They were travelling to London, however; and she cheerfully accepted their kindly proposal that she should make the journey in their company. On the way through Paris she wrote a brief letter to Sophy Lansing, saying that she would call and see her as soon after arrival in London as possible, and adding as a postscript: “I have changed very much in my appearance, but I hope you will still know me as your friend, Diana.”
The two ladies with whom chance or fate had thrown her in company, turned out to be of the “old” English aristocracy, and were very simple, gently-mannered women who had for many years been intimate friends. They were both widows; their children were grown up and married, and many reverses of fortune, with loss of kindred, had but drawn them more closely together. Every year they took little inexpensive holidays abroad, and they were returning home now after one of these spent at Aix-les-Bains. They were fascinated by the extraordinary beauty of the girl they had volunteered to chaperon, and, privately to one another, thought and said she ought to wear a veil. For no man saw her without seeming suddenly “smitten all of a heap,” as the saying is,—and, after one or two embarrassing experiences at various stations en route, where certain of these “smitten” had not scrupled to walk up and down the platform outside their compartment just to look at the fair creature within, one of the worthy dames suggested, albeit timidly, that perhaps—only perhaps!—a veil might be advisable?—as they were soon going across the sea—and the rough salt wind and spray were so bad for the complexion! Diana smiled. She understood. And for the rest of the journey she tied up her beautiful head and face in American fashion with an uncompromising dark blue motor veil through which hardly the tip of her nose could be seen.
They crossed the Channel at night, and breakfasted together at Dover. Once in the train bound for London, Diana’s companions sought tactfully to find out who she was. Something quite indefinable and unusual about her gave them both a touch of “nerves.” She seemed removed and aloof from life’s ordinary things, though her manner was perfectly simple and natural. She gave her name quite frankly and added that she was quite alone in the world.
“I have one friend,—Miss Sophy Lansing,” she said—“You may have heard of her. She is a leading Suffragette and a very clever writer. I am going to her now.”