“Good!” And a sudden smile lit up his face, giving it a wonderful charm. “Now run away and dress for dinner! And don’t puzzle yourself by thinking about anything for the present. If you must think, wait till you are alone with night and the stars!”
He left her, and she went upstairs at once to her own rooms. Here repose and beauty were expressed in all her surroundings and she looked about her with a sigh of comfort and appreciation. Some careful hand had set vases of exquisitely arranged flowers here and there,—and the scent of roses, carnations and autumn violets made the already sweet air sweeter. She found her modest luggage in her bedroom, and set to work unpacking and arranging her clothes.
“He’s quite right,—I mustn’t think!” she said to herself. “It would never do! That wheel grinding out golden fire!—that mysterious pool of water in which one might easily be drowned and never heard of any more!—and those precious drops, locked up in a tiny hole!—what can all these things mean? There!—I’m thinking and I mustn’t think! But—is he mad, I wonder? Surely not! No madman ever put up such a piece of mechanism as that Wheel! I’m thinking again!—I mustn’t think!—I mustn’t think!”
She soon had all her garments unpacked, shaken out, and arranged in their different places, and, after some cogitation, decided to wear for the evening one of the Parisian “rest” or “tea” gowns her friend Sophy Lansing had chosen for her,—a marvellous admixture of palest rose and lilac hues, with a touch or two of pearl glimmerings among lace like moonlight on foam. She took some pains to dress her pretty hair becomingly, twisting it up high on her small, well-shaped head, and when her attire was complete she surveyed herself in the long mirror with somewhat less dissatisfaction than she was accustomed to do.
“Not so bad!” she inwardly commented, approving the picturesque fall and flow of the rose and lilac silk and chiffon which clung softly round her slim figure. “You are not entirely repulsive yet, Diana!—not yet! But you will be!—never fear! Just wait a little!—wait till your cheeks sink in a couple of bony hollows and your throat looks like the just-wrung neck of a scrawny fowl!” Here she laughed, with a quaint amusement at the unpleasant picture she was making of herself in the future. “Yes, my dear! Not all the clouds of rosy chiffon in the world will hide your blemishes then!—and your hair!—oh, your hair will be a sort of grizzled ginger and you’ll have to hide it! So you’d better enjoy this little interval—it won’t last long!” Suddenly at this point in her soliloquy some words uttered by Dimitrius rang back on her memory: “That we should lose youth, beauty and hope is quite our own affair. We ought to know better.” She repeated them slowly once or twice. “Strange!—a very strange thing to say!” she mused. “I wonder what he meant by it? I’m sure if it had been my ‘own affair’ to keep youth, beauty and hope, I would never have lost them! Oddly enough I seem to have got back a little scrap of one of the losses—hope! But I’m thinking again—I mustn’t think!”
She curtsied playfully to her own reflection in the mirror, and seeing by the warning “time dial” for meals that it was nearly the dinner hour, she descended to the drawing-room. Three or four people were assembled there, talking to Madame Dimitrius, who introduced Diana as “Miss May, an English friend of ours who is staying with us for the winter”—an announcement which Diana herself tacitly accepted as being no doubt what Dr. Dimitrius wished. The persons to whom she was thus presented were the Baroness Rousillon, a handsome Frenchwoman of possibly fifty-six or sixty,—her husband, the Baron, a stout, cheerful personage with a somewhat aggravating air of perpetual bonhomie,—Professor Chauvet, a very thin little old gentleman with an aquiline nose and drooping eyelids from which small, sparkling dark eyes gleamed out occasionally like needle-points, and a certain Marchese Luigi Farnese, a rather sinister-looking dark young man, with a curiously watchful expression, as of one placed on guard over some hidden secret treasure. They were all exceedingly amiable, and asked Diana the usual polite questions,—whether she had had a pleasant journey from England?—was the Channel rough?—was the weather fine?—was she a good sailor?—and so on, all of which she answered pleasantly in that sweet and musical voice which always attracted and charmed her hearers.
“And you come from England!” said Professor Chauvet, blinking at her through his eyelids. “Ah! it is a strange place!”
Diana smiled, but said nothing.
“It is a strange place!” reiterated the Professor, with more emphasis. “It is a place of violent contrasts without any intermediate tones. Stupidity and good sense, moral cowardice and physical courage, petty grudging and large generosity, jostle each other in couples all through English society, yet after, and with these drawbacks, it is very attractive!”
“I’m so glad you like it,” said Diana, cheerfully. “I expect the same faults can be found in all countries and with all nations. We English are not the worst people in the world!”