She prefers--their husbands." Joan stared in amazement.

The little acid speech was so unlike Diana that she felt convinced it sprang from some new and strong antagonism towards the actress.

What could be the cause of it?
Diana and Adrienne had been warm friends only a few months ago! Joan's eyes travelled from Diana's small, set face to Jerry's pleasant boyish one.

The latter had opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it, and closed it again, reddening uncomfortably, and his dismayed expression was so obvious as to be almost comic.
The rise of the curtain for the third and last act put a summary end to any further conversation and Joan bent her attention on the stage once more, though all the time that her eyes and ears were absorbing the shifting scenes and brilliant dialogue of the play a little, persistent inner voice at the back of her brain kept repeating Diana's nonchalant "_I really don't see very much of her nowadays_," and querying irrepressibly, "_Why not_ ?" Meanwhile, Diana, unconscious of the uneasy curiosity she had awakened in the mind of Joan, was watching the progress of the play intently.
How designedly it was written around Adrienne de Gervais--calculated to give every possible opportunity to a fine emotional actress! Her lips closed a little more tightly together as the thought took hold of her.
The author must have studied Adrienne, watched her every mood, learned every twist of her temperament, to have portrayed a character so absolutely suited to her as that of Mrs.Fleming.

And how could a man know a woman's soul so well unless--unless it were the soul of the woman he loved?
That was it; that was the explanation of all those things which had puzzled, and bewildered her for so long.