"Don't you see," she said monotonously, "it's just because of that--because he hasn't failed me while I've failed him so utterly--that I can't go back?"

Olga turned on her swiftly, her green eyes blazing dangerously.

"It's your pride!" she cried fiercely. "It's your d.a.m.nable pride that's standing in the way! Merciful heavens! Did you ever love him, I wonder, that you're too proud to ask his forgiveness now--now when you know what you've done?"

Diana's lips moved in a pitiful attempt at a smile.

"Oh, no," she said, shaking her head. "It's not that. I've . . . no pride . . . left, I think. But I can't be mean--_mean_ enough to crawl back now." She paused, then went on with an inflection of irony in her low, broken voice. "'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.'

. . . Well, I'm reaping--that's all."

Like the keen thrust of a knife came Olga's answer.

"And must he, too, reap your sowing? For that's what it amounts to--that Max must suffer for your sin. Oh! He's paid enough for others! . . .

Diana"--imploringly--"Max is leaving England to-night. Go back to him now--don't wait until it's too late,"

"No." Diana spoke in dead, flat tones. "Can't you understand?"--moving her head restlessly. "Do you suppose--even if he forgave me--that he could ever believe in me again? He would never be certain that I really trusted him. He would always feel unsure of me."

"If you can think that, then you haven't understood Max--or his love for you," retorted Olga vehemently. "Oh! How can I make you see it? You keep on balancing this against that--what you can give, what Max can believe--weighing out love as though it were sold by the ounce! Max loves you--_loves you_! And there _aren't_ any limitations to love!"

She broke off abruptly, her voice shaking. "Can't you believe it?" she added helplessly, after a minute.

Diana shook her head.

"I think you mean to be kind," she said patiently. "But love is a giving. And I--have nothing to give."

"And you're too proud to take."

"Yes . . . if you call that pride. I can't take--when I've nothing to give."

"Then you don't love! You don't know what it means to love!

Diana"--Olga's voice rose in pa.s.sionate entreaty--"for G.o.d's sake go to him! He's suffered so much. Forget what people may think--what even he may think! Throw your pride overboard and remember only that he loves you and has need of you. _Go to him_!"

She ceased, and her eyes implored Diana's. No matter what may have been her shortcomings--and they were many, for she was a hard, embittered woman--at least, in her devotion to her brother, Olga Lermontof approached very nearly to the heroic.

There was a long silence. At last Diana spoke in low, shaken tones, her head bowed.

"I can't!" she whispered. "I shall never forgive myself. And I can't ask Max to--forgive me. . . . He couldn't." The last words were hardly audible.

For a moment Olga stood quite still, gazing with hard eyes at the slight figure hunched into drooping lines of utter weariness. Once her lips moved, but no sound came. Then she turned away, walking with lagging footsteps, and a minute later the door opened and closed quietly again behind her.

CHAPTER XXVII

CARLO BARONI EXPLAINS

Diana sat on, very still, very silent, staring straight in front of her with wide, tearless eyes. Only now and again a long, shuddering sigh escaped her, like the caught breath of a child that has cried till it is utterly exhausted and can cry no more.

She felt that she had come to an end of things. Nothing could undo the past, and ahead of her stretched the future, empty and void of promise.

Presently the creak of the door reopening roused her, and she turned, instantly on the defensive, antic.i.p.ating that Olga had come back to renew the struggle. But it was only Baroni, who approached her with a look of infinite concern on his kind old face.

"My child!" he began. "My child! . . . So, then! You know all that there is to know."

Diana looked up wearily.

"Yes," she replied. "I know it all."

The old _maestro's_ eyes softened as they rested upon her, and when he spoke again, his queer husky voice was toned to a note of extraordinary sweetness.

"My dear pupil, if it had been possible, I would haf spared you this knowledge. It was wrong of Olga to tell you--above all"--his face creasing with anxiety as the ruling pa.s.sion a.s.serted itself irrepressibly--"to tell you on a day when you haf to sing!"

"I made her," answered Diana listlessly. She pa.s.sed her hand wearily across her forehead. "Don't worry, _Maestro_, I shall be able to sing to-night."

"_Tiens_! But you are all to pieces, my child! You will drink a gla.s.s of champagne--now, at once," he insisted, adding persuasively as she shook her head, "To please me, is it not so?"

Diana's lips curved in a tired smile.

"Is champagne the cure for a heartache, then, _Maestro_?"

Baroni's eyes grew suddenly sad.

"Ah, my dear, only death--or a great love--can heal the wound that lies in the heart," he answered gently. He paused, then resumed crisply: "But, meanwhile, we haf to live--and _prima donnas_ haf to sing.

So . . . the little gla.s.s of wine in my room, is it not?"

He tucked her arm within his, patting her hand paternally, and led her into his own sanctum, where he settled her comfortably in a big easy-chair beside the fire, and poured her out a gla.s.s of wine, watching her sip it with a glow of satisfaction in his eyes.

"That goes better, _hein_? This Olga--she had not reflected sufficiently. It was too late for the truth to do good; it could only pain and grieve you."

"Yes," said Diana. "It is too late now. . . . I've paid for my ignorance with my happiness--and Max's," she added in a lower tone.

She looked across at Baroni with sudden resentment. "And you--_you knew_!" she continued. "Why didn't you tell me? . . . Oh, but I can guess!"--scornfully. "It suited your purpose for me to quarrel with my husband; it brought me back to the concert platform. My happiness counted for nothing--against that!"

Baroni regarded her patiently.

"And do you regret it? Would you be willing, now, to give up your career as a _prima donna_--and all that it means?"

A vision rose up before Diana of what life would be denuded of the glamour and excitement, the perpetual triumphs, the thrilling sense of power her singing gave her--the dull, flat monotony of it, and she caught her breath sharply in instinctive recoil.

"No," she admitted slowly. "I couldn't give it up--now."

An odd look of satisfaction overspread Baroni's face.

"Then do not blame me, my child. For haf I not given you a consolation for the troubles of life."

"I need never have had those troubles to bear if you had been frank with me!" she flashed back. "_You--you_ were not bound by any oath of secrecy. Oh! It was cruel of you, _Maestro_!"

Her eyes, bitterly accusing, searched his face.

"Tchut! Tchut! But you are too quick to think evil of your old _maestro_." He hesitated, then went on slowly: "It is a long story, my dear--and sometimes a very sad story. I did not think it would pa.s.s my lips again in this world. But for you, who are so dear to me, I will break the silence of years. . . . Listen, then. When you, my little Pepperpot, had not yet come to earth to torment your parents, but were still just a tiny thought in the corner of G.o.d's mind, I--your old Baroni--I was in Ruvania."