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"Don't you think that the time for pretence and hypocrisy has gone by? You know all that I ought to know. Now that even the newspapers are aware of Max's and Adrienne's connection with Ruvania, do you still think it necessary that I, his wife, should be kept in the dark?" "The newspapers?" Olga spoke with sudden excitement. "How much do they know?
Then, as though impelled to speak despite her better judgment, she burst out impetuously: "But you can't! You can't wait. He isn't coming back again." There was a queer tense note in Diana's voice as she played her first big card. "Then I suppose I shall have to follow him to Ruvania," she said very quietly. "To Ruvania?"
There had once been a younger brother and heir of a reigning grand-duke of Ruvania who had fallen so headlong in love with a beautiful Englishwoman that he had renounced his royal state and his claims to the grand ducal throne, and had married the lady of his choice, thereafter living the life of a simple country gentleman.
German money backed the revolution, in the hope that when Ruvania grew tired of her penny-farthing republic as she was bound to do Germany might step in again and convert Ruvania into a little dependent State under Prussia.
Vaguely she recollected having heard the story of some royal duke who had married an Englishwoman many years ago. For a few minutes she racked her brain, unable to place the incident. Then, her eyes falling absently upon the newspaper once more, the last word of the paragraph suddenly unlocked the rusty door of memory. Ruvania! She remembered the story now!
Diana's head whirled with the throng of confused ideas that poured in upon her. And Adrienne de Gervais? What part did she play in this strange medley? Tattle of the Town assigned her one. Max and Adrienne and Ruvania were all inextricably tangled up together in the thought-provoking paragraph.
Russia has helped, and Ruvania is ready to welcome Nadine's return. . . . She is in Paris, now, waiting for me to take her there. . . . It has been a long and difficult matter, and the responsibility of Nadine's well-being in England has been immense.
Only once, when I was leaving Ruvania, never to return, did she give me her lips at parting." Again he fell silent, his thoughts straying back across the years between to that day when he had taken farewell of the woman who had held his very soul between her hands. Presently, with an effort, he resumed his story.
And when that time arrives, if Ruvania is to come out of the struggle with her independence unimpaired, it will only be by the utmost effort of all her sons. Nadine cannot stand alone. What can a woman do unaided when the nations are fighting for supremacy? The country will need a man at the helm, and I must stand by Nadine." "But why you? Why not another?"
There's always a German princeling handy for any vacant throne!" contemptuously "and in the event of a big European War, Ruvania in German hands would provide an easy entrance into Russia. So you see, Nadine, alive and in safety, was a perpetual menace to the German plans.
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