The Inner Shrine | Page 4

to recover herself. "I hope it isn't indiscreet to ask, because I need the bracing effect of a little scandal."
"Isn't it for you to tell me? You're concealing something of which--"
"Oh, petite mère, is that quite honest? First, you say there's something wrong; and then, when I'm all agog to hear it, you saddle me with the secret. That's what you call in English a sell, isn't it? A sell! What a funny little word! I often wonder who invents the slang. Parrots pass it along, of course, but it must take some cleverness to start it. And isn't it curious," she went on, breathlessly, "how a new bit of slang always fills a vacant place in the language? The minute you hear it you know it's what you've always wanted. I suppose the reason we're obliged to use the current phrase is because it expresses the current need. When the hour passes, the need passes with it, and something new must be coined to meet the new situation. I should think a most interesting book might be written on the Psychology of Slang, and if I wasn't so busy with other things--"
"Diane, I entreat you to answer me. Where is George?"
"Why, I must have forgotten to tell you that he went to the Jockey Club with Monsieur de Melcourt--"
"You did tell me so; but that isn't all. Has he gone anywhere else?"
"How should I know, petite mère? Where should he go but come home?"
"Has he gone to fight a duel?"
The question surprised Diane into partially dropping her mask. For an instant she was puzzled for an answer.
"Men who fight duels," she said, at last, "don't generally tell their wives beforehand."
"But did George tell you?"
Again Diane hesitated before speaking.
"What a queer question!" was all she could find to say.
"It's a question I have a right to ask."
"But have I a right to answer?"
"If you don't answer, you leave me to infer that he has."
"Of course I can't keep you from inferring, but isn't that what they call meeting trouble half-way?"
"I must meet trouble as it comes to me."
"But not before it comes. That's my point."
"It has come. It's here. I'm sure of it. He's gone to fight. You know it. You've sent him. Oh, Diane, if he comes to harm his blood will be on your head."
Diane shrugged her shoulders, and took another sandwich.
"I don't see that. In the first place, it's quite unlikely there'll be any blood at all--or more than a very little. One of the things I admire in men--our men, especially--is the maximum of courage with which they avenge their honor, coupled with the minimum of damage they work in doing it. It must require a great deal of skill. I know I should never have the nerve for it. I should kill my man every time he didn't kill me. But they hardly ever do."
"How can you say that? Wasn't Monsieur de Cretteville killed? And Monsieur Lalanne?"
"That makes two cases. I implied that it happens sometimes--generally by inadvertence. But it isn't likely to do so in this instance--at least not to George. He's an excellent shot--and I believe it was to be pistols."
"Then it's true! Oh, my God, I know I shall lose him!"
Mrs. Eveleth flung her cane to the floor and dropped into a seat, leaning on the table and covering her face with her hands. For a minute she moaned harshly, but when she looked up her eyes were tearless.
"And this is my reward," she cried, "for the kindness I've shown you! After all, you are nothing but a wanton."
Diane kept her self-control, but she grew pale.
"That's odd," was all she permitted herself to say, delicately flicking the crumbs from her fingertips; "because it was to prove the contrary that George called Monsieur de Bienville out."
"Bienville! You've stooped to _him?_"
"Did I say so?" Diane asked, with a sudden significant lifting of the head.
"There's no need to say so. There must have been something--"
"There was something--something Monsieur de Bienville invented."
"Wasn't it a pity for him to go to the trouble of invention--?"
"When he could have found so much that was true," Diane finished, with dangerous quietness. "That's what you were going to say, isn't it?"
"You have no right to ascribe words to me that I haven't uttered. I never said so."
"No; that's true; I prefer to say it for you. It's safer, in that it leaves me nothing to resent."
"Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!" Mrs. Eveleth moaned, wringing her hands. "My boy is gone from me. He will never come back. I've always been sure that if he ever did this, it would be the end. It's my fault for having brought him up among your foolish, hot-headed people. He will have thrown his life away--and for nothing!"
"No; not that,"