CHAPTER XX
THE SHADOW FALLS
Breakfast, the following morning, was something of an ordeal. Neither Max nor Diana spoke to each other if speech could be avoided, and, when this was impossible, they addressed each other with a frigid politeness that was more painful than the silence.
Jerry and Joan, sensing the antagonism in the atmosphere, endeavoured to make conversation, but their efforts received scant encouragement, and both were thankful when the meal came to an end, and they were free to seek refuge in another room, leaving husband and wife alone together.
Diana glanced a trifle nervously at her husband as the door closed behind them. There was a coldness, an aloofness about him, that reminded her vividly of the early days of their acquaintanceship, when his cool indifference of manner had set a barrier between them which her impulsive girlhood had been powerless to break through.
"Will you spare me a few minutes in my study?" he said. His face was perfectly impassive; only the peculiar brilliancy of his eyes spoke of the white-hot anger he was holding in leash.
Diana nodded silently. For a moment, bereft of words, she quailed before the knowledge of that concentrated anger, but by the time they had reached his study she had pulled herself together, and was ready to face him with a high temper almost equal to his own.
She had had the night for reflection, and the sense of bitter injustice under which she was labouring had roused in her the same dogged, unbending obstinacy which, in a much smaller way, had evinced itself when Baroni had thrown the music at her and had subsequently bade her pick it up.
But now that sense of wild rebellion against injustice, against personal injury, was magnified a thousandfold. For months she had been drifting steadily apart from her husband, acutely conscious of that secret thing in his life, and fiercely resentful of its imperceptible, yet binding influence on all his actions. Again and again she had been perplexed and mystified by certain incomprehensible things which she had observed—for instance, the fact that, as she knew, part of Max's correspondence was conducted in cipher; that at times he seemed quite unaccountably worried and depressed; and, above all, that he was for ever at the beck and call of Adrienne de Gervais.
Gradually she had begun to connect the two things—Adrienne, and that secret which dwelt like a shadowy menace at the back of everything. It was clear, too, that they were also linked together in the minds both of Baroni and Olga Lermontof—a dropped sentence here, a hint there, had assured her of that.
Then had come Olga's definite suggestion, "Adrienne de Gervais is a bad friend for the man one loves!" And from that point onward Diana had seen new meanings in all that passed between her husband and the actress, and a blind jealousy had taken possession of her. Something out of the past bound her husband and Adrienne together, of that she felt convinced. She believed that the knowledge which Max had chosen to withhold from her—his wife—he shared with Adrienne—and all Diana's fierce young sense of possession rose up in opposition.
Last night, the sight of her husband and the actress, standing together on the stage, had seemed to her to epitomise their relative positions—Max and Adrienne, working together, fully in each other's confidence, whilst she herself was the outsider, only the onlooker in the box!
"Well?" she said, defiantly turning to her husband. "Well? What is it you wish to say to me?"
"I want an explanation of your conduct—last night."
"And I," she retorted impetuously, "I want an explanation of your conduct—ever since we've been married!"
He swept her demand aside as though it were the irresponsible prattle of a child, ignored it utterly. He was conscious of only one thing—that she had barred herself away from him, humiliated him, dealt their mutual love a blow beneath which it reeled.
The bolted door itself counted for nothing. What mattered was that it was she who had closed it, deliberately choosing to shut him outside her life, and cutting every cord of love and trust and belief that bound them together.
An Englishman might have stormed or laughed, as the mood took him, and comforted himself with the reflection that she would "get over it." But not so Max. The sensitiveness which he hid from the world at large, but which revealed itself in the lines of that fine-cut mouth of his, winced under the humiliation she had put upon him. Love, in his idea, was a thing so delicate, so rare, that Diana's crude handling of the situation bore for him a far deeper meaning than the impulsive, headlong action of the over-wrought girl had rightly held. To Max, it signified the end—the denial of all the exquisite trust and understanding which love should represent. If she could think for an instant that he would have asked aught from her at a moment when they were so far apart in spirit, then she had not understood the ideal oneness of body and soul which love signified to him, and the knowledge that she had actually sought to protect herself from him had hurt him unbearably.
"Last night," he said slowly, "you showed me that you have no trust, no faith in me any longer."
And Diana, misunderstanding, thinking of the secret which he would not share with her, and impelled by the jealousy that obsessed her, replied impetuously:—
"Yes, I meant to show you that. You refuse me your confidence, and expect me to believe in you! You set me aside for Adrienne de Gervais, and then you ask me to—trust you? How can I? . . . I'm not a fool, Max."
"So it's that? The one thing over which I asked your faith?" The limitless scorn in his voice lashed her.
"You had no right to ask it!" she broke out bitterly. "Oh, you knew what it would mean. I, I was too young to realise. I didn't think—I didn't understand what a horrible thing a secret between husband and wife might be. But I can't bear it—I can't bear it any longer! I sometimes wonder," she added slowly, "if you ever loved me?"
"If I ever loved you?" he repeated. "There has never been any other woman in the world for me. There never will be."
The utter, absolute conviction of his tones knocked at her heart, but fear and jealousy were stronger than love.
"Then prove it!" she retorted. "Take me into your confidence; put
Adrienne out of your life."
"It isn't possible—not yet," he said wearily. "You're asking what I cannot do."
She took a step nearer.
"Tell me this, then. What did Olga Lermontof mean when she bade me ask your name? Oh!"—with a quick intake of her breath—"you must answer that, Max; you must tell me that. I have a right to know it!"
For a moment he was silent, while she waited, eager-eyed, tremulously appealing, for his answer. At last it came.
"No," he said inflexibly. "You have no—right—to ask anything I haven't chosen to tell you. When you gave me your love, you gave me your faith, too. I warned you what it might mean—but you gave it. And I"—his voice deepened—"I worshipped you for it! But I see now, I asked too much of you. More"—cynically—"than any woman has to give."
"Then—then"—her voice trembled—"you mean you won't tell me anything more?"
"I can't."
"And—and Adrienne? Everything must go on just the same?"
"Just the same"—implacably.
She looked at him, curiously.
"And you expect me still to feel the same towards you, I suppose? To behave as though nothing had come between us?"
For a moment his control gave way.
"I expect nothing," he said hoarsely. "I shall never ask you for anything again—neither love nor friendship. As you have decreed, so it shall be!"
Slowly, with bent head, Diana turned and left the room.
So this was the end! She had made her appeal, risked everything on his love for her—and lost. Adrienne de Gervais was stronger than she!
Hereafter, she supposed, they would live as so many other husbands and wives lived—outwardly good friends, but actually with all the beautiful links of love and understanding shattered and broken.
* * * * * *
"Since the first night of the play they've hardly said a word to each other—only when it's absolutely necessary." Joan spoke dejectedly, her chin cupped in her hand.
Jerry nodded.
"I know," he agreed. "It's pretty awful."
He and Joan were having tea alone together, cosily, by the library fire. Diana had gone out to a singing-lesson, and Errington was shut up in his study attending to certain letters, written in cipher—letters which reached him frequently, bearing a foreign postmark, and the answers to which he never by any chance dictated to his secretary.
"Surely they can't have quarrelled, just because he didn't come to the theatre with us that night," pursued Joan. "Do you think Diana could have been offended because he came down afterwards to please Miss Gervais?"
"Partly that. But it's a lot of things together, really. I've seen it coming. Diana's been getting restive for some time. There are—Look here! I don't wish to pry into what's not my business, but a fellow can't live in a house without seeing things, and there's something in Errington's life which Di knows nothing about. And it's that—just the not knowing—which is coming between them."
"Well, then, why on earth doesn't he tell her about it, whatever it is?"
Jerry shrugged his shoulders.
"Can't say. I don't know what it is; it's not my business to know.
But his wife's another proposition altogether."
"I suppose he expects her to trust him over it," said Joan thoughtfully.
"That's about the size of it. And Diana isn't taking any."
"I should trust him with anything in the world—a man with that face!" observed Joan, after a pause.
"There you go!" cried Jerry discontentedly. "There you go, with your unfailing faith in the visible object. A man's got to look a hero before you think twice about him! Mark my words, Jo—many a saint's face has hidden the heart of a devil."
Joan surveyed him consideringly.
"I've never observed that you have a saint's face, Jerry," she remarked calmly.
"Beast! Joan"—he made a dive for her hand, but she eluded him with the skill of frequent practice—"how much longer are you going to keep me on tenterhooks? You know I'm the prodigal son, and that I'm only waiting for you to say 'yes,' to return to the family bosom—"
"And you propose to use me as a stepping stone! I know. You think that if you return as an engaged young man—"
"With a good reference from my last situation," interpolated Jerry, grinning.
"Yes—that too, then your father will forget all your peccadilloes and say, 'Bless you, my children'—"
"Limelight on the blushing bur-ride! And they lived happily ever after! Yes, that's it! Jolly good programme, isn't it?"
And somehow Jerry's big boyish arm slipped itself round Joan's shoulders—and Joan raised no objections.
"But—about Max and Diana?" resumed Miss Stair after a judicious interval.
"Well, what about them?"
"Can't we—can't we do anything? Talk to them?"
"I just see myself talking to Errington!" murmured Jerry. "I'd about as soon discuss its private and internal arrangements with a volcano! My dear kid, it all depends upon Diana and whether she's content to trust her husband or not. I'd trust Max through thick and thin, and no questions asked. If he blew up the Houses of Parliament, I should believe he'd some good reason for doing it. . . . But then, I'm not his wife!"
"Well, I shall talk to Diana," said Joan seriously. "I'm sure Dad would, if he were here. And I do think, Jerry, you might screw up courage to speak to Max. He can't eat you! And—and I simply hate to see those two at cross purposes! They were so happy at the beginning."
The mention of matrimonial happiness started a new train of thought, and the conversation became of a more personal nature—the kind of conversation wherein every second or third sentence starts with "when we are married," and thence launches out into rose-red visions of the great adventure.
Presently the house door clanged, and a minute later Diana came into the room. She threw aside her furs and looked round hastily.
"Where's Max?" she asked sharply.
"Not concealed beneath the Chesterfield," volunteered Jerry flippantly. Then, as he caught a hostile sparkle of irritation in her grey eyes, he added hastily, "He's in his study."
Diana nodded, and, without further remark, went away in search of her husband.
"Are you busy, Max?" she asked, pausing on the threshold of the room where he was working.
He rose at once, placing a chair for her with the chilly courtesy which he had accorded her since their last interview in this same room.
"Not too busy to attend to you," he replied. "Where will you sit? By the fire?"
Diana shook her head. She was a little flushed, and her eyes were bright with some suppressed excitement,
"No thanks," she replied. "I only came to tell you that I've been having a talk with Baroni about my voice, and—and that I've decided to begin singing again this winter—professionally, I mean. It seems a pity to waste any more time."
She spoke rapidly, and with a certain nervousness.
For an instant a look of acute pain leaped into Errington's eyes, but it was gone almost at once, and he turned to her composedly.
"Is that the only reason, Diana?" he said. "The waste of time?"
She was silent a moment, busying herself stripping off her gloves.
Presently she looked up, forcing herself to meet his gaze.
"No," she said steadily. "It isn't."
"May I know the—other reasons?"
Her lip curled.
"I should have thought they were obvious. Our marriage has been a mistake. It's a failure. And I can't bear this life any longer. . . . I must have something to do."
CHAPTER XXI
THE OTHER WOMAN
Carlo Baroni's joy knew no bounds when he understood that Diana had definitely decided to return to the concert platform. His first action was to order her away for a complete change and rest, so she and Joan obediently packed their trunks and departed to Switzerland, where they forgot for a time the existence of such things as London fogs, either real or figurative, and threw themselves heart and soul into the winter sports that were going forward.
The middle of February found them once more in England, and Joan rejoined her father, while Diana went back to Lilac Lodge. She was greatly relieved to discover that the break had simplified several problems and made it much easier for her to meet her husband and begin life again on fresh terms. Max, indeed, seemed to have accepted the new régime with that same mocking philosophy with which he invariably faced the problems of life—and which so successfully cloaked his hurt from prying eyes.
He was uniformly kind in his manner to his wife—with that light, half-cynical kindness which he had accorded her in the train on their first memorable journey together, and which effectually set them as far apart from each other as though they stood at the opposite ends of the earth.
Unreasonably enough, Diana bitterly resented this attitude. Womanlike, she made more than one attempt to re-open the matter over which they had quarrelled, but each was skilfully turned aside, and the fact that after his one rejected effort at reconciliation, Max had calmly accepted the new order of things, added fuel to the jealous fire that burned within her. She told herself that if he still cared for her, if he were not utterly absorbed in Adrienne de Gervais, he would never have rested until he had restored the old, happy relations between them.
Instinctively she sought to dull the pain at her heart by plunging headlong into professional life. Her voice, thanks to the rest and change of her visit to Switzerland, had regained all its former beauty, and her return to the concert platform was received with an outburst of popular enthusiasm. The newspapers devoted half a column apiece to the subject, and several of them prophesied that it was in grand opera that Madame Diana Quentin would eventually find the setting best suited to her gifts.
"Mere concert work"—wrote one critic—"will never give her the scope which both her temperament and her marvellous voice demand."
And with this opinion Baroni cordially concurred. It was his ultimate ambition for Diana that she should study for grand opera, and she herself, only too thankful to find something that would occupy her thoughts and take her right out of herself, as it were, enabling her to forget the overthrow of her happiness, flung herself into the work with enthusiasm.
Gradually, as time passed on, her bitter feelings towards Max softened a little. That light, half-ironical manner he had assumed brought back to her so vividly the Max Errington of the early days of their acquaintance that it recalled, too, a measure of the odd attraction he had held for her in that far-away time.
That he still visited Adrienne very frequently she was aware, but often, on his return from Somervell Street, he seemed so much depressed that she began at last to wonder whether those visits were really productive of any actual enjoyment. Possibly she had misjudged them—her husband and her friend—and it might conceivably be really only business matters which bound them together after all.
If so—if that were true—how wantonly she had flung away her happiness!
Late one afternoon, Max, who had been out since early morning, came in looking thoroughly worn out. His eyes, ringed with fatigue, held an alert look of strain and anxiety for which Diana was at a loss to account.
She was at the piano when he entered the room, idly trying over some MS. songs that had been submitted by aspiring composers anxious to secure her interest.
"Why, Max," she exclaimed, genuine concern in her voice, as she rose from the piano. "How worried you look! What is the matter?"
"Nothing," he returned. "At least, nothing in which you can help," he added hastily. "Unless—"
"Unless what? Please . . . let me help . . . if I can." Diana spoke rather nervously. She was suddenly struck by the fact that the last few months had been responsible for a great change in her husband's appearance. He looked much thinner and older than formerly, she thought. There were harassed lines in his face, and its worn contours and shadowed eyes called aloud to the compassionate womanhood within her, to the mother-instinct that involuntarily longs to heal and soothe.
"Tell me what I can do, Max?"
A smile curved his lips, half whimsical, half sad.
"You can do for me what you do for all the rest of the world—I won't ask more of you," he replied. "Sing to me."
Diana coloured warmly. The first part of his speech stung her unbearably.
"Sing to you?" she repeated.
"Yes. I'm very tired, and nothing is more restful than music." Then, as she hesitated, he added, "Unless, of course, I'm asking too much."
"You know you are not," she answered swiftly.
She resumed her place at the piano, and, while he lay back in his chair with closed eyes, she sang to him—the music of the old masters who loved melody, and into whose songs the bitterness and unrest of the twentieth century had not crept.
Presently, she thought, he slept, and very softly her hands strayed into the simple, sorrowful music of "The Haven of Memory," and a note of wistful appeal, not all of art, added a new depth to the exquisite voice.
How once your love
But crowned and blessed me only,
Long and long ago.
The refrain died into silence, and Diana, looking up, found Max's piercing blue eyes fixed upon her. He was not asleep, then, after all.
He smiled slightly as their glances met.
"Do you remember I once told you I thought 'The Hell of Memory' would be a more appropriate title? . . . I was quite right."
"Max—" Diana's voice quavered and broke.
A sudden eager light sprang into his face. Swiftly he same to her side and stood looking down at her.
"Diana," he said tensely, "must it always remain—the hell of memory?"
They were very near to each other in that moment; the great wall fashioned of jealousy and distrust was tottering to its foundations.
And then, from the street below came the high-pitched, raucous sound of the newsboy's voice:—
"Attempted Murder of Miss Adrian Jervis! Premier Theatre Besieged."
The words, with their deadly import, cut between husband and wife like a sword.
"Good God!" The exclamation burst from Max with a cry of horror. In an instant he was out of the room, down the stairs, and running bareheaded along the street in pursuit of the newsboy, and a few seconds later he was back with a newspaper, damp from the press, in his hands.
Diana had remained sitting just as he had left her. She felt numbed. The look of dread and consternation that had leaped into her husband's face, as the news came shrilling up from the street below, had told her, more eloquently than any words could do, how absolutely his life was bound up in that of Adrienne de Gervais. A man whose heart's desire has been suddenly snatched from him might look so; no other.
Max, oblivious of everything else, was reading the brief newspaper account at lightning speed. At last—
"I must go!" he said. "I must go round to Somervell Street at once."
When he had gone, Diana picked up the newspaper from the floor where he had tossed it, and smoothing out its crumpled sheet, proceeded to read the short paragraph, surmounted by staring head-lines, which had sent her husband hurrying hot-foot to Adrienne's house.
"MURDEROUS ATTACK ON MISS ADRIENNE DE GERVAIS.
"As Miss Adrienne de Gervais, the popular actress, was leaving the Premier Theatre after the matinee performance to-day, a man rushed out from a side street and fired three shots at her, wounding her severely. Miss de Gervais was carried into the theatre, where a doctor who chanced to be passing rendered first aid. Within a very few minutes the news of the outrage became known and the theatre was besieged by inquirers. The would-be assassin, who made good his escape, was a man of unmistakably foreign appearance."
Diana laid the paper down very quietly. This, then, was the news which had power to bring that look of fear and dread to her husband's face—which could instantly wipe out from his mind all thoughts of his wife and of everything that concerned her.
Perhaps, she reflected scornfully, it was as well that the revelation had come when it did! Otherwise—otherwise, she had been almost on the verge of forgetting her just cause for jealousy, forgetting all the past months of misery, and believing in her husband once again.
The trill of the telephone from below checked her bitter thoughts, and hurrying downstairs into the hall, she lifted the receiver and held it to her ear.
"Yes. Who is it?"
Possibly something was wrong with the wire, or perhaps it was only that Diana's voice, particularly deep and low-pitched for a woman, misled the speaker at the other end. Whatever it may have been, Adrienne's voice, rather tremulous and shaky, came through the 'phone, and she was obviously under the impression that she was speaking to Diana's husband.
"Oh, is that you, Max? Don't be frightened. I'm not badly hurt. I hear it's already in the papers, and as I knew you'd be nearly mad with anxiety, I've made the doctor let me 'phone you myself. Of course you can guess who did it. It was not the man you caught waiting about outside the theatre. It was the taller one of the two we saw at Charing Cross that day. Please come round as soon as you can."
Diana's lips set in a straight line. Very deliberately she replaced the receiver and rang off without reply. A small, fine smile curved her lips as she reflected that, within a few minutes, Max's arrival at Somervell Street would enlighten Miss de Gervais as to the fact that she had bean pouring out her reassuring remarks to the wrong person.
Half an hour later Diana came slowly downstairs, dressed for dinner.
Jerry was waiting for her in the hall.
"There's a 'phone message just come through from Max," he said, a trifle awkwardly. (Jerry had not lived through the past few months at Lilac Lodge without realising the terms on which the Erringtons stood with each other.) "He won't be back till late."
Diana bestowed her sweetest smile upon him.
"Then we shall be dining tete-à-tete. How nice! Come along."
She took his arm and they went in together.
"This is a very serious thing about Miss de Gervais, isn't it?" she said conversationally, as they sat down.
"A dastardly business," assented Jerry, with indignation.
"I suppose—did Max give you any further particulars?"
"The bullet's broken her arm just above the elbow. Of course she won't be able to play for some time to come."
"How her understudy must be rejoicing," murmured Diana reflectively.
"It seems," pursued Jerry, "that the shot was fired by some shady actor fellow. Down on his luck, you know, and jealous of Miss de Gervais' success. At least, that's what they suspect, and Max has 'phoned me to send a paragraph to all the morning papers to that effect."
"That's very curious," commented Diana.
"Why? I should think it's a jolly good guess."
Diana smiled enigmatically.
"Anyhow, it sounds a very natural supposition," she agreed lightly, and then switched the conversation on to other subjects. Jerry, however, seemed rather absent and distrait, and presently, when at last the servants had handed the coffee and withdrawn, he blurted out:—
"It sounds beastly selfish of me, but this affair has upset my own little plans rather badly."
"Yours, Jerry?" said Diana kindly. "How's that? Give me a cigarette and tell me what's gone wrong."
"What would Baroni say to your smoking?" queried Jerry, as he tendered his case and held a match for her to light her cigarette.
"I'm not singing anywhere for a week," laughed Diana. "So this orgy is quite legitimate." And she inhaled luxuriously. "Now, go on, Jerry, what plans of yours have been upset?"
"Well"—Jerry reddened—"I wrote to my governor the other day. It—it was to please Joan, you know."
Diana nodded, her grey eyes dancing.
"Of course," she said gravely, "I quite understand."
"And—and here's his answer!"
He opened his pocket-book, and extracting a letter from the bundle it contained, handed it to Diana.
"You mean you want me to read this?"
"Please."
Diana unfolded it, and read the following terse communication:—
"Come home and bring the lady. Am fattening the calf.—Your affectionate
Father."
"Jerry, I should adore your father," said Diana, as she gave him back the letter. "He must he a perfect gem amongst parents."
"He's not a bad old chap," acknowledged Jerry, as he replaced the paternal invitation in his pocket-book. "But you see the difficulty? I was going to ask Errington to give me a few days' leave, and I don't like to bother him now that he has all this worry about Miss de Gervais on his hands."
Diana flushed hotly at Jerry's tacit acceptance of the fact that
Adrienne's affairs were naturally of so much moment to her husband. It
was another pin-prick in the wound that had been festering for so long.
She ignored it, however, and answered quietly:—
"Yes, I see. Perhaps you had better leave it for a few days. What about
Pobs? He'll have to be consulted in the matter, won't he?"
"I told him, long ago, that I wanted Joan. Before"—with a grin—"I ever summoned up pluck to tell Joan herself! He was a brick about it, but he thought I ought to make it up with the governor before Joan and I were formally engaged. So I did—and I'm jolly glad of it. And now I want to go down to Crailing, and fetch Joan, and take her with me to Abbotsleigh. So I should want at least a week off."
"Well, wait till Max comes back," advised Diana, "We shall know more about the matter then. And—and—Jerry!" She stretched out her hand, which immediately disappeared within Jerry's big, boyish fist. "Good luck, old boy!"
* * * * * *
Max returned at about ten o'clock, and Diana proceeded to offer polite inquiries about Miss de Gervais' welfare. She wondered if he would remember how near they had been to each other just for an instant before the news of the attempt upon Adrienne's life had reached them.
But apparently he had forgotten all about it. His thoughts were entirely concerned with Adrienne, and he was unusually grave and preoccupied.
He ordered a servant to bring him some sandwiches and a glass of wine, and when he and Diana were once more alone, be announced abruptly:—
"I shall have to leave home for a few days."
"Leave home?" echoed Diana.
"Yes. Adrienne must go out of town, and I'm going to run down to some little country place and find rooms for her and Mrs. Adams."
"Find rooms?" Diana stared at him amazedly. "But surely—won't they go to Red Gables?"
Max shook his head.
"No. It wouldn't be safe after this—this affair. The same brute might try to get her again. You see, it's quite well known that she has a house at Crailing."
"Who is it that is such an enemy of hers?"
Max hesitated a moment.
"It might very well be some former actor, some poor devil of a fellow down on his luck, who has brooded over his fancied wrongs till he was half-mad," he said, at length.
Diana's eyes flashed. So that item of news intended for the morning papers was also to be handed out for home consumption!
"What steps are you taking to trace the man?"
Again Max paused before replying. To Diana, his hesitation strengthened her conviction that he was, as usual, withholding something from her.
"Well?" she repeated. "What steps are you taking?"
"None," he answered at last reluctantly. "Adrienne doesn't wish any fuss made over the matter."
And yet, Diana reflected, both her husband and Miss de Gervais knew quite well who the assailant was! "The taller of the two," Adrienne had said through the telephone. Why, then, with that clue in her hands, did she refuse to prosecute?
Suddenly, into Diana's mind flashed an answer to the question—to the multitude of questions which had perplexed, her for so long. She felt as a traveller may who has been journeying along an unknown way in the dark, hurt and bruised by stones and pitfalls he could not see, when suddenly a light shines out, revealing all the dangers of the path.
The explanation of all those perplexities and suspicions of the past was so simple, so obvious, that she marvelled why it had never occurred to her before. Adrienne de Gervais was neither more or less than an adventuress—one of the vampire type of woman who preys upon mankind, drawing them into her net by her beauty and charm, even as she had drawn Max himself! This, this supplied the key to the whole matter—all that had gone before, and all that was now making such a mockery of her married life.
And the "poor devil of a fellow" who had attempted Adrienne's life had probably figured largely in her past, one of her dupes, and now, understanding at last what kind of woman it was for whom he had very likely sacrificed all that made existence worth while, he was obsessed with a crazy desire for vengeance—vengeance at any price. And Adrienne, of course, in her extremity, had turned to her latest captive, Max himself, for protection!
Oh! it was all quite clear now! The scattered pieces of the puzzle were fitting together and making a definite picture.
Stray remarks of Olga Lermontof's came back to her—those little pointed arrows wherewith the Russian had skilfully found out the joints in her armour—"Miss de Gervais is not quite what she seems." And again, "I'm perfectly sure Adrienne de Gervais' past is a closed book to you." Proof positive that Olga had known all along what Diana had only just this moment perceived to be the truth.
Diana's small hands clenched themselves until the nails dug into the soft palms, as she remembered how those same hands had been held out in friendship to this very adventuress—to the woman who had wrecked her happiness, and for whom Max was ready at any time to set her and her wishes upon one side! What a blind, trusting fool she had been! Well, that was all ended now; she knew where she stood. Never again would Max or Adrienne be able to deceive her. The scales had at last fallen from her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Diana"—Max's cool, quiet tones broke in on the torment of her thoughts. "I'm sorry, but I shall probably have to be away several days."
"Have you forgotten we're giving a big reception here next Wednesday?"
"Wednesday, is it? And to-day is Saturday. I shall find rooms somewhere to-morrow, and take Adrienne and Mrs. Adams down to them the next day. . . No, I can't possibly be back for Wednesday."
"But you must!"—impetuously.
"It's impossible. I shall stay with Adrienne and Mrs. Adams until I'm quite sure that the place is safe for them—that that fellow hasn't traced them and isn't lurking about in the neighbourhood. You mustn't expect me back before Saturday at the earliest. You and Jerry can manage the reception. I hate those big crowds, as you know."
For a moment Diana sat in stony silence. So he intended to leave her to entertain half London—that half of London that mattered and would talk about it—while he spent a pleasant week philandering down in the country with Adrienne de Gervais, under the aegis of Mrs. Adams' chaperonage!
Very slowly Diana rose to her feet. Her small face was white and set, her little pointed chin thrust out, and her grey eyes were almost black with the intense anger that gripped her.
"Do you mean this?" she asked collectedly.
"Why, of course. Don't you see that I must, Diana? I can't let Adrienne run a risk like that."
"But you can subject your wife to an insult like that without thinking twice about it!"—contemptuously. "It hasn't occurred to you, I suppose, what people will say when they find that I have been left entirely alone to entertain our friends, while my husband passes a pleasant week in the country with Miss de Gervais, and her—chaperon? It's an insult to our guests as well as to me. But I quite understand. I, and my friends, simply don't count when Adrienne de Gervais wants you."
"I can't help it," he answered stubbornly, her scorn moving him less than the waves that break in a shower of foam at the foot of a cliff. "You knew you would have to trust me."
"Trust you?" cried Diana, shaken out of her composure. "Yes! But I never promised to stand trustingly by while you put another woman in my place. This is the end, Max. I've had enough."
A sudden look of apprehension dawned in his eyes.
"What do you mean?" he asked sharply.
"What do I mean?"—bleakly. "Oh, nothing. I never do mean anything, do I? . . . Well, good-bye. I expect you'll have left the house before I come down to-morrow morning. I hope . . . you'll enjoy your visit to the country."
She waited a moment, as though expecting some reply; then, as he neither stirred nor spoke, she went quickly out of the room, closing the door behind her.