Book: The Inner Shrine

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He bowed.

"There are no rights that a woman can have over a man which you,
Mademoiselle, do not possess over me."

"Before telling me again," she continued, speaking with difficulty,
"what you've told me already, I want to say that I can only listen to it
on one condition."

"Which is--?"

"That your own conscience is at peace with itself."

There was a sudden startled toss of the head, but he answered, bravely:

"Is one's conscience ever at peace with itself? A woman's, perhaps; but
a man's--!"

He shook his head with that wistful smile of contrition which is already
a plea for pardon.

"I'm not speaking of life in general, but of something in particular. I
want you to understand, before you ask me--what you've come to ask, that
you couldn't make one woman happy while you're doing another a great
wrong."

He was sure now of what was in store for him, and braced himself for his
part. He was one of those men who need but to see peril to see also the
way of meeting it. He stood for a minute, very straight and erect, like
a soldier before a court-martial--a culprit whose guilt is half excused
by his very manliness.

"I have wronged women. They've wronged me, too. All I can do to show I'm
sorry for it is--not to give them the same sort of offence again."

"I'm thinking of one woman--one woman in particular."

He threw back his head with fine confidence.

"I don't know her."

"It's Diane Eveleth. She says--"

"I can imagine what she says. If I were you, I wouldn't pay it more
attention than it deserves."

"It deserves a good deal--if it's true."

"Not from you, Mademoiselle. It belongs to a region into which your
thought shouldn't enter."

"My thought does enter it, I'm afraid. In fact, I think of it so much
that I've invited Mrs. Eveleth to come here this afternoon. I hope you
don't mind meeting her?"

"Certainly not. Why should I?" he demanded, with an air of conscious
rectitude.

Miss Grimston touched a bell.

"Ask Mrs. Eveleth to come in," she said to the footman who answered it.

As Diane entered she greeted Bienville with a slight inclination of the
head, which he returned, bowing ceremoniously.

"I've begged Mrs. Eveleth to meet us," Marion hastened to explain, "for
a very special reason."

"Then perhaps she will be good enough to tell me what it is," Bienville
said, with a look of courteous inquiry.

"Miss Grimston thought--you might be able--to help me."

There was a catch in Diane's voice as she spoke, but she mastered it,
keeping her eyes on his, in the effort to be courageous.

"If there's anything I can do--" he began, allowing the rest of his
sentence to be inferred.

He concealed his nervousness by placing a small gilded chair for Diane
to sit on. He himself took a chair a few feet away, seating himself
sidewise, with his elbow supported on the back, in an easy attitude of
attention. Marion Grimston withdrew to the more distant part of the
room, where, with her hands behind her, she stood leaning against the
grand piano, with the bearing of one only indirectly, and yet intensely,
concerned. Bienville left the task of beginning to Diane. In spite of
his determination to be self-possessed, a trace of compunction was
visible in his face as he contrasted the subdued little woman before him
with the sparkling, insouciant creature to whom, two or three years ago,
he had paid his inglorious court.

"I shall have to speak to you quite simply and frankly," Diane began,
with some hesitation, still keeping her eyes on his, "otherwise you
wouldn't understand me."

"Quite so," Bienville assented, politely.

"You may not have heard that since--my--my husband's death, I have my
own living to earn?"

"Yes; I did hear something of the kind."

"I've had what people in my position call a good situation; but I have
lost it."

"Ah? I'm sorry."

"I thought you would be. That's why Miss Grimston asked me to tell you
the reason. She was sure you wouldn't injure me--knowingly."

"Naturally. I'm very much surprised that any one should think I've
injured you at all. To the best of my knowledge your name has not passed
my lips for two years, at the least. If it had it would only have been
spoken--with respect."

"I'm sure of that. I'm not pretending when I say that I'm absolutely
convinced you're a man of sensitive honor. If you weren't you couldn't
be a Frenchman and a Bienville. I want you to understand that I've never
attributed--the--things that have happened--to anything but folly and
imprudence--for which I want to take my full share of the blame."

"I've never ventured to express to you my own regret," Bienville said,
in a tone not free from emotion, "but I assure you it's very deep."

"I know. All our life was so wrong! It's because I feel sure you must
see that as well as I do that I hoped you'd help me now."

He said nothing in reply, letting some seconds pass in silence, waiting
for her to come to her point.

"On the way up from South America," she began again, with visible
difficulty, "you were on the same ship with my--my--employer. From
certain things you said then--"

"But I've withdrawn them," he interrupted, quickly. "He should have told
you that. Mademoiselle," he added, rising, and turning toward Marion
Grimston, "wouldn't it spare you if we continued this conversation
alone?"

"No; I'd rather stay," Miss Grimston said, with an inflection of
request. "Please sit down again."

"He should have told you that," Bienville repeated, taking his seat once
more, and speaking with some animation. "I did my best to straighten
things out for him."

"Then he didn't understand you. He told me you had taken back what you
had said, but only in a way that reaffirmed it."

"That's nothing but a tortuous construction put on straightforward
words."

"Quite so; but for that very reason I thought that perhaps you'd go to
him again and explain what you meant more clearly."

He took a minute to consider this before speaking.

"I don't see how I can," he said, slowly. "I've already used the
plainest words of which I have command."

"Words aren't everything. It's the way they're spoken that often counts
most. I'm sure you could convince him if you went the right way to work
about it."

"I doubt that. I'm afraid I don't know how to force conviction on any
one against his will."

"You mean--?"

"I mean--you'll excuse me; I speak quite bluntly--I mean that he seemed
very willing to believe anything that could tell against you, but less
eager to credit what was said in your defence."

"You think so because you don't understand him. As a matter of fact--"

"Oh, I dare say. I don't pretend to understand the gentleman in
question. But for that very reason it would be useless for me to try to
enlighten him further. It would only make matters worse."

"It wouldn't if you'd put things before him just as they happened. I
don't want any excuses made for me. My best defence would be--the
truth."

There was a perceptible pause, during which his eyes shifted uneasily
toward Marion Grimston.

"I should think you could tell him that yourself," he suggested, at
last.

"It wouldn't be the same thing. You're the only person who could speak
with authority. He'd accept your word, if you gave it--in a certain
way."

"I'm afraid I don't know what that way is."

"Oh yes, you do, Bienville!" she exclaimed, pleadingly, leaning forward
slightly, with her hands clasped in her lap. "Don't force me to speak
more plainly than I need. You must know what I refer to."

He shook his head slowly, with a look of mystification.

"What you may not know," she continued, "is all it means to me. I won't
put the matter on any ground but that of my need for earning money.
Because Mr. Pruyn has--misunderstood you, I've had to give up
my--my--place"--she forced the last word with a little difficulty--"and
until something like a good name is restored to me I shall find it hard
to get another. You can have no idea of what that means. I had none,
until I had to face it. There's only one kind of work I'm fitted
for--the kind I've been doing; but it's just the kind I can't have
without the--the reputation you could give back to me."

That this appeal was not without its effect was evident from the way in
which his expressive brown eyes clouded, while he stroked his black
beard nervously. The fact that his pity was largely for himself--that
with instincts naturally chivalrous he should be driven to these
miserable verbal shifts--being unknown to Diane, she was encouraged to
proceed.

"You see," she went on, eagerly, "it wouldn't only bring me happiness,
but it would add to your own. You're at the beginning of a new life,
just like me--or, rather, just as I could be if you'd give me the
chance. Think what it would be for you to enter on it, I won't say with
a clear conscience, but with the knowledge that in rising yourself you
had helped an unhappy woman up, instead of thrusting her further down!
It isn't as if it would be so hard for you, Bienville. I'd make it easy
for you. Miss Grimston would help me. Wouldn't you?" she added, turning
toward Marion. "It could all be done quite simply and confidentially
between ourselves--and Mr. Pruyn."

"Oh no, it couldn't," he said, coldly. "If I were to admit what you
imply, secrecy wouldn't be of any use to me."

"Does that mean," she asked, fixing her earnest eyes upon him, "that you
don't admit it?"

"It means," he said, rising quietly and standing behind his chair, "that
this conversation is extremely painful to me, and I must ask to be
excused from taking any further part in it. I know only vaguely what you
mean, Madame; and if I don't inquire more in detail, it's because I want
to spare you distressing explanations. I think you must agree with me,
Mademoiselle," he continued, looking toward Miss Grimston, "that we
should all be well advised in letting the subject drop."

Marion came slowly forward, advancing to the side of Diane, over whose
shoulder, as she remained seated, she allowed her hand to fall, in a
pose suggestive of protection.

"Of course, Monsieur," she agreed, "we must let the subject drop, if you
have nothing more to say."

He stood silent a minute, looking at her steadily. "I'm afraid I
haven't," he said, then.

"Nor I," Miss Grimston returned, significantly.

Again there was a minute or two of silence, during which Bienville
seemed to probe for the meaning of the two laconic words. If anything
could be read from his countenance, it was doubt as to whether to
relinquish the prize with dignity or to pay its price in humiliation.
There was an instant in which he appeared to be bracing himself to do
the latter; but when he spoke his interrogation threw the responsibility
for decision on Miss Grimston.

"Have I received--my answer?"

She waited, finding it hard to give him his reply. It was as if forced
to it against her will that her head bent slowly in assent.

"Then," he said, in a tone of dignified regret, "there's nothing for me
but to wish Mademoiselle good-by."

He bowed separately to Miss Grimston and to Diane, and, with the
self-possession of a man accustomed to the various turns of drawing-room
drama, he left the room.




XVII


During the summer that followed these events Derek Pruyn set himself the
task of stamping the memory and influence of Diane Eveleth out of his
life. His sense of duty combined with his feelings of self-respect in
making the attempt. In reflecting on his last interview with her, he saw
the weakness of the stand he had taken in it, recoiling from so unworthy
a position with natural reaction. To have been in love at all at his age
struck him as humiliation enough; but to have been in love with that
sort of woman came very near mental malady. He said "that sort of
woman," because the vagueness of the term gave scope to the bitterness
of resentment with which he tried to overwhelm her. It enabled him to
create some such paradise of pain as that into which the souls of
Othello and Desdemona might have gone together. Had he been a Moor of
Venice he would doubtless have smothered her with a pillow; but being a
New York banker he could only try to slay the image, whose eyes and
voice had never haunted him so persistently as now. In his rage of
suffering he was as little able to take a reasoned view of the situation
as the maddened bull in the arena to appraise the skill of his
tormentors.

When in the middle of May he had retired to Rhinefields it was with the
intention of laying waste all that Diane had left behind in the course
of her brief passage through his life. The process being easier in the
exterior phases of existence than in those more secret and remote, he
determined to work from the outside inward. Wherever anything reminded
him of her, he erased, destroyed, or removed it. All that she had
changed within the house he put back into the state in which it was
before she came. Where he had followed her suggestions about the grounds
and gardens he reversed the orders. Taken as outward and visible signs
of the inward and spiritual change he was trying to create within
himself, these childish acts gave him a passionate satisfaction. In a
short time, he boasted to himself, he would have obliterated all trace
of her presence.

And so he came, in time, to giving his attention to Dorothea. She, too,
bore the impress of Diane; and as she bore it more markedly than the
inanimate things around, it caused him the greater pain. He could forbid
her to hold intercourse with Diane, and to speak of her; but he could
not control the blending of French and Irish intonations her voice had
caught, or the gestures into which she slipped through youth's mimetic
instinct. In happier days he had been amused to note the degree to which
Dorothea had become the unconscious copy of Diane; but now this constant
reproduction of her ways was torture. Telling himself that it was not
the child's fault, he bore it at first with what self-restraint he
could; but as solitude encouraged brooding thoughts, he found, as the
summer wore on, that his stock of patience was running low. There were
times when some chance sentence or imitated bit of mannerism on
Dorothea's part almost drew from him that which in tragedy would be a
cry, but which in our smaller life becomes the hasty or exasperated
word.

In these circumstances the explosion was bound to come; and one day it
produced itself unexpectedly, and about nothing. Thinking of it
afterward Derek was unable to say why it should have taken place then
more than at any other time. He was standing on the lawn, noting with
savage complacency that the bit by which he had enlarged it, at Diane's
prompting, had grown up again, in luxuriant grass, when Dorothea
descended the steps of the Georgian brick house, behind him.

"Would you be afther wantin' me to-day?" she called out, using the Irish
expression Diane affected in moments of fun.

"Dorothea," he cried, sharply, wheeling round on her, "drop that idiotic
way of speaking. If you think it's amusing, you're mistaken. You can't
even do it properly."

The words were no sooner out than he regretted them, but it was too late
to take them back. Moreover, when a man, nervously suffering, has once
wounded the feelings of one he loves, it is not infrequently his
instinct to go on and wound them again.

"We have enough of that sort of language from the servants and the
stable-boys. Be good enough in future to use your mother-tongue."

Standing where his words had stopped her, a few yards away, she looked
up at him with the clear gaze of astonishment; but the slight shrug of
the shoulders before she spoke was also a trick caught from Diane, and
not calculated to allay his annoyance.

"Very well, father," she answered, with a quietness indicating judgment
held in reserve, "I won't do it again. I only meant to ask you if you
want me for anything in particular to-day; otherwise I shall go over and
lunch at the Thoroughgoods'."

"The Thoroughgoods' again? Can't you get through a day without going
there?"

"I suppose I could if it was necessary; but it isn't."

"I think it is. You'll do well not to wear out your welcome anywhere."

"I'm not afraid of that."

"Then I am; so you'd better stay at home."

He wheeled from her as sharply as he had turned to confront her,
striding off toward a wild border, where he tried to conceal the extent
to which he was ashamed of his ill temper by pretending to be engrossed
in the efforts of a bee to work its way into a blue cowl of monk's-hood.
When he looked around again she was still standing where he had left
her, her eyes clouded by an expression of wondering pain that smote him
to the heart.

Had he possessed sufficient mastery of himself he would have gone back
and begged her pardon, and sent her away to enjoy herself. It was what
he wanted to do; but the tension of his nerves seemed to get relief from
the innocent thing's suffering. The very fact that her pretty little
face was set with his own obstinacy of self-will, while behind it her
spirit was rising against this capricious tyranny, goaded him into
persistence. He remembered how often Diane had told him that Dorothea
could be neither led nor driven; she could only be "managed"; but he
would show Diane, he would show himself, that she could be both driven
and led, and that "management" should go the way of the wall-fruit and
the roses.

As, recrossing the lawn, he made as though he would pass her without
further words, he was an excellent illustration of the degree to which
the adult man of the world, capable of taking an important part among
his fellow-men, can be, at times, nothing but an overgrown infant. It
was not surprising, however, that Dorothea should not see this aspect of
his personality, or look upon his commands as other than those of an
unreasonable despotism.

"Father," she said, "I can't go on living like this."

"Living like what?"

"Living as we've lived all this summer."

"What's the matter with the summer? It's like any other summer, isn't
it?"

"The summer may be like any other summer; but you're not like yourself.
I do everything I can to please you, but--"

"You needn't do anything to please me but what you're told."

"I always do what I'm told--when you tell me; but you only tell me by
fits and starts."

"Then, I tell you now: you're not to go to the Thoroughgoods'."

"But they expect me. I said I'd go to lunch. They'll think it very
strange if I don't."

"They'll think what they please. It's enough for you to know what I
think."

"But that's just what I don't know. Ever since Diane went away--"

"Stop that! I've forbidden you to speak--"

"But you can't forbid me to think; and I think till I'm utterly
bewildered. You don't explain anything to me. You haven't even told me
why she went away. If I ask a question you won't answer it."

"What's necessary for you to know, you can depend on me to tell you.
Anything I don't explain to you, you may dismiss from your mind."

"But that's not reasonable, father; it's not possible. If you want me to
obey you, I must know what I'm doing. Because I don't know what I'm
doing, I haven't--"

"You haven't obeyed me?" he asked, quickly.

"Not entirely. I've meant to tell you when an occasion offered, so I
might as well do it now. I've written to Diane."

"You've--!"

He strode up to her and caught her by the arm. It was not strange that
she should take the curious light in his face for that of anger; but a
more experienced observer would have seen that two distinct emotions
crowded on each other.

"I've written to her twice," Dorothea repeated, defiantly, as he held
her arm. "She didn't reply to me--but I wrote."

"What for?"

"To tell her that I loved her--that no trouble should keep me from
loving her--no matter what it was."

He released her arm, stepping back from her again, surveying her with an
admiration he tried to conceal under a scowling brow. The rigidity of
her attitude, the lift of her head, the set of her lips, the directness
of her glance, suggested not merely rebellion against his will, but the
assertion of her own. It occurred to him then that he could break her
little body to pieces before he could force her to yield; and in his
pride in this temperament, so like his own, he almost uttered the cry of
"Brava!" that hung on his lips. He might have done so if Dorothea had
not found it a convenient moment at which to make all her confessions at
once and have them off her mind. It was best to do it, she thought, now
that her courage was up.

"And, father," she went on, "it may be a good opportunity to tell you
something else. I've decided to marry Mr. Wappinger."

During the brief silence that followed this announcement he had time to
throw the blame for it upon Diane, using the fact as one more argument
against her. Had she taken his suggestions at the beginning, and
suppressed the Wappinger acquaintance, this distressing folly would have
received a definite check: As it was, the odium of putting a stop to it,
which must now fall on him, was but an additional part of the penalty he
had to pay for ever having known her. So be it! He would make good the
uttermost farthing! In doing it he had the same sort of frenzied
satisfaction as in defacing Diane's image in his heart.

"You shall not," he said, at last.

"I don't understand how you're going to stop me."

"I must ask you to be patient--and see. You can make a beginning to-day,
by staying at home from the Thoroughgoods'. That will be enough for the
minute."

Fearing to look any longer into her indignant eyes, he passed on toward
the stables. For some minutes she stood still where he left her, while
the collie gazed up at her, with twitching tail and questioning regard,
as though to ask the meaning of this futile hesitation; but when, at
last, she turned slowly and re-entered the house, one would have said
that the "dainty rogue in porcelain" had been transformed into an
intensely modern little creature made of steel.

She did not go to the Thoroughgoods' that day, nor was any further
reference made to the discussion of the morning. Compunction having
succeeded irritation, with the rapidity not uncommon to men of his
character, Derek was already seeking some way of reaching his end by
gentler means, when a new move on Dorothea's part exasperated him still
further. As he was about to sit down to his luncheon on the following
day, the butler made the announcement that Miss Pruyn had asked him to
inform her father that she had driven over in the pony-cart to Mrs.
Throughgood's, and would not be home till late in the afternoon.

He was not in the house when she returned, and at dinner he refrained
from conversation till the servants had left the room.

"So it's--war," he said, then, speaking in a casual tone, and toying
with his wine-glass.

"I hope not, father," she answered, promptly, making no pretence not to
understand him. "It takes two to make a quarrel, and--"

"And you wouldn't be one?"

"I was going to say that I hoped you wouldn't be."

"But you yourself would fight?"

"I should have to. I'm fighting for liberty, which is always an
honorable motive. You're fighting to take it away from me--"

"Which is a dishonorable motive. Very well; I must accept that
imputation as best I may, and still go on."

"Oh, then, it is war. You mean to make it so."

"I mean to do my duty. You may call your rebellion against it what you
like."

"I'm not accustomed to rebel," she said, with significant quietness.
"Only people who feel themselves weak do that."

"And are you so strong?"

"I'm very strong. I don't want to measure my strength against yours,
father; but if you insist on measuring yours against mine, I ought to
warn you."

"Thank you. It's in the light of a warning that I view your action
to-day. You probably went to meet Mr. Wappinger."

In saying this his bow was drawn so entirely at a venture that he was
astonished at the skill with which he hit the mark.

"I did."

He pushed back his chair; half rose; sat down again; poured out a glass
of Marsala; drank it thirstily; and looked at her a second or two in
helpless distress before finding words.

"And you talk of honorable motives!"

"My motive was entirely honorable. I went to explain to him that I
couldn't see him any more--just now."

"While you were about it you might as well have said neither just
now--nor at any other time."

She was silent.

"Do you hear?"

"Yes; I bear, father."

"And you understand?"

"I understand what you mean."

"And you promise me that it shall be so?"

"No, father."

"You say that deliberately? Remember, I'm asking you an important
question, and you're giving me an equally important reply."

"I recognize that; but I can't give you any other answer."

"We'll see." He pushed back his chair again, and rose. He had already
crossed the room, when, a new thought occurring to him, he turned at the
door. "At least I presume I may count on you not to see this young man
again without telling me?"

"Not without telling you--afterward. I couldn't undertake more than
that."

"H'm!" he ejaculated, before passing out. "Then I must take active
measures."

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