Other letters, some written whilst Evelyn Devenish was away in Bordeaux, some even when she and Robin Webster were under the same roof and Marianne was used to carry them, described the gradual progress of the plot. Diana hesitated, was afire now, terrified at another time. She stood at the edge of a sea, venturing a foot in and withdrawing it to the warmth of the solid sand, thrilled and tormented. Of Evelyn she had no suspicion. “He loves me, I know,” she said to her. “Whatever he has done in the past, or whomever he has been friendly with doesn’t matter at all. And what he wishes—even that!—yes, yes.”
Hanaud laid a broad hand upon the typed copies.
“So you see the position of affairs. Both of these young women in love with Robin Webster, and both of them fooled by him. Evelyn Devenish will let him marry Diana Tasborough, so long as she keeps him for herself. Meanwhile he keeps her letters. Diana is certain that he loves her, and if he worships the devil—well, so will she. And he? Robin Webster? He cares not a snap of the fingers for either of them. No, he is ‘l’homme à femmes,’ and to be ‘l’homme à femmes,’ my friend, means that you mustn’t be touched by one of them. You must be without pity; they must be so many sleepers over which the rails of your destiny will run.” He looked with a curious smile at Mr. Ricardo. “Did you know that one of the devil’s names was Robin? Yes. That, too, I learnt at the Archiepiscopal Palace in diving into some old books. Robin Abiron, Robin this and Robin that—Satan himself, eh?” and with another glance he nodded his head gravely. “Yes, I too wonder”; and then with a burst of violence:
“If you and I, who after all have lived in the world, and outlived our youth and all its romance—if you and I draw in our breath with a shiver and say, ‘I wonder,’ is it strange that these girls, their emotions stirred, their nerves frayed, should say instead, ‘I believe’? Look at this!”
He turned back a couple of sheets and showed to Mr. Ricardo a passage which had not been underscored.
“Remember that Diana Tasborough, who had befriended Evelyn Devenish, was being played by her like a fish on a hook. To what sort of passion must Evelyn Devenish have been wrought, before she could write this of her friend,” and Mr. Ricardo read:
What do I want her to be? I haven’t the slightest difficulty. The dog that runs about after its master with its leash in its mouth. I have never discovered a better image of humiliation than that.
Mr. Ricardo gasped, as he read the contemptuous prophecy; and it was with a shock of relief that he realised that this could never be fulfilled.
“That’s the position, then,” said Hanaud, “when Joyce Whipple, disturbed by the letters she had received from Diana, puts off that urgent return of hers to America, and invites herself to the Château Suvlac. Inexplicable the queer visions which Diana’s commonplace letters set passing so vividly before Joyce Whipple’s eyes. Eh? Yes, inexplicable—unless you are inclined to believe that at times the other hidden things outside,” and with a great sweep of his arm he suggested the curve of a firmament which was a prison dome, “outside this world, break through to punish or to save.”
“Save?” cried Mr. Ricardo, who could not imagine how Diana Tasborough was to be saved from an explicit responsibility in the murder of Evelyn Devenish.
“Yes, saved,” continued Hanaud firmly. “That you will see. But first, see how the coming of Joyce Whipple upsets the carriage of the pears!”
“The applecart,” said Mr. Ricardo resignedly.
“If you like it that way, I make the concession,” Hanaud returned amiably. “Read!” and he placed a broad finger end upon a sentence, so that Mr. Ricardo had to push it away before he could read at all.
You stare at her, like a schoolboy at a girl with a plait down her back. You are troubled when she speaks to you. You jump when she comes near you. You look—silly—yes, silly, Robin!
And again, a little farther on:
She’s not even pretty really. And she’s certainly nothing else. She’s green, Robin, a little green thing for a little green boy. Oh, if I thought you were serious!
There it was. Robin Webster had met his fate, as people said at the beginning of the nineteenth century. At the first sight of Joyce Whipple the fires which he was accustomed to inspire seized upon and held him. He must give now, he who had only taken. Her image was impressed upon the retinas of his eyes so that everywhere he must see her. He could not hide his passion and he did not want to. It was a glory to him of which he wished all the world to know.
“Your name upon my forehead and my brow.” He shut his mind away from the whispers of prudence, and was blind to the spectacle of jealousy. Diana, indeed, moving with the bandage of her dreams across her eyes, remained undisturbed. She was no more aware of the new and enormous change in the disposition of the household than of her companion’s petulance. But Evelyn Devenish was of another mould. Accusations, reproaches, threats alternated with violent appeals. Finally the threats became one threat, the appeals one demand. She
