Diana Part 67

The minister looked up into his wife's face; he knew what she meant.

And he felt as he looked at her, how far she was from him. There was no smile on Diana's lips, indeed; on the contrary, an intensity of feelings that were not pleasurable; and yet, and yet, he who has looked for the light of love in an eye and missed it long, knows it when he sees it, even though it be not for him. The four eyes met each other steadily.

"Shall I see him?" Diana asked.

Basil stretched out his hand to her. "I can trust you, Diana."

She put her cold hand in his for a minute and hurried away. Then, as she reached the other room, she heard in the hall below a step, the step she had not heard for years; and her heart made one spring back over the interval. In the urgency of action, Diana's colour had hardly changed until now; now she turned deadly white, and for one instant sank on her knees by her bedside with her heart full of a mute, unformed prayer for help. It was fearful to go on, but she must go on now; she must see Evan; he was there; questions were done; and as she went down-stairs, while her face was white, and pain almost confused her senses, there was a stir of keen joy at her heart--fierce, like that of a wild beast which has been robbed of its prey but has got it again. She tried for self-command, and as one mean towards it forced herself to go deliberately. No hasty steps should be heard on the stairs or in the floor. Even so, the way was short; a moment, and she had entered the room, and she and Evan were face to face once more.

Face to face, and yet, neither dared look at the other. He was standing, waiting for her; she came a few paces into the room and stood still opposite him; they did not touch each other's hands; they made no show of greeting. How should they? in each other's presence indeed they were, with but a small s.p.a.ce of transparent air between, to the sense; and yet, a barrier mountains high, of impa.s.sible ice, to the mind's apprehension. You could have heard a pin drop in the room; the two stood there, a few yards apart, not even looking at each other, yet intensely conscious each all the while of the familiar outlines and traits so long unseen, so well known by heart. Breathing the air of the same room again, and nevertheless miles and miles apart; that was what they were feeling. The miles could not be bridged over; what use to try to bridge over the yards? Diana was growing whiter, if whiter could be; Evan's head sank lower. At last the man succ.u.mbed; sat down; buried his head in his hands, and groaned aloud. Diana stood like a statue, but looking at him now.

What is it in little things which has such power over us? As Diana stood there looking, it was little things which stabbed her as if each were a sharp sword. The set of Evan's shoulders, the waves of his hair, the very gold shoulder-straps on the well-remembered blue uniform undress; his cap which lay on her table, with its service symbols. Is it that the sameness of these material trifles seems to a.s.sert that nothing is changed, and so makes the change more incredible and dreadful? I cannot describe the woful pain which the sight of these things gave Diana. With them came the fresh remembrance of all the manly beauty and grace of Evan in which she had once sunned herself, and the contrast of her husband. Not that Basil's personal appearance was ever to be despised, any more than himself; his figure was good, and his face had a beauty of its own, possibly a higher kind of beauty; but it was not the type of a hero of romance; and Evan's, to Diana's fancy, _was;_ and it had been her romance. She stood still, motionless, breathless. If anybody spoke, it must be he. But at last she trembled too much to stand, and she sat down too.

"How has it happened, Diana?" Evan asked without looking up.

"I don't know,"--she said just above her breath.

"How could you do so?"

Well, it suited him well to reproach her! What matter? Things could not be more bitter than they were. She did not try to answer.

"You have ruined both our lives. _Mine_ is ruined; I am ruined. I shall never be worth anything now. I don't care what becomes of me."

As she still did not answer, he looked up, and their eyes met. Once meeting, they could not quit each other. Diana's gaze was sad enough, but eager with the eagerness of long hunger. His was sharp with pain at first, keen with unreasonable anger; one of the mind's resorts from unbearable torment. Then as he looked it changed and grew soft; and finally, springing up, he went over to where she sat, dropped on his knees before her, and seizing her hands kissed them one after the other till tears began to mingle with the kisses. She was pa.s.sive; she could not drive him off; she felt that she and he must have this one moment to bury their past in; it was only when her hands were growing wet with his tears that she roused herself to an effort.

"Evan--Evan--listen to me! You mustn't--remember, I am a man's wife."

"How could you?"

"I did not know what I was doing."

"Have you given up loving me?"

"What is the use of talking of it, Evan? I am another man's wife."

"But there are such things as divorces."

"Hus.h.!.+ Do not speak of such a thing."

"I must speak of it. Whom do you love? tell me that first."

"No one has a right to ask me such a question."

"_I_ have a right," cried the young man; "for I have been deceived, cheated, robbed of my own; and I have a right to get back my own.

Diana, speak! do you love me less than you used to do? Tell me that."

"I do not change, Evan."

"Then you have no business to be anybody's wife but mine. Nothing can hinder _that_, Diana."

"Stop! You are not to speak so. I will not hear it."

"You are mine, Diana."

"I _was_ yours, Evan!" she said tenderly, bending her head over him till her lips touched his hair. "We have been parted, and it is over--over for this world. You must go your way, and I must go mine.

And you must not say, I am ruined."

"Do not you say it?"

"I must not."

"It is the truth for me, if I do not have you with me."

"It is not the truth," she said with infinite tenderness in her manner.

"Not ruined, Evan. We can go our way and do our work, even if we are not happy. _That_ is another thing."

"Then you are not happy?" he said eagerly.

Diana did not reply.

"Why should we not be happy?" he went on pa.s.sionately, looking up now into her face. "You are mine, Diana--you belonged to me first, you have been mine all along; only I have been robbed of you;--pure robbery; nothing else. And has not a man a right to his own, wherever and whenever he finds it? You had given yourself first to me. That is irrevocable."

"No"--she said with the same gentleness, in every tone of which lurked an unutterable sorrow; it would have broken her husband's heart to hear her; and yet she was quiet, so quiet that she awed the young officer a little. "No--I had promised to give myself to you; that is all."

"You gave me your heart, Di?"

She was silent, for at the moment she could not speak

"Di!"--he insisted.

"Yes."

"That is enough. That is all."

"It is not all. Since then I have"--

"How could you do it, Diana? how could you do it, after your heart was mine? _while_ your heart was mine!"

"I was dead," she said in the same low, slow, impressive way. "I thought I was dead,--and that it did not matter any more what I did, one way or another. I thought I was dead; and when I found out that there was life in me yet, it was too late." A slight shudder ran over her shoulders, which Evan, however, did not see.

"And you doubted me!" said he.

"I heard nothing"--

"Of course!--and that was enough to make you think I was nothing but a featherhead!"--

"I thought I was not good enough for you," she said softly.

"Not good enough!" cried Evan. "When you are just a pearl of perfection--a diamond of loveliness--more than all I knew you would be--like a queen rather than like a common mortal. And I could have given you a place fit for you; and here you are"--