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."
CHAPTER XIX
THE "FIRST NIGHT" PERFORMANCE
The curtain fell amidst a roar of applause, and the lights flashed up over the auditorium once more. It was the first night performance of "Mrs. Fleming's Husband," and the house was packed with the usual crowd of first-nighters, critics, and members of "the" profession who were anxious to see Miss de Gervais in the new part Max Errington had created for her.
Diana and Joan Stair were in a box, escorted only by Jerry, since Max had firmly refused to come down to the theatre for the first performance.
"I can't stand first nights," he had said. "At least, not of my own plays." And not even Diana's persuasions had availed to move him from this decision.
Joan was ecstatic in her praise.
"Isn't Adrienne simply wonderful?" she exclaimed, as the music of the entr'acte stole out from the hidden orchestra.
"'M, yes." Diana's reply lacked enthusiasm.
Joan, if she could not boast great powers of intuition, was dowered with a keen observation, and she had not spent a week at Lilac Lodge without putting two and two together and making four of them. She had noticed a great change in Diana. The girl was moody and unusually silent; her gay good spirits had entirely vanished, and more than once Joan had caught her regarding her husband with a curious mixture of resentment and contempt in her eyes. Joan was frankly worried over the state of affairs.
"Why this nil admirari attitude?" she asked. "Have you and Adrienne quarrelled?"
"Quarrelled?" Diana raised her brows ever so slightly. "What should we quarrel about? As a matter of fact, I really don't see very much of her nowadays."
"So I imagined," replied Joan calmly. "When I stayed with you last May, either she came to the Lodge, or you went to Somervell Street, every day of the week. This time, you've not seen each other since I came."
"No? I don't think"—lightly—"that Adrienne cares much for members of her own sex. She prefers—their husbands."
Joan stared in amazement. The little acid speech was so unlike Diana that she felt convinced it sprang from some new and strong antagonism towards the actress. What could be the cause of it? Diana and Adrienne had been warm friends only a few months ago!
Joan's eyes travelled from Diana's small, set face to Jerry's pleasant boyish one. The latter had opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it, and closed it again, reddening uncomfortably, and his dismayed expression was so obvious as to be almost comic.
The rise of the curtain for the third and last act put a summary end to any further conversation and Joan bent her attention on the stage once more, though all the time that her eyes and ears were absorbing the shifting scenes and brilliant dialogue of the play a little, persistent inner voice at the back of her brain kept repeating Diana's nonchalant "I really don't see very much of her nowadays," and querying irrepressibly, "Why not?"
Meanwhile, Diana, unconscious of the uneasy curiosity she had awakened in the mind of Joan, was watching the progress of the play intently. How designedly it was written around Adrienne de Gervais—calculated to give every possible opportunity to a fine emotional actress! Her lips closed a little more tightly together as the thought took hold of her. The author must have studied Adrienne, watched her every mood, learned every twist of her temperament, to have portrayed a character so absolutely suited to her as that of Mrs. Fleming. And how could a man know a woman's soul so well unless—unless it were the soul of the woman he loved? That was it; that was the explanation of all those things which had puzzled, and bewildered her for so long. And the author was her husband!
Diana, staring down from her box at that exquisite, breathing incarnation of grace on the stage below, felt that she hated Adrienne. She had never hated any one before, and the intensity of her feeling frightened her. Since a few months ago, strange, deep emotions had stirred within her—a passion of love and a passion of hatred such as in the days of her simple girlhood she would not have believed to be possible to any ordinary well-brought-up young Englishwoman. That Max was capable of a fierce heat of passion, she knew. But then, he was not all English; wilder blood ran in his veins. She could imagine his killing a man if driven by the lash of passionate jealousy. But she had never pictured herself obsessed by hate of a like quality.
And yet, now, as her eyes followed Adrienne's slender figure, with its curious little air of hauteur that always set her so apart from other women, moving hither and thither on the stage, her hands clenched themselves fiercely, and her grey eyes dilated with the intensity of her hatred. Almost—almost she could understand how men and women killed each other in the grip of a jealous love. . . .
The play was ended. Adrienne had bowed repeatedly in response to the wild enthusiasm of the audience, and of a sudden a new cry mingled with the shouts and clapping.
"Author! Author!"
Adrienne came forward again and bowed, smilingly shaking her head, gesturing a negative with her hands. But still the cry went on, "Author! Author!"—the steady, persistent drone of an audience which does not mean to be denied.
Diana experienced a brief thrill of triumph. She felt convinced that Adrienne would have liked to have Max standing beside her at this moment. It would have set the seal on an evening of glorious success, completed it, as it were. And he had refused to come, declined—so Diana put it to herself—to share the evening's triumph with the actress who had so well interpreted his work. At least this would be a pin-prick in the enemy's side!
And then—then—a hand pulled aside the heavy folds of the stage curtain, and the next moment Max and Adrienne were standing there together, bowing and smiling, while the audience roared and cheered its enthusiasm.
Diana could hardly believe her eyes. Max had told her so emphatically that he would not come. And now, he was here! He had lied to her! The affair had been pre-arranged between him and Adrienne all the time? Only she—the wife!—had been kept in the dark. Probably he had spent the entire evening behind the scenes. . . . In her overwrought condition, no supposition was too wild for credence.
Vaguely she heard some one at the back of the house shout "Speech!" and the cry was taken up by a dozen voices, but Max only laughed and shook his head, and once more the heavy curtains fell together, shutting him and Adrienne from her sight.
Mechanically Diana gathered up her wraps and prepared to leave the box.
"Aren't you coming round behind to congratulate them, Mrs. Errington?"
Jerry's astonished tones broke on her ears as she turned down the corridor in the direction of the vestibule.
"No," she replied quietly. "I'm going home."
* * * * * *
"You told me you wouldn't come to the theatre—and you intended going all the time!"
Diana's wraps were flung on the chair beside her, and she stood, a slim, pliant figure in her white evening gown, defiantly facing her husband.
"No, I'd no intention of going. I detest first nights," he answered.
"Then why were you there? Oh, I don't believe it—I don't believe it! You simply wanted to spend the evening with Adrienne; that was why you refused to go with me."
"Diana!" Max spoke incredulously. "You can't believe—you can't think that!"
"But I do think that!"—imperiously. "What else can I think?" Her long-pent jealousy had broken forth at last, and the words raced from her lips. "You refused to come when I asked you—offered me Jerry as an escort instead. Jerry!"—scornfully—"I'm to be content with my husband's secretary, I suppose, so that my husband himself can dance attendance on Adrienne de Gervais?"
Max stood motionless, his eyes like steel.
"You are being—rather childish," he said at last, with slow deliberation. His cool, contemptuous tones cut like a whip.
She had been rapidly losing her self-command, and, reading the intense anger beneath his outward calm, she made an effort to pull herself together.
"Childish?" she retorted. "Yes, I suppose it is childish to mind being deceived. I ought to have been prepared for it—expected it."
At the note of suffering in her voice the anger died swiftly out of his eyes.
"You don't mean that, Diana," he said, more gently.
"Yes, I do. You warned me—didn't you?—that there would be things you couldn't explain. I suppose"—bitterly—"this is one of them!"
"No, it is not. I can explain this. I didn't intend coming to-night, as I told you. But Miss de Gervais rang up from the theatre and begged me to come, so, of course, as she wished it—"
"'As she wished it!' Are her wishes, then, of so much more importance than mine?"
Errington was silent for a moment. At last he replied quietly:—
"You know they are not. But in this case, in the matter of the play, she is entitled to every consideration."
Diana's eyes searched his face. Beneath the soft laces of her gown her breast still rose and fell stormily, but she had herself in hand now.
"Max, when I married you I took . . . something . . . on trust." She spoke slowly, weighing her words, "But I didn't expect that something to include—Adrienne! What has she to do with you?"
Errington's brows came sharply together. He drew a quick, short breath as though bracing himself to meet some unforeseen danger.
"I've written a play for her," he answered shortly.
"Yes, I know. But is that all that there is between you—this play?"
"I can't answer that question," he replied quietly.
Diana flung out her hand with a sudden, passionate gesture.
"You've answered it, I think," she said scornfully.
He took a quick stride towards her, catching her by the arms.
"Diana"—his voice vibrated—"won't you trust me?"
"Trust you! How can I?" she broke out wildly. "If trusting you means standing by whilst Adrienne— Oh, I can't bear it. You're asking too much of me, Max. I didn't know . . . when you asked me to trust you . . . that it meant—this! . . . And there's something else, too. Who are you? What is your real name? I don't even know"—bitterly—"whom I've married!"
He released her suddenly, almost as though she had struck him.
"Who has been talking to you?" he demanded, thickly.
"Then it's true?"
Diana's hands fell to her sides and every drop of colour drained away from her face. The question had been lying dormant in her mind ever since the day when Olga Lermontof had first implanted it there. Now it had sprung from her lips, dragged forth by the emotion of the moment. And he couldn't answer it!
"Then it's true?" she repeated.
Errington's face set like a mask.
"That is a question you shouldn't have asked," he replied coldly.
"And one you cannot answer?"
He bent his head.
"And one I cannot answer."
Very slowly she picked up her wraps.
"Thank you," she said unsteadily. "I'll—I'll go now."
He laid his hand deliberately on the door-handle.
"No," he said. "No, you won't go. I've heard what you have to say; now you'll listen to me. Good God, Diana!" he continued passionately. "Do you think I'm going to stand quietly by and see our happiness wrecked?"
"I don't see how you can prevent it," she said dully.
"I? No; I can do nothing. But you can. Diana, beloved, have faith in me! I can't explain those things to you—not now. Some day, please God, I shall be able to, but till that day comes—trust me!" There was a depth of supplication and entreaty in his tone, but it left her unmoved. She felt frozen—passionless.
"Do you mean—do you mean that Adrienne, your name, everything, is all part of—of what you can't tell me? Part of—the shadow?"
He was silent a moment. Then he answered steadily:—
"Yes. That much I may tell you."
She put up her hand and pushed back her hair impatiently from her forehead.
"I can't understand it . . . I can't understand it," she muttered.
"Dear, must one understand—to love? . . . Can't you have faith?"
His eyes, those blue eyes of his which could be by turns so fierce, so unrelenting, and—did she not know it to her heart's undoing?—so unutterably tender, besought her. But, for once, they awakened no response. She felt cold—quite cold and indifferent.
"No, Max," she answered wearily. "I don't think I can. You ask me to believe that there is need for you to see so much of Adrienne. At first you said it was because of the play. Now you say it has to do with this—this thing I may not know. . . . I'm afraid I can't believe it. I think a man's wife should come first—first of anything. I've tried—oh, I've tried not to mind when you left me so often to go to Adrienne. I used to tell myself that it was only on account of the play. I tried to believe it, because—because I loved you so. But"—with a bitter little smile—"I don't think I ever really believed it—I only cheated myself. . . . There's something else, too—the shadow. Baroni knows what it is—and Olga Lermontof. Only I—your wife—I know nothing."
She paused, as though expecting some reply, but Max remained silent, his arms folded across his chest, his head a little bent.
"I was only a child when you married me, Max," she went on presently.
"I didn't realise what it meant for a husband to have some secret
business which he cannot tell his wife. But I know now what it means.
It's merely an excuse to be always with another woman—"
In a stride Max was beside her, his eyes blazing, his hands gripping her shoulders with a clasp that hurt her.
"How dare you?" he exclaimed. "Unsay that—take it back? Do you hear?"
She shrank a little, twisting in his grasp, but he held her remorselessly.
"No, I won't take it back. . . . Ah! Let me go, Max, you're hurting me!"
He released her instantly, and, as his hands fell away from her shoulders, the white flesh reddened into bars where his fingers had gripped her. His eyes rested for a moment on the angry-looking marks, and then, with an inarticulate cry, he caught her to him, pressing his lips against the bruised flesh, against her eyes, her mouth, crushing her in his arms.
She lay there passively; but her body stiffened a little, and her lips remained quite still and unresponsive beneath his.
"Diana! . . . Beloved! . . ."
She thrust her hands against his chest.
"Let me go," she whispered breathlessly, "Let me go. I can't bear you to touch me."
With a quick, determined movement she freed herself, and stood a little away from him, panting.
"Don't ever . . . do that . . . again. I—I can't bear you to touch me . . . not now."
She made a wavering step towards the door. He held it open for her, and in silence she passed out and up the stairs. Presently, from the landing above, he heard the lock of her bedroom door click into its socket. . . .
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."