THE YOUNG DIANA MARIE CORELLI THE YOUNG DIANA AN EXPERIMENT OF THE FUTURE BY MARIE CORELLI AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE EVERLASTING,” “INNOCENT,” “ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS,” “BARABBAS,” ETC. TORONTO WILLIAM BRIGGS _Copyright, Canada, 1918_, By Marie Corelli THE YOUNG DIANA THE YOUNG DIANA CHAPTER I Once upon a time, in earlier and less congested days of literary effort, an Author was accustomed to address the Public as “Gentle Reader.” It was a civil phrase, involving a pretty piece of flattery. It implied three things: first, that if the Reader were not “gentle,” the Author’s courtesy might persuade him or her to become so--secondly, that criticism, whether favourable or the reverse, might perhaps be generously postponed till the reading of the book was finished,--and thirdly, that the Author had no wish to irritate the Reader’s feelings, but rather sought to prepare and smooth the way to a friendly understanding. Now I am at one with my predecessors in all these delicate points of understanding, and as I am about to relate what every person of merely average intelligence is likely to regard as an incredible narrative, I think it as well to begin politely, in the old-fashioned “grand” manner of appeal, which is half apologetic, and half conciliatory. “Gentle Reader,” therefore, I pray you to be friends with me! Do not lose either patience or temper while following the strange adventures of a very strange woman,--though in case you should be disappointed in seeking for what you will not find, let me say at once that my story is not of the Sex Problem type. No! My heroine is not perverted from the paths of decency and order, or drawn to a bad end; in fact, I cannot bring her to an end at all, as she is still very much alive and doing uncommonly well for herself. Any end for Diana May would seem not only incongruous, but manifestly impossible. Life, as we all know, is a curious business. It is like a stage mask with two faces,--the one comic, the other tragic. The way we look at it depends on the way it looks at us. Some of us have seen it on both sides, and are neither edified nor impressed.