The twitter of birds startled her with the knowledge that it was dawn. From the Embassy George and Diane were to go on to two or three great houses, but surely they should be home by this time! The reflection meant the renewal of her fear. Where was her son? Was he really with his wife, or had the moment come when he must take the law into his own hands, after their French manner, to avenge himself or her? She knew nothing about duelling, but she had the Anglo-Saxon mother's dread of it. She had always hoped that, notwithstanding the social code under which he lived, George would keep clear of any such brutal senselessness; but lately she had begun to fear that the conventions of the world would prove the stronger, and that the time when they would do so was not far away.
Pulling back the curtains from one of the windows, she opened it and stepped out on a balcony, where the long strip of the Quai d'Orsay stretched below her, in gray and silent emptiness. On the swift, leaden-colored current of the Seine, spanned here and there by ghostly bridges, mysterious barges plied weirdly through the twilight. Up on the left the Arc de Triomphe began to emerge dimly out of night, while down on the right the line of the Louvre lay, black and sinister, beneath the towers and spires that faintly detached themselves against the growing saffron of the morning. High above all else, the domes of the Sacred Heart were white with the rays of the unrisen sun, like those of the City which came down from God.
It was so different from the cheerful Paris of broad daylight that she was drawing back with a shudder, when over the Pont de la Concorde she discerned the approach of a motor-brougham.
Closing the window, she hurried to the stairway. It was still night within the house, and the one electric light left burning drew forth dull gleams from the wrought-metal arabesques of the splendidly sweeping balustrades. When, on the ringing of the bell, the door opened and she went down, she had the strange sensation of entering on a new era in her life.
Though she recalled that impression in after years, for the moment she saw nothing but Diane, all in vivid red, in the act of letting the voluminous black cloak fall from her shoulders into the sleepy footman's hands.
"Bonjour, petite mère!" Diane called, with a nervous laugh, as Mrs. Eveleth paused on the lower steps of the stairs.
"Where is George?"
She could not keep the tone of anxiety out of her voice, but Diane answered, with ready briskness:
"George? I don't know. Hasn't he come home?"
"You must know he hasn't come home. Weren't you together?"
"We were together till—let me see!—whose house was it?—till after the cotillon at Madame de Vaudreuil's. He left me there and went to the Jockey Club with Monsieur de Melcourt, while I drove on to the Rochefoucaulds'."
She turned away toward the dining-room, but it was impossible not to catch the tremor in her voice over the last words. In her ready English there was a slight foreign intonation, as well as that trace of an Irish accent which quickly yields to emotion. Standing at the table in the dining-room where refreshments had been laid, she poured out a glass of wine, and Mrs. Eveleth could see from the threshold that she drank it thirstily, as one who before everything else needs a stimulant to keep her up. At the entrance of her mother-in-law she was on her guard again, and sank languidly into the nearest chair. "Oh, I'm so hungry!" she yawned, pulling off her gloves, and pretending to nibble at a sandwich. "Do sit down," she went on, as Mrs. Eveleth remained standing. "I should think you'd be hungry, too."
"Aren't you surprised to see me sitting up, Diane?"
"I wasn't, but I can be, if that's my cue," Diane laughed.
At the nonchalance of the reply Mrs. Eveleth was, for a second, half deceived. Was it possible that she had only conjured up a waking nightmare, and that there was nothing to be afraid of, after all? Possessing the French quality of frankness to an unusual degree, it was difficult for Diane to act a part at any time. With all her Parisian finesse her nature was as direct as lightning, while her glance had that fulness of candor which can never be assumed. Looking at her now, with her elbows on the table, and the sandwich daintily poised between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, it was hard to connect her with tragic possibilities. There were pearls around her neck and diamonds in her hair; but to the wholesomeness of her personality jewels were no more than dew on the freshness of a summer morning.
"I thought you'd be surprised to find me sitting up," Mrs. Eveleth began again; "but the truth is, I couldn't go to bed while—"
"I'm glad you didn't," Diane broke in, with an evident intention to keep the conversation in her own hands. "I'm not in the least sleepy. I could sit here and talk till morning—though I suppose it's morning now. Really the time to live is between midnight and six o'clock. One has a whole set of emotions then that never come into play during the other eighteen hours of the day. They say it's the minute when the soul comes nearest to parting with the body, so I suppose that's the reason we can see things, during the wee sma' hours, by the light of the invisible spheres."
"I should be quite content with the light of this world—"
"Oh, I shouldn't," Diane broke in, with renewed eagerness to talk against time. "It's like being content with words, and having no need of music. It's like being satisfied with photographs, and never wanting real pictures."
"Diane," Mrs. Eveleth interrupted, "I insist that you let me speak."
"Speak, petite mère? What are you doing but speaking now? I'm scarcely saying a word. I'm too tired to talk. If you'd spent the last eight or ten hours trying to get yourself down to the conversational level of your partners, you'd know what I've been through. We women must be made of steel to stand it. If you had only seen me this evening—"
"Listen to me, Diane; don't joke. This is no time for that."
"Joke! I never felt less like joking in my life, and—"
She broke off with a little hysterical gasp, so that Mrs. Eveleth got another chance.
"I know you don't feel like joking, and still less do I. There's something wrong."
"Is there? What?" Diane made an effort 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