The Splendid Folly Part 20

At this moment the door opened, and the subject of their conversation entered the room. He paused on the threshold, and for an instant Diana could have sworn that as his eyes met her own a sudden light of pleasure flashed into their blue depths, only to be immediately replaced by his usual look of cold indifference. He glanced round the room, apparently somewhat surprised to find Diana and his secretary its sole occupants.

"We're all here now except our hostess," observed the latter cheerfully, following his thought.

"So it seems. I didn't know"--looking across from Jerry to Diana in a puzzled way--"that you two were acquainted with each other."

"We aren't--at least, we weren't," replied Jerry. "We met by chance, like two angels that have made a bid for the same cloud."

Errington smiled faintly.

"And did you persuade your--fellow angel--to sing to you?" he asked drily.

"No. Does she sing?"

"_Does she sing_? . . . Jerry, my young and ignorant friend, let me introduce you to Miss Diana Quentin, the--"

"Good Lord!" broke in Jerry, his face falling. "Are you Miss Quentin--_the_ Miss Quentin? Of course I've heard all about you.--you're going to be the biggest star in the musical firmament--and here have I been ga.s.sing away about my little affairs just as though you were an ordinary mortal like myself."

Diana was beginning to laugh at the boy's nonsense when Errington cut in quietly.

"Then you've been making a great mistake, Jerry," he said. "Miss Quentin doesn't in the least resemble ordinary mortals. She isn't afflicted by like pa.s.sions with ourselves, and she doesn't understand--or forgive them."

The words, uttered as though in jest, held an undercurrent of meaning for Diana that sent the colour flying up under her clear skin. There was a bitter taunt in them that none knew better than she how to interpret.

She winced under it, and a fierce resentment flared up within her that he should dare to reproach, her--he, who had been the offender from first to last. Always, now, he seemed to be laughing at her, mocking her. He appeared an entirely different person from the man who had been so careful of her welfare during the eventful journey they had made together.

She lifted her head a little defiantly.

"No," she said, with significance. "I certainly don't understand--some people."

"Perhaps it's just as well," retorted Errington, unmoved.

Jerry, sensing electricity in the atmosphere, looked troubled and uncomfortable. He hadn't the faintest idea what they were talking about, but it was perfectly clear to him that everything was not quite as it should be between his beloved Max and this new friend, this jolly little girl with the wonderful eyes--just like a pair of stars, by Jove!--and, if rumour spoke truly, the even more wonderful voice.

Bashfully murmuring something about "going down to see if Miss de Gervais had come in yet," he bolted out of the room, leaving Max and Diana alone together.

Suddenly she turned and faced him.

"Why--why are you always so unkind to me?" she burst out, a little breathlessly.

He lifted his brows.

"I? . . . My dear Miss Quentin, I have no right to be either kind--or unkind--to you. That is surely the privilege of friends. And you showed me quite clearly, down at Crailing, that you did not intend to admit me to your friends.h.i.+p."

"I didn't," she exclaimed, and rushed on desperately. "Was it likely that I should feel anything but grat.i.tude--and liking for any one who had done as much for me as you had?"

"You forget," he said quietly. "Afterwards--I transgressed. And you let me see that the transgression had wiped out my meritorious deeds--completely. It was quite the best thing that could happen," he added hastily, as she would have spoken. "I had no right, less right than any man on earth, to do--what I did. I abide by your decision."

The last words came slowly, meaningly. He was politely telling her that any overtures of friends.h.i.+p would be rejected.

Diana's pride lay in the dust, but she was determined he should not knew it. With her head held high, she said stiffly:--

"I don't think I'll wait any longer for Adrienne. Will you tell her, please, that I've gone back to Brutton Square?"

"Brutton Square?" he repeated swiftly. "Do you live there?"

"Yes. Have you any objection?"

He disregarded her mocking query and continued:--

"A Miss Lermontof lives there. Is she, by any chance, a friend of yours?" There seemed a hint of disapproval in his voice, and Diana countered, with another question.

"Why? Do you think I ought not to be friends with her?"

"I? Oh, I don't think about it at all"--with a little half-foreign shrug of his shoulders. "Miss Quentin's choice of friends is no concern of mine."

Unbidden, tears leaped into Diana's eyes at the cold satirical tones.

Surely, surely he had hurt her enough, for one day! Without a word she turned and made her way blindly out of the room and down the stairs.

In the hall she almost ran into Jerry's arms.

"Oh, are you going?" he asked, in tones of disappointment.

"Yea, I'm afraid I mustn't wait any longer for Adrienne. I have some work to do when I get back."

Her voice shook a little, and Jerry, giving her a swift glance, could see that her lashes were wet and her eyes misty with tears.

"The brute!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed mentally. "What's he done to her?"

Aloud he merely said:--

"Will you have a taxi?"

She nodded, and hailing one that chanced to be pa.s.sing, he put her carefully into it.

"And--and I say," he said anxiously. "You didn't mind my talking to you this afternoon, did you, Miss Quentin? I made 'rather free,' as the servants say."

"No, of course I didn't mind," she replied warmly, her spirits rising a little. He was such a nice boy--the sort of boy one could be pals with. "You must come and see me at Brutton Square. Come to tea one day, will you?"

"_Won't I_?" he said heartily. "Good-bye." And the taxi swept away down the street.

Jerry returned to the drawing-room to find Errington staring moodily out of the window.

"I say, Max," he said, affectionately linking his arm in that of the older man. "What had you been saying to upset that dear little person?"

"I?"

"Yes. She was--crying."

Jerry felt the arm against his own twitch, and continued relentlessly:--