Diana shook her head.  She was a little flushed, and her eyes were bright with some suppressed excitement,

“No thanks,” she replied.  “I only came to tell you that I’ve been having a talk with Baroni about my voice, and—­and that I’ve decided to begin singing again this winter—­professionally, I mean.  It seems a pity to waste any more time.”

She spoke rapidly, and with a certain nervousness.

For an instant a look of acute pain leaped into Errington’s eyes, but it was gone almost at once, and he turned to her composedly.

“Is that the only reason, Diana?” he said.  “The waste of time?”

She was silent a moment, busying herself stripping off her gloves.  Presently she looked up, forcing herself to meet his gaze.

“No,” she said steadily.  “It isn’t.”

“May I know the—­other reasons?”

Her lip curled.

“I should have thought they were obvious.  Our marriage has been a mistake.  It’s a failure.  And I can’t bear this life any longer. . . .  I must have something to do.”

CHAPTER XXI

THE OTHER WOMAN

Carlo Baroni’s joy knew no bounds when he understood that Diana had definitely decided to return to the concert platform.  His first action was to order her away for a complete change and rest, so she and Joan obediently packed their trunks and departed to Switzerland, where they forgot for a time the existence of such things as London fogs, either real or figurative, and threw themselves heart and soul into the winter sports that were going forward.

The middle of February found them once more in England, and Joan rejoined her father, while Diana went back to Lilac Lodge.  She was greatly relieved to discover that the break had simplified several problems and made it much easier for her to meet her husband and begin life again on fresh terms.  Max, indeed, seemed to have accepted the new regime with that same mocking philosophy with which he invariably faced the problems of life—­and which so successfully cloaked his hurt from prying eyes.

He was uniformly kind in his manner to his wife—­with that light, half-cynical kindness which he had accorded her in the train on their first memorable journey together, and which effectually set them as far apart from each other as though they stood at the opposite ends of the earth.

Unreasonably enough, Diana bitterly resented this attitude.  Womanlike, she made more than one attempt to re-open the matter over which they had quarrelled, but each was skilfully turned aside, and the fact that after his one rejected effort at reconciliation, Max had calmly accepted the new order of things, added fuel to the jealous fire that burned within her.  She told herself that if he still cared for her, if he were not utterly absorbed in Adrienne de Gervais, he would never have rested until he had restored the old, happy relations between them.