“It was not—it could not have been Diana!” almost sobbed Sophy to herself. “I felt—oh, yes!—I felt it was something not quite human!”
Then, turning to the table where the watch-bracelet had been left, she took it up. It was indubitably her bracelet, with her monogram in small rubies and diamonds on the back of the watch. She had certainly lent it—almost given it—to Diana, and she herself was wearing Diana’s own watch which Mr. and Mrs. Polydore May had given her as “a souvenir of our darling child!” It was all like a wild dream!—where had this girl come from?
“She is frightfully beautiful!” exclaimed Sophy at last, in an outburst of excited feeling—“Simply unearthly! Even if she were Diana, I could not have her here!—with me!—never—never! She would make me look so old! So plain—so unattractive! But of course she is not Diana!—no ‘beauty doctor’ could make a woman over forty look like a girl of eighteen or less! She must be an adventuress of some sort! She couldn’t be so beautiful unless she were. But she won’t palm herself off on me! My poor old Diana! I wonder what has become of her!”
Meanwhile “poor old Diana,” somewhat perplexed by the failure of her friend to accept her changed appearance on trust, was thinking out the ways and means of her new life. She had plenty of money, for Dimitrius had placed two thousand pounds to her credit in a London bank,—a sum which she had no hesitation in accepting, as the price of her life, risked in his service. The thought now struck her that she would go to this bank, draw a small cheque, and explain that she had arrived alone in London, and wished to be recommended to some good hotel. This proved to be an excellent idea. The manager of the bank received her in his private office, and, fairly dazzled by her beauty, placed his friendliest services at her disposal, informing her that he was a personal friend of Dimitrius, and that he held him in the highest esteem and honour. To prove his sincerity he personally escorted her to a quiet private hotel of the highest respectability, chiefly patronised by “county” ladies “above suspicion.” Here, on his recommendation, she took a small suite overlooking the Park. Becoming more and more interested in her youth, loveliness and loneliness, he listened sympathetically while she mentioned her wish to find some middle-aged lady of good family who would reside with her as a chaperone and companion for a suitable annual salary,—and he promised to exert himself in active search for a person of quality who would be fitted for the post. He was a good-looking man, and though married, was susceptible to the charms of the fair sex, and it was with undisguised reluctance that he at last took his leave of the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, with many expressions of courtesy, and commiserating her enforced temporary solitude.
“I wish I could stay with you!” he said, regardless of convention.
“I’m sure you do!” answered Diana, sweetly. “Thank you so much! You have been most kind!”
A look from the lovely eyes accompanied these simple words which shot like a quiver of lightning through the nerves of the usually curt, self-possessed business man, and caused him to stammer confusedly and move awkwardly as at last he left the room. When he was gone Diana laughed.
“They are all alike!” she said—“All worshippers of outward show! Suppose that good man knew I was over forty? Why, he wouldn’t look at me!”
The manageress of the hotel just then entered, bringing the book in which all hotel visitors registered their names. She was quite a stately person, attired in black silk, and addressed Diana with a motherly air, having been told by the bank manager, for whom she had a great respect, to have good care of her. Diana wrote her name in a dashing, free hand, putting herself down as a British subject, and naming Geneva as her last place of residence, when her attention was arrested by a name three or four lines above that on which she was writing—and she paused, pen in hand.
“Are those people staying here?” she asked.