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 asserted 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?"

Miss Lermontof nodded.

"Yes."

"He has been," affirmed Diana.

"Has he, indeed? Have you ever asked him"--she paused
significantly--"who he is?"

"_Who he is_?" Diana felt her heart contract. What new mystery was
this at which the other was hinting?

"_Who he is_?" she repeated. "Why--why--what do you mean?"

The accompanists queer green eyes narrowed between their hea