The Inner Shrine | Page 9

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 saying anything so obvious."
"It isn't obvious to me, Diane; and you must let me bless you--bless you with the mother's blessing, which, I think, must be next to God's."
Then opening her arms wide, she sobbed the one word "Come!" and they had at last the comfort, dear to women, of weeping in each other's arms.

III
In the private office of the great Franco-American banking-house of Van Tromp & Co., the partners, having finished their conference, were about to separate.
"That's all, I think," said Mr. Grimston. He rose with a jerky movement, which gave him the appearance of a little figure shot out of a box.
Mr. van Tromp remained seated at the broad, flat-topped desk, his head bent at an angle which gave Mr. Grimston a view of the tips of shaggy eyebrows, a broad nose, and that peculiar kind of protruding lower lip before which timid people quail. As there was no response, Mr. Grimston looked round vaguely on the sombre, handsome furnishings, fixing his gaze at last on the lithographed portrait of Mr. van Tromp senior, the founder of the house, hanging above the mantelpiece.
"That's all, I think," Mr. Grimston repeated, raising his voice slightly in order to drown the rumble that came through