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.
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.
Only once or twice, when she had chanced to pay an unexpected visit,
had he come in and found her there. On these occasions his manner had
been studiously cold and indifferent, and any effort on her part
towards establishing a more friendly footing had been invariably
checked by some cruelly ironical remark, which had brought the blood to
her cheeks and, almost, the tears to her eyes. She reflected grimly
that Olga Lermontof's warning words had proved decidedly superfluous.
Meanwhile, she had struck up a friendship with Errington's private
secretary, a young man of the name of Jerry Leigh, who was a frequent
visitor at Adrienne's house. Jerry was, in truth, the sort of person
with whom it was impossible to be otherwise than friendly. He was of a
delightful ugliness, twenty-five years of age, penniless except for the
salary he received from Errington, and he possessed a talent for
friendship much as other folk possess a talent for music or art or
dancing.
Diana's first meeting with him had occurred quite by chance. Both
Adrienne and Mrs. Adams happened to be out one afternoon when she
called, and she was awaiting their return when the door of the
drawing-room suddenly opened to admit a remarkably plain young man,
who, on seeing her ensconced in one of the big arm-chairs, stood
hesitating as though undecided whether to remain or to take refuge in
instant flight.
Adrienne had talked so much about Jerry--of whom she was exceedingly
fond--and had so often described his charming ugliness to Diana that
the latter was in no doubt at all as to whom the newcomer might be.
She nodded to him reassuringly.
"Don't run away," she said calmly, "I don't bite."
The young man promptly closed the door and advanced into the room.
"Don't you?" he said in relieved tones. "Thank you for telling me.
One never knows."
"If you've come to see Miss de Gervais, I'm afraid you can't at
present, as she's out," pursued Diana. "I'm waiting for her."
"Then we can wait together," returned Mr. Leigh, with an engaging
smile. "It will be much more amusing than waiting in solitude, won't
it?"
"That I can't tell you--yet," replied Diana demurely.
"I'll ask you again in half an hour," he returned undaunted. "I'm
Leigh, you know. Jerry Leigh, Errington's secretary."
"I suppose, then, you're a very busy person?"
"Well, pretty much so in the mornings and sometimes up till late at
night, but Errington's a rattling good 'boss' and very often gives me
an 'afternoon out.' That's why I'm here now. I'm off duty and Miss de
Gervais told me I might come to tea whenever I'm free. You
see"--confidentially--"I've very few friends in London."
"Same here," responded Diana shortly.
"No, not really?"--with obvious satisfaction. "Then we ought to pal up
together, oughtn't we?"
"Don't you want my credentials?" asked Diana, smiling,
"Lord, no! One has only to look at you."
Diana laughed outright.
"That's quite the nicest compliment I've ever received, Mr. Leigh," she
said.
(It was odd that while Errington always made her feel rather small and
depressingly young, with Jerry Leigh she felt herself to be quite a
woman of the world.)
"It isn't a compliment," protested Jerry stoutly. "It's just the
plain, unvarnished truth."
"I'm afraid your 'boss' wouldn't agree with you."
"Oh, nonsense!"
"Indeed it isn't. He always treats me as though I were a hot potato,
and he were afraid of burning his fingers."
Jerry roared.
"Well, perhaps he's got good reason."
Diana shook; her head smilingly.
"Oh, no. It's not that. Mr. Errington doesn't like me."
Jerry stared at her reflectively.
"That couldn't be true," he said at last, with conviction.
"I don't know that I like him--very much--either," pursued Diana.
"You would if you really knew him," said the boy eagerly. "He's one of
the very best."
"He's rather a mysterious person, don't you think?"
Jerry regarded her very straightly.
"Oh, well," he returned bluntly, "every man's a right to have his own
private affairs."
Then there _was_ something!
Diana felt her heart beat a little faster. She had thrown out the
remark as the merest feeler, and now his own secretary, the man who
must be nearer to him than any other, had given what was tantamount to
an acknowledgment of the fact that Errington's life held some secret.
"Anyway"--Jerry was speaking again--"_I've_ got good reason to be
grateful to him. I was on my uppers when he happened along--and
without any prospect of re-soling. I'd played the fool at Monte Carlo,
and, like a brick, he offered me the job of private secretary, and I've
been with him ever since. I'd no references, either--he just took me
on trust."
"That was very kind of him," said Diana slowly.
"Kind! There isn't one man in a hundred who'll give a chance like that
to a young ass that's played the goat as I did."
"No," agreed Diana. "But," she added, rather low, "he isn't always
kind."
At this moment the door opened, and the subject of their conversation
entered the room. He paused on the threshold, and for an instant Diana
could have sworn that as his eyes met her own a sudden light of
pleasure flashed into their blue depths, only to be immediately
replaced by his usual look of cold indifference. He glanced round the
room, apparently somewhat surprised to find Diana and his secretary its
sole occupants.
"We're all here now except our hostess," observed the latter
cheerfully, following his thought.
"So it seems. I didn't know"--looking across from Jerry to Diana in a
puzzled way--"that you two were acquainted with each other."
"We aren't--at least, we weren't," replied Jerry. "We met by chance,
like two angels that have made a bid for the same cloud."
Errington smiled faintly.
"And did you persuade your--fellow angel--to sing to you?" he asked
drily.
"No. Does she sing?"
"_Does she sing_? . . . Jerry, my young and ignorant friend, let me
introduce you to Miss Diana Quentin, the--"
"Good Lord!" broke in Jerry, his face falling. "Are you Miss
Quentin--_the_ Miss Quentin? Of course I've heard all about
you.--you're going to be the biggest star in the musical firmament--and
here have I been gassing away about my little affairs just as though
you were an ordinary mortal like myself."
Diana was beginning to laugh at the boy's nonsense when Errington cut
in quietly.
"Then you've been making a great mistake, Jerry," he said. "Miss
Quentin doesn't in the least resemble ordinary mortals. She isn't
afflicted by like passions with ourselves, and she doesn't
understand--or forgive them."
The words, uttered as though in jest, held an undercurrent of meaning
for Diana that sent the colour flying up under her clear skin. There
was a bitter taunt in them that none knew better than she how to
interpret.
She winced under it, and a fierce resentment flared up within her that
he should dare to reproach, her--he, who had been the offender from
first to last. Always, now, he seemed to be laughing at her, mocking
her. He appeared an entirely different person from the man who had
been so careful of her welfare during the eventful journey they had
made together.
She lifted her head a little defiantly.
"No," she said, with significance. "I certainly don't understand--some
people."
"Perhaps it's just as well," retorted Errington, unmoved.
Jerry, sensing electricity in the atmosphere, looked troubled and
uncomfortable. He hadn't the faintest idea what they were talking
about, but it was perfectly clear to him that everything was not quite
as it should be between his beloved Max and this new friend, this jolly
little girl with the wonderful eyes--just like a pair of stars, by
Jove!--and, if rumour spoke truly, the even more wonderful voice.
Bashfully murmuring something about "going down to see if Miss de
Gervais had come in yet," he bolted out of the room, leaving Max and
Diana alone together.
Suddenly she turned and faced him.
"Why--why are you always so unkind to me?" she burst out, a little
breathlessly.
He lifted his brows.
"I? . . . My dear Miss Quentin, I have no right to be either kind--or
unkind--to you. That is surely the privilege of friends. And you
showed me quite clearly, down at Crailing, that you did not intend to
admit me to your friendship."
"I didn't," she exclaimed, and rushed on desperately. "Was it likely
that I should feel anything but gratitude--and liking for any one who
had done as much for me as you had?"
"You forget," he said quietly. "Afterwards--I transgressed. And you
let me see that the transgression had wiped out my meritorious
deeds--completely. It was quite the best thing that could happen," he
added hastily, as she would have spoken. "I had no right, less right
than any man on earth, to do--what I did. I abide by your decision."
The last words came slowly, meaningly. He was politely telling her
that any overtures of friendship would be rejected.
Diana's pride lay in the dust, but she was determined he should not
knew it. With her head held high, she said stiffly:--
"I don't think I'll wait any longer for Adrienne. Will you tell her,
please, that I've gone back to Brutton Square?"
"Brutton Square?" he repeated swiftly. "Do you live there?"
"Yes. Have you any objection?"
He disregarded her mocking query and continued:--
"A Miss Lermontof lives there. Is she, by any chance, a friend of
yours?" There seemed a hint of disapproval in his voice, and Diana
countered, with another question.
"Why? Do you think I ought not to be friends with her?"
"I? Oh, I don't think about it at all"--with a little half-foreign
shrug of his shoulders. "Miss Quentin's choice of friends is no
concern of mine."
Unbidden, tears leaped into Diana's eyes at the cold satirical tones.
Surely, surely he had hurt her enough, for one day! Without a word she
turned and made her way blindly out of the room and down the stairs.
In the hall she almost ran into Jerry's arms.
"Oh, are you going?" he asked, in tones of disappointment.
"Yea, I'm afraid I mustn't wait any longer for Adrienne. I have some
work to do when I get back."
Her voice shook a little, and Jerry, giving her a swift glance, could
see that her lashes were wet and her eyes misty with tears.
"The brute!" he ejaculated mentally. "What's he done to her?"
Aloud he merely said:--
"Will you have a taxi?"
She nodded, and hailing one that chanced to be passing, he put her
carefully into it.
"And--and I say," he said anxiously. "You didn't mind my talking to
you this afternoon, did you, Miss Quentin? I made 'rather free,' as
the servants say."
"No, of course I didn't mind," she replied warmly, her spirits rising a
little. He was such a nice boy--the sort of boy one could be pals
with. "You must come and see me at Brutton Square. Come to tea one
day, will you?"
"_Won't I_?" he said heartily. "Good-bye." And the taxi swept away
down the street.
Jerry returned to the drawing-room to find Errington staring moodily
out of the window.
"I say, Max," he said, affectionately linking his arm in that of the
older man. "What had you been saying to upset that dear little person?"
"I?"
"Yes. She was--crying."
Jerry felt the arm against his own twitch, and continued relentlessly:--
"I believe you've been snubbing her. You know, old man, you have a
sort of horribly lordly, touch-me-not air about you when you choose.
But I don't see why you should choose with Miss Quentin. She's such an
awfully good sort."
"Yes," agreed Errington. "Miss Quentin is quite charming."
"She thinks you don't like her," pursued Jerry, after a moment's pause.
"I--not like Miss Quentin? Absurd!"
"Well, that's what she thinks, anyway," persisted Jerry. "She told me
so, and she seemed really sorry about it. She believes you don't want
to be friends with her."
"Miss Quentin's friendship would be delightful. But--you don't
understand, Jerry--it's one of the delights I must forego."
When Errington spoke with such a definite air of finality, his young
secretary knew from experience that he might as well drop the subject.
He could get nothing further out of Max, once the latter had adopted
that tone over any matter. So Jerry, being wise in his generation,
held his peace.
Suddenly Errington faced round and laid his hands on the boy's shoulder.
"Jerry," he said, and his voice shook with some deep emotion. "Thank
God--thank Him every day of your life--that you're free and
untrammelled. All the world's yours if you choose to take it. Some of
us are shackled--our arms tied behind our backs. And oh, my God! How
they ache to be free!"
The blue eyes were full of a keen anguish, the stern mouth wry with
pain. Never before had Jerry seen him thus with the mask off, and he
felt as though he were watching a soul's agony unveiled.
"Max . . . dear old chap . . ." he stammered. "Can't I help?"
With an obvious effort Errington regained his composure, but his face
was grey as he answered:--
"Neither you nor any one else, Jerry, boy. I must dree my weird, as
the Scotch say. And that's the hard part of it--to be your own judge
and jury. A man ought not to be compelled to play the double role of
victim and executioner."
"And must you? . . . No way out?"
"None. Unless"--with a hard laugh--"the executioner throws up the game
and--runs away, allowing the victim to escape. And that's
impossible! . . . Impossible!" he reiterated vehemently, as though
arguing against some inner voice.
"Let him rip," suggested Jerry. "Give the accused a chance!"
Errington laughed more naturally. He was rapidly regaining his usual
self-possession.
"Jerry, you're a good pal, but a bad adviser. Get thee behind me."
Steps sounded on the stairs outside. Adrienne and Mrs. Adams had come
back, and Errington turned composedly to greet them, the veil of
reticence, momentarily swept aside by the surge of a sudden emotion,
falling once more into its place.