Chapter 20

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."