“I don’t know,” she said simply.  “I don’t seem able to sing now, somehow.”

Baroni shrugged his shoulders.

“You are fretting,” he declared.  “And so the voice 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 heavy lids.

“Ask him—­that’s all,” she replied shortly.

She drew her furs around her shoulders preparatory to departure, but Diana stepped in front of her, laying a detaining hand on her arm.