The Russian, idly improvising on the piano, dropped her hands from the
keys, and her eyes held a queer kind of pain in them as she made answer.

"And what exactly did you think my object was?" she queried.

"Surely it was obvious?" replied Diana lightly. "When Max and I were
together, you never ceased to sow discord between us--though why you
hated him so, I cannot tell--and now that we have separated, I suppose
you are content."

"Content?" Olga laughed shortly. "I never wanted you to separate.
And"--she hesitated--"I never hated Max Errington."

"I don't believe it!" The assertion leaped involuntarily from Diana's
lips.

"I can understand that," Olga spoke with a curious kind of patience.
"But, believe it or not as you will, I was working for quite other
ends. And I've failed," she added dispiritedly.

With the opening of the autumn season and the ensuing rebirth of
musical and theatrical life, London received an unexpected shock. It
was announced that Adrienne de Gervais was retiring from her position
as leading lady at the Premier Theatre, and for a few days after the
launching of this thunderbolt the theatre-going world hummed with the
startling news, while a dozen rumours were set on foot to account for
what must surely prove little less than a disaster to the management of
the Premier.

But, as usual, after the first buzz of surprise and excitement had
spent itself, people settled down, and reluctantly accepted the
official explanation furnished by the newspapers--namely, that the
popular actress had suffered considerably in health from the strain of
several successive heavy seasons and intended to winter abroad.

To Diana the news yielded an odd sense of comfort. Somehow the thought
of Adrienne's absence from England seemed to bring Max nearer, to make
him more her own again. Even though they were separated, there was a
certain consolation in the knowledge that the woman whose close
friendship with her husband had helped to make shipwreck of their
happiness was going out of his life, though it might be only for a
little time.

One day, impelled by an irresistible desire to test the truth of the
newspaper reports, Diana took her way to Somervell Street, pausing
opposite the house that had been Adrienne's. She found it invested
with a curious air of unfamiliarity, facing the street with blank and
shuttered windows, like blind eyes staring back at her unrecognisingly.

So it was true! Adrienne