Chapter XXIV

On the following day the Marquis de Bienville found the execution of any intentions he might have had toward Derek Pruyn postponed by the circumstance that Miss Regina van Tromp was dead. The helpless, inarticulate life, which for three years had served as a bond to hold more active existences together, had failed suddenly, leaving in the little group a curious impression of collapse. It became perceptible that the hushed sick-room, where Miss Lucilla and Mrs. Eveleth were the only ministrants, had in reality been a centre for those who never entered it. Now that the living presence was withdrawn, there came the consciousness of dispersing interests, inseparable from the passing away of the long established, which gives the spirit pause. The days before the funeral became a period of suspended action, in which Life refrained from too marked a manifestation of its energies, out of reverence for Death. Even when the grave was filled in, and the will read, and the family face to face with its new conditions, there was a respectful absence of hurry in beginning the work of reconstruction. The lull lasted, in fact, till James van Tromp arrived from Paris; and it was broken then only by the banker's desire "to get things settled" with all possible speed, so that he might return to the Rue Auber.

The first sign of real disintegration came from Mrs. Eveleth. She had waited for the arrival of the man whom she looked upon now as her confidential adviser, to make the announcement that, since Miss Lucilla would no longer need her, she meant to have a home of her own. The economies she had been able to practise during the last two years, together with a legacy from Miss van Tromp, would, when added to "her own income," provide her with modest comfort for the rest of her days. There was something triumphant in the way in which she proclaimed her independence of the daughter-in-law who had been the author of so many of her woes. It was the old banker himself who brought this intelligence to Diane.

During the fortnight he had been in New York he had formed an almost daily habit of dropping in on her. She was the more surprised at his doing so from the fact that her detachment from the rest of the circle of which she had formed a part was now complete. She had gone to see Miss Lucilla with words of sympathy, but her reception was such that she came away with cheeks flaming. Miss Lucilla had said nothing; she had only wept; but she had wept in a way to show that Diane herself, more than the departed Miss Regina, was the motive of her grief. After that Diane had remained shut up in her linen-room, finding in its occupied seclusion something of the peace which the nun seeks in the cloister.

There was no one but the old man to push his way into her sanctuary, and for his visits she was grateful. They not only relieved the tedium of her days, but they brought her news from that small world into which her most vital