The Inner Shrine | Page 3

of
the City which came down from God.
It was so different from the cheerful Paris of broad daylight that she
was drawing back with a shudder, when over the Pont de la Concorde
she discerned the approach of a motor-brougham.
Closing the window, she hurried to the stairway. It was still night
within the house, and the one electric light left burning drew forth dull
gleams from the wrought-metal arabesques of the splendidly sweeping
balustrades. When, on the ringing of the bell, the door opened and she
went down, she had the strange sensation of entering on a new era in
her life.
Though she recalled that impression in after years, for the moment she
saw nothing but Diane, all in vivid red, in the act of letting the
voluminous black cloak fall from her shoulders into the sleepy
footman's hands.

"Bonjour, petite mère!" Diane called, with a nervous laugh, as Mrs.
Eveleth paused on the lower steps of the stairs.
"Where is George?"
She could not keep the tone of anxiety out of her voice, but Diane
answered, with ready briskness:
"George? I don't know. Hasn't he come home?"
"You must know he hasn't come home. Weren't you together?"
"We were together till--let me see!--whose house was it?--till after the
cotillon at Madame de Vaudreuil's. He left me there and went to the
Jockey Club with Monsieur de Melcourt, while I drove on to the
Rochefoucaulds'."
She turned away toward the dining-room, but it was impossible not to
catch the tremor in her voice over the last words. In her ready English
there was a slight foreign intonation, as well as that trace of an Irish
accent which quickly yields to emotion. Standing at the table in the
dining-room where refreshments had been laid, she poured out a glass
of wine, and Mrs. Eveleth could see from the threshold that she drank it
thirstily, as one who before everything else needs a stimulant to keep
her up. At the entrance of her mother-in-law she was on her guard
again, and sank languidly into the nearest chair. "Oh, I'm so hungry!"
she yawned, pulling off her gloves, and pretending to nibble at a
sandwich. "Do sit down," she went on, as Mrs. Eveleth remained
standing. "I should think you'd be hungry, too."
"Aren't you surprised to see me sitting up, Diane?"
"I wasn't, but I can be, if that's my cue," Diane laughed.
At the nonchalance of the reply Mrs. Eveleth was, for a second, half
deceived. Was it possible that she had only conjured up a waking
nightmare, and that there was nothing to be afraid of, after all?
Possessing the French quality of frankness to an unusual degree, it was

difficult for Diane to act a part at any time. With all her Parisian finesse
her nature was as direct as lightning, while her glance had that fulness
of candor which can never be assumed. Looking at her now, with her
elbows on the table, and the sandwich daintily poised between the
thumb and forefinger of her right hand, it was hard to connect her with
tragic possibilities. There were pearls around her neck and diamonds in
her hair; but to the wholesomeness of her personality jewels were no
more than dew on the freshness of a summer morning.
"I thought you'd be surprised to find me sitting up," Mrs. Eveleth began
again; "but the truth is, I couldn't go to bed while--"
"I'm glad you didn't," Diane broke in, with an evident intention to keep
the conversation in her own hands. "I'm not in the least sleepy. I could
sit here and talk till morning--though I suppose it's morning now.
Really the time to live is between midnight and six o'clock. One has a
whole set of emotions then that never come into play during the other
eighteen hours of the day. They say it's the minute when the soul comes
nearest to parting with the body, so I suppose that's the reason we can
see things, during the wee sma' hours, by the light of the invisible
spheres."
"I should be quite content with the light of this world--"
"Oh, I shouldn't," Diane broke in, with renewed eagerness to talk
against time. "It's like being content with words, and having no need of
music. It's like being satisfied with photographs, and never wanting real
pictures."
"Diane," Mrs. Eveleth interrupted, "I insist that you let me speak."
"Speak, petite mère? What are you doing but speaking now? I'm
scarcely saying a word. I'm too tired to talk. If you'd spent the last eight
or ten hours trying to get yourself down to the conversational level of
your partners, you'd know what I've been through. We women must be
made of steel to stand it. If you had only