ot expect punctuality when a man's in love."

"I know I'm late, but I can assure you"--with a grim smile--"love had
little enough to do with it."

Adrienne looked up sharply, struck by the bitter note in his voice.

"Then what had?" she asked. "What has gone wrong, Max? You look
fagged out."

"Baroni has been round to see me--to ask me to break off my
engagement." He laughed shortly.

"He doesn't approve, I suppose?"

"That's a mild way of expressing his attitude."

Adrienne was silent a moment. Then she spoke, slowly, consideringly.

"I don't--approve--either. It isn't right, Max."

He bit his lip.

"So you--you, too, are against me?"

She stretched out her hand impulsively.

"Not against you, Max! Never that! How could I be? . . . But I don't
think you're being quite fair to Diana. You ought to tell her the
truth."

He wheeled round.

"No one knows better than you how impossible that is."

"Don't you trust her then--the woman you're asking to be your wife?"

The tinge of irony in her voice brought a sudden light of anger to his
eyes.

"That's not very just of you, Adrienne," he said coldly. "_I_ would
trust her with my life. But I have no right to pledge the trust of
others--and that's what I should be doing if I told her. We have our
duty--you and I--and all this . . . is part of it."

Adrienne hesitated.

"Couldn't you--ask the others to release you?"

He shook his head.

"What right have I to ask them to trust an Englishwoman with their
secret--just for my pleasure?"

"For your happiness," corrected Adrienne softly.

"Or for my happiness? My happiness doesn't count with them one straw."

"It does with me. I don't see why she shouldn't be told. Baroni
knows, and Olga--you have to trust them."

"Baroni will be silent for the sake of the dead, and Olga out of her
love--or fear"--with a bitter smile--"of me."

"And wouldn't Diana, too, be silent for your sake?"

"My dear Adrienne"--a little irritably--"Englishwomen are so frank--so
indiscreetly trusting. That's where the difficulty lies, and I dare
not risk it. There's too much at stake. But can you imagine any agent
they may have put upon our track surprising her knowledge out of Olga?"
He laughed contemptuously. "I fancy not! If Olga hadn't been a woman
she'd have made her mark in the Diplomatic Service."

"Yet what is there to make her keep faith with us?" said Adrienne
doubtfully. "She is poor--"

"Her own