CHAPTER XVIII
THE APPROACHING SHADOW
Diana gathered up her songs and slowly dropped them into her music-case, while Baroni stared at her with a puzzled, brooding look in his eyes.
At last he spoke:—
"You are throwing away the great gift God has given you. First, you will take no more engagements, and now—what is it? Where is your voice?"
Diana, conscious of having done herself less than justice at the lesson which was just concluded, shook her head.
"I don't know," she said simply. "I don't seem able to sing now, somehow."
Baroni shrugged his shoulders.
"You are fretting," he declared. "And so the voice suffers."
"Fretting? I don't know that I've anything to fret about"—vaguely. "Only I shall be glad when 'Mrs. Fleming's Husband' is actually produced. Just now"—with a rather wistful smile—"I don't seem to have a husband to call my own. Miss de Gervais claims so much of his time."
Baroni's brow grew stormy.
"Mees de Gervais? Of course! It is inevitable!" he muttered. "I knew it must be like that."
Diana regarded him curiously.
"But why? Do—do all dramatists have to consult so much with the leading actress in the play?"
The old maestro made a sweeping gesture with his arm, as though disavowing any knowledge of the matter.
"Do not ask me!" he said bitterly. "Ask Max Errington—ask your husband these questions."
At the condemnation in his voice her loyalty asserted itself indignantly.
"You are right," she said quickly. "I ought not to have asked you.
Good-bye, signor."
But Diana's loyalty was hard put to it to fight the newly awakened jealousy that was stirring in her heart, and it seemed as though just now everything and everybody combined to add fuel to the fire, for, only a few days later, when Miss Lermontof came to Lilac Lodge to practise with Diana, she, too, added her quota of disturbing comment.
"You're looking very pale," she remarked, at the end of the hour. "And you're shockingly out of voice! What's the matter?"
Then, as Diana made no answer, she added teasingly: "Matrimony doesn't seem to have agreed with you too well. Doesn't Max play the devoted husband satisfactorily?"
Diana flushed.
"You've no right to talk like that, Olga, even in jest," she said, with a little touch of matronly dignity that sat rather quaintly and sweetly upon her. "I know you don't like Max—never have liked him—but please recollect that you're speaking of my husband."
"You misunderstand me," replied the Russian, coolly, as she drew on her gloves. "I don't dislike him; but I do think he ought to be perfectly frank with you. As you say, he is your husband"—pointedly.
"Perfectly frank with me?"
Miss Lermontof nodded.
"Yes."
"He has been," affirmed Diana.
"Has he, indeed? Have you ever asked him"—she paused significantly—"who he is?"
"Who he is?" Diana felt her heart contract. What new mystery was this at which the other was hinting?
"Who he is?" she repeated. "Why—why—what do you mean?"
The accompanists queer green eyes narrowed between their heavy lids.
"Ask him—that's all," she replied shortly.
She drew her furs around her shoulders preparatory to departure, but
Diana stepped in front of her, laying a detaining hand on her arm.
"What do you mean?" she demanded hotly. "Are you implying now that Max is going about under a false name? I hate your hints! Always, always you've tried to insinuate something against Max. . . . No!"—as the Russian endeavoured to free herself from her clasp—"No! You shan't leave this house till you've answered my question. You've made an accusation, and you shall prove it—if I have to bring you face to face with Max himself!"
"I've made no accusation—merely a suggestion that you should ask him who he is. And as to bringing me face to face with him—I can assure you"—there was an inflection of ironical amusement in her light tones—"no one would be less anxious for such a dénouement than Max Errington himself. Now, good-bye; think over what I've said. And remember"—mockingly—"Adrienne de Gervais is a bad friend for the man one loves!"
She flitted through the doorway, and Diana was left to deal as best she might with the innuendo contained in her speech.
"Adrienne de Gervais is a bad friend for the man one loves."
The phrase seemed to crystallise in words the whole vague trouble that had been knocking at her heart, and she realised suddenly, with a shock of unbearable dismay, that she was jealous—jealous of Adrienne! Hitherto, she had not in the least understood the feeling of depression and malaise which had assailed her. She had only known that she felt restless and discontented when Max was out of her sight, irritated at the amount of his time which Miss de Gervais claimed, and she had ascribed these things to the depth of her love for him! But now, with a sudden flash of insight, engendered by the Russian's dexterous suggestion, she realised that it was jealousy, sheer primitive jealousy of another woman that had gripped her, and her young, wholesome, spontaneous nature recoiled in horrified self-contempt at the realisation.
Pobs' good counsel came back to her mind: "It seems to me that if you love him, you needs must trust him." Ah! but that was uttered in regard to another matter—the secret which shadowed Max's life—and she had trusted him over that, she told herself. This, this jealousy of another woman, was an altogether different thing, something which had crept insidiously into her heart, and woven its toils about her almost before she was aware of it.
And behind it all there loomed a new terror. Olga Lermontof's advice: "Ask him who he is," beat at the back of her brain, fraught with fresh mystery, the forerunner of a whole host of new suspicions.
Secrecy and concealment of any kind were utterly alien to Diana's nature. Impulsive, warm-hearted, quick-tempered, she was the last woman in the world to have been thrust by an unkind fate into an atmosphere of intrigue and mystery. She was like a pretty, fluttering, summer moth, caught in the gossamer web of a spider—terrified, struggling, battling against something she did not understand, and utterly without the patience and strong determination requisite to free herself.
For hours after Olga's departure she fought down the temptation to follow her advice and question her husband. She could not bring herself to hurt him—as it must do if he guessed that she distrusted him. But neither could she conquer the suspicions that had leaped to life within her. At last, for the time being, love obtained the mastery—won the first round of the struggle.
"I will trust him," she told herself. "And—and whether I trust him or not," she ended up defiantly, "at least he shall never know, never see it, if—if I can't."
So that it was a very sweet and repentant, if rather wan, Diana that greeted her husband when he returned from the afternoon rehearsal at the theatre.
Max's keen eyes swept the white, shadowed face.
"Has Miss Lermontof been here to-day?" he asked abruptly.
"Yes." A burning flush chased away her pallor as she answered his question.
"I see."
"You see?"—nervously. "What do you see?"
A very gentle expression came into Max's eyes.
"I see," he said kindly, "that I have a tired wife. You mustn't let
Baroni and Miss Lermontof work you too hard between them."
"Oh, they don't, Max."
"All right, then. Only"—cupping her chin in his hand and turning her face up to his—"I notice I often have a somewhat worried-looking wife after one of Miss Lermontof's visits. I don't think she is too good a friend for you, Diana. Couldn't you get some one else to accompany you?"
Diana hesitated. She would have been quite glad to dispense with Olga's services had it been possible. The Russian was for ever hinting at something in connection either with Max or Miss de Gervais; to-day she had but gone a step further than usual.
"Well?" queried Max, reading the doubt in Diana's eyes.
"I'm afraid I couldn't engage any one else to accompany me," she said at last. "You see, Olga is Baroni's chosen accompanist, and—it might make trouble."
A curious expression crossed his face.
"Yes," he agreed slowly. "It might—make trouble, as you say. Well, why not ask Joan to stay with you for a time—to counterbalance matters?"
"Excellent suggestion!" exclaimed Diana, her spirits going up with a bound. Joan was always so satisfactory and cheerful and commonplace that she felt as though her mere presence in the house would serve to dispel the vague, indefinable atmosphere of suspicion that seemed closing round her. "I'll write to her at once."
"Yes, do. If she can come next month, she will be here for the first night of 'Mrs. Fleming's Husband.'"
Diana went away to write her letter, while Max remained pacing thoughtfully up and down the room, tapping restlessly with his fingers on his chest as he walked. His face showed signs of fatigue—the hard work in connection with the production of his play was telling on him—and since the brief interview with his wife, a new look of anxiety, an alert, startled expression, had dawned in his eyes.
He seemed to be turning something over in his mind as he paced to and fro. At last, apparently, he came to a decision.
"I'll do it," he said aloud. "It's a possible chance of silencing her."
He made his way downstairs, pausing at the door of the library, where
Diana was poring over her letter to Joan.
"I find I must go out again," he said. "But I shall be back in time for dinner."
Diana looked up in dismay.
"But you've had no tea, Max," she protested.
"Can't stay for it now, dear."
He dropped a light kiss on her hair and was gone, while Diana, flinging down her pen, exclaimed aloud:—
"It's that woman again! I know it is! She's rung him up!"
And it never dawned upon her that the fact that she had unthinkingly referred to Adrienne de Gervais as "that woman" marked a turning-point in her attitude towards her.
Meanwhile Errington hailed a taxi and directed the chauffeur to drive him to 24 Brutton Square, where he asked to see Miss Lermontof.
He was shown into the big and rather gloomy-looking public drawing-room, of which none of Mrs. Lawrence's student-boarders made use except when receiving male visitors, much preferring the cheery comfort of their own bed-sitting-rooms—for Diana had been the only one amongst them whose means had permitted the luxury of a separate sitting-room—and in a few minutes Olga joined him there.
There was a curiously hostile look in her face as she greeted him.
"This is—an unexpected pleasure, Max," she began mockingly. "To what am I indebted?"
Errington hesitated a moment. Then, his keen eyes resting piercingly on hers, he said quietly:—
"I want to know how we stand, Olga. Are you trying to make mischief for me with my wife?"
"Then she's asked you?" exclaimed Olga triumphantly.
"Diana has asked me nothing. Though I have no doubt that you have been hinting and suggesting things to her that she would ask me about if it weren't for her splendid, loyalty. You have the tongue of an asp, Olga! Always, after your visits, I can see that Diana is worried and unhappy."
"How can she ever be happy—as your wife?"
Errington winced.
"I could make her happy—if you—you and Baroni—would let me. I know I must regard you as an enemy in—that other matter . . . as a 'passive resister,' at least," he amended, with a bitter smile. "But am I to regard you as an enemy to my marriage, too? Or, is it your idea of punishment, perhaps—to wreck my happiness?"
Olga shrugged her shoulders, and, walking to the window, stood there silently, staring out into the street. When she turned back again, her eyes were full of tears.
"Max," she said earnestly, "you may not believe it, but I want your happiness above everything else in the world. There is no one I love as I love you. Give up—that other affair. Wash your hands of it. Let Adrienne go, and take your happiness with Diana. That's what I'm working for—to make you choose between Diana and that interloper. You won't give her up for me; but perhaps, if Diana—if your wife—insists, you will shake yourself free, break with Adrienne de Gervais at last. Sometimes I'm almost tempted to tell Diana the truth, to force your hand!"
Errington's eyes blazed.
"If you did that," he said quietly, "I would never see, or speak to you, again."
Olga shivered a little.
"Your honour is mine," he went on. "Remember that."
"It isn't fair," she burst out passionately. "It isn't fair to put it like that. Why should I, and you, and Diana—all of us—be sacrificed for Adrienne?"
"Because you and I are—what we are, and because Diana is my wife."
Olga looked at him curiously.
"Then—if it came to a choice—you would actually sacrifice Diana?"
Errington's face whitened.
"It will not—it shall not!" he said vehemently. "Diana's faith will pull us through."
Olga smiled contemptuously.
"Don't be too sure. After all a woman's trust won't stand everything, and you're asking a great deal from Diana—a blind faith, under circumstances which might shake the confidence of any one. Already"—she leaned forward a little—"already she is beginning to be jealous of Adrienne."
"And whom have I to thank for that? You—you, from whom, more than from any other, I might have expected loyalty."
Olga shook her head.
"No, not me. But the fact that no wife worth the name will stand quietly by and see her husband at the beck and call of another woman."
"More especially when there is some one who drops poison in her ear day by day," he retorted.
"Yes," she acknowledged frankly. "If I can bring matters to a head, force you to a choice between Adrienne and Diana, I shall do it. And then, before God, Max! I believe you'll free yourself from that woman."
"No," he answered quietly, "I shall not."
"You'll sacrifice Diana?"—incredulously.
A smile of confidence lightened his face.
"I don't think it will come to that. I'm staking—everything—on
Diana's trust in me."
"Then you'll lose—lose, I tell you."
"No," he said steadily. "I shall win."
Olga smote her hands together.
"Was there ever such a fool! I tell you, no woman's trust can hold out for ever. And since you can't explain to her—"
"It won't be for ever," he broke in quickly. "Everything goes well. Before long all the concealment will be at an end. And I shall be free."
Olga turned away.
"I can't wish you success," she said bitterly. "The day that brings you success will be the blackest hour of my life."
Errington's face softened a little.
"Olga, you are unreasonable—"
"Unreasonable, am I? Because I grudge paying for the sins of others? . . . If that is unreasonable—yes, then, I am unreasonable! Now, go. Go, and remember, Max, we are on opposite sides of the camp."
Errington paused at the door.
"So long as you keep your honour—our honour—clean," he said, "do what you like! I have utter, absolute trust in Diana."