CARLO BARONI EXPLAINS
Diana sat on, very still, very silent, staring straight in front of her
with wide, tearless eyes. Only now and again a long, shuddering sigh
escaped her, like the caught breath of a child that has cried till it
is utterly exhausted and can cry no more.
She felt that she had come to an end of things. Nothing could undo the
past, and ahead of her stretched the future, empty and void of promise.
Presently the creak of the door reopening roused her, and she turned,
instantly on the defensive, anticipating that Olga had come back to
renew the struggle. But it was only Baroni, who approached her with a
look of infinite concern on his kind old face.
"My child!" he began. "My child! . . . So, then! You know all that
there is to know."
Diana looked up wearily.
"Yes," she replied. "I know it all."
The old _maestro's_ eyes softened as they rested upon her, and when he
spoke again, his queer husky voice was toned to a note of extraordinary
sweetness.
"My dear pupil, if it had been possible, I would haf spared you this
knowledge. It was wrong of Olga to tell you--above all"--his face
creasing with anxiety as the ruling passion asserted itself
irrepressibly--"to tell you on a day when you haf to sing!"
"I made her," answered Diana listlessly. She passed her hand wearily
across her forehead. "Don't worry, _Maestro_, I shall be able to sing
to-night."
"_Tiens_! But you are all to pieces, my child! You will drink a glass
of champagne--now, at once," he insisted, adding persuasively as she
shook her head, "To please me, is it not so?"
Diana's lips curved in a tired smile.
"Is champagne the cure for a heartache, then, _Maestro_?"
Baroni's eyes grew suddenly sad.
"Ah, my dear, only death--or a great love--can heal the wound that lies
in the heart," he answered gently. He paused, then resumed crisply:
"But, meanwhile, we haf to live--and _prima donnas_ haf to sing.
So . . . the little glass of wine in my room, is it not?"
He tucked her arm within his, patting her hand paternally, and led her
into his own sanctum, where he settled her comfortably in a big
easy-chair beside the fire, and poured her out a glass of wine,
watching her sip it with a glow of satisfaction in his eyes.
"That goes better, _hein_? This Olga--she had not reflected
sufficiently. It was too late for the truth to do good; it could only
pain and grieve you."
"Yes," said Diana. "It is too late now. . . . I've paid for my
ignorance with my happiness--and Max's," she added in a lower tone.
She looked across at Baroni with sudden resentment. "And you--_you
knew_!" she continued. "Why didn't you tell me? . . . Oh, but I can
guess!"--scornfully. "It suited your purpose for me to quarrel with my
husband; it brought me back to the concert platform. My happiness
counted for nothing--against that!"
Baroni regarded her patiently.
"And do you regret it? Would you be willing, now, to give up your
career as a _prima donna_--and all that it means?"
A vision rose up before Diana of what life would be denuded of the
glamour and excitement, the perpetual triumphs, the thrilling sense of
power her singing gave her--the dull, flat monotony of it, and she
caught her breath sharply in instinctive recoil.
"No," she admitted slowly. "I couldn't give it up--now."
An odd look of satisfaction overspread Baroni's face.
"Then do not blame me, my child. For haf I not given you a consolation
for the troubles of life."
"I need never have had those troubles to bear if you had been frank
with me!" she flashed back. "_You--you_ were not bound by any oath of
secrecy. Oh! It was cruel of you, _Maestro_!"
Her eyes, bitterly accusing, searched his face.
"Tchut! Tchut! But you are too quick to think evil of your old
_maestro_." He hesitated, then went on slowly: "It is a long story, my
dear--and sometimes a very sad story. I did not think it would pass my
lips again in this world. But for you, who are so dear to me, I will
break the silence of years. . . . Listen, then. When you, my little
Pepperpot, had not yet come to earth to torment your parents, but were
still just a tiny thought in the corner of God's mind, I--your old
Baroni--I was in Ruvania."
"You--in Ruvania?"
He nodded.
"Yes. I went there first as a professor of singing at the Borovnitz
Conservatoire--_per Bacco_! But they haf the very soul of music, those
Ruvanians! And I was appointed to attend also at the palace to give
lessons to the Grand Duchess. Her voice was only a little less
beautiful than your own." He hesitated, as though he found it
difficult to continue. At last he said almost shyly: "Thou, my child,
thou hast known love. . . . To me, too, at the palace, came that best
gift of the good God."
He paused, and Diana whispered stammeringly:
"Not--not the Grand Duchess?"
"Yes--Sonia." The old _maestro's_ eyes kindled with a soft luminance
as his whispering voice caressed the little flame. "Hers, of course,
had been merely a marriage dictated by reasons of State, and from the
time of our first meeting, our hearts were in each other's keeping.
But she never failed in duty or in loyalty. Only once, when I was
leaving Ruvania, never to return, did she give me her lips at parting."
Again he fell silent, his thoughts straying back across the years
between to that day when he had taken farewell of the woman who had
held his very soul between her hands. Presently, with an effort, he
resumed his story. "I stayed at the Ruvanian Court many years--there
was a post of Court musician which I filled--and for both of us those
years held much of sadness. The Grand Duke Anton was a domineering
man, hated by every one, and his wife's happiness counted for nothing
with him. She had failed to give him a son, and for that he never
pardoned her. I think my presence comforted her a little. That--and
the child--the little Nadine. . . . As much as Anton was disliked, so
much was his brother Boris beloved of the people. His story you know.
Of this I am sure--that he lived and died without once regretting the
step he had taken in marrying an Englishwoman. They were lovers to the
end, those two."
Listening to the little history of those two tender love tales that had
run their course side by side, Diana almost forgot for a moment how the
ripples of their influence, flowing out in ever-widening circles, had
touched, at last, even her own life, and had engulfed her happiness.
But, as Baroni ceased, the recollection of her own bitter share in the
matter returned with overwhelming force, and once more she arraigned
him for his silence.
"I still see no reason why you should not have told me the truth about
Adrienne--about Nadine Mazaroff. Max couldn't--I see that; nor Olga.
But _you_ were bound by no oath."
"My child, I was bound by something stronger than an oath."
The old man crossed the room to where there stood on a shelf a little
ebony cabinet, clamped with dull silver of foreign workmanship. He
unlocked it, and withdrew from it a letter, the paper faintly yellowed
and brittle with the passage of time.
He held it out to Diana.
"No eyes but mine haf ever rested on it since it was given into my hand
after her death," he said very gently. "But you, my child, you shall
read it; you are hurt and unhappy, battering against fate, and
believing that those who love you haf served you ill. But we were all
bound in different ways. . . . Read the letter, little one, and thou
wilt see that I, too, was not free."
Hesitatingly Diana unfolded the thin sheet and read the few faded lines
it contained.
"CARLO MIO,
"I think the end is coming for Anton and for me. The revolt of the
people is beyond all quelling. My only fear is for Nadine; my only
hope for her ultimate safety lies in Max. If ever, in the time to
come, your silence or your speech can do aught for my child--in the
name of the love you gave me, I beg it of you. In serving her, you
will be serving me.
"SONIA."
Very slowly Diana handed the letter back to Baroni.
"So--that was why," she whispered.
Baroni bent his head.
"That was why. I could not speak. But I did all that lay in my power
to prevent this marriage of yours."
"You did." A wan little smile tilted the corners of her mouth at the
remembrance.
"Afterwards--your happiness was on the knees of the gods!"
"No," said Diana suddenly. "No. It was in my own hands. Had I
believed in Max we should have been happy still. . . . But I failed
him."
A long silence followed. At last she rose, holding out her hands.
"Thank you," she said simply. "Thank you for showing me the letter."
Baroni stooped his head and carried her hands to his lips.
"My dear, we make our mistakes and then we pay. It is always so in
life. Love"--and the odd, clouded voice shook a little--"Love
brings--great happiness--and great pain. Yet we would not be without
it."