A USEFUL BLUNDER

The railway journey from Salisbury to Johannesburg takes three and sometimes four days; so that whether Carew responded to her urgent message or not, Diana had rather a long time to possess her soul in patience and make up her mind what course to take next. She was in two minds whether to take her uncle into her confidence or not, but decided men were always apt to bungle, and she had better trust entirely to her own guidance. Beyond a doubt the situation required the most delicate and skilful handling. First of all, she felt she must convey to van Hert some suggestion that would prepare him for the shock of what might be expected to follow upon Carew’s arrival, supposing he came. Meryl she did not worry greatly about. She might be expected to be swept off her feet and go with the tide, by the very suddenness of it all. The two men presented the obstacles. Carew would have to be inveigled with the greatest finesse into an interview with Meryl, without ever letting him perceive a woman was leading him. In her heart Diana was a little afraid of the steady, unbending face. He was not likely to prove pliable; he might even refuse to come. Nothing she could say could alter the fact that he was a policeman and Meryl was burdened with a fortune, and that was the only barrier Diana was aware of. She laughed a little to herself as she wondered whether it would help matters if Mr. Pym made a will disinheriting Meryl, and dividing his money between her and charities. She could easily give it back to Meryl later. Then she sighed. “More heroics!... and they tell us it is a base world. Here am I driven out of my senses nearly, positively suffocated with high-mindedness, because three delightful people can’t come down from their unlivable altitude and exhibit a little practical common sense.”

Then, of course, there was van Hert’s pride to consider. What in the world, at this time of all others, was to be made of an English girl jilting a prominent Dutch politician a week before the wedding day! “It’s almost enough to cause another war!” sighed poor Diana. “I’m really beginning to wish I had let them all go their own foolish ways. If I don’t mind I shall end in becoming a heroine myself, and that’s really too alarming!...”

However, the bull having been taken by the horns, it was wiser to keep a firm hold of them; though more than once Diana felt herself very entirely in sympathy with Mark Twain when he says, “It is better to take hold by the tail, because then you can let go when you like.”

Obviously van Hert must be tackled first, but she waited until the morning after sending her wire, hoping for a reply. It came early, and fortune favoured her in that she received her orange-coloured envelope unknown to anyone. She carried it upstairs and opened it with a beating, anxious heart. It contained only two words, and was not signed:

“Arrive Saturday.”

For a moment she felt a little dazed. He was coming then, the stern soldier-policeman. What in the world was she to say to him?...

Then a flood of gladness began to well up in her heart. After all, it meant before all things, that a day of great joy might be at hand for Meryl. Did anything else really matter?... If she personally came through the transaction a little battered well, it wouldn’t really matter, if Meryl and The Bear were safely off the rocks. Rather than let any shadowy good for South Africa come between them now she would marry van Hert herself, and at that she gave a little low laugh. In the meantime she had three days to think out a plan and convey to van Hert some sort of preparation.

When he came that Wednesday evening it was easily seen that he was feverish. His eyes were unnaturally bright and his face flushed, and at dinner he only played with his food and ate nothing. He talked and laughed gaily, but with intermittent shivering which he tried hard to hide. Everyone saw it, and Meryl grew concerned. He tried to laugh it off, but was not successful. Finally Mr. Pym advised him to go home to bed. And then Aunt Emily made the crowning blunder of her life, and like some other big blunders now historical, it proved a blessing in disguise.

She glanced at Diana with a scared face and exclaimed in perturbation, “Now if the wedding is put off it will be your fault, Diana. I told you it must bring ill-luck to speak about it as you did.”

There was an awkward pause, and in spite of herself Diana flushed scarlet.

“What did Diana say?” van Hert asked of Aunt Emily, half grave and half casual.

The poor lady, having quickly discovered she had made an unfortunate remark and become considerably flurried, made matters worse by stammering guiltily, “O, it was nothing much; she was only talking at random. She ... she ...” distressfully discovering van Hert’s eyes still fixed upon her “said something about hoping the wedding would be postponed, and I said it was unlucky.”

For a moment the constraint was painful. Meryl had grown as white as the tablecloth, and Mr. Pym looked thoroughly worried. Diana, however, had quickly recovered herself, and was now the most composed of any. She gave a little sniff and glanced defiantly at van Hert. His eyes roved round the table and finally fixed themselves upon hers. She did not waver, but looked steadily back at him. He gave a self-conscious, constrained laugh. “I presume you had your reasons?” he said.

She narrowed her eyes a little as she replied with a directness probably he alone understood, “Yes, I suppose I had. It was yesterday, Tuesday. Tuesday is often a queer day with me.”

And he knew she was referring to their conversation during the morning’s ride.

Then Meryl got up to relieve the tension, and because she began to feel a little uncertain of herself.

“Di often has queer days, but they have nothing to do with your feverishness, William. Jackson had better go back with you, and we will telephone Dr. Smythe to look in and see how you are.” She went away to order the motor, and van Hert seized an opportunity to speak to Diana unheard.

“I know what you are alluding to,” he said, gravely. “We cannot very well leave it like this. Will you ride the same way to-morrow?”

“But if you have fever?” hesitatingly.

“In the war I fought all day long with fever on me. Surely I can ride! You will be there?”

“Yes.”

When van Hert arrived at the meeting-place next morning, he wore an overcoat and looked as if he ought to be in bed, and Diana’s heart smote her. But she comforted herself with the thought that his fever was very much of the mind, and her medicine, if drastic, might still do him more good than any physician’s.

They rode side by side to the seat they had sat upon before, and without saying much he helped her to alight and gave the reins of both horses to the black groom.

Once seated, however, he turned to her and said, gravely, “Of course, that remark of yours had to do with our conversation the last time we sat here?”

“Of course,” agreed Diana, calmly. The intricacies of the task she had set herself were beginning to interest more than scare her, and she was not afraid as to her skill in handling van Hert.

“May I ask in what exact particular?”

“Merely that you are the man about to marry a woman you do not love.”

He opened his lips to expostulate and deny, but she rested a little hand on his arm a moment and interrupted. “No, do not trouble to deny it. I should not have dared to say such a thing without being sure of my ground. Your face told me on Tuesday.”

He was silent, feeling himself unaccountably in the grip of something he could no longer thwart.

“Now listen to me. When Meryl went to Rhodesia you did love her. I think she was all the world to you. So she was when she came back, at first. You were in haste to win her, and she consented to be engaged to you. Afterwards....” She paused.

“Well, afterwards?...” in a strained, unnatural voice.

“Afterwards you found in some vague way she was changed. You had won her, but you did not possess her. Something had happened. You seemed to have seized the substance and found it shadow. I seem to be talking like a book, but we will let that pass! Instead of trying to find out whether this really was the case, you attempted to hurry forward the wedding. That, I think, was weak of you.”

“And something had happened?...” he asked, hoarsely. “What?...”

Diana spread out her hands with a little French gesture. “It is sometimes just as poignant to say, ‘Cherchez l’homme’ as, ’Cherchez la femme.’”

“You mean?...”

“That what had happened was another man.”

“Ah!...” in quick surprise; and after a short, tense silence, “Then why in the world?...” But again she stayed him with a little arresting hand.

“You wonder why she engaged herself to you?... When you have the clue it is quite simple. The other man loves her, but he has not told her so. I do not know that he ever will. He is a proud, obstinate Englishman, and has no position and no money. Apparently he is ready to let Meryl wreck her life, rather than bless his with herself and her fortune. Some men are like that. It is a mixture of pride and heroics very difficult for a well-meaning cousin like myself to cope with. I think it may even turn my hair grey yet.” Again she spread out her hands. “Can you not see the rest?... You yourself led up to it. You urged your united service to South Africa (though why poor South Africa should be dragged in, I don’t know), and she, having as she thought lost all hope of simple, personal happiness, decided to give herself to you and to her country. Now do you understand?”

He was silent for a considerable time, thinking deeply; and then, with one of his quick versatile changes, he turned and pounced upon her with the question, “Granting all is as you say, what I want to know is, how have you discovered it?” He looked hard into her face with keen, searching eyes. “How did you know that I had changed?”

He had taken her a little unawares, and suddenly she felt the hot, tell-tale blood mounting higher and higher up her face. She moved restlessly, impatiently, as if his gaze were intolerable, and then replied a trifle lamely, “You must have heard the English proverb, ‘Lookers-on see most of the game.’”

“Ah! I wonder at what particular point you saw first?...”

“In any case it is beside the question,” she declared, anxious to get the conversation away from herself. “As I asked you on Tuesday, I ask you again, ’What do you think of a man who marries a woman when he does not love her?’”

“That is not the question you asked me.”

“Yes it is,” a trifle shortly. Diana was beginning to feel rather like a swimmer out of his depth.

“I beg your pardon, it is not; but we will let it pass for the moment. Granting that what you have told me is true, what do you expect me to do?”

“Tell Meryl the truth.”

“And what is the truth?” He was gazing hard at her again, and Diana began to wish she could run away and hide. She knew that her changing colour and averted eyes were telling him something he badly wanted to know.

“O, you’re very dense!” she cried, seeking to cover her discomfort. “Tell her you have discovered it is all a mistake; that you do not think she loves you better than all the world; and that you feel yourself wedded to your work, and ... and ... that kind of thing. Of course it won’t be nice, but surely you can see it is a far braver thing to do, than just to go on because you are afraid of what the world will say?”

“And suppose Meryl wishes to hold to her promise and give herself to her country?”

“She can still do that, only in some other way.”

“And what do you think South Africa will say?”

“O, that’s quite beyond me!...” with a little comical grimace, “but, of course, at any cost, you must avert another war!...” They both smiled, and she added more seriously, “You can announce that you discovered in time you were not very well suited to each other, and mutually agreed to break off the engagement.”

Again he was silent for a long time, lost in thought. At last, “And when do you think I should say this to Meryl?”

“It will not be any easier through waiting. Why not to-night?”

Again he was silent, and something in the air, some secret, veiled magnetism, told Diana whither his thoughts were tending, and her cheeks grew hot in spite of herself.

“If I speak to Meryl to-night, and she decrees that the engagement shall end, will you promise to ride this way to-morrow morning?”

“What for?” trying to speak with nonchalance.

“To answer the question I asked you just now.”

“Which question? I have forgotten it.”

“I will ask it again to-morrow.”

“But why all this mystery?... Ask me now. I will answer it if I can.”

“I would rather wait until to-morrow. Come, you have said all you wanted to say to me. Let me have my turn now.” And she knew that his eyes, sharpened by love, were reading things she had scarcely yet admitted to herself.

She got up suddenly, feeling a little breathless. She began to have again that alarming sensation of being mastered; as if he had some hold upon her, against which it was her instinct to fight, not because of any antipathy to him, but because, like all women of her independent character and fearlessness, she dreaded the mere thought of losing her liberty or yielding her independence. And at the same time she knew that the thought which held a dread held a charm also. Diana would never lose her grit and personality, she would never submit for a moment to any overshadowing, but deep in her heart she knew she was true woman enough to like to be conquered by the right man. Her instinct was to contradict van Hert in anything just then and deny any wish, but she was glad he quietly insisted upon her granting his request, and that when they finally rode away it was an understood thing she would come again the next morning.