ted by the actress's charming
personality, but beyond this lay the knowledge that it was more than
likely that at her house she might again encounter Errington. And
though Diana told herself that he was nothing to her--in fact, that she
disliked him rather than otherwise--the chance of meeting him once more
was not to be foregone--if only for the opportunity it would give her
of showing him how much she disliked him!

"I should like to come very much," she answered.

"Then come and have tea with me to-morrow--no, to-morrow I'm engaged.
Shall we say Thursday?"

Diana acquiesced, and Miss de Gervais turned to Baroni with a rather
mischievous smile, saying something in a foreign tongue which Diana
took to be Russian. Baroni replied in the same language, frowningly,
and although she could not understand the tenor of his answer, Diana
was positive that she caught her own name and that of Max Errington
uttered in conjunction with each other.

It struck her as an odd coincidence that Baroni should be acquainted
both with Miss de Gervais and with Errington, and at her next lesson
she ventured to comment on the former's visit. Baroni's answer,
however, furnished a perfectly simple explanation of it.

"Mees de Gervais? Oh, yes, she sings a song in her new play, 'The Grey
Gown,' and I haf always coached her in her songs. She has a pree-ty
voice--nothing beeg, but quite pree-ty."

Diana set forth on her visit to Adrienne with a certain amount of
trepidation. Much as she longed to see Max Errington again, she felt
that the first meeting after that last episode of their acquaintance
might well partake of the somewhat doubtful pleasure of skating on thin
ice.

It was therefore not without a feeling of relief that she found the
actress and her chaperon the only occupants of the former's pretty
drawing-room. They both welcomed her cordially.

"I have heard so much about you," said Mrs. Adams, pleasantly, "that
I've been longing to meet you, Miss Quentin. Adrienne calls you the
'girl with the golden voice,' and I'm hoping to have the pleasure of
hearing you sing."

Diana was getting used to having her voice referred to as something
rather wonderful; it no longer embarrassed her, so she murmured an
appropriate answer and the conversation then drifted naturally to
Crailing and to the lucky chance which had brought Errington past
Culver Point the day Diana was marooned there, and Diana explained that
the Rector and his d