But, with the advent of autumn, the probabilities of a meeting between
husband and wife were increased a hundredfold, since Diana's
engagements included a considerable number of private receptions in
addition to her concert work, and she never sang at a big society crush
without an inward apprehension that she might encounter Max amongst the
guests.
She shrank from meeting him again as a wounded man shrinks from an
accidental touch upon his hurt. It had been easy enough, in the first
intolerant passion which had overwhelmed her, to contemplate life apart
from him. Indeed, to leave him had seemed the only obvious course to
save her from the daily flagellation of her love, the hourly insult to
her dignity, that his relations with Adrienne de Gervais and the whole
mystery which hung about his actions had engendered.
But when once the cord had been cut, and life in its actuality had to
be faced apart from him, Diana found that love, hurt and buffeted
though it may be, still remains love, a thing of flame and fire, its
very essence a desire for the loved one's presence.
Every fibre of her being cried aloud for Max, and there were times when
the longing for the warm, human touch of his hand, for the sound of his
voice, grew almost unbearable. Yet any meeting between them could be
but a barren reminder of the past, revitalising the dull ache of
longing into a quick and overmastering agony, and, realising this,
Diana recoiled from the possibility with a fear almost bordering upon
panic.
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