“Humph!” The Russian’s eyes narrowed until they looked like two slits of green fire.  “Humph!  I was wrong, was I?  Nevertheless, I’m perfectly sure that Adrienne de Gervais’ past is a closed book to you—­although you call yourself her friend!”

Diana turned away without reply.  It was true—­Olga Lermontof had laid a finger on the weak spot in her friendship with Adrienne.  The latter never talked to her of her past life; their mutual attachment was built solely around the present, and if by chance any question of Diana’s accidentally probed into the past, it was adroitly parried.  Even of Adrienne’s nationality she was in ignorance, merely understanding, along with the rest of the world, that she was of French extraction.  This assumption had probably been founded in the first instance upon her name, and Adrienne never troubled either to confirm or contradict it.

Mrs. Adams, her companion-chaperon, always made Diana especially welcome at the house in Somervell Street.

“You must come again soon, my dear,” she would say cordially.  “Adrienne makes few friends—­and your visits are such a relaxation to her.  The life she leads is rather a strain, you know.”

At times Diana noticed a curious aloofness in her friend, as though her professional success occupied a position of relatively small importance in her estimation, and once she had commented on it half jokingly.

“You don’t seem to value your laurels one bit,” she had said, as Adrienne contemptuously tossed aside a newspaper containing a eulogy of her claims to distinction which most actresses would have carefully cut out and pasted into their book of critiques.

“Fame?” Adrienne had answered.  “What is it?  Merely the bubble of a day.”

“Well,” returned Diana, laughing, “it’s the aim and object of a good many people’s lives.  It’s the bubble I’m in pursuit of, and if I obtain one half the recognition you have had, I shall be very content.”

Adrienne regarded her musingly.

“You will be famous when the name of Adrienne de Gervais is known no longer,” she said at last.

Diana stared at her in surprise.

“But why?  Even if I should succeed, within the next few years, you will still be Adrienne de Gervais, the famous actress.”

Adrienne smiled across at her.

“Ah, I cannot tell you why,” she said lightly.  “But—­I think it will be like that.”

Her eyes gazed dreamily into space, as though she perceived some vision of the future, but whether that future were of rose and gold or only of a dull grey, Diana could not tell.

Of Max Errington she saw very little.  It seemed as though he were determined to avoid her, for she frequently saw him leaving Adrienne’s house on a day when she was expected there—­hurrying away just as she herself was approaching from the opposite end of the street.