There was one subject to which Di's thoughts returned, and ever returned, in spite of herself. John was that subject. Gradually, as the days wore on, her shamed remorse at having wounded him gave place to the old animosity against him. She had never been angry with any of her numerous lovers before. She had, on the contrary, been rather sorry for them. But she was desperately angry with John. It seemed to her—why she would have been at a loss to explain—that he had taken a very great liberty in venturing to love her, and in daring to assert that they were suited to other.
She went through silent paroxysms of rage against him, sitting on a fallen tree among the bracken with clenched hands. Her sense of his growing power over her, over her thought, over her will, was intolerable. Why so fierce? why such a fool? she asked herself over and over again. He could not marry her against her will. Indeed, he had said he did not want to. Why, then, all this silly indignation about nothing? There was no answer until one day Mrs. Courtenay happened to mention to Mrs. Garstone, in her presence, the probability of John's eventually marrying Lady Alice Fane—"a very charming and suitable person," etc.
Then suddenly it became clear to Di that, though she would never marry him herself, the possibility of his marrying any one else was not to be borne for a moment. John, of course, was to—was to remain unmarried all his life. Her sense of the ludicrous showed her in a lightning-flash where she stood.
To discover a new world is all very well for people like Columbus, who want to find one. But to discover a new world by mistake when quite content with the old one, and to be swept towards it uncertain of your reception by the natives assembling on the beach, is another thing altogether. For the second time in her life Di was frightened.
"Then all these horrible feelings are being in love," she said to herself, with a sense of stupefaction. "This is what other people have felt for me, and I treated it as of little consequence. This is what I have read about, and sung about, and always rather wished to feel. I am in love with John. Oh, I hope to God he will never find it out!"
Probably no man will ever understand the agonies of humiliation, of furious unreasoning antagonism, which a proud woman goes through when she becomes aware that she is falling in love. Pride and love go as ill together in the beginning as they go exceeding well together later on. To be loved is incense at first, until the sense of justice—fortunately rare in women—is aroused. "Shall I take all, and give nothing?"
Pride, often a very tender pride for the lover himself, asks that question. Directly it is asked the battle begins.
"I will not give less than all. How can I give all?" The very young are spared the conflict, because the future husband is regarded only as the favoured ball-partner, the perpetual admirer of a new existence. But women who know something of life—of the great demands of marriage—of the absolute sacrifice of individual existence which it involves—when they begin to tremble beneath the sway of a deep human passion suffer much, fear greatly until the perfect love comes that casts out fear.
Some natures, and very lovable they are, give all, counting not the cost. Others, a very few, count the cost and then give all.
Di was one of these.