"Max seems to have done—a great deal—for her," said Diana, speaking slowly and rather painfully.
Olga flashed her a brief look of understanding.
"Yes," she said quietly. "He has done everything that patriotism demanded of him—even"—meaningly—"to the sacrificing of his own personal happiness. . . . It was entirely his idea that Nadine should pass as an actress. She always had dramatic talent, and when she came out of the convent he arranged that she should study for the stage. He believed that there was no safer way of concealing her identity than by providing her with an entirely different one—and a very obvious one at that. And events have proved him right. After all, people only become suspicious when they see signs of secrecy, and there is no one more constantly in the public eye than an actress. The last place you would look for a missing grand duchess is on the English stage! The very daring and publicity of the thing made it a success. No one guessed who she was, and only I, I and Carlo Baroni, knew. Oh, yes, I was sworn to secrecy"—as she read the question in Diana's eye—"and when I saw you and Max drifting apart, and knew that a word from me could set things right, I've been tempted again and again to break my oath. Thank God!"—passionately—"Oh, thank God! I can speak now!"
She twisted her shoulders as though freed from some heavy burden.
"Yon thank God? You?" Diana spoke with bitter unbelief. "Why, it was you who made things a thousand times worse between us—you who goaded me into fresh suspicions. You never helped me to believe in him—although you knew the truth! You tried to part us!"
"I know. I did try," acknowledged Olga frankly. "I'd borne it all for years—watched my brother sheltering Nadine, working for her, using his genius to write plays for her—spilling all his happiness at her feet—and I couldn't endure it any longer. I thought—oh! I prayed that when it came to a choice between you and Nadine he would give way—let Nadine fend for herself. And that was why I tried to anger you against him—to drive you into forcing his hand." She paused, her breast heaving tumultuously. "But the plan failed. Max remained staunch, and only his happiness came crashing down about his ears instead. There is"—bleakly—"no saving saints and martyrs against their will."
A silence fell between them, and Diana made a few wavering steps towards a chair and sat down. She felt as though her legs would no longer support her.
In a mad moment, half-crazed by the new fear which the newspaper paragraph had inspired in her, she had closed the only road which might have led her back to Max. Yesterday, still unwitting of how infinitely she had wronged him, passionately, humbly ready to give him the trust he had demanded, she might have gone to him. But to-day, her knowledge of the truth had taken from her the power to make atonement, and had raised a barrier between herself and Max which nothing in the world could ever break down.
She had failed her man in the hour of his need, and henceforth she must walk outcast in desert places.
There were still many gaps in the story to be filled in. But one thing stood out clearly from amidst the chaos which enveloped her, and that was, that she had misjudged her husband—terribly, unforgivably misjudged him.
It was loyalty, not love, that he had given Adrienne, and he had been right—a thousand times right—in refusing to reveal, even to his wife, the secret which was not his alone, and upon which hung issues of life and death and the ultimate destiny of a country—perhaps, even, of Europe itself!
It was to save his country from the Prussian claw that Max had sacrificed himself with the pure fervour of a patriot, at no matter what cost! And she, Diana, by her lack of faith, her petty jealousy, had sent him from her, had seen to it that that cost included even his happiness!
She had failed him every way—trailing the glory of love's golden raiment in the dust of the highway.
If she had but fulfilled her womanhood, what might not her unshaken faith have meant to a man fighting a battle against such bitter odds? No matter how worn with the stress of incessant watchfulness, or wearied by the strain of constant planning and the need to forestall each move of the enemy, he would have found, always waiting for him, a refuge, a quiet haven where love dwelt and where he might forget for a space and be at rest. All this, which had been hers to give, she had withheld.
The silence deepened in the room. The brilliant sunshine, slanting in through the slats of the Venetian blinds, seemed out of place in what had suddenly become a temple of pain. Somewhere outside a robin chirruped, the cheery little sound holding, for one of the two women sitting there, a note of hitter mockery.
Suddenly Diana dropped her head on her hands with a shudder.
"Oh, God!" she whispered. "Oh, God!"
Olga leaned forward and laid a hand on her knee.
"You can go back to him now, and give him all the happiness that he has missed," she said steadily.
"Go back to him?" Diana lifted her head and stared at her with dull eyes. "Oh, no. I shan't do that."
"You won't go back?" Olga spoke slowly, as though she doubted her own hearing.
A faint, derisive smile flickered across Diana's lips. "How could I? Do you suppose that—that having failed him when he asked me to believe in him, I could go back to him now—now that I know everything? . . . Oh, no, I couldn't do that. I've nothing to offer him—now—nothing to give—neither faith nor trust, because I know the whole truth." She spoke with the quiet finality of one who can see no hope, no possibility of better things, anywhere. The words "Too late!" beat in her brain like the pendulum of a clock, maddeningly insistent.
"If only I had been content to go to him without knowing!" she went on tonelessly. "But that paragraph in the paper—it frightened me. I felt that I must know if—if I had been wronging him all the time. And I had!" she ended wearily. "I had." Then, after a moment: "So you see, I can't go back to him."
"You—can't—go—back?" The words fell slowly, one by one, from Olga's lips. "Do you mean that you won't go back now—now that you know he has never failed you as you thought he had? . . . Oh!"—rapidly—"you can't mean that. You won't—you can't refuse to go back now."
Diana lifted a grey, drawn face.
"Don't you see," she said monotonously, "it's just because of that—because he hasn't failed me while I've failed him so utterly—that I can't go back?"
Olga turned on her swiftly, her green eyes blazing dangerously.
"It's your pride!" she cried fiercely. "It's your damnable pride that's standing in the way! Merciful heavens! Did you ever love him, I wonder, that you're too proud to ask his forgiveness now—now when you know what you've done?"
Diana's lips moved in a pitiful attempt at a smile.
"Oh, no," she said, shaking her head. "It's not that. I've . . . no pride . . . left, I think. But I can't be mean—mean enough to crawl back now." She paused, then went on with an inflection of irony in her low, broken voice. "'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' . . . Well, I'm reaping—that's all."
Like the keen thrust of a knife came Olga's answer.
"And must he, too, reap your sowing? For that's what it amounts to—that
Max must suffer for your sin. Oh! He's paid enough for others! . . .
Diana"—imploringly—"Max is leaving England to-night. Go back to him
now—don't wait until it's too late,"
"No." Diana spoke in dead, flat tones. "Can't you understand?"—moving her head restlessly. "Do you suppose—even if he forgave me—that he could ever believe in me again? He would never be certain that I really trusted him. He would always feel unsure of me."
"If you can think that, then you haven't understood Max—or his love for you," retorted Olga vehemently. "Oh! How can I make you see it? You keep on balancing this against that—what you can give, what Max can believe—weighing out love as though it were sold by the ounce! Max loves you—loves you! And there aren't any limitations to love!" She broke off abruptly, her voice shaking. "Can't you believe it?" she added helplessly, after a minute.
Diana shook her head.
"I think you mean to be kind," she said patiently. "But love is a giving. And I—have nothing to give."
"And you're too proud to take."
"Yes . . . if you call that pride. I can't take—when I've nothing to give."
"Then you don't love! You don't know what it means to love! Diana"—Olga's voice rose in passionate entreaty—"for God's sake go to him! He's suffered so much. Forget what people may think—what even he may think! Throw your pride overboard and remember only that he loves you and has need of you. Go to him!"
She ceased, and her eyes implored Diana's. No matter what may have been her shortcomings—and they were many, for she was a hard, embittered woman—at least, in her devotion to her brother, Olga Lermontof approached very nearly to the heroic.
There was a long silence. At last Diana spoke in low, shaken tones, her head bowed.
"I can't!" she whispered. "I shall never forgive myself. And I can't ask Max to—forgive me. . . . He couldn't." The last words were hardly audible.
For a moment Olga stood quite still, gazing with hard eyes at the slight figure hunched into drooping lines of utter weariness. Once her lips moved, but no sound came. Then she turned away, walking with lagging footsteps, and a minute later the door opened and closed quietly again behind her.
CHAPTER XXVII
CARLO BARONI EXPLAINS
Diana sat on, very still, very silent, staring straight in front of her with wide, tearless eyes. Only now and again a long, shuddering sigh escaped her, like the caught breath of a child that has cried till it is utterly exhausted and can cry no more.
She felt that she had come to an end of things. Nothing could undo the past, and ahead of her stretched the future, empty and void of promise.
Presently the creak of the door reopening roused her, and she turned, instantly on the defensive, anticipating that Olga had come back to renew the struggle. But it was only Baroni, who approached her with a look of infinite concern on his kind old face.
"My child!" he began. "My child! . . . So, then! You know all that there is to know."
Diana looked up wearily.
"Yes," she replied. "I know it all."
The old maestro's eyes softened as they rested upon her, and when he spoke again, his queer husky voice was toned to a note of extraordinary sweetness.
"My dear pupil, if it had been possible, I would haf spared you this knowledge. It was wrong of Olga to tell you—above all"—his face creasing with anxiety as the ruling passion asserted itself irrepressibly—"to tell you on a day when you haf to sing!"
"I made her," answered Diana listlessly. She passed her hand wearily across her forehead. "Don't worry, Maestro, I shall be able to sing to-night."
"Tiens! But you are all to pieces, my child! You will drink a glass of champagne—now, at once," he insisted, adding persuasively as she shook her head, "To please me, is it not so?"
Diana's lips curved in a tired smile.
"Is champagne the cure for a heartache, then, Maestro?"
Baroni's eyes grew suddenly sad.
"Ah, my dear, only death—or a great love—can heal the wound that lies
in the heart," he answered gently. He paused, then resumed crisply:
"But, meanwhile, we haf to live—and prima donnas haf to sing.
So . . . the little glass of wine in my room, is it not?"
He tucked her arm within his, patting her hand paternally, and led her into his own sanctum, where he settled her comfortably in a big easy-chair beside the fire, and poured her out a glass of wine, watching her sip it with a glow of satisfaction in his eyes.
"That goes better, hein? This Olga—she had not reflected sufficiently. It was too late for the truth to do good; it could only pain and grieve you."
"Yes," said Diana. "It is too late now. . . . I've paid for my ignorance with my happiness—and Max's," she added in a lower tone. She looked across at Baroni with sudden resentment. "And you—you knew!" she continued. "Why didn't you tell me? . . . Oh, but I can guess!"—scornfully. "It suited your purpose for me to quarrel with my husband; it brought me back to the concert platform. My happiness counted for nothing—against that!"
Baroni regarded her patiently.
"And do you regret it? Would you be willing, now, to give up your career as a prima donna—and all that it means?"
A vision rose up before Diana of what life would be denuded of the glamour and excitement, the perpetual triumphs, the thrilling sense of power her singing gave her—the dull, flat monotony of it, and she caught her breath sharply in instinctive recoil.
"No," she admitted slowly. "I couldn't give it up—now."
An odd look of satisfaction overspread Baroni's face.
"Then do not blame me, my child. For haf I not given you a consolation for the troubles of life."
"I need never have had those troubles to bear if you had been frank with me!" she flashed back. "You—you were not bound by any oath of secrecy. Oh! It was cruel of you, Maestro!"
Her eyes, bitterly accusing, searched his face.
"Tchut! Tchut! But you are too quick to think evil of your old maestro." He hesitated, then went on slowly: "It is a long story, my dear—and sometimes a very sad story. I did not think it would pass my lips again in this world. But for you, who are so dear to me, I will break the silence of years. . . . Listen, then. When you, my little Pepperpot, had not yet come to earth to torment your parents, but were still just a tiny thought in the corner of God's mind, I—your old Baroni—I was in Ruvania."
"You—in Ruvania?"
He nodded.
"Yes. I went there first as a professor of singing at the Borovnitz Conservatoire—per Bacco! But they haf the very soul of music, those Ruvanians! And I was appointed to attend also at the palace to give lessons to the Grand Duchess. Her voice was only a little less beautiful than your own." He hesitated, as though he found it difficult to continue. At last he said almost shyly: "Thou, my child, thou hast known love. . . . To me, too, at the palace, came that best gift of the good God."
He paused, and Diana whispered stammeringly:
"Not—not the Grand Duchess?"
"Yes—Sonia." The old maestro's eyes kindled with a soft luminance as his whispering voice caressed the little flame. "Hers, of course, had been merely a marriage dictated by reasons of State, and from the time of our first meeting, our hearts were in each other's keeping. But she never failed in duty or in loyalty. Only once, when I was leaving Ruvania, never to return, did she give me her lips at parting." Again he fell silent, his thoughts straying back across the years between to that day when he had taken farewell of the woman who had held his very soul between her hands. Presently, with an effort, he resumed his story. "I stayed at the Ruvanian Court many years—there was a post of Court musician which I filled—and for both of us those years held much of sadness. The Grand Duke Anton was a domineering man, hated by every one, and his wife's happiness counted for nothing with him. She had failed to give him a son, and for that he never pardoned her. I think my presence comforted her a little. That—and the child—the little Nadine. . . . As much as Anton was disliked, so much was his brother Boris beloved of the people. His story you know. Of this I am sure—that he lived and died without once regretting the step he had taken in marrying an Englishwoman. They were lovers to the end, those two."
Listening to the little history of those two tender love tales that had run their course side by side, Diana almost forgot for a moment how the ripples of their influence, flowing out in ever-widening circles, had touched, at last, even her own life, and had engulfed her happiness.
But, as Baroni ceased, the recollection of her own bitter share in the matter returned with overwhelming force, and once more she arraigned him for his silence.
"I still see no reason why you should not have told me the truth about
Adrienne—about Nadine Mazaroff. Max couldn't—I see that; nor Olga.
But you were bound by no oath."
"My child, I was bound by something stronger than an oath."
The old man crossed the room to where there stood on a shelf a little ebony cabinet, clamped with dull silver of foreign workmanship. He unlocked it, and withdrew from it a letter, the paper faintly yellowed and brittle with the passage of time.
He held it out to Diana.
"No eyes but mine haf ever rested on it since it was given into my hand after her death," he said very gently. "But you, my child, you shall read it; you are hurt and unhappy, battering against fate, and believing that those who love you haf served you ill. But we were all bound in different ways. . . . Read the letter, little one, and thou wilt see that I, too, was not free."
Hesitatingly Diana unfolded the thin sheet and read the few faded lines it contained.
"CARLO MIO,
"I think the end is coming for Anton and for me. The revolt of the people is beyond all quelling. My only fear is for Nadine; my only hope for her ultimate safety lies in Max. If ever, in the time to come, your silence or your speech can do aught for my child—in the name of the love you gave me, I beg it of you. In serving her, you will be serving me.
"SONIA."
Very slowly Diana handed the letter back to Baroni.
"So—that was why," she whispered.
Baroni bent his head.
"That was why. I could not speak. But I did all that lay in my power to prevent this marriage of yours."
"You did." A wan little smile tilted the corners of her mouth at the remembrance.
"Afterwards—your happiness was on the knees of the gods!"
"No," said Diana suddenly. "No. It was in my own hands. Had I believed in Max we should have been happy still. . . . But I failed him."
A long silence followed. At last she rose, holding out her hands.
"Thank you," she said simply. "Thank you for showing me the letter."
Baroni stooped his head and carried her hands to his lips.
"My dear, we make our mistakes and then we pay. It is always so in life. Love"—and the odd, clouded voice shook a little—"Love brings—great happiness—and great pain. Yet we would not be without it."
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE AWAKENING
Somehow the interminable hours of the day had at last worn to evening, and Diana found herself standing in front of a big mirror, listlessly watching Milling as she bustled round her, putting the last touches to her dress for the Duchess of Linfield's reception. The same thing had to be gone through every concert night—the same patient waiting while the exquisite toilette, appropriate to a prima donna, was consummated by Milling's clever fingers.
Only, this evening, every nerve in Diana's body was quivering in rebellion.
What was it Olga had said? "Max is leaving England to-night." So, while she was being dressed like a doll for the pleasuring of the people who had paid to hear her sing, Max was being borne away out of her ken, out of her existence for ever.
What a farce it all seemed! In a little while she would be singing as perfectly as usual, bowing and smiling as usual, and not one amongst the crowded audience would know that in reality it was only the husk of a woman who stood there before them—the mere outer shell. All that mattered, the heart and soul of her, was dead. She knew that quite well. Probably she would feel glad about it in time, she thought, because when one was dead things didn't hurt any more. It was dying that hurt. . . .
"Your train, madam."
She started at the sound of Milling's respectful voice. What a lop-sided thing a civilised sense of values seemed to be! Even when you had dragged the white robes of your spirit deep in the mire, you must still be scrupulously careful not to soil the hem of the white satin that clothed your body.
She almost laughed aloud, then bit the laugh back, picturing Milling's astonished face. The girl would think she was mad. Perhaps she was. It didn't matter much, anyway.
Mechanically she held out her arm for Milling to throw the train of her gown across it, and, picking up her gloves, went slowly downstairs.
Baroni, his face wearing an expression of acute anxiety, was waiting for her in the hall, restlessly pacing to and fro.
"Ah—h!" His face cleared as by magic when the slender, white-clad figure appeared round the last bend of the stairway. He had half feared that at the last moment the strain of the day's emotion might exact its penalty, and Diana prove unequal to the evening's demands.
To hide his obvious relief, he turned sharply to the maid, who had followed her mistress downstairs, carrying her opera coat and furs.
"Madame's cloak—make haste!" he commanded curtly.
And when Diana had entered the car, he waved aside the manservant and himself tucked the big fur rug carefully round her. There was something rather pathetic, almost maternal, in the old man's care of her, and Diana's lips quivered.
"Thank you, dear Maestro," she said, gently pressing his arm with her hand.
The Duchess's house was packed with a complacent crowd of people, congratulating themselves upon being able, for once, to combine duty and pleasure, since the purchase-money of their tickets for the evening's entertainment contributed to a well-known charity, and at the same time procured them the privilege of bearing once more their favourite singer. Some there were who had grounds for additional satisfaction in the fact that, under the wide cloak of charity, they had managed to squeeze through the exclusive portals of Linfield House for the first—and probably the last—time in their lives.
As the singer made her way through the thronged hall, those who knew her personally bowed and smiled effusively, whilst those who didn't looked on from afar and wished they did. It was not unlike a royal progress, and Diana heaved a quick sigh of relief when at last she found herself in the quiet of the little apartment set aside as an artistes' room.
Olga Lermontof was already there, and Diana greeted her rather nervously. She felt horribly uncertain what attitude Miss Lermontof might be expected to adopt in the circumstances.
But she need have had no anxiety on that score. Olga seemed to be just her usual self—grave and self-contained, her thin, dark-browed face wearing its habitual half-mocking expression. Apparently she had wiped out the day's happenings from her mind, and had become once more merely the quiet, competent accompanist to a well-known singer.
There was no one else in the artistes' room. The other performers were mingling with the guests, only withdrawing from the chattering crowd when claimed by their part in the evening's entertainment.
"How far on are they?" asked Diana, picking up the programme and running her eye down it.
"Your songs are the next item but one," replied Miss Lermontof.
A violin solo preceded the two songs which, bracketed together in the middle of the programme as its culminating point, made the sum total of Diana's part in it, and she waited quietly in the little anteroom while the violinist played, was encored and played again, and throughout the brief interval that followed. She felt that to-night she could not face the cheap, everyday flow of talk and compliment. She would sing because she had promised, that she would, but as soon as her part was done she would slip away and go home—home, where she could sit alone by the dead embers of her happiness.
A little flutter of excitement rippled through the big rooms when at last she mounted the platform. People who had hitherto been content to remain, in the hall, regarding the music as a pleasant accompaniment to the interchange of the day's news and gossip, now came flocking in through the doorways, hoping to find seats, and mostly having to content themselves with standing-room.
Almost as in a dream, Diana waited for the applause to subside, her eyes roaming halt-unconsciously over the big assembly.
It was all so stalely familiar—the little rustle of excitement, the preliminary clapping, the settling down to listen, and then the sea of upturned faces spread out beneath her.
The memory of the first time that she had sung in public, at Adrienne's house in Somervell Street, came back to her. It had been just such an occasion as this. . . .
(Olga was playing the introductory bars of accompaniment to her song, and, still as in a dream, she began to sing, the exquisite voice thrilling out into the vast room, golden and perfect.)
. . . Adrienne had smiled at her encouragingly from across the room, and Jerry Leigh had been standing at the far end near some big double doors. There were double doors to this room, too, flung wide open. (It was odd how clearly she could recall it all; her mind seemed to be working quite independently of what was going on around her.) And Max had been there. She remembered how she had believed him to be still abroad, and then, how she had looked up and suddenly met his gaze across those rows and rows of unfamiliar faces. He had come back.
Instinctively she glanced towards the far end of the room, where, on that other night and in that other room, he had been standing, and then . . . then . . . was it still only the dream, the memory of long ago? . . . Or had God worked a miracle? . . . Over the heads of the people, Max's eyes, grave and tender, but unspeakably sad, looked into hers!
A hand seemed to grip her heart, squeezing it so that she could not draw her breath. Everything grew blurred and dim about her, but through the blur she could still see Max, standing with his head thrown back against the panelling of the door, his arms folded across his chest, and his eyes—those grave, questioning eyes—fixed on her face.
Presently the darkness cleared away and she found that she was still singing—mechanically her voice had answered to the long training of years. But the audience had heard the great prima donna catch her breath and falter in her song. For an instant it had seemed almost as though she might break down. Then the tension passed, and the lovely voice, upborne by a limitless technique, had floated out again, golden and perfect as before.
It was only the habit of surpassing art which had enabled Diana to finish her song. Since last night, when she had seen Max for that brief moment at the Embassy, she had passed through the whole gamut of emotion, glimpsed the vision of coming happiness, only to believe that with her own hands she had pushed it aside. And now she was conscious of nothing but that Max—Max, the man she loved—was here, close to her once again, and that her heart was crying out for him. He was hers, her mate out of the whole world, and in a sudden blinding flash of self-revelation, she recognised in her refusal to return to him a sheer denial of the divine altruism of love.
The blank, bewildering chaos of the last twelve hours, with its turmoil of conflicting passions, took on a new aspect, and all at once that which had been dark was become light.
From the moment she had learned the truth about her husband, her thoughts had centred solely round herself, dwelling—in, all humility, it is true—but still dwelling none the less egotistically upon her personal failure, her own irreparable mistake, her self-wrought bankruptcy of all the faith and absolute belief a woman loves to give her lover. She had thrust these things before his happiness, whereas the stern and simple creed of love places the loved one first and everything else immeasurably second.
But now, in this quickened moment of revelation, Diana knew that she loved Max utterly and entirely, that his happiness was her supreme need, and that if she let him go from her again, life would be henceforth a poor, maimed thing, shorn of all meaning.
It no longer mattered that she had sinned against him, that she had nothing to bring, that she must go to him a beggar. The scales had fallen from her eyes, and she realised that in love there is no reckoning—no pitiful making-up of accounts. The pride that cannot take has no place there; where love is, giving and taking are one and indivisible.
Nothing mattered any longer—nothing except that Max was here—here, within reach of the great love in her heart that was stretching out its arms to him . . . calling him back.
The audience, ardently applauding her first song, saw her turn and give some brief instruction to her accompanist, who nodded, laying aside the song which she had just placed upon the music-desk. A little whisper ran through the assembly as people asked each other what song was about to be substituted for the one on the programme, and when the sad, appealing music of "The Haven of Memory," stole out into the room, they smiled and nodded to one another, pleased that the great singer was giving them the song in which they loved best to hear her.
Do you remember
Our great love's pure unfolding,
The troth you gave,
And prayed, for God's upholding,
Long and long ago?
Out of the past
A dream—and then the waking—
Comes back to me
Of love, and love's forsaking,
Ere the summer waned.
Ah! Let me dream
That still a little kindness
Dwelt in the smile
That chid my foolish blindness,
When you said good-bye.
Let me remember
When I am very lonely,
How once your love
But crowned and blessed me only,
Long and long ago.
There was no faltering now. The beautiful voice had never been more touching in its exquisite appeal. All the unutterable sweetness and humility and faith, the wistful memories, the passion and surrender that love holds, dwelt in the throbbing notes.
To Max, standing a little apart, the width of the room betwixt him and the woman singing, it seemed as though she were entreating him . . . calling to him. . . .
The sad, tender words, poignant with regret and infinite beseeching, clamoured against his heart, and as the last note trembled into silence, he turned and made his way blindly out of the room.
CHAPTER XXIX
SACRIFICE
"Did you mean it?"
Errington's voice broke harshly through the silence of the little anteroom where Diana waited alone. It had a curious, cracked sound, and his breath laboured like that of a man who has run himself out.
For a moment she kept her face hidden, trying to steady herself, but at last she turned towards him, and in her eyes was a soft shining—a strange, sweet fire.
"Max!" The whispered name was hardly audible; tremulous and wistful it seemed to creep across the room.
But he heard it. In a moment his arms were round her, and he had gathered her close against his heart. And so they remained for a space, neither speaking.
Presently Diana lifted her head.
"Max, it was because I loved you so that I was so hard and bitter—only because I loved you so."
"I know," was all he said. And he kissed her hair.
"Do you?"—wistfully. "I wonder if—if a man can understand how a woman can be so cruel to what she loves?"
And as he had no answer to this (since, after all, a man cannot be expected to understand all—or even very much—that a woman does), he kissed her lips.
She crept a little nearer to him.
"Max! Do you still care for me—like that?" There was wonder and thanksgiving in her voice. "Oh, my dear, I'm down in the dust at your feet—I've failed you utterly, wronged you every way. Even if you forgive me, I shall never forgive myself. But I'm—all yours, Max."
With a sudden jealous movement he folded her more closely in his arms.
"Let me have a few moments of this," he muttered, a little breathlessly.
"A few moments of thinking you have come back to me."
"But I have come back to you!" Her eyes grew wide and startled with a sudden, desperate apprehension. "You won't send me away again—not now?"
His face twisted with pain.
"Beloved, I must! God knows how hard it will be—but there is no other way."
"No other way?" She broke from his arms, searching his face with her frightened eyes. "What do you mean? . . . What do you mean? Don't you—care—any longer?"
He smiled, as a man may who is asked whether the sun will rise to-morrow.
"Not that, beloved. Never that. I've always cared, and I shall go on caring through this world and into the next—even though, after to-night, we may never be together again."
"Never—together again?" She clung to him. "Oh, why do you say such things? I can't—I can't live without you now. Max, I'm sorry—sorry! I've been punished enough—don't punish me any more by sending me away from you."
"Punish you! Heart's dearest, there has never been any thought of punishment in my mind. Heaven knows, I've reproached myself bitterly enough for all the misery I've brought on you."
"Then why—why do you talk of sending me away?"
"I'm not going to send you away. It is I who have to go. Oh, beloved! I ought never to have come here this evening. But I thought if I might see you—just once again—before I went out into the night, I should at least have that to remember. . . . And then you sang, and it seemed as though you were calling me. . . ."
"Yes," she said very softly. "I called you. I wanted you so." Then, after a moment, with sudden, womanish curiosity: "How did you know I was singing here to-night?"
"Olga told me. She's bitterly opposed to all that I've been doing, but"—smiling faintly—"she has occasional spasms of compassion, when she remembers that, after all, I'm a poor devil who's being thrust out of paradise."
"She loves you," Diana answered simply. "I think she has loved you—better—than I did, Max. But not more!" she added jealously. "No one could love you more, dear."
After a pause, she asked:
"I suppose Olga told you that I know—everything?"
"Yes. I'm glad you know"—quietly. "It makes it easier for me to tell you why I must go away—out of your life."
She leaned nearer to him, her hands on his shoulders.
"Don't go!" she whispered. "Ah, don't go!"
"I must," he said hoarsely. "Listen, beloved, and then you will see that there is no other way. . . . I married you, believing that when Nadine would be safely settled on the throne, I should be free to live my own life, free to come back to England—and you. If I had not believed that, I shouldn't have told you that I cared; I should have gone away and never seen you again. But now—now I know that I shall never be free, never able to live in England."
He paused, gathering her a little closer into his arms.
"Everything is settled. Russia has helped, and Ruvania is ready to welcome Nadine's return. . . . She is in Paris, now, waiting for me to take her there. . . . It has been a long and difficult matter, and the responsibility of Nadine's well-being in England has been immense. A year ago, the truth as to her identity leaked out somehow—reached our enemies' ears, and since then I've never really known an instant's peace concerning her safety. You remember the attack which was made on her outside the theatre?"
Diana nodded, shame-faced, remembering its ultimate outcome.
"Well, the man who shot at her was in the pay of the Republic—German pay, actually. That yarn about the actor down on his luck was cooked up for the papers, just to throw dust in the eyes of the public. . . . To watch over Nadine's safety has been my work. Now the time has come when she can go back and take her place as Grand Duchess of Ruvania. And I must go with her."
"No, no. Why need you go? You'll have done your work, set her securely on the throne. Ah, Max! don't speak of going, dear." Her voice shook incontrollably.
"There is other work still to be done, beloved—harder work, man's work. And I can't turn away and take my shoulder from the wheel. It needs no great foresight to tell that there is trouble brewing on the Continent; a very little thing would set the whole of Europe in a blaze. And when that time arrives, if Ruvania is to come out of the struggle with her independence unimpaired, it will only be by the utmost effort of all her sons. Nadine cannot stand alone. What can a woman do unaided when the nations are fighting for supremacy? The country will need a man at the helm, and I must stand by Nadine."
"But why you? Why not another?"
"No other is under the same compulsion as I. As you know, my father put his wife first and his country second. It is difficult to blame him . . . she was very beautiful, my mother. But no man has the right to turn away from his allotted task. And because my father did that, the call to me to serve my country is doubly strong. I have to pay back that of which he robbed her."
"And have I no claim? Max! Max! Doesn't your love count at all?"
The sad, grieving words wrung his heart.
"Why, yes," he said unsteadily. "That's the biggest thing in the world—our love—isn't it? But this other is a debt of honour, and you wouldn't want me to shirk that, would you, sweet? I must pay—even if it costs me my happiness. . . . It may seem to you as though I'd set your happiness, too, aside. God knows, it hasn't been easy! But what could I do? I conceive that a man's honour stands before everything. That was why I let you believe—what you did. My word was given. I couldn't clear myself. . . . So you see, now, beloved, why we must part."
"No," she said quietly. "I don't see. Why can't I come to Ruvania with you?"
A sudden light leaped into his eyes, but it died away almost instantly.
He shook his head.
"No, you can't come with me. Because—don't you see, dear?"—very gently and pitifully. "As my wife, as cousin of the Grand Duchess herself, you couldn't still be—a professional singer."
There was a long silence. Slowly Diana drew away from her husband, staring at him with dilated eyes.
"Then that—that was what Baroni meant when, he told me a time would come when your wife could no longer sing in public?"
Max bent his head.
"Yes. That was what he meant."
Diana stood silently clasping and unclasping her hands. Presently she spoke again, and there was a new note in her voice—a note of quiet gravity and steadfast decision.
"Dear, I am coming with you. The singing"—smiling a little tremulously—"doesn't count—against love."
Max made a sudden movement as though to take her in his arms, then checked himself as suddenly.
"No," he said quietly. "You can't come with me. It would be impossible—out of the question. You haven't realised all it would entail. After being a famous singer—to become merely a private gentlewoman—a lady of a little unimportant Court! The very idea is absurd. Always you would miss the splendour of your life, the triumphs, the being fêted and made much of—everything that your singing has brought you. It would be inevitable. And I couldn't endure to see the regret growing in your eyes day by day. Oh, my dear, don't think I don't realise the generosity of the thought—and bless you for it a thousand times! But I won't let you pay with the rest of your life for a heaven-kind impulse of the moment."
His words fell on Diana's consciousness, each one weighted with a world of significance, for she knew, even as she listened, that he spoke but the bare truth.
Very quietly she moved away from him and stood by the chimney-piece, staring down into the grate where the embers lay dying. It seemed to typify what her life would be, shorn of the glamour with which her glorious voice had decked it. It would be as though one had plucked out the glowing heart of a fire, leaving only ashes—dead ashes of remembrance.
And in exchange for the joyous freedom of Bohemia, the happy brotherhood of artistes, there would be the deadly, daily ceremonial of a court, the petty jealousies and intrigues of a palace!
Very clearly Diana saw what the choice involved, and with that clear vision came the realisation that here was a sacrifice which she, who had so profaned love's temple, could yet make at the foot of the altar. And within her grew and deepened the certainty that no sacrifice in the world is too great to make for the sake of love, except the sacrifice of honour.
Here at last was something she could give to the man she loved. She need not go to him with empty hands. . . .
She turned again to her husband, and her eyes were radiant with the same soft shining that had lit them when he had first come to her in answer to her singing.
"Dear," she said, and her voice broke softly. "Take me with you. Oh, but you must think me very slow and stupid not to have learned—yet—what love means! . . . Ah, Max! Max! What am I to do, dear, if you won't let me go with you? What shall I do with all the love that is in my heart—if you won't take it?" For a moment she stood there tremulously smiling, while he stared at her, in his eyes a kind of bewilderment and unbelief fighting the dawn of an unutterable joy.
Then at last he understood, and his arms went round her.
"If I won't take it!" he cried, his voice all shaken with the wonder of it. "Oh, my sweet! I'll take it as a beggar takes a gift, as a blind man sight—on my knees, thanking God for it—and for you."
And so Diana came again into her kingdom, whence she had wandered outcast so many bitter months.
Presently she drew him down beside her on to a big, cushioned divan.
"Max, what a lot of time we've wasted!"
"So much, sweet, that all the rest of life we'll be making up for it."
And he kissed her on the mouth by way of a beginning.
"What will Baroni say?" she whispered, with a covert smile.
"He'll wish he was young, as we are, so that he could love—as we do," he replied triumphantly.
Diana laughed at him for an arrogant lover, then sighed at a memory she knew of.
"I think he has loved—as we do," she chided gently.
Max's arm tightened round her.
"Then he's in need of envy, beloved, for love like ours is the most wonderful thing life has to give."
They were silent a moment, and then the quick instinct of lovers told them they were no longer alone.
Baroni stood on the threshold of the room, frowning heavily.
"So!" he exclaimed, grimly addressing Max. "This, then, is how you travel in haste to Paris?"
Startled, Diana sprang to her feet, and would have drawn herself away, but Max laughed joyously, and still keeping her hand in his, led her towards Baroni.
"We travel to Paris to-morrow," he said. "Won't you—wish us luck, Baroni?"
But luck was the last thing which the old maestro was by way of wishing them. For long he argued and expostulated upon the madness, as he termed it, of Diana's renouncing her career, trying his utmost to dissuade her.
"You haf not counted the cost!" he fumed at her. "You cannot haf counted the cost!"
But Diana only smiled at him.
"Yes, I have. And I'm glad it's going to cost me something—a good deal, in fact—to go back to Max. Don't you see, Maestro, it kind of squares things the tiniest bit?" She paused, adding, after a moment: "And it's such a little price to pay—for love."
Baroni, who, after all, knew a good deal about love as well as music, regarded her a moment in silence. Then, with a characteristic shrug of his massive shoulders, he yielded.
"So, then, the most marvellous voice of the century is to be wasted reading aloud to a Grand Duchess! Ah! Dearest of all my pupils, there is no folly in all the world at once so foolish and so splendid as the folly of love."