"I see," he said kindly, "that I have a tired wife. You mustn't let Baroni and Miss Lermontof work you too hard between them." "Oh, they don't, Max." "All right, then. Only"--cupping her chin in his hand and turning her face up to his--"I notice I often have a somewhat worried-looking wife after one of Miss Lermontof's visits. I don't think she is too good a friend for you, Diana. Couldn't you get some one else to accompany you?" Diana hesitated. She would have been quite glad to dispense with Olga's services had it been possible. The Russian was for ever hinting at something in connection either with Max or Miss de Gervais; to-day she had but gone a step further than usual. "Well?" queried Max, reading the doubt in Diana's eyes. "I'm afraid I couldn't engage any one else to accompany me," she said at last. "You see, Olga is Baroni's chosen accompanist, and--it might make trouble." A curious expression crossed his face. "Yes," he agreed slowly. "It might--make trouble, as you say. Well, why not ask Joan to stay with you for a time--to counterbalance matters?" "Excellent suggestion!" exclaimed Diana, her spirits going up with a bound. Joan was always so satisfactory and cheerful and commonplace that she felt as though her mere presence in the house would serve to dispel the vague, indefinable atmosphere of suspicion that seemed closing round her. "I'll write to her at once." "Yes, do. If she can come next month, she will be here for the first night of 'Mrs. Fleming's Husband.'" Diana went away to write her letter, while Max remained pacing thoughtfully up and down the room, tapping restlessly with his fingers on his chest as he walked. His face showed signs of fatigue--the hard work in connection with the production of his play was telling on him--and since the brief interview with his wife, a new look of anxiety, an alert, startled expression, had dawned in his eyes. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind as he paced to and fro. At last, apparently, he came to a decision. "I'll do it," he said aloud. "It's a possible chance of silencing her." He made his way downstairs, pausing at the door of the library, where Diana was poring over her letter to Joan. "I find I must go out again," he said. "But I shall be back in time for dinner." Diana looked up in dismay. "But you've had no tea, Max," she protested. "Can't stay for it now, dear." He dropped a light kiss on her hair and was gone, while Diana, flinging down her pen, exclaimed aloud:-- "It's that woman again! I know it is! She's rung him up!" And it never dawned upon her that the fact that she had unthinkingly referred to Adrienne de Gervais as "that woman" marked a turning-point in her attitude towards her. Meanwhile Errington hailed a taxi and directed the chauffeur to drive him to 24 Brutton Square, where he asked to see Miss Lermontof.