On the following day the Marquis de Bienville found the execution of any intentions he might have had toward Derek Pruyn postponed by the circumstance that Miss Regina van Tromp was dead. The helpless, inarticulate life, which for three years had served as a bond to hold more active existences together, had failed suddenly, leaving in the little group a curious impression of collapse. It became perceptible that the hushed sick-room, where Miss Lucilla and Mrs. Eveleth were the only ministrants, had in reality been a centre for those who never entered it. Now that the living presence was withdrawn, there came the consciousness of dispersing interests, inseparable from the passing away of the long established, which gives the spirit pause. The days before the funeral became a period of suspended action, in which Life refrained from too marked a manifestation of its energies, out of reverence for Death. Even when the grave was filled in, and the will read, and the family face to face with its new conditions, there was a respectful absence of hurry in beginning the work of reconstruction. The lull lasted, in fact, till James van Tromp arrived from Paris; and it was broken then only by the banker's desire "to get things settled" with all possible speed, so that he might return to the Rue Auber.
The first sign of real disintegration came from Mrs. Eveleth. She had waited for the arrival of the man whom she looked upon now as her confidential adviser, to make the announcement that, since Miss Lucilla would no longer need her, she meant to have a home of her own. The economies she had been able to practise during the last two years, together with a legacy from Miss van Tromp, would, when added to "her own income," provide her with modest comfort for the rest of her days. There was something triumphant in the way in which she proclaimed her independence of the daughter-in-law who had been the author of so many of her woes. It was the old banker himself who brought this intelligence to Diane.
During the fortnight he had been in New York he had formed an almost daily habit of dropping in on her. She was the more surprised at his doing so from the fact that her detachment from the rest of the circle of which she had formed a part was now complete. She had gone to see Miss Lucilla with words of sympathy, but her reception was such that she came away with cheeks flaming. Miss Lucilla had said nothing; she had only wept; but she had wept in a way to show that Diane herself, more than the departed Miss Regina, was the motive of her grief. After that Diane had remained shut up in her linen-room, finding in its occupied seclusion something of the peace which the nun seeks in the cloister.
There was no one but the old man to push his way into her sanctuary, and for his visits she was grateful. They not only relieved the tedium of her days, but they brought her news from that small world into which her most vital interests had become absorbed.
"So the old lady is set up for life on your money," he observed, as he watched Diane hold a white table-cloth up to the light and search it for imperfections.
"It isn't my money now; and even if it were I'd rather she had the use of it. She would have had much more than that if it hadn't been for me."
"She might; and then again she mightn't. Who told
you what would have happened--if everything had been different from what it is? There are people who think they would have had plenty of money if it hadn't been for me; but that doesn't prove they're right."
"In any case I'm glad she has it."
"That's because you're a very foolish little woman, as I told you when you came to me three years ago. I said then that you'd be sorry for it some day--"
"But I'm not."
"Tut! tut! Don't tell me! Can't I see with my own eyes? No woman could lose her good looks as you've done and not know she's made a mistake. How old are you now?"
"I'm twenty-seven."
"Dear me! dear me! You look forty."
"I feel eighty."
"Yes; I dare say you do. Any one who's got into so many scrapes as you have must feel the burden of time. I don't think I ever saw a young woman make such poor use of her opportunities. Why didn't you marry Derek Pruyn?"
Diane kept herself quite still, her needle arrested half-way through its stitch. She took time to reflect that it was useless to feel annoyed at anything he might say, and when she formed her answer it was in the spirit of meeting him in his own vein.
"What makes you think I ever had the chance?"
"Because I gave it to you myself."
"You, Mr. van Tromp?"
"Yes; me. I did all that wire-pulling when you first came to New York; and I did it just so that you might catch him."
"Oh?"
"I did," he declared, proudly. "And if you had been the woman I took you for, you could have had him."
"But suppose I--didn't want him?"
"Oh, don't tell me that," he said, pityingly. "Why shouldn't you want him?--just as much as he'd want you?"
"Well, I'll put it that way if you like. Suppose he didn't want me?"
"Then the more fool he. I picked you out for him on purpose."
"May I ask why?"
"Certainly. I saw he was getting on in life, and, as he'd been a good many years a widower, I imagined he'd had some difficulty in getting any one to have him. If he's good-looking, he's not what you'd call very bright; and he's got a temper like--well, I won't say what. I'd pity the woman who got him, that's all; and so--"
"And so you thought you'd pity me."
"I did pity you as it was. It seemed to me you couldn't be worse off, not even if you married Derek Pruyn."
"It was certainly good of you to give me the opportunity; and if I had only known--"
"You would have let it slip through your fingers just the same. You're one of the young women who will always stand in their own light. I dare say, now, that if I told you I was willing to marry you myself, you wouldn't profit by the occasion."
"I should never want to profit by your loss, Mr. van Tromp."
"But suppose I could afford--to lose?"
Unable to answer him there, she held her peace, though it was a relief that, before he had time to speak again, a page-boy knocked at the door and entered with a card. Diane took it hastily and read the name.
"Tell the gentleman I can't see him," she said, with a visible effort to speak steadily.
"Wait!" the banker ordered, as the boy was about to turn. "Who is it?" Without ceremony he drew the card from Diane's hand and looked at it. "Heu!" he cried. "It's Bienville, is it? Of course you'll see him; of course you will; of course! Here, boy, I'll go with you."
Returning to Gramercy Park after this interview, the banker pottered about his apartment until, on hearing the door-bell ring, he looked out of the window and recognized Derek Pruyn's chauffeur. On the stairs, as he went down, he heard Miss Lucilla's voice in the hall.
"Oh, come in, Derek. Marion isn't here yet, but she won't be long. I asked you to come punctually, because I gathered from her note that she wanted to see you very particularly, and without Mrs. Bayford's knowledge. She has evidently something on her mind that she wants to tell you."
"Hello, dears!" the old man interrupted suddenly, as, leaning heavily on the baluster, he descended the stairs. "I've got good news for you."
"Good news, Uncle James?" Miss Lucilla said, reproachfully. With her long, grave face, and in her heavy crape, she looked as though she found good news decidedly out of place.
"The very best," the banker declared, reaching the hall and taking his nephew and niece each by an arm. "Come into the library and I'll tell you. There!" he went on, pushing Miss Lucilla into an arm-chair. "Sit down, Derek, and make yourself comfortable. Now, listen, both of you. Perhaps you're going to have a new aunt."
"Oh, Uncle James!" Miss Lucilla cried, in the voice of a person about to faint.
"You're going to be married!" Derek roared, with the fury of a father addressing a wayward son.
"The young woman," the banker went on to explain, "is of French extraction, but Irish on the mother's side."
Derek grasped the arms of his chair and half rose, making an inarticulate sound.
"'Sh! 'Sh!" the old man went on, lifting a warning hand. "She'd had reverses of fortune; but that wasn't the reason why she came to me. Though her husband had just died, leaving nothing, she had her own
dot, on the income of which she could have lived. But that didn't suit her. Her husband had left a mother, who had neither
dot nor anything else in the world. At the age of sixty the old woman was a pauper. My little lady came to see me in order to transfer all her own money secretly to her mother-in-law, and face the world herself with empty hands."
"My God!" Derek breathed, just audibly. Miss Lucilla sat upright and tense, hot tears starting to her eyes.
"Plucky, wasn't it?" the uncle went on, complacently. "I didn't approve of it at first, but I let her do it in the end, knowing that some good fellow would make it up to her."
"Don't joke, uncle," Derek cried, nervously. "It's too serious for that."
"I'm not joking. It's what I did think. And if the world wasn't full of idiots who couldn't tell diamonds from glass, a little woman like that would have been snapped up long ago."
Derek sprang up and strode across the room.
"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded, turning abruptly, "that she made over all her money to Mrs. Eveleth--a woman who has deserted her, like the rest of us?"
"That's what she did; but there's this to be said for the old lady, that she doesn't know it. She thinks it's the wreck of her own fortune, and Diane wouldn't let me tell her the truth. Since you seem to be interested in the little story," he added, with sarcasm, "you may hear all about it."
With tolerable accuracy he gave the details of his first interview with Diane, three years previous. Long before he finished, Lucilla was weeping silently, while Derek stood like a man turned to stone. Even the banker's own face took on an expression of whimsical gravity as he said in conclusion:
"And so I've decided to give her a home--that is," he added, significantly, "if no one else will."
"Do you mean that for me?" Derek asked, in a tone too low for Lucilla to hear it.
"Oh no--not particularly. I mean it for--any one."
"Because," Derek went on, "as for me--I'm not worthy to have her under my roof."
The banker made no comment, sitting in a hunched attitude and humming to himself in a cracked voice while Derek stared down at him.
They were still in this position when Marion Grimston was shown in.