y mean and paltry, a profanation of the whole inner,
hidden meaning of love.

So long as she and Max cared for each other, nothing else mattered,
nothing in the whole world. And the long battle between love and
pride--between love, that had turned her days and nights into one
endless ache of longing to return to Max, and pride, that had barred
the way inflexibly--was over, done with.

Love had won, hands down. She would go back to Max, and all thought
that it might be weak-minded of her, humiliating to her self-respect,
was swept aside. Love, the great teacher, had brought her through the
dark places where the lesser gods hold sway, out into the light of day,
and she knew that to return to Max, to give herself afresh to him,
would be the veritable triumph, of love itself.

She would go back, back to the shelter of his love which had been
waiting for her all the time, unswerving and unreproaching. She had
read it in his eyes when they had met her own an hour ago.

"I want you---body and soul I want you!" he had told her there by the
cliffs at Culver.

And she had not given him all her soul. She had kept back that supreme
belief in the beloved which is an integral part of love. But now, now
she would go to him and give with both hands royally--faith and trust,
blindly, as love demanded.

She smiled a little. Happiness and the haven of Max's arms seemed very
near her just then.

She was very silent as she and Olga Lermontof drove home together from
the Embassy, but just at the last, when the limousine stopped at
Baroni's house, she leaned closer to Olga in the semi-darkness, and
whispered a little breathlessly:--

"I'm going back to him, Olga."

Somehow the mere putting of it into words seemed to give it substance,
convert it into an actual fact that could be talked about, just like
the weather, or one's favourite play, or any other commonplace matter
which can be spoken of because it has a knowledgeable existence. And
the Russian's quick "Thank God!" set the seal of assuredness upon it.

"Yes--thank God," answered Diana simply.

The car, which was to take the accompanist on to Brutton Square,
slipped away down the lamp-lit street, and Diana fled upstairs to her
room.

She must be alone--alone with her thoughts. She no longer dreaded the
night and its quiet solitude. It was a solitude pervaded by a deep,
abiding peace, the anteroom of happiness.

To-morrow she would go to Max, and tell him that