etting back to our hotel, if we are to
be dressed in time for the dinner Miss de Gervais is giving in your
honour to-night."

Diana glanced at the clock and nodded.

"Indeed you must, Pobs darling. And I will send away these other good
people too. As we're all going to meet again at dinner we can bear to
be separated for an hour or so--even Jerry and Joan, I suppose?" she
added whimsically, in a lower tone.

"It's invidious to mention names," murmured Stair, "or I might--"

Diana laid her hand lightly across his mouth.

"No, you mightn't," she said firmly. "Put on your coat and that nice
squashy hat of yours, and trot back to your hotel like a good Pobs."

Stair laughed, looking down at her with kind eyes.

"Very well, little autocrat." He put his hand under her chin and
tilted her face up. "I've not congratulated you yet, my dear. It's a
big thing you've done--captured London in a day. But it's a bigger
thing you'll have to do."

"You mean Paris--Vienna?"

He shook his head, still with the kind smile in his eyes.

"No. I mean, keep me the little Diana I love--don't let me lose her in
the public singer."

"Oh, Pobs!"--reproachfully. "As though I should ever change!"

"Not deliberately--not willingly, I'm sure. But--success is a
difficult sea to swim."

He sighed, kissed her upturned face, and then, with twist of his
shoulders, pulled on his overcoat and prepared to depart.

Success is exhilarating. It goes to the head like wine, and yet, as
Diana lay in bed that night, staring with wide eyes into the darkness,
the memory that stood out in vivid relief from amongst the crowded
events of the day was not the triumph of the afternoon, nor the merry
evening which succeeded it, when "the coming _prima donna_" had been
toasted amid a fusillade of brilliant little speeches and light-hearted
laughter, but the remembrance of a pair of passionate, demanding blue
eyes and of a low, tense voice saying:--

"I swear I won't fail you. Let me 'stand by.'"

CHAPTER XIV

THE FLAME OF LOVE

Diana's gaze wandered idly over the blue stretch of water, as it lay
beneath the blazing August sun, while the sea-gulls, like streaks of
white light, wheeled through the shimmering haze of the atmosphere.
Her hands were loosely clasped around her knees, and a little
evanescent smile played about her lips. Behind her, the great red
cliffs of Culver Point reared up against the sapphire of the sky, and
she was th