What was the reason for the keen interest he took in her friend?
Had he really told her the truth when repudiating the possibility of his falling in love with her?
She fancied he had; and if so, why was he so anxious to inform himself of her most trivial doings?
It was a puzzle to Olga--a puzzle that for some reason gave her considerable uneasiness.

Against her will and very deep down within her, she was aware of a lurking distrust that made her afraid of Max Wyndham.

She felt as if he were watching to catch her off her guard, ready at a moment's notice to turn to his own purposes any rash confidence into which she might be betrayed.

And she told herself with passionate self-reproach that she had already been guilty of disloyalty to her friend.
During the rest of luncheon she exerted herself to keep the conversation general, Max seconding her efforts as though unconscious of her desire to avoid him.

In fact, he seemed wholly unaware of any change in her demeanour, and Olga noted the fact with relief, the while she determined to exclude him rigidly for the future from anything even remotely approaching to intimacy.