CHAPTER III
A WHIM
The fire in the marble fireplace died down, leaping in fitful shadowover the iron-bound doors riveted in nail-heads. They too were relicsfrom the Spanish castle which Norman Westfall had stripped of itsancient appurtenances to fashion an appropriate setting for thebeautiful young Spanish wife whose death at the birth of Diane hadgoaded him to suicide. That Norman Westfall had regarded the vitalspark within him as an indifferent thing to be snuffed out at the willof the clay it dominated, was consistent with the Westfall intoleranceof custom and convention.
By the fire Carl smoked and stared at the dying embers. For all hisinsolent habit of dominance and mockery he was keenly sensitive andto-night the significant defection of Starrett and Payson after monthsof sycophantic friendship, had made him quiver inwardly like a hurtchild. Only Wherry had stayed with him when his career of recklessexpenditure had arrived at its inevitable goal of ruin.
There remained, financially, what? Barely four thousand a year insecurities so iron-bound by his mother's will that he could not touchthem.
Black resentment flamed hotly up in his heart at the memory of theWestfall custom of willing the bulk of the great estate to the oldestson. It had left his mother with a patrimony which Carl, inheriting,had chosen contemptuously to regard as a dwarfish thing of goldsufficient only for the heedless purchase of one flaming, brillianthour of life. That husbanded it might purchase a lifetime of grayhours tinged intermittently with rose or crimson, Carl had dismissedwith a cynical laugh, quoting Omar Khayyam.
Starrett had sneeringly suggested that, to remedy his fallenfortunes--he might marry Diane! Carl laughed softly but recallingsuddenly how Diane had looked as she stood in the doorway, the flame ofher honest anger setting off her primitive grace, he frownedthoughtfully at the fire, swayed by one of the mad, reckless whimswhich frequently rocketed through his brain to heedless consummation.Wherefore he presently dispatched a servant to Diane with a notescribbled carelessly upon the face of the ace of diamonds.
"May I see you?" it ran. "I am still in the library. If you like,I'll come up."
She came to the library, frankly surprised. Carl rarely saw fit toapologize or seek advice.
With his ready gallantry, habitually colored by a subtle sex-mockery,Carl rose, drew a chair for her and leaned against the mantel, smiling.
"I'm sorry," said he civilly, "I'm sorry Starrett so far forgothimself."
"So am I," said Diane. "Bacchanalian tableaus are not at all to myliking."
"Nor mine," admitted Carl. "As an aesthete I must own that Starrett istoo fat for a really graceful villain. I fancied you were indefinitelydomiciled at the farm. Aunt Agatha has been fussing--"
"I was," nodded Diane. "A whim of mine brought me home."
Carl dropped easily into a chair and glanced at his cousin's profile.The delicate oval of her face was firelit; her night-black hair onewith the deeper shadows of the room. There was mystery in the lovelydusk of Diane's eyes--and discontent--and something mute and wistfulcrying for expression.
"I've a proposition to make," said Carl lightly. "It's partlycommercial, partly belated justice, partly eugenic and partly personal."
"Your money is quite gone, is it not?" asked Diane, raising finelyarched expressive eyebrows.
"It is," admitted Carl ruefully. "My career as a bibulous meteor isover. Last night, after an exquisite shower of golden fire, I cametumbling to earth in the fashion of meteors, a disillusioned stone. Inother words--stone broke. May I smoke?"
"Assuredly."
Carl lighted a cigarette.
"And the proposition which is at the same time commercial, eugenicand--er--personal?" reminded Diane curiously. Carl ignored thedelicate note of sarcasm.
"It is merely," he said with a flash of impudence, "that you will marryme."
Diane's eyes widened.
"How frankly commercial!" she murmured.
"Isn't it?" said Carl. "And an excellent opportunity for belatedjustice as well. My mother, save for our infernal Salic law ofinheritance, was entitled to half the Westfall estate."
Diane stared curiously at the fire-rimmed hem of her satin skirt.There was something of Carl's lazy impudence in the arch of hereyebrows.
"There yet remains the eugenic inducement and, I believe, a personalone!" she hinted.
"Thank heaven," exclaimed Carl devoutly, "that we're both logicians.The eugenic consideration is that by birth and brains and breeding I amyour logical mate."
Diane's eyes flashed with swift contempt.
"Birth!" she repeated.
The black demon of ungovernable temper leaped brutally from Carl'seyes. Leaning forward he caught the girl's hands in a vicious gripthat hurt her cruelly though for all her swift color she did not flinch.
"Listen, Diane," he said, his face very white; "if there is one thingin this rotten world of custom and convention and immoral moralitywhich I honestly respect, it is the memory of my mother. Therefore youwill please abstain from contemptuous reference to her by look or word."
Diane met the clear, compelling rebuke of his fine eyes with unwaveringdirectness.
"My mother," said Carl steadily, "was a fine, big, splendid woman,unconventional like all the Westfalls, and a century ahead of her time.Moreover, she had a code of morality quite her own. If Aunt Agatha'sshocked sensibilities had not eliminated her from your life so early,contact with her broad understanding of things would have tempered yoursex insularity." He glanced pityingly at Diane. "You've fire andvision, Diane," he said bluntly, "but you're intolerant. It's aWestfall trait." He laughed softly. "How scornfully you used to laughand jeer at boys, because you were swifter of foot and keener of visionthan any of them, because you could leap and run and swim like a wildthing! Intolerance again, Diane, even as a youngster!"
He rose restlessly, smiling down at her with a lazy expression ofdeference in his eyes.
"Wonderful, beautiful lady of fire and ebony!" he said gently, with abewildering change of mood which brought the vivid color to Diane'sdark cheek. "There's the wild, sweet wine of the forest in your veryblood! And it's always calling!"
"Yes," nodded Diane wistfully, "it's always calling. How did you know?"
"By the wizardry of eye and intuition!" he laughed lightly. "And thepersonal consideration," he added pleasantly; "we've come at last tothat."
A tide of color swept brightly over Diane's face.
"Surely, Carl," she exclaimed with a swift, level glance, "you don'tmean that you care?"
"No," said Carl honestly, "I don't. I mean just this. Will you permitme to care? To-night as you stood there in the doorway I knew for thefirst time that, if I chose, I could love you very greatly."
"Love isn't like that," flashed Diane. "It comes unbidden."
"To different natures come different dawnings of the immortal whitefire!" shrugged Carl. "My love will be largely a matter of will. I'marmored heavily."
"For a golden key!" scoffed Diane, rising.
"Ah, well," said Carl impudently, "it was well worth a try! I'm sure Icould love with all the fiery appurtenances of the Devil himself if Ished the armor."