Part 36 (1/2)

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 G.o.d 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 a.s.serted 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?”