Margaret Pedler - The Splendid Folly

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And snatching up the music from the piano in an uncontrollable burst of
fury, he flung it straight at her, and the two of them stood glaring at
each other for a few moments in silence. Then Baroni pointed to the
song, lying open on the floor between them, and said explosively:--

"Pick that up."

Diana regarded him coolly, her small face set like a flint.

"No." She fairly threw the negative at him,

He stared at her--he was accustomed to more docile pupils--and the two
girls who had remained in the room to listen to the lessons following
their own huddled together with scared faces. The _maestro_ in a royal
rage was ever, in their opinion, to be regarded from much the same
viewpoint as a thunderbolt, and that any one of his pupils should dare
to defy him was unheard-of. In the same situation as that in which
Diana found herself, either of the two girls in question would have
meekly picked up the music and, dissolving into tears, made the
continuance of the lesson an impossibility, only to be bullied by the
_maestro_ even more execrably next time.

"Pick that up," repeated Baroni stormily.

"I shall do nothing of the kind," retorted Diana promptly. "You threw
it there, and you can pick it up. I'm going home." And, turning her
back upon him, she marched towards the door.

A sudden twinkle showed itself in Baroni's eyes. With unaccustomed
celerity he pranced after her.

"Come back, little Pepper-pot, come back, then, and we will continue
the lesson."

Diana turned and stood hesitating.

"Who's going to pick up that music?" she demanded unflinchingly.

"Why, I will, thou most obstinate child"--suiting the action to the
word. "Because it is true that professors should not throw music at
their pupils, no matter"--maliciously--"how stupid nor how dull they
may be at their lesson."

Diana flushed, immediately repentant.

"I'm sorry," she acknowledged frankly. "I was being abominably
inattentive; I was thinking of something else."

The little scene was characteristic of her--unbendingly determined and
obstinate when she thought she was wronged and unjustly treated,
impulsively ready to ask pardon when she saw herself at fault.

Baroni patted her hand affectionately.

"See, my dear, I am a cross-grained, ugly old man, am I not?" he said
placidly.

"Yes, you are," agreed Diana, to the awed amazement of the other two
pupils, at the same time bestowing a radiant smile upon him.

Baroni beamed back at her benevolently.

"So! Thus we agree--we are at one, as master and pupil should be. Is
it not so?"

Diana nodded, amusement in her eyes.

"Then, being agreed, we can continue our lesson. Imagine yourself,
please, to be Delilah, brooding on your vengeance, gloating over what
you are about to accomplish. Can you not picture her to
yourself--beautiful, sinister, like a snake that winds itself about the
body"--his voice fell to a penetrating whisper--"and, in her heart,
dreaming of the triumph that shall bring Samson at last a captive to
destruction?"

Something in the tense excitement of his whispering tones struck an
answering chord within Diana, and oblivious for the moment of all else
except Delilah's passionate thirst for vengeance, she sang with her
whole soul, so that when she ceased, Baroni, in a sudden access of
artistic fervour, leapt from his seat and embraced her rapturously.

"Well done! That is, true art--art and intelligence allied to the
voice of gold which the good God has given you."

Absorbed in the music, neither master nor pupil had observed that
during the course of the song the door had been softly unlatched from
outside and held ajar, and now, just as Diana was somewhat blushingly
extricating herself from Baroni's fervent clasp, it was thrown open and
the unseen listener came into the room.

Baroni whirled round and advanced with outstretched hands, his face
wreathed in smiles.

"_A la bonne heure_! You haf come just at a good moment, Mees de
Gervais, to hear this pupil of mine who will some day be one of the
world's great singers."

Adrienne de Gervais shook hands.

"I've been listening, Baroni. She has a marvellous voice.
But"--looking at Diana pleasantly--"we are neighbours, surely? I have
seen you in Crailing--where we have just taken a house called Red
Gables."

"Yes, I live at Crailing," replied Diana, a little shyly.

"And I saw you, there one day--you were sitting in a pony-trap, waiting
outside a cottage, and singing to yourself. I noticed the quality of
her voice then," added Miss de Gervais, turning to the _maestro_.

"Yes," said Baroni, with placid content. "It is superb."

Adrienne turned back to Diana with a delightful smile.

"Since we are neighbours in the country, Miss Quentin, we ought to be
friends in town. Won't you come and see me one day?"

Diana flushed. She was undoubtedly attracted by the actress's charming
personality, but beyond this lay the knowledge that it was more than
likely that at her house she might again encounter Errington. And
though Diana told herself that he was nothing to her--in fact, that she
disliked him rather than otherwise--the chance of meeting him once more
was not to be foregone--if only for the opportunity it would give her
of showing him how much she disliked him!

"I should like to come very much," she answered.

"Then come and have tea with me to-morrow--no, to-morrow I'm engaged.
Shall we say Thursday?"

Diana acquiesced, and Miss de Gervais turned to Baroni with a rather
mischievous smile, saying something in a foreign tongue which Diana
took to be Russian. Baroni replied in the same language, frowningly,
and although she could not understand the tenor of his answer, Diana
was positive that she caught her own name and that of Max Errington
uttered in conjunction with each other.

It struck her as an odd coincidence that Baroni should be acquainted
both with Miss de Gervais and with Errington, and at her next lesson
she ventured to comment on the former's visit. Baroni's answer,
however, furnished a perfectly simple explanation of it.

"Mees de Gervais? Oh, yes, she sings a song in her new play, 'The Grey
Gown,' and I haf always coached her in her songs. She has a pree-ty
voice--nothing beeg, but quite pree-ty."

Diana set forth on her visit to Adrienne with a certain amount of
trepidation. Much as she longed to see Max Errington again, she felt
that the first meeting after that last episode of their acquaintance
might well partake of the somewhat doubtful pleasure of skating on thin
ice.

It was therefore not without a feeling of relief that she found the
actress and her chaperon the only occupants of the former's pretty
drawing-room. They both welcomed her cordially.

"I have heard so much about you," said Mrs. Adams, pleasantly, "that
I've been longing to meet you, Miss Quentin. Adrienne calls you the
'girl with the golden voice,' and I'm hoping to have the pleasure of
hearing you sing."

Diana was getting used to having her voice referred to as something
rather wonderful; it no longer embarrassed her, so she murmured an
appropriate answer and the conversation then drifted naturally to
Crailing and to the lucky chance which had brought Errington past
Culver Point the day Diana was marooned there, and Diana explained that
the Rector and his daughter had intended calling upon the occupants of
Red Gables, but had been prevented by their sudden departure.

Adrienne laughed.

"Yes, I expect every one thought we were quite mad to run away like
that so soon after our arrival! It was a sudden idea of Mr.
Errington's. He declared he was not satisfied about something in the
staging of 'The Grey Gown,' and of course we must needs all rush up to
town to see about it. There wasn't the least necessity, as it turned
out, but when Max takes an idea into his head there's no stopping him."

"No," added Mrs. Adams. "And the sheer cruelty of bustling an elderly
person like me from one end of England to the other just to suit his
whims doesn't seem to move him in the slightest."

She was smiling broadly as she spoke, and, it was evident to Diana that
to both these women Max Errington's word was law--a law they obeyed,
however, with the utmost cheerfulness.

"But, of course, we are coming back again," pursued Miss de Gervais.
"I think Crailing is a delightful little place, and I am going to
regard Red Gables as a haven of refuge from the storms of professional
life. So I hope"--smilingly--"that the Rectory will call on Red Gables
when next we are 'in residence.'"

The time passed quickly, and when tea was disposed of Adrienne looked
out from amongst her songs one or two which were known to Diana, and
Mrs. Adams was given the opportunity of hearing the "golden voice."

And then, just as Diana was preparing to leave, a maid threw open a
door and announced:--

"Mr. Errington."

Diana felt her heart contract suddenly, and the sound of his voice, as
he greeted Adrienne and Mrs. Adams, sent a thrill through every nerve
in her body.

"You mustn't go now." She was vaguely conscious that Adrienne was
speaking to her. "Max, here is Miss Quentin, whom you gallantly
rescued from Culver Point."

The actress was dimpling and smiling, a spice of mischief in her soft
blue eyes. She and Mrs. Adams had not omitted to chaff Errington about
his involuntary knight-errantry, and the former had even laughingly
declared it her firm belief that his journey to town the next day
partook more of the nature of flight than anything else. To all of
which Errington had submitted composedly, declining to add anything
further to his bare statement of the incident of Culver Point--mention
of which had been entailed by his unexpected absence from Red Gables
that evening.

He gave a scarcely perceptible start of surprise as his eyes fell upon
Diana, but he betrayed no pleasure at seeing her again. His face
showed nothing beyond the polite, impersonal interest which any
stranger might exhibit.

"I have just missed the pleasure of hearing you sing, I'm afraid," he
said, shaking hands. "Have you been back in town long, Miss Quentin?"

"No, only a few days," she answered. "I had my first lesson with
Signor Baroni the other day, and it was then that I met Miss de
Gervais."

"At Baroni's?" Diana intercepted a swift glance pass between him and
Adrienne.

"Yes," said the latter quickly. "I went to rehearse my song in 'The
Grey Gown' with him. He was rather crochety that day," she added,
smiling.

Diana smiled in sympathy.

"Well, if he was crochety with you, Miss de Gervais," she observed,
"you can perhaps imagine what he was like to me!"

"Was he so very bad?" asked Adrienne, laughing. "Every one says his
temper is diabolical."

"It is," replied Diana, with conviction.

"Still," broke in Errington's quiet voice, "I should have thought he
would have found it somewhat difficult to be very angry with Miss
Quentin."

Diana fancied she detected the familiar flavour of irony in the cool
tones.

"On the contrary, he apparently found it perfectly simple," she
retorted sharply.

"And yet," interposed Adrienne, "from the panegyrics he indulged in
upon the subject of your voice after you had gone, I'm sure he thinks
the world of you."

"Oh, I'm just a voice to him--nothing more," said Diana.

"To be 'just a voice' to Baroni means to be the most important thing on
earth," observed Errington. "I believe he would imperil his immortal
soul to give a supremely beautiful voice to the world."

"Nonsense, Max," protested Adrienne. "You talk as if he were perfectly
conscienceless."

"So he is, except in so far as art is concerned, and then his
conscience assumes the form of sheer idolatry. I believe he would
sacrifice anything and anybody for the sake of it."

"Well, it's to be hoped you're wrong," said Adrienne, smiling, and
again Diana thought she detected a glance of mutual understanding pass
between the actress and Max Errington.

A little uncomfortable sense as of being _de trop_ invaded her. She
felt that for some reason Errington would be glad when she had gone.
Possibly he had come to see Miss de Gervais about some business matter
in connection with the play he had written, and was only awaiting her
departure to discuss it. He had not appeared in the least pleased to
find her there on his arrival, and from that moment onward the
conversation had become distinctly laboured.

She wished very much that Miss de Gervais had not pressed her to stay
when he came, and at the first opportunity she rose to go. This time,
Adrienne made no effort to detain her, although she asked her cordially
to come again another day.

As Diana drove back in a taxi to Brutton Square she was conscious of a
queer sense of disappointment in the outcome of her meeting with Max
Errington. It had been so utterly different from anything she had
expected--quite commonplace and ordinary, exactly as though they had
been no more than the most casual acquaintances.

She hardly knew what she had actually anticipated. Certainly, she told
herself irritably, she could not have expected him to have treated her
with marked warmth of manner in the presence of others, and therefore
his behaviour had been just what the circumstances demanded. But,
notwithstanding the assurance she gave herself that this was the
common-sense view to take of the matter, she had an instinctive feeling
that, even had there been no one else to consider, Errington's manner
would still have shown no greater cordiality. For some reason he had
decided to lock the door on the past, and the polite friendly
indifference with which he had treated her was intended to indicate
quite clearly the attitude he proposed to adopt.

She supposed he repented that brief, vivid moment in the car, and
wished her to understand that it held no significance--that it was
merely a chance incident in this world where one amuses oneself as
occasion offers. Presumably he feared that, not being a woman of the
world, she might attach a deeper meaning to it than the circumstances
warranted, and was anxious to set her right on that point.

Her pride rose in revolt. Olga Lermontof's words returned to her mind
with fresh enlightenment: "I shouldn't allow myself to become too
interested in him, if I were you." Surely she had intended this as a
friendly warning to Diana not to take anything Max Errington might do
or say very seriously!

Well, there would be no danger of that in the future; she had learned
her lesson and would take care to profit by it.

CHAPTER X

MISS LERMONTOF'S ADVICE

As Diana entered the somewhat dingy hall at 34 Brutton Square on her
return from visiting Adrienne, the first person she encountered was
Olga Lermontof. She still retained her dislike of the accompanist and
was preparing to pass by with a casual remark upon the coldness of the
weather, when something in the Russian's pale, fatigued face arrested
her.

"How frightfully tired you look!" she exclaimed, pausing on the
staircase as the two made their way up together.

"I am, rather," returned Miss Lermontof indifferently. "I've been
playing accompaniments all afternoon, and I've had no tea."

Diana hesitated an instant, then she said impulsively--"Oh, do come
into my room and let me make you a cup."

Olga Lermontof regarded her with a faint surprise.

"Thanks," she said in her abrupt way. "I will."

A cheerful little fire was burning in the grate, and the room presented
a very comfortable and home-like appearance, for Diana had added a
couple of easy-chairs and several Liberty cushions to its somewhat
sparse furniture. A heavy curtain, hung in front of the door to
exclude draughts, gave an additional cosy touch, and fresh flowers
adorned both chimney-piece and table.

Olga Lermontof let her long, lithe figure down into one of the
easy-chairs with a sigh of satisfaction, while Diana set the kettle on
the fire to boil, and produced from the depths of a cupboard a canister
of tea and a tin of attractive-looking biscuits.

"I often make my own tea up here," she observed. "I detest having it
in that great barrack of a dining-room downstairs. The
bread-and-butter is always so thick--like doorsteps!--and the cake is
very emphatically of the 'plain, home-made' variety."

Olga nodded.

"You look very comfortable here," she replied. "If you saw my tiny
bandbox of a room on the fourth floor you'd realise what a sybarite you
are."

Diana wondered a little why Olga Lermontof should need to economise by
having such a small room and one so high up. She was invariably
well-dressed--Diana had frequently caught glimpses of silken petticoats
and expensive shoes--and she had not in the least the air of a woman
who is accustomed to small means.

Almost as though she had uttered her thought aloud, Miss Lermontof
replied to it, smiling rather satirically.

"You're thinking I don't look the part? It's true I haven't always
been so poor as I am now. But a lot of my money is invested in
Ru--abroad, and owing to--to various things"--she stammered a
little--"I can't get hold of it just at present, so I'm dependent on
what I make. And an accompanist doesn't earn a fortune, you know. But
I can't quite forego pretty clothes--I wasn't brought up that way. So
I economise over my room."

Diana was rather touched by the little confidence; somehow she didn't
fancy the other had found it very easy to make, and she liked her all
the better for it.

"No," she agreed, as she poured out two steaming cups of tea. "I
suppose accompanying doesn't pay as well as some other things--the
stage, for example. I should think Adrienne de Gervais makes plenty of
money."

"She has private means, I believe," returned Miss Lermontof. "But, of
course, she gets an enormous salary."

She was drinking her tea appreciatively, and a little colour had crept
into her cheeks, although the shadows still lay heavily beneath her
light-green eyes. They were of a curious translucent green, the more
noticeable against the contrasting darkness of her hair and brows; they
reminded one of the colour of Chinese jade.

"I've just been to tea with Miss de Gervais," volunteered Diana, after
a pause.

A swift look of surprise crossed Olga Lermontof's face.

"I didn't know you had met her," she said slowly.

"Yes, we met at Signor Baroni's the other day. She came in during my
lesson. I believe I told you she had taken a house at Crailing, so
that at home we are neighbours, you see."

"Miss Lermontof consumed a biscuit in silence. Then she said
abruptly:--

"Miss Quentin, I know you don't like me, but--well, I have an odd sort
of wish to do you a good turn. You had better have nothing to do with
Adrienne de Gervais."

Diana stared at her in undisguised amazement, the quick colour rushing
into her face as it always did when she was startled or surprised.

"But--but why?" she stammered.

"I can't tell you why. Only take my advice and leave her alone."

"But I thought her delightful," protested Diana. "And"--wistfully--"I
haven't many friends in London."

"Miss de Gervais isn't quite all she seems. And your art should be
your friend--you don't need any other."

Diana laughed.

"You talk like old Baroni himself! But indeed I do want friends--I
haven't nearly reached the stage when art can take the place of nice
human people."

Miss Lermontof regarded her dispassionately.

"That's only because you're young--horribly young and warm-hearted."

"You talk as if you yourself were a near relation of
Methuselah!"--laughing.

"I'm thirty-five," returned Olga, "And that's old enough to know that
nine-tenths of your 'nice human people' are self-seeking vampires
living on the generosity of the other tenth. Besides, you have only to
wait till you come out professionally and you can have as many
so-called friends as you choose. You'll scarcely need to lift your
little finger and they'll come flocking round you. I don't think"--
looking at her speculatively--"that you've any conception what your
voice is going to do for you. You see, it isn't just an ordinary good
voice--it's one of the exceptional voices that are only vouchsafed once
or twice in a century."

"Still, I think I should like to have a few friends--now. _My_ friend,
I mean--not just the friends of my voice!"--with a smile.

"Well, don't include Miss de Gervais in the number--or Max Errington
either."

She watched Diana's sudden flush, and shrugging her shoulders, added
sardonically:--

"I suppose, however, it's useless to try and stop a marble rolling down
hill. . . . Well, later on, remember that I warned you."

Diana stared into the fire for a moment in silence. Then she asked
with apparent irrelevance:--

"Is Mr. Errington married?"

"He is not." Diana's heart suddenly sang within her.

"Nor," continued Miss Lermontof keenly, "is there any likelihood of his
ever marrying."

The song broke off abruptly.

"I should have thought," said Diana slowly, "that he was just the kind
of man who _would_ marry. He is"--with a little effort--"very
delightful."

Miss Lermontof got up to go.

"You have a saying in England: _All is not gold that glitters_. It is
very good sense," she observed.

"Do you mean"--Diana's eyes were suddenly apprehensive--"do you mean
that he has done anything wrong--dishonourable?"

"I think," replied Olga Lermontof incisively, "that it would be very
dishonourable of him if he tried to--to make you care for him."

She moved towards the door as she spoke, and Diana followed her.

"But why--why do you tell me this?" she faltered.

The Russian's queer green eyes held an odd expression as she answered:--

"Perhaps it's because I like you very much better than you do me.
You're one of the few genuine warm-hearted people I've met--and I don't
want you to be unhappy. Good-bye," she added carelessly, "thank you
for my tea."

The door closed behind her, and Diana, returning to her seat by the
fire, sat staring into the flames, puzzling over what she had heard.

Miss Lermontof's curious warning had frightened her a little. She
apparently possessed some intimate knowledge of the affairs both of Max
Errington and Adrienne de Gervais, and what she knew did not appear to
be very favourable to either of them.

Diana had intuitively felt from the very beginning of her acquaintance
with Errington that there was something secret, something hidden, about
him, and in a way this had added to her interest in him. It had seized
hold of her imagination, kept him vividly before her mind as nothing
else could have done, and now Olga Lermontof's strange hints and
innuendos gave a fresh fillip to her desire to know in what way Max
Errington differed from his fellows.

"It would be dishonourable of him to make you care," Miss Lermontof had
said.

The words seemed to ring in Diana's ears, and side by side with them,
as though to add a substance of reality, came the memory of Errington's
own bitter exclamation: "I forgot that I'm a man barred out from all
that makes life worth living!"

She felt as though she had drawn near some invisible web, of which
every now and then a single filament brushed against her--almost
impalpable, yet touching her with the fleetest and lightest of contacts.

During the weeks that followed, Diana became more or less an intimate
at Adrienne's house in Somervell Street. The actress seemed to have
taken a great fancy to her, and although she was several years Diana's
senior, the difference in age formed no appreciable stumbling-block to
the growth of the friendship between them.

On her part, Diana regarded Adrienne with the enthusiastic devotion
which an older woman--more especially if she happens to be very
beautiful and occupying a somewhat unique position--frequently inspires
in one younger than herself, and Olga Lermontof's grave warning might
just as well have been uttered to the empty air. Diana's warm-hearted,
spontaneous nature swept it aside with an almost passionate loyalty and
belief in her new-found friend.

Once Miss Lermontof had referred to it rather disagreeably.

"So you've decided to make a friend of Miss de Gervais after all?" she
said.

"Yes. And I think you've misjudged her utterly," Diana warmly assured
her. "Of course," she added, sensitively afraid that the other might
misconstrue her meaning, "I know you believed what you were saying, and
that you only said it out of kindness to me. But you were
mistaken--really you were."

"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.

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