"What has gone wrong, Max? You look
fagged out."
"Baroni has been round to see me--to ask me to break off my
engagement." He laughed shortly.
"He doesn't approve, I suppose?"
"That's a mild way of expressing his attitude."
Adrienne was silent a moment. Then she spoke, slowly, consideringly.
"I don't--approve--either. It isn't right, Max."
He bit his lip.
"So you--you, too, are against me?"
She stretched out her hand impulsively.
"Not against you, Max! Never that! How could I be? . . . But I don't
think you're being quite fair to Diana. You ought to tell her the
truth."
He wheeled round.
"No one knows better than you how impossible that is."
"Don't you trust her then--the woman you're asking to be your wife?"
The tinge of irony in her voice brought a sudden light of anger to his
eyes.
"That's not very just of you, Adrienne," he said coldly. "_I_ would
trust her with my life. But I have no right to pledge the trust of
others--and that's what I should be doing if I told her. We have our
duty--you and I--and all this . . . is part of it."
Adrienne hesitated.
"Couldn't you--ask the others to release you?"
He shook his head.
"What right have I to ask them to trust an Englishwoman with their
secret--just for my pleasure?"
"For your happiness," corrected Adrienne softly.
"Or for my happiness? My happiness doesn't count with them one straw.
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