"If Monsieur Batis...o...b.. will not be so obliging as to relate the experience, I will," said Diana. "He shall correct me if I make a mistake."
Batis...o...b.. looked annoyed. He was not fond of telling his own adventures, and he hated to hear them told by other people. He could not imagine why Diana wanted to hear the story. He was irritated already, and her conduct seemed more and more inexplicable. Leonora looked at him expectantly.
Who can understand a woman? It may be that Diana, who was really fond of him in a strange fashion, was sorry for the position she had taken that afternoon, and was willing to atone by giving him the credit before Leonora of some fine action he had done.
"It was three years ago or more, in the winter," began Diana. "Monsieur Batis...o...b.. was travelling in a ship on the coast of America. There were a hundred pa.s.sengers on board, or more, and a crew of thirty-five. Is that exact?"
Julius bent his head and turned away.
"Eh bien, there was a great storm--such as there are in the ocean. It is horrible, you may imagine. The ship was driven on the rocks, a long distance from the sh.o.r.e. A reef, you call it, n"est-ce-pas?"
"Yes," said Batis...o...b... "Fifty or sixty yards from the sh.o.r.e."
"Good. What do they do? Six brave sailors volunteer to throw themselves into the sea in a chaloupe--a miserable boat"--
"And monsieur was one of the volunteers"--exclaimed Leonora, enthusiastically.
"Not at all, my dear friend. The boat overturns; the sailors are immediately drowned; every one is in consternation. Then Monsieur Batis...o...b.. arrives; he says he will save everybody; he ties a thin line--a mere string--to his waist; he throws himself to the sea. The pa.s.sengers scream as they cling to the ropes and the side, while the vessel is beaten horribly on the reef. He struggles in the waves, swimming; he is thrown down again and again in the breakers; he rises and rushes on to the sh.o.r.e. Then he pulls the string, and after the string a rope. A sailor ventures down and he also reaches the land. They fasten the rope, and every one is saved--pa.s.sengers, crew, captain, tout le monde. Ah, Batis...o...b.., why are you not always doing such things,--you, who can do them so well?"
Madame de Charleroi"s grey eyes were wide and bright, and a very faint colour rose to her cheeks as she told the story. The calm, regal woman took a genuine delight in great actions, and as she turned to Julius at the end there was a ring of real sympathy and friendship and regret in her voice that it gave Leonora a strange sensation to hear.
"It was magnificently brave!" exclaimed Leonora in English, and she looked at Julius as though she admired him with all her heart and soul.
She had always had a feeling that he had probably made himself remarkable in such ways, but he always had told her that his life had been uneventful. To think that this calm, smooth, well-dressed, fine gentleman should have saved a whole shipload of lives by sheer strength and courage! Ah, he was a man, indeed!
But Batis...o...b.. never moved. He stood looking seaward, his eyelids half closed, and a thoughtful look on his brown face. Indeed, he was thinking deeply, but not so much of the old story Diana had been telling as of herself. The strange appeal in her last words had touched the good chord in his wayward heart, and he was thinking how fair his life might have been with her,--and how dark it had been without her. And the old true love rose up for one moment, hiding Leonora and the rest, and all the intervening years, and sending hot words to his ready lips. He turned in the act to speak, forgetting where he was,--then checked himself. Both Leonora and Diana had seen that he was going to say something, for they were watching him. He hesitated.
"I ought to thank you, madame," he said to Diana, "for gilding my adventure so richly. But as for the thing itself, and the doing of such things, the opportunity seldom offers, and the faculty for doing them is the result of an excellent digestion and quiet nerves. Meanwhile it is grown cooler, and the boats are below. Shall we go down, and sail a little before dinner?"
The two ladies consented readily enough, and they all descended to the landing and got into one of the boats and pushed away.
"I shall have quite a new sensation in future when I sail with you, Mr.
Batis...o...b..," said Leonora. "It would be impossible to be drowned with you on board."
But Diana was pale again, and settled herself among the cushions in silence.
Far up above, Marcantonio was interviewing the coachman on the terrace.
He looked down and saw the boat shoot out with the three members of his household. He rubbed his hands smoothly together.
"Ha," he said to himself, "it is superb! What good friends they are all growing to be! En verite, Batis...o...b.. is a most amiable man, full of tact."
CHAPTER XIII.
Late that evening Julius was sitting in a corner of the broad terrace over the sea. The clouds had cleared away before the light easterly breeze that springs up at night, and the stars shone brightly. Down in the west the young moon had set, and the air was fresh and cool after the long, hot day. Julius had drawn an arm-chair away from the house and was smoking solemnly, in enjoyment of the night. He found that he had much to think of. The rest of the household had gone to bed, or at all events had retired to their rooms.
It had been a day of emotions with him, and that was unusual, to begin with. His feeling for Leonora was growing to great proportions. He knew that very well; and in spite of the momentary burst of pa.s.sion, which, if he had been alone with Madame de Charleroi, would have found expression in words which he would have regretted and she would have resented, he now felt that he was irritated against her and could not forgive her inopportune interruption. All his opposition was roused; and as if in despite of his old love he dwelt on the thoughts of the present, and delighted in recalling the details of the fair Marchesa"s conversation, the quickly changing expression of her face, the tones of her voice, the grace of her movements. She was so strong and living that he felt his whole being permeated with the atmosphere and essence of her life.
As he leaned back in his chair, he experienced a sensation by no means new to him, of intense delight in existence, and he breathed in the soft fresh air, and tasted that it was the breath of love.
A small, short step sounded on the tiles of the terrace, coming toward his corner. He looked round quickly, and was aware of the tall and graceful figure of Diana de Charleroi, m.u.f.fled in something dark, but unmistakable in its outline and stately presence. In a moment she was beside him; he rose and threw away his cigarette, somewhat astonished.
"Get another chair," said she, in a low voice. "It is pleasant here."
He obeyed quickly and noiselessly, as he did everything. She had taken his chair, and he sat down beside her, waiting for her to speak.
"I thought I should find you here, Julius," she said, calling him by his Christian name without the smallest hesitation. "I wanted to speak to you alone."
"You have the faculty of finding me," said Julius with a short, low laugh.
"Since when is it so disagreeable to you?" asked Diana.
Julius was silent, for there was nothing he could say. He wished he had said nothing at first,--it would have been much better. Diana continued.
"You and I know each other well enough to talk freely," she said. "We need not beat about the bush and say pretty things to each other, and I forgive you for being rude, because I know you very well, and am willing to sacrifice something. But I will not forgive you again if you are rude in public. There are certain things one does not permit one"s self, when one is a gentleman."
"You are very good, Diana," said Batis...o...b.., humbly. "I am very sorry. I lost my temper."
"Naturally," she answered coolly. "You always lose your temper,--you always did,--and yet you fancy continually that you hide it. Let that go. I have forgiven you for this time, because I am the best friend you have."
"The only one," said Julius.
"Perhaps. You are well hated, I can tell you. Then treat me as a friend in future, if you please, and not as an inquisitive acquaintance who makes a point of annoying you for her own ends."
She spoke calmly, in a quiet, determined voice, without the slightest hesitation or affectation. Julius bent his head.
"I always mean to," he said.
"Now listen to me," she continued. "I came upon you this afternoon by pure accident. I do not owe you any apology for that, and you know very well that I am the last person in the world to do things in that way, by stealth. That is the reason I come to you here, at night, to tell you my mind frankly."
"Yes," said Batis...o...b.., in a m.u.f.fled voice, "I know."
"I came upon you by accident," said she, "and I made a discovery. You pa.s.s your afternoons in the society of my sister-in-law, and you lose your temper with me when I find you together,--though you always wish me to understand that you prefer my society to that of any woman in the world."
"Ah--how you express it!" exclaimed Julius.
"I express it as plainly as I can. I cannot help it if you do not like it. It is all true. And the inference is perfectly clear. Do you see?"
"No," said Batis...o...b...
"You do not? Very well, I will draw it for you."
She leaned back in the chair and looked at him; her eyes were accustomed by this time to the gloom, and she could see him quite clearly in the starlight. He moved uneasily.
"Pray go on," he said.