Chapter XXIX: What David Wondered

One more episode, culled from the year's correspondence, shows the intimacy, constantly bordering on the personal, which grew up between David and Diana.

He had mentioned in one of his letters, that among a package of illustrated papers which had reached his station, he had found one in which was an excellent photograph of Diana, passing down the steps of the Town Hall, to her motor, after opening a bazaar at Eversleigh.

David had written with so much pleasure of this, that Diana, realising he had no portrait of her, and knowing how her heart yearned for one of him, went up to town, and was photographed especially for him.

When the portrait arrived, and her own face looked out at her from the silver wrappings, she was startled by its expression. It was not a look she ever saw in her mirror. The depth of tenderness in the eyes, the soft wistfulness of the mouth, were a revelation of her own heart to Diana. She had been thinking of her husband, when the camera unexpectedly opened its eye upon her. The clever artist had sacrificed minor details of arrangement, in order to take her unawares before a photographic expression closed the gates upon the luminous beauty of her soul.

Diana hurried the picture back into its wrappings. It had been taken for David. To David it must go; and go immediately, if it were to go at all. If it did not go at once to David, it would go into the fire.

It went to David.

With it went a letter.

"MY DEAR DAVID,--I am much amused that you should have come
across a picture of me in an illustrated paper. I did not
see it myself; but I gather from your description, that it
must have been taken as I was leaving the Town Hall after
the function of which I told you in September. Fancy you
being able to recognise the motor and the men. I remember
having to stand for a minute at the top of the long flight
of steps, while some of the members of the committee, who
had organised the bazaar, made their adieus. I always hate
all the hand-shaking on these occasions. I suppose you
would enjoy it, David. To you, each hand would mean an
interesting personality behind it. I am afraid to me it
only means something unpleasantly hot, and unnecessarily
literal in the meaning it gives to 'hand-shake.' Don't you
know a certain style of story which says, in crucial
moments between the hero and the heroine: 'He wrung her
hand and left her?' They always wring your hand--a most
painful process--when you open bazaars, but they don't
leave you! You are constrained at last to flee to your
motor.

"'The fellow in the topper'"--Diana paused here to refer to
David's letter, then continued writing, a little smile of
amusement curving the corners of her mouth,--"The
'good-looking fellow in the topper' who was being 'so very
attentive' to me, and 'apparently enjoying himself on the
steps,' is our Member. His wife, a charming woman, is a
great friend of mine. She should appear just behind us. The
mayoress had presented me with the bouquet he was holding
for me. I foisted it upon the poor man because, personally,
I hate carrying bouquets. I daresay it had the effect in
the snapshot of making him look 'a festive chap.' But he
was not enjoying himself, any more than I was. We had both
just shaken hands with the Mayor!

"It seems so funny to think that a reproduction of this
scene should have found its way to you in Central Africa;
and I am much gratified that you considered it worth
framing, and hanging up in your hut.

"I am glad you thought me looking so like myself. I don't
think I am much given to looking like other people! Unlike
a little lady in this neighbourhood who is never herself,
but always some one else, and not the same person for many
weeks together. It is one of our mild amusements to wonder
who she will be next. She had a phase of being me once,
with a bunch of _artificial_ violets on her muff!

"But, to return to the picture. It has occurred to me that,
as you were so pleased with it, you might like a better. It
is not right, my dear David, that the only likeness you
possess of your wife, should be a snapshot in a penny
paper. So, by this mail, I send a proper photograph, taken
the other day on purpose for you. Are you not flattered,
sir?"

The letter then went on to speak of other things; but, before signing her name, Diana drew the photograph once more from its wrappings, and looked at it, shyly, wistfully. She could not help seeing that it was very beautiful. She could not help knowing that her heart was in her eyes. What would they say to David--those tender, yearning eyes? What might they not lead David to say to her?

* * * * *

At last his answer came.

"How kind of you to send me this beautiful large
photograph, and very good of you to have had it taken
expressly for me. I fear you will think me an ungrateful
fellow, if I confess that I still prefer the snapshot, and
cannot bring myself to take it from its frame.

"This is lovely beyond words, of course; and immensely
artistic; but it gives me more the feeling of an extremely
beautiful fancy picture. You see, I never saw you look as
you are looking in this portrait, whereas the Town Hall
picture is you, exactly as I remember you always; tall and
gay, and immensely enjoying life, and life's best gifts.

"Conscious of ingratitude, I put the portrait up on the
wall of my hut; but I could not leave it there; and it is
now safely locked away in my desk.

"I could not leave it there for two reasons: its effect on
myself; and its effect on the natives.

"Reason No. 1. Its effect on myself: I could not work,
while it was where I could see it. It set me wondering; and
a fellow is lost if he once starts wondering, out in the
wilds of Central Africa.

"Reason No. 2. Its effect on the natives: They all began
worshipping it. It became a second goddess fallen from
heaven, like unto your namesake at Ephesus. They had seen a
Madonna, brought here by an artist travelling through. They
took this for a Madonna--and well they might. They asked:
Where was the little child? I said: There was no little
child. Yet still they worshipped. So I placed it under lock
and key."

Diana laid her head down on the letter, after reading these words. When she lifted it, the page was blotted with her tears. Sometimes her punishment seemed heavier than she could bear.

She took up her pen, and added a postscript to the letter she was just mailing.

"Dear David, what did you wonder? Tell me."

And David, with white set face, wrote in answer: "I wondered who----" then started up, and tore the sheet to fragments; threw prudence to the winds; went out and beat his way for hours through the swampy jungle, fighting the long grasses, and the evil clinging tendrils of poisonous growths.

When he regained his hut, worn out and exhausted, the stars were pricking in golden pin-points through the sky; one planet hung luminous and low on the horizon.

David stood in his doorway, trying to gain a little refreshment from the night wind, blowing up from the river.

Suddenly he laughed, long and wildly; then caught his breath, in a short dry sob.

"My God," he said, "I have so little! Let me keep to the end the one thing in my wife which I possess: my faith in her."

Then he passed into the hut, closing the door; groped his way to the rough wooden table; lighted a lamp, and sitting down at his desk, drew Diana's portrait from its silver wrappings; placed it in front of him, and sat long, looking at it intently; his head in his hands.

At last he laid his hot mouth on those sweet pictured lips, parted in wistful tenderness, as if offering much to one at whom the grey eyes looked with love unmistakable.

Then he laid it away, out of sight, and rewrote his letter.

* * * * *

"I wondered," he said, "at the great kindness which took so much trouble, only for me."