The Splendid Folly Part 37

"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 att.i.tude 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 'pa.s.sive 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 s.h.i.+vered a little.

"Your honour is mine," he went on. "Remember that."

"It isn't fair," she burst out pa.s.sionately. "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 circ.u.mstances which might shake the confidence of any one.

Already"--she leaned forward a little--"already she is beginning to be jealous of Adrienne."