Chapter 21

But all this time it only remains to be said that Diana believed in van Hert and believed in his work for her country, and that was why she had been able to give her love so frankly and absolutely, and was not in the least deterred by those mutterings of execration which there is very little doubt she intended shortly to put an end to for good and all; for if she had entertained any doubts as to how much he loved her and was ready to do for her, they must have been swept away utterly out of sight after the first moment of their meeting this morning. What he had fought to keep out of his face before was now flooding through it. Never at any moment, even when he first loved Meryl, had he looked at her as he now looked at Diana. In every pulse of her being she felt he loved her, not perhaps with the calm, strong love of her own countrymen, but with a fierceness and intensity, inherited maybe from some French ancestor, that appealed to her love of vigour. She at least had level-headedness enough for the two.

But it would hardly have been Diana to sit demurely and listen to his outpouring, now that he might speak and she might hear. It was far more natural that the very certainty of everything should make her feel contrary and want to tantalise him; particularly when, after his first question had been answered with a quiet affirmative, he plunged into the subject filling his heart without any preliminary, and with all that quick enthusiasm of his bursting its bounds.

"Then we need not say any more about it. Why should we?... There is only you and I now. It seems for the moment as if there were no one else in the entire universe. But I want the answer to that other question of mine"; and he leaned near to her, with his whole attitude a sort of inspired interrogation.

"What question?..." A shade of lightness had crept into Diana's voice; the shadow of a smile into her eyes. She felt on the verge of being a little unnerved, and a feigned or real inconsequence was ever her refuge.

"The question you were not willing to answer yesterday, and which I told you I should ask again to-day. You said that you had asked me what I thought of a man who married a woman when he did not love her. And I said that was not what you had asked. Do you remember the original question, or must I tell you what it was?"

"I don't remember anything about it. I'm afraid I'm rather given to asking questions."

"That means I must tell you. Diana, what you asked me was, what did I think of a man who married one woman and loved another? Now, I want to know how and when you discovered that I loved another?..."

"It was the obvious conclusion"--studying the toe of her smart riding-boot with exaggerated interest. "Otherwise you must have loved Meryl; you could not help it."

"I see." The smile dawned in his eyes now. "And was it equally obvious who the other woman was?"

She glanced away to hide her tell-tale mouth. "It might have been if it had interested me."

"But, of course, it didn't?..." and he laughed a low, happy laugh.

"Not in the least. Why should it?..."

"Ah, why?..." and his hand suddenly closed over hers, and at the strong, possessive touch the magnetism of the man made her blood race through her veins. She tried to draw her hand away, but he only held it more tightly, and his face was very engaging as he said, "I've a good mind not to tell you who the other woman is as you are not interested."

"Then I shall conclude she will not have anything to do with you," came the quick retort. And then her fascinating mouth twitched at the corners in a way that threatened to undo van Hert entirely. He looked away with a half-fierce expression. "If you don't want me to crush you in my arms out here in a public road, don't do that."

"Don't do what?..." innocently; and then they both laughed.

When they were serious again his voice sounded a deeper and more forceful note. "Dearest," he said, still imprisoning her hand, "it seems superfluous for me to tell you how much I love that other woman, as superfluous as to name her. I seem as if I had neither a thought nor an idea nor a feeling that does not love her."

"Then let us hope she is not a stiff-necked Britisher," quoth Diana, still as if a little afraid to be serious.

"Ah!..." and he raised her hand to his lips. "I believe you will make me love the whole race."

"That would complicate matters exceedingly for you," with a mischievous taunt in her eyes. "You seem to have hated them so very satisfactorily up to now. What shall you say to your colleagues the next time they are expecting you at one of their fiery denunciation meetings?... I have married a wife, an English one, therefore I cannot come?..."

"Shall I have married her?..." and he looked hard into her face, blissfully indifferent to her shafts.

"Married whom?..." she asked, provokingly.

He clenched his teeth together. "I feel as if I could shake you!..." and he glanced round to see if anyone were in sight.

"O, if you're going to be that sort of a tyrant!..." Diana began. But she got no further. No one was in sight, not even the boy with the horses. And van Hert just gathered her into his arms and crushed her for the sheer joy of it until she cried for mercy. "Say you will be good and treat me with proper respect," he demanded before he released her, and Diana was compelled to promise.

"But I won't marry you," she added, wickedly, the moment she was free. And then to save herself from a second undignified surrender she had to capitulate quickly, and add, "At least, not before next week."

Then she raised her eyes, shining with happiness, to his. "Meinheer van Hert, if my memory serves me rightly, you have not yet asked me the most important question of all."

He raised her hand again to his lips, with a movement of reverence, and said, very simply, "Diana, I love you with all my heart and soul and strength; will you do me the honour to become my wife?"

And there was a little warm glisten in her eyes as she answered, "Yes, dear; I am ready to take the long trek with you."

A little later she went home with an air of quiet radiance that told Meryl all she needed to know the moment she set eyes on her, and her embrace was full of warmest affection.

Only Aunt Emily seemed thoroughly perplexed, and not able to entirely grasp the happy aspect of affairs when she heard it all for the first time.

"How extraordinary!..." she exclaimed; and then, with an air full of mournful reproach, she looked at Diana and added, "I told you something dreadful would happen, my dear, if you spoke of the wedding so strangely."

"Yes, aunty, so you did! and it was very clever of you," Diana replied. "But, of course, you ought to have warned me before I said it. Now, you see, I've got caught in the net myself. Ah well!..." she finished comically, "I can bear it."

And Meryl's low laughter, as she hastened to soothe poor Aunt Emily's wounded feelings, had a happier note than it had known for many a day.

"I don't think I quite understand," continued the perplexed lady. "It reminds me of a story I once heard about the aunt of a friend of my father's, that is to say, the aunt of a friend of your grandfather's...."

"Yes, I remember," said the incorrigible; "but she didn't do it in the end, you know. And, anyhow, the great question just now is, having taken over the bridegroom, ought I to take over the wedding presents as well?..."

"Of course, they must all be sent back," Aunt Emily replied, with great gravity. "Dear me, what a pity!... What a pity!... And he is really quite a nice man, although he is Dutch."

"O, do you really think so?..." Diana asked, and went laughing out of the room.

XXXII

A CHAPTER OF SURPRISES

In Diana's happy state of mind there was not the slightest doubt her interview with Carew, when it came off, would be the reverse of conventional.

He arrived at the Carlton the day after it had been notified to the papers that the engagement between Miss Pym and William van Hert was broken off by mutual agreement. The new engagement was looked upon only as a secret understanding at present, and no announcement was to be made for some weeks.

Carew saw the news in a paper he got at Kimberley, so that when he stepped out upon Johannesburg station, from a difficult, perplexing, somewhat equivocal situation he found himself suddenly and unexpectedly with a clear course.

He had responded to Diana's urgent summons with alacrity, although it left him entirely in the dark as to what had transpired; his action had in fact something of the daring which had led to the sending of the telegram. Wearied out physically and mentally with the struggle, he seized swiftly the chance of a solution the message suggested, and trusting to Diana's resourcefulness let himself go with the tide. It was as though after sixteen years some spirit of the past suddenly re-entered him; some of that old reckless, dare-devil spirit that had distinguished him in his regiment long ago.

Without doubt the news that he would some day inherit the Marquisate of Toxeter, if he outlived the present owner, had worked a wonderful change in him. He still hated Meryl's fortune, when he dared to let himself think of a future they might possibly share, but at least he could now offer her a position that might one day be among the highest in England. And all that it meant to him after his long exile and lonely life, apart from all the friends and delights of his youth, lit a new light in his eyes. And when he saw the paragraph in the paper, and realised Diana had indeed not sent for him for nothing, he seemed to let many years slip from his shoulders. Only a week earlier he had felt middle-aged, and looked every year of his forty-two. The man who strode down the platform on Johannesburg station, drawing all eyes after his upright, distinguished form, looked at the very prime of manhood, and the grey on his temples only enhanced whatever it was that caused those eyes to turn in his direction.

Diana, waiting for his message in no small trepidation, went off at once to the hotel. Nothing was to be gained by hanging back, and she felt more sure of herself generally if she dashed headlong into a delicate situation.

So she walked boldly up to the door of his private sitting-room, gave a little sharp knock, and entered.

He was standing with his back to the door, looking idly from the window, but when he heard the door open he turned round and faced her.

Diana closed the door and walked into the room, glancing about her.

"What a nice den!..." she said. "I'm sure you could only growl prettily here."

He came towards her with outstretched hand, and she was instantly struck with the change in his eyes. The steadiness was still there, the expression of unflinching purpose, but behind it all was that new light now: the light she had never seen in Carew's eyes before.

"You look very well," she told him, warming swiftly to their old friendship and forgetting her moments of trepidation. "You ... really ... you almost look as if you might have come into a kingdom!..."

"Perhaps I have," with a humorous gleam.

"Umh!... I'd be very sorry for the subjects; they would be ruled with a rod of iron."

He pulled a chair forward, a large cosy one, such as he knew her soul loved, and she sank down into it. He still stood upright, watching her with kindly eyes.

"Well!..." he began. "You sent me a very curt summons."

Diana coloured a little, not quite clear where to begin.

"Won't you sit down? You seem so far away up there. I feel a little lost somehow, you are so ... so ... Perhaps if you were to growl I should feel more at home with you!..." she finished.

He smiled and took the chair beside her.

"I never did growl really. It was all your imagination."

"O, was it?..." emphatically. "Why, thunder in the distance was dulcet music beside it!..."

"Well," he said again, "about that summons?..."

"It's just this way," began Diana. "I had a letter from Mrs. Grenville...." She watched him keenly, and saw that he grasped at once something of what the letter had contained.

"And she told you?..."

"Not very much, but enough, in my mind"--with a sudden flash--"to justify my summons."

"I don't think I quite understand." He was grave again now, with a line between the straight brows.

"Well, don't get too serious or you will frighten me. I suppose I'd better be quite direct. You and I don't either of us care for much beating about the bush and subterfuge, do we?"

He signified his agreement, and she ran on.

"I knew that Meryl cared for you; I have known it a long time. Yet she was going to marry van Hert. And van Hert cared ... well, he cared for someone else too, yet he was going to marry Meryl. It was just a silly muddle altogether, do you see?... Honestly, I was at my wits' end-to know how to prevent them making fools of themselves. Then came Mrs. Grenville's letter. Mrs. Grenville had seen you. She had discovered that you cared for Meryl, and she told me so. I didn't stop to think then. I saw in a moment it was your business to help me help them out of the tangle. So I just sent you a telegram and asked you to come at once."

"And now I am here?"

Diana began to look roguish. "I just wanted to suggest," she said, demurely, "whether it wouldn't simplify things all round if Mr. Pym disinherited Meryl, and divided all the silly money between me and charities!..."

He could not help smiling, but there was something more than mere friendship in his eyes as he looked at her. He understood perfectly that she had strained every nerve to bring him and Meryl together.

"And in the meantime," he commented, "I gather from the newspaper the knot disentangled itself, and everything is smoothed out."

"Well, I shouldn't exactly say there were no wounded left on the battlefield!..." with a low laugh.

"I see; and you think it is for me to attend to the wounded?"

"To _one_ of them," with significance; and then suddenly her unmanageable mouth began to twitch. Carew divined something lay beyond the remark.

"And what about the other one?"

"Well," with a little air of coyness, "I rather thought of attending to his hurt myself."

He watched her keenly for a moment, and at last she raised a pair of laughing eyes to his face.

"The only thing that's worrying me is that I may unintentionally find myself a heroine."

His low laugh was full of amusement, and his eyes grew kindlier still.

"You are evidently a most resourceful young woman. Have you made up your mind how you propose to heal him?"

"Yes," with feigned gravity. "I thought on the whole it would simplify matters if I took Meryl's place at the wedding."

He stared at her with undisguised astonishment. "You mean?..."

"Just exactly what I say. I've taken over the prospective bridegroom, and incidentally I thought of taking over the wedding presents as well...." And then she threw her head back and laughed whole-heartedly at his incredulous face.

"You have given me a great surprise," he said. "I suppose you are in earnest?"

"Your surprise is nothing to what is coming upon my friends. Just think of it!... I can hardly think of anything else. I do so love giving people shocks. Do you remember our first meeting in the ruins, when I sat quite still and watched you until you looked up?... That was your shock!... You were frightfully disgusted with me, but I didn't mind, I'd had my bit of amusement and no one was hurt; any other silly girl would have coughed or walked away. Goodness!... how black you looked!..." And again she laughed mirthfully.

He began to tell her he hoped she would be very happy, but she stayed him and suddenly sobered.

"Not now. We haven't much time left, and we must plan something. Meryl will come here and call for me soon in the motor. She knows I have come to see a friend, but she does not know whom. She will not come in herself, because she is shy about being seen just now. What shall we do? When will you see her?"

He got up, and walked to the window with a grave face, and for some time he did not speak.

"Are you still worrying about that absurd money? My dear good man, she isn't stuffed with it, and she doesn't care tuppence about it. Isn't it enough that you know she could love you as a Rhodesian soldier-policeman? Why torture yourself unnecessarily?"

"If I were only a Rhodesian policeman I should not have come."

She looked at him with quick curiosity. Then something had happened! There really was some great change in him. He smiled into her questioning eyes. "Then Mrs. Grenville did not tell you?"

"Tell me what?..." with swift eagerness. "O, do be quick, I love surprises. Have you found a gold-mine up there?... or the corpses in the temple hung with gold ornaments?..."

"Neither."

She took his arm and gave it a little shake.

"Then what? O, do tell me quickly!..."

"It isn't very much, but it gives me courage to hope, where a policeman might consider himself called upon only to renounce. And," he added, quietly, "I owe the knowledge of it to Mrs. Grenville."

"It must be a legacy?..."

"Not exactly. It is only that when the present Marquis of Toxeter dies I shall succeed."

"O, my goodness!..." comically. "Am I going to be own cousin to a marchioness?..."

"That is as your cousin decrees." Then with a little smile he added, "So the shocks are not all given by you, you see."

At that moment a knock sounded on the door, and in reply to Carew's "Come in," a hall-porter informed them that Miss Pym was waiting in the motor.

"And we haven't decided what to do," said Diana, in dismay.

He was thoughtful a moment, then told her he would endeavour to find Mr. Pym at his office and come to Hill Court later.

So Diana went downstairs alone. But on the way, with that mixture of restlessness and level-headedness that was so characteristic of her, she decided Carew's plan was much too prosaic and dull, and speedily commenced to think out a better one. After which she accosted Meryl with the words, "I want to introduce you to my friend. It won't keep us long. She has a sitting-room upstairs, but she has a cold, and could not come down to you."

Meryl looked unwilling, but finally yielded to persuasion and alighted. Outside the door of Carew's room, Diana was so afraid her face would betray her, she had to pretend to sneeze, in order to hide it with her handkerchief. Quite suddenly it had occurred to her humour-loving mind, that if shocks were the order of the hour, Carew and Meryl were going to have the biggest all to themselves for that day at least. Then she opened his door and half pushed Meryl in in front of her. They saw only a broad back at the window first, then he half turned. The next instant the door closed softly, and Meryl found herself alone in the room, face to face with Peter Carew.

There were a few tense seconds in which they each seemed trying to realise the other; and then she understood. She went slowly towards him, seeing with unerring tuition all the love in his eyes, and without knowing it held out both hands.

And across the long years, that self that he had thought for ever dead seemed to reawaken by leaps and bounds. He would always be somewhat quiet perhaps, a little grave, but the spirit of vigour and reckless daring was in him still, if sobered by sixteen years and all that the years had brought. He did not stop to explain. Quite suddenly it all seemed unnecessary. Between these two the hours of probing were ended. He took her outstretched hands in his and drew her into his arms.

It was some time before he told her of his changed position; there was so much else to tell first. And when at last it was said she paid little heed.

She only looked at him a trifle anxiously, saying, "But, of course, you could never give up Rhodesia? You wouldn't let any claim come before hers?"

He kissed the finger-tips of the hand imprisoned in his, and murmured, "Bless you; it would have gone hard with me if you had wanted me to leave Rhodesia for good."

"I shall never do that," softly. "It was the Rhodesian policeman I loved first. The other does not greatly matter, except that perhaps it brought us together." Then with one of her rare flashes of humour she added, "I'm not sure that we shall even have time for a honeymoon. We may have to go up there any time about this settlement scheme of father's and mine. As Diana is going to help William van Hert to run South Africa generally, we must get to work quickly with Rhodesia...." And her smile was a very happy one.

FINIS.

And so in the end Diana had her little jest, and gave Johannesburg its shock and its nine days' wonder, and was certainly the most surprising bride of the year; though, of course, afterwards most people said they were not surprised at all, and had expected it all along.

Before the wedding a sufficiently characteristic letter found its way to a certain mission station in Rhodesia to delight the hearts of its contented occupants. After duly relating all that had transpired and how the problem had been solved, it added: "And now the only difficulty seems to be how to relieve Meryl of her superfluous fortune, in order that she and The Bear may live upon love and air, and how to save me from appearing in the guise of a heroine!..."

To her old friend Stanley she wrote gaily of the perfectly splendid surprise she had succeeded in administering to about half the English-speaking population of South Africa.

And Stanley wrote back, with many regretful qualms tugging at his heart: "The astonishment of South Africa is a mere detail. When the news reached Zimbabwe, bones that have lain buried for three thousand years rattled in their grave-clothes, and antiquities of the ages crumbled to dust. In the morning, over our coffee, Moore and I ask of the four winds and of the liquid butter and of the unyielding bread, 'Which did he actually marry in the end, and what became of whom?'" ...

* * * * *

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=THE CAP OF YOUTH= Madame Albanesi =THE SUNLIT HILLS= Madame Albanesi =ODDSFISH= Robert Hugh Benson =INITIATION= Robert Hugh Benson =LONELINESS= Robert Hugh Benson =AN AVERAGE MAN= Robert Hugh Benson =COME RACK! COME ROPE!= Robert Hugh Benson =THE COWARD= Robert Hugh Benson =THE RETURN OF RICHARD CARR= Winifred Boggs =THE WOOD END= J. E. Buckrose =MEAVE= Dorothea Conyers =THE STRAYINGS OF SANDY= Dorothea Conyers =THE SCRATCH PACK= Dorothea Conyers =TWO IMPOSTORS AND TINKER= Dorothea Conyers =A RASH EXPERIMENT= Mrs. B. M. Croker =WHAT SHE OVERHEARD= Mrs. B. M. Croker =IN OLD MADRAS= Mrs. B. M. Croker =THE SERPENT'S TOOTH= Mrs. B. M. Croker =SANDY'S LOVE AFFAIR= S. R. Crockett =TWILIGHT= Frank Danby =LILAMANI= Maud Diver =A DOUBLE THREAD= Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler =WE OF THE NEVER NEVER= Æneas Gunn =BIRD'S FOUNTAIN= Baroness von Hutten =SHARROW= Baroness von Hutten =MARIA= Baroness von Hutten =THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE= Baroness von Hutten =THE GREEN PATCH= Baroness von Hutten =PAUL KELVER= Jerome K. Jerome ="GOOD OLD ANNA"= Mrs. Belloc Lowndes =THE DEVIL'S GARDEN= W. B. Maxwell =A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS= Baroness Orczy =PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT= Baroness Orczy =THE ELUSIVE PIMPERNEL= Baroness Orczy =A TRUE WOMAN= Baroness Orczy =MEADOWSWEET= Baroness Orczy =THE MONEY MASTER = Sir Gilbert Parker