Marcus shook his head.
“You could take a baby from its earliest days, from its cradle—you could feed it, clothe it. You could teach it to write, to talk (when spoken to), to spell—talk wisely, write wisely, and spell correctly. You could send it to school—privately, publicly. You could college it—if it scholarshipped itself. You could train it in the business way it should go. It might become a politician, a financier, a collector of Chinese porcelain—or a useful member of society and a good citizen; and for all that there stands the darling little Ming thing in a cabinet—untouched by housemaids.”
“You ridiculous child,” said Marcus, and his thoughts flew to that girl who had taken in her dogskin-gloved hands a vase less beautiful, infinitely less valuable, than any in his collection, yet most desirable.
“Aunt Elsie’s got a delicious powder-blue vase,” said Diana.
“Has she?” said Marcus, knowing the kind of blue china women with country cottages invest in.
Marcus was not so wise as he thought. Diana discovered that before she had been in his house a week. While she was discovering him not so very wise, he was finding her delightfully sympathetic. Discounting her understanding—certain of her sympathy—he unburdened his soul to her because, he said, she must have suffered just as he had. Her mother’s absorption in her father must have grieved her: she must have felt out of it: she and Dick too—
“You think that? How strange!” said Diana, her chin in her hands, her eyes looking at him with their habitual expression of understanding. “Why, Dick and I have often discussed it and we think quite differently. We are so glad she should have that tremendous happiness. We love to see her. An ordinary humdrum affection would never have satisfied her. I believe their love for each other is the kind of which you read in history—more particularly in French memoirs—it’s almost terrifying. She’s his inspiration and without her he isn’t himself. The sympathy between them is amazing. Once when I was ill—he was away—she tried to keep it from him; she said nothing in her letters and he telegraphed: ‘What is it? Tell me.’ It’s no use standing against that, my Uncle Marcus, and we don’t want to. No one could be more to me than Mummy is, but Dick and I are very near to one another,—nearer than most brothers and sisters,—and somehow or other we feel as if we ought to be more understanding than most children whose parents don’t understand each other at all—See?”
“Yes—and if you marry—as your mother married?” said Marcus, still seeking an excuse for the hurt that was within him—even now.
Diana said: “If I did, Dick would be very pleased. Love can’t be selfish and live—even Shan’t says, ‘Love can’t be shelfish,’ and it can’t.”
“Then I don’t love,” said Marcus ruefully.