I shall find rooms somewhere
to-morrow, and take Adrienne and Mrs. Adams down to them the next
day. . . No, I can't possibly be back for Wednesday."
"But you must!"--impetuously.
"It's impossible. I shall stay with Adrienne and Mrs. Adams until I'm
quite sure that the place is safe for them--that that fellow hasn't
traced them and isn't lurking about in the neighbourhood. You mustn't
expect me back before Saturday at the earliest. You and Jerry can manage
the reception. I hate those big crowds, as you know."
For a moment Diana sat in stony silence. So he intended to leave her to
entertain half London--that half of London that mattered and would talk
about it--while he spent a pleasant week philandering down in the country
with Adrienne de Gervais, under the aegis of Mrs. Adams' chaperonage!
Very slowly Diana rose to her feet. Her small face was white and set,
her little pointed chin thrust out, and her grey eyes were almost black
with the intense anger that gripped her.
"Do you mean this?" she asked collectedly.
"Why, of course. Don't you see that I must, Diana? I can't let Adrienne
run a risk like that."
"But you can subject your wife to an insult like that without thinking
twice about it!"--contemptuously. "It hasn't occurred to you, I suppose,
what people will say when they find that I have been left entirely alone
to entertain our friends, while my husband passes a pleasant week in the
country with Miss de Gervais, and her--chaperon? It's an insult to our
guests as well as to me.
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