or!"

Adrienne came forward again and bowed, smilingly shaking her head,
gesturing a negative with her hands. But still the cry went on,
"Author! Author!"--the steady, persistent drone of an audience which
does not mean to be denied.

Diana experienced a brief thrill of triumph. She felt convinced that
Adrienne would have liked to have Max standing beside her at this
moment. It would have set the seal on an evening of glorious success,
completed it, as it were. And he had refused to come, declined--so
Diana put it to herself--to share the evening's triumph with the
actress who had so well interpreted his work. At least this would be a
pin-prick in the enemy's side!

And then--then--a hand pulled aside the heavy folds of the stage
curtain, and the next moment Max and Adrienne were standing there
together, bowing and smiling, while the audience roared and cheered its
enthusiasm.

Diana could hardly believe her eyes. Max had told her so emphatically
that he would not come. And now, he was here! He had lied to her!
The affair had been pre-arranged between him and Adrienne all the time?
Only she--the wife!--had been kept in the dark. Probably he had spent
the entire evening behind the scenes. . . . In her overwrought
condition, no supposition was too wild for credence.

Vaguely she heard some one at the back of the house shout "Speech!" and
the cry was taken up by a dozen voices, but Max only laughed and shook
his head, and once more the heavy curtains fell together, shutting him
and Adrienne from her sight.

Mechanically Diana gathered up her wraps and prepared to leave the box.

"Aren't you coming round behind to congratulate them, Mrs. Errington?"

Jerry's astonished tones broke on her ears as she turned down the
corridor in the direction of the vestibule.

"No," she replied quietly. "I'm going home."

* * * * * *

"You told me you wouldn't come to the theatre--and you intended going
all the time!"

Diana's wraps were flung on the chair beside her, and she stood, a
slim, pliant figure in her white evening gown, defiantly facing her
husband.

"No, I'd no intention of going. I detest first nights," he answered.

"Then why were you there? Oh, I don't believe it--I don't believe it!
You simply wanted to spend the evening with Adrienne; that was why you
refused to go with me."

"Diana!" Max spoke incredulously. "You can't believe--you can't think
that!"

"But