London reached, they parted,—and Diana, taking a taxi-cab and claiming her modest luggage from the Custom-house officials, was driven straight to Sophy Lansing’s flat in Mayfair, which she had left under such different circumstances close on a year ago. Miss Lansing was in, said the servant who opened the door,—and Diana had hardly waited in the drawing-room five minutes, when there was a rush of garments and quick feet and Sophy herself appeared. But at the door she stopped—transfixed.
“There’s some mistake,” she said at once—“You must have come to the wrong flat. I expected a friend,—Miss May. You are not Miss May.”
Diana held out both hands.
“Sophy, don’t you know me?” she said, smiling—“Won’t you know me? Surely you recognise my voice? I told you in my letter from Paris that I was changed—I thought you would understand——”
But Sophy stood mute and bewildered, her back against the door by which she had just entered. For half a minute she felt she knew the sweet thrill of the voice that was Diana’s special gift,—but when she looked at the exquisite girlish beauty of the—the “person” who had intruded upon her, as she thought, on false pretences, she was unreasonably annoyed, her annoyance arising, though she would never have admitted it, from a helpless consciousness of her own inferiority in attractiveness.
“Nonsense!” she said, sharply. “Whoever you are, you can’t take me in! My friend is a middle-aged woman,—older than I am—you are a mere girl! Do you think I don’t know the difference? Please leave my house!”
At these words, a delightful peal of lilting laughter broke from Diana’s lips. Sophy stared, indignant and speechless, while Diana slipped off a watch bracelet from her slender wrist.
“Very well, dear!” she said. “If you don’t want to know me, you shan’t! Here is the little watch you lent me when I went away last year—after I was drowned, you remember?—in place of my own which I’m glad to see you are wearing. You know I took up a position with the Dr. Féodor Dimitrius whose advertisement you sent me,—he wanted me to help him in a scientific experiment. Well!—I did,—and I am the result of his work. I see you don’t believe me, so I’ll go. I told the taxi-man to wait. I’m so sorry you won’t have me!”
Sophy Lansing listened amazed and utterly incredulous. That voice—that sweet laughter—they had a familiar ring; but the youthful features, the exquisite complexion of clear cream and rose—these were no part of the Diana she had known, and she shook her head obstinately.
“You may have met my friend in Geneva,” she said, stiffly. “But how you got my watch from her, I am at a loss to imagine—unless she lent it to you to travel with. You look to me like a run-away schoolgirl playing a practical joke. But whoever you are, you are not Diana May.”