“Dear me!” and Madame smiled--“you speak very strongly, Diana! Especially when you assure me that you cannot ‘feel!’” “Oh, I can feel hatred!” said Diana. “_That_ sort of feeling seems to have a good grip of me! But love, interest, sympathy for other folks--no!--ten thousand times no! One might love a man with all the ardour and passion of a lifetime, and yet he may be capable of boasting of your ‘interest’ in him at his club and damaging your reputation--(you know some clubs are like old washerwomen’s corners where they meet to talk scandal)--and you may waste half your time in interest and sympathy for other folks and they’ll only ask dubiously, ‘What is it all for?’ and ‘round’ on you at the first opportunity, never crediting you with either honesty or unselfishness in your words or actions. No, no! It’s best to ‘play’ the world’s puppets--never to become one of them!” “You are bitter, my dear!” commented Madame. “I think it is because you have missed a man’s true love.” Diana laughed and sprang up from her chair. “Maybe!” she replied. “But--‘a man’s true love’--as I see it, seems hardly worth the missing! You are a dear, sentimental darling!--you have lived in the ‘early Victorian’ manner, finding an agreeable lover who gave you his heart, after the fashion of an antique Valentine, and whom you married in the proper and conventional style, and in due course gave him a baby. That’s it! And oh, SUCH a baby! Féodor Dimitrius!--doctor of sciences and master of innumerable secrets of nature--yet, after all, only your ‘baby!’ It is a miracle! But I wonder if it was worth while! Don’t mind my nonsense, dearest lady!--just think of me as hardening and shining!--like bits of the glacier we saw the other day which move only about an inch in a thousand years! There’s a ‘sports’ ball on the ice to-night--a full moon too!--and your wonderful son has agreed to skate with me--I wish you would come and look at us!” “I’m too old,” said Madame Dimitrius, with a slight sigh. “I wish Féodor would make _me_ young as he is making _you_!” “He’s afraid!” and Diana stood, looking at her for a moment. “He’s afraid of killing you! But he’s not afraid of killing _me_!” With that she went,--and Madame, laying down her work, folded her hands and prayed silently that no evil might come to her beloved son through the strange mysteries which he was seeking to solve, and which to her simple and uninstructed mind appeared connected with the powers of darkness rather than the powers of light. That evening Diana scored a triumph as belle of the “sports” ball. Attired in a becoming skating costume of black velvet trimmed with white fur, with a charming little “toque” hat to match, set jauntily on her bright hair, and a bunch of edelweiss at her throat, she figured as an extremely pretty “girl,” and her admirers were many. When Dimitrius came to claim his promised “glissade” by her side, she welcomed him smilingly, yet with an indifference which piqued him.