The Inner Shrine | Page 9

Boucher, and the Fragonard, which
gave the key to the decorations of the dainty boudoir. The faint smile
still lingered on Mrs. Eveleth's lips, as it lingers on the face of the dead.
"There'll be very little left," she repeated.
"But I don't understand," Diane protested, with a perplexed movement
of the hand across her brow. "I don't know much about business, but if
it were explained to me I think I could follow."
"Come and sit beside me at the desk," Mrs. Eveleth suggested. "You
will understand better if you see the figures just as they stand."
She went over the main points, one by one, using the same untechnical
simplicity of language which George's men of business had employed
with herself. The facts could be stated broadly but comprehensively.
When all was settled the Eveleth estate would have disappeared. Diane
would possess her small inheritance, which was a thing apart. Mrs.
Eveleth would have a few jewels and other minor personal belongings,
but nothing more. The very completeness of the story rendered it easy
in the telling, though the largeness of the facts made it impossible for
Diane to take them in. It was an almost unreasonable tax on credulity to
attempt to think of the tall, fragile woman sitting before her, with
luxurious nurture in every pose of the figure, in every habit of the mind,
as penniless. It was trying to account for daylight without a sun.
"It can't be!" Diane cried, when she had done her best to weigh the facts
just placed before her.
Mrs. Eveleth shook her head, the glimmering smile fixed on her lips as
on a mask.
"It is so, dear, I'm afraid. We must do our best to get used to it."
"I shall never get used to it," Diane cried, springing to her feet--"never,
never!"
"It will be hard for you to do without all you've had--when you've had

so much--but--"
"Oh, it isn't that," Diane broke in, fiercely. "It isn't for me. I can do well
enough. It's for you."
"Don't worry about me, dear. I can work."
The words were spoken in a matter-of-fact tone, but Diane recoiled at
them as at a sword-thrust.
"You can--what?"
It was the last touch, not only of the horror of the situation, but of its
ludicrous irony.
"I can work, dear," Mrs. Eveleth repeated, with the poignant
tranquillity that smote Diane more cruelly than grief. "There are many
things I could do--"
"Oh, don't!" Diane wailed, with pleading gestures of the hands. "Oh,
don't! I can't bear it. Don't say such things. They kill me. There must be
some mistake. All that money can't have gone. Even if it was only a
few hundred thousand francs, it would be something. I will not believe
it. It's too soon to judge. I've heard it took a long time to settle up
estates. How can they have done it yet?"
"They haven't. They've only seen its possibilities--and impossibilities."
"I will never believe it," Diane burst out again. "I will see those men. I
will tell them. I am positive that it cannot be. Such injustice would not
be permitted. There must be laws--there must be something--to prevent
such outrage--especially on you!" She spoke vehemently, striding to
and fro in the little room, and brushing back from time to time the
heavy brown hair that in her excitement fell in disordered locks on her
forehead. "It's too wicked. It's too monstrous. It's intolerable. God
doesn't allow such things to happen on earth, otherwise He wouldn't be
God! No, no; you cannot make me think that such things happen. You
work! The Mater Dolorosa herself was not called upon to bear such

humiliation. If God reigns, as they say He does--"
"But, Diane dear," Mrs. Eveleth interrupted, gently, "isn't it true that we
owe it to George's memory to bear our troubles bravely?"
"I'm ready to bear anything bravely--but this."
"But isn't this the case, above all others, in which you and I should be
unflinching? Doesn't any lack of courage on our parts imply a
reflection on him?"
"That's true," Diane said, stopping abruptly.
"I don't know how far you honor George's memory--?"
"George's memory? Why shouldn't I honor it?"
"I didn't know. Some women--after what you've just discovered--"
"I am not--some women! I am Diane Eveleth. Whatever George did I
shared it, and I share it still."
"Then you forgive him?"
"Forgive him?--I?--forgive him? No! What have I to forgive? Anything
he did he did for me and in order to have the more to give me--and I
love him and honor him as I never did till now."
Mrs. Eveleth rose and stood unsteadily beside her desk.
"God bless you for saying that, Diane."
"There's no reason why He should bless me for