Duchess's house was packed with a complacent crowd of people,
congratulating themselves upon being able, for once, to combine duty
and pleasure, since the purchase-money of their tickets for the
evening's entertainment contributed to a well-known charity, and at the
same time procured them the privilege of bearing once more their
favourite singer. Some there were who had grounds for additional
satisfaction in the fact that, under the wide cloak of charity, they
had managed to squeeze through the exclusive portals of Linfield House
for the first--and probably the last--time in their lives.

As the singer made her way through the thronged hall, those who knew
her personally bowed and smiled effusively, whilst those who didn't
looked on from afar and wished they did. It was not unlike a royal
progress, and Diana heaved a quick sigh of relief when at last she
found herself in the quiet of the little apartment set aside as an
artistes' room.

Olga Lermontof was already there, and Diana greeted her rather
nervously. She felt horribly uncertain what attitude Miss Lermontof
might be expected to adopt in the circumstances.

But she need have had no anxiety on that score. Olga seemed to be just
her usual self--grave and self-contained, her thin, dark-browed face
wearing its habitual half-mocking expression. Apparently she had wiped
out the day's happenings from her mind, and had become once more merely
the quiet, competent accompanist to a well-known singer.

There was no one else in the artistes' room. The other performers were
mingling with the guests, only withdrawing from the chattering crowd
when claimed by their part in the evening's entertainment.

"How far on are they?" asked Diana, picking up the programme and
running her eye down it.

"Your songs are the next item but one," replied Miss Lermontof.

A violin solo preceded the two songs which, bracketed together in the
middle of the programme as its culminating point, made the sum total of
Diana's part in it, and she waited quietly in the little anteroom while
the violinist played, was encored and played again, and throughout the
brief interval that followed. She felt that to-night she could not
face the cheap, everyday flow of talk and compliment. She would sing
because she had promised, that she would, but as soon as her part was
done she would slip away and go home--home, where she could sit alone
by the dead embers of her happiness.

A little flutter