Diane of the Green Van | Page 5

It was an inconsistent supplement to the sermon but
characteristic.
"Carl," he said, flushing under the ironical battery of the other's eyes, "I
don't think I understand you--"
Carl laughed.
"Nobody does," he said. "I don't myself."

CHAPTER III
A WHIM
The fire in the marble fireplace died down, leaping in fitful shadow
over the iron-bound doors riveted in nail-heads. They too were relics
from the Spanish castle which Norman Westfall had stripped of its
ancient appurtenances to fashion an appropriate setting for the beautiful

young Spanish wife whose death at the birth of Diane had goaded him
to suicide. That Norman Westfall had regarded the vital spark within
him as an indifferent thing to be snuffed out at the will of the clay it
dominated, was consistent with the Westfall intolerance of custom and
convention.
By the fire Carl smoked and stared at the dying embers. For all his
insolent habit of dominance and mockery he was keenly sensitive and
to-night the significant defection of Starrett and Payson after months of
sycophantic friendship, had made him quiver inwardly like a hurt child.
Only Wherry had stayed with him when his career of reckless
expenditure had arrived at its inevitable goal of ruin.
There remained, financially, what? Barely four thousand a year in
securities so iron-bound by his mother's will that he could not touch
them.
Black resentment flamed hotly up in his heart at the memory of the
Westfall custom of willing the bulk of the great estate to the oldest son.
It had left his mother with a patrimony which Carl, inheriting, had
chosen contemptuously to regard as a dwarfish thing of gold sufficient
only for the heedless purchase of one flaming, brilliant hour of life.
That husbanded it might purchase a lifetime of gray hours tinged
intermittently with rose or crimson, Carl had dismissed with a cynical
laugh, quoting Omar Khayyam.
Starrett had sneeringly suggested that, to remedy his fallen fortunes--he
might marry Diane! Carl laughed softly but recalling suddenly how
Diane had looked as she stood in the doorway, the flame of her honest
anger setting off her primitive grace, he frowned thoughtfully at the fire,
swayed by one of the mad, reckless whims which frequently rocketed
through his brain to heedless consummation. Wherefore he presently
dispatched a servant to Diane with a note scribbled carelessly upon the
face of the ace of diamonds.
"May I see you?" it ran. "I am still in the library. If you like, I'll come
up."

She came to the library, frankly surprised. Carl rarely saw fit to
apologize or seek advice.
With his ready gallantry, habitually colored by a subtle sex-mockery,
Carl rose, drew a chair for her and leaned against the mantel, smiling.
"I'm sorry," said he civilly, "I'm sorry Starrett so far forgot himself."
"So am I," said Diane. "Bacchanalian tableaus are not at all to my
liking."
"Nor mine," admitted Carl. "As an aesthete I must own that Starrett is
too fat for a really graceful villain. I fancied you were indefinitely
domiciled at the farm. Aunt Agatha has been fussing--"
"I was," nodded Diane. "A whim of mine brought me home."
Carl dropped easily into a chair and glanced at his cousin's profile. The
delicate oval of her face was firelit; her night-black hair one with the
deeper shadows of the room. There was mystery in the lovely dusk of
Diane's eyes--and discontent--and something mute and wistful crying
for expression.
"I've a proposition to make," said Carl lightly. "It's partly commercial,
partly belated justice, partly eugenic and partly personal."
"Your money is quite gone, is it not?" asked Diane, raising finely
arched expressive eyebrows.
"It is," admitted Carl ruefully. "My career as a bibulous meteor is over.
Last night, after an exquisite shower of golden fire, I came tumbling to
earth in the fashion of meteors, a disillusioned stone. In other
words--stone broke. May I smoke?"
"Assuredly."
Carl lighted a cigarette.
"And the proposition which is at the same time commercial, eugenic

and--er--personal?" reminded Diane curiously. Carl ignored the delicate
note of sarcasm.
"It is merely," he said with a flash of impudence, "that you will marry
me."
Diane's eyes widened.
"How frankly commercial!" she murmured.
"Isn't it?" said Carl. "And an excellent opportunity for belated justice as
well. My mother, save for our infernal Salic law of inheritance, was
entitled to half the Westfall estate."
Diane stared curiously at the fire-rimmed hem of her satin skirt. There
was something of Carl's lazy impudence in the arch of her eyebrows.
"There yet remains the eugenic inducement and, I believe, a personal
one!" she hinted.
"Thank heaven," exclaimed Carl devoutly, "that we're both logicians.
The eugenic consideration is that by birth and brains and breeding I am
your logical mate."
Diane's eyes flashed with swift contempt.
"Birth!" she