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diff --git a/old/lmpft10.txt b/old/lmpft10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..634fa46 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lmpft10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13172 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Lamp of Fate, by Margaret Pedler +(#2 in our series by Margaret Pedler) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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So will you let me dedicate + it to you? + Yours always, + MARGARET PEDLER. + + + + + + + + + +THE LAMP OF FATE + + + + +PART ONE + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE NINTH GENERATION + +The house was very silent. An odour of disinfectants pervaded the +atmosphere. Upstairs hushed, swift steps moved to and fro. + +Hugh Vallincourt stood at the window of his study, staring out with +unseeing eyes at the smooth, shaven lawns and well-kept paths with +their background of leafless trees. It seemed to him that he had been +standing thus for hours, waiting--waiting for someone to come and tell +him that a son and heir was born to him. + +He never doubted that it would be a son. By some freak of chance the +first-born of the Vallincourts of Coverdale had been, for eight +successive generations, a boy. Indeed, by this time, the thing had +become so much a habit that no doubts or apprehensions concerning the +sex of the eldest child were ever entertained. It was accepted as a +foregone conclusion, and in the eyes of the family there was a certain +gratifying propriety about such regularity. It was like a hall-mark of +heavenly approval. + +Hugh Vallincourt, therefore, was conscious at this critical moment of +no questionings on that particular score. He was merely a prey to the +normal tremors and agitations of a husband and prospective father. + +For an ageless period, it seemed to him, his thoughts had clung about +that upstairs room where his wife lay battling for her own life and +another's. Suddenly they swung back to the time, a year ago, when he +had first met her--an elusive feminine thing still reckoning her age +in teens--beneath the glorious blue and gold canopy of the skies of +Italy. + +Their meeting and brief courtship had been pure romance--romance such +as is bred in that land of mellow warmth and colour, where the flower +of passion sometimes buds and blooms within the span of a single day. + +In like manner had sprung to life the love between Hugh Vallincourt +and Diane Wielitzska, and rarely has the web of love enmeshed two more +dissimilar and ill-matched people--Hugh, a man of seven-and-thirty, +the strict and somewhat self-conscious head of a conspicuously devout +old English family, and Diane, a beautiful dancer of mixed origin, the +illegitimate offspring of a Russian grand-duke and of a French +artist's model of the Latin Quarter. + +The three dread Sisters who determine the fate of men must have +laughed amongst themselves at such an obvious mismating, knowing well +how inevitably it would tangle the threads of many other lives than +the two immediately concerned. + +Vallincourt had been brought up on severely conventional lines, reared +in the narrow tenets of a family whose salient characteristics were an +overweening pride of race and a religious zeal amounting almost to +fanaticism, while Diane had had no up-bringing worth speaking of. As +for religious views, she hadn't any. + +Yet neither the one nor the other had counted in the scale when the +crucial moment came. + +Perhaps it was by way of an ironical set-off against his environment +that Fate had dowered Hugh with his crop of ruddy hair--and with the +ardent temperament which usually accompanies the type. Be that as it +may, he was swept completely off his feet by the dancer's magic +beauty. The habits and training of a lifetime went by the board, and +nothing was allowed to impede the swift (not to say violent) course of +his love-making. Within a month from the day of their first meeting, +he and Diane were man and wife. + +The consequences were almost inevitable, and Hugh found that his +married life speedily resolved itself into an endless struggle between +the dictates of inclination and conscience. Everything that was man in +him responded passionately to the appeal and charm of Diane's +personality, whilst everything that was narrow and censorious +disapproved her total inability to conform to the ingrained prejudices +of the Vallincourts. + +Not that Diane was in any sense of the word a bad woman. She was +merely beautiful and irresponsible--a typical /cigale/ of the stage-- +lovable and kind-hearted and pagan, and possessing but the haziest +notions of self-control and self-discipline. Even so, left to +themselves, husband and wife might ultimately have found the road to +happiness across the bridge of their great love for one another. + +But such freedom was denied them. Always at Hugh's elbow stood his +sister, Catherine, a rigidly austere woman, in herself an epitome of +all that Vallincourts had ever stood for. + +Since the death of their parents, twenty years previously, Catherine +had shared her brother's home, managing his house--and, on the +strength of her four years' seniority in age, himself as well--with an +iron hand. Nor had she seen fit to relinquish the reins of government +when he married. + +Privately, Hugh had hoped she might consider the propriety of +withdrawing to the dower house attached to the Coverdale estates, but +if the idea had occurred to her, she had never given it utterance, and +Hugh himself had lacked the courage to propose such an innovation. + +So it followed that Catherine was ever at hand to criticise and +condemn. She disapproved of her brother's marriage wholly and +consistently. In her eyes, he had committed an unpardonable sin in +allying himself with Diane Wielitzska. It was his duty to have married +a woman of the type conventionally termed "good," whose blood--and +religious outlook--were alike unimpeachable; and since he had +lamentably failed in this respect, she never ceased to reproach him. +Diane she regarded with chronic disapprobation, exaggerating all her +faults and opposing her joy-loving, butterfly nature with an aloofly +puritanical disdain. + +Amid the glacial atmosphere of disapproval into which marriage had +thrust her, Diane found her only solace in Virginie, a devoted French +servant who had formerly been her nurse, and who literally worshipped +the ground she walked on. Conversely, Virginie's attitude towards Miss +Vallincourt was one of frank hostility. And deep in the hearts of both +Diane and Virginie lurked a confirmed belief that the birth of a child +--a son--would serve to bring about a better understanding between +husband and wife, and in the end assure Diane her rightful place as +mistress of the house. + +"/Vois-tu/, Virginie," the latter would say hopefully. "When I have a +little baby, I shall have done my duty as the wife of a great English +milord. Even Miss Catherine will no longer regard me as of no +importance." + +And Virginie would reply with infinite satisfaction: + +"Of a certainty, when madame has a little son, Ma'moiselle Catherine +will be returned to her place." + +And now at last the great moment had arrived, and upstairs Catherine +and Virginie were in attendance--both ousted from what each considered +her own rightful place of authority by a slim, capable, and apparently +quite unconcerned piece of femininity equipped against rebellion in +all the starched panoply of a nurse's uniform, while downstairs Hugh +stared dumbly out at the frosted lawns, with their background of bare, +brown trees swaying to the wind from the north. + +The door behind him opened suddenly. Hugh whirled round. He was a tall +man with a certain rather formal air of stateliness about him, a +suggestion of the /grand seigneur/, and the unwontedly impulsive +movement was significant of the strain under which he was labouring. + +Catherine was standing on the threshold of the room with something in +her arms--something almost indistinguishable amid the downy, fleecy +froth of whiteness amid which it lay. + +Hugh was conscious of a new and strange sensation deep down inside +himself. He felt rather as though all the blood in his body had rushed +to one place--somewhere in the middle of it--and were pounding there +against his ribs. + +He tried to speak, failed, then instinctively stretched out his arms +for the tiny, orris-scented bundle which Catherine carried. + +The next thing of which he was conscious was Catherine's voice as she +placed his child in his arms--very quiet, yet rasping across the +tender silence of the room like a file. + +"Here, Hugh, is the living seal which God Himself has set upon the sin +of your marriage." + +Hugh's eyes, bent upon the pink, crumpled features of the scrap of +humanity nestled amid the bunchy whiteness in his arms, sought his +sister's face. It was a thin, hard face, sharply cut like carved +ivory; the eyes a light, cold blue, ablaze with hostility; the pale +obstinate lips, usually folded so impassively one above the other, +working spasmodically. + +For a moment brother and sister stared at each other in silence. Then, +all at once, Catherine's rigidly enforced composure snapped. + +"A girl child, Hugh!" she jeered violently. "A /girl/--when you prayed +for a boy!" + +"A girl?" + +Hugh stared stupidly at the babe in his arms. + +"Ay, a girl!" taunted Catherine, her voice cracking with rising +hysteria. "/A girl!/ . . . For eight generations the first-born has +been a son. And the ninth is a girl! The daughter of a foreign +dancing-woman! . . . God has indeed taken your punishment into His own +Hands!" + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE WIDENING GULF + +The birth of a daughter came upon Hugh in the light of an almost +overwhelming shock. He was quite silent when, in response to +Catherine's imperative gesture, he surrendered the child into her arms +once more. As she took it from him he noticed that those thin, angular +arms of hers seemed to close round the little swaddled body in an +almost jealously possessive clasp. But there was none of the tender +possessiveness of love about it. In some oddly repugnant way it +reminded him of the motion of a bird of prey at last gripping +triumphantly in its talons a victim that has hitherto eluded pursuit. + +He turned back dully to his contemplation of the wintry garden, nor, +in his absorption, did he hear the whimpering cry--almost of protest-- +that issued from the lips of his first-born as Catherine bore the +child away. + +For a space it seemed as though his mind were a blank, every thought +and feeling wiped out of it by the stupendous, nullifying fact that +his wife had given birth to a daughter. Then, with a rush as torturing +as the return of blood to benumbed limbs, emotions crowded in upon +him. + +Catherine's incessant denunciations of his "sin" in marrying Diane +Wielitzska--poured upon him without stint throughout this first year +of his marriage--seemed to din in his ears anew. Such phrases as +"selling your soul," "putting a woman of that type in our sainted +mother's place," "mingling the blood of a foreign dancing-woman with +our own," jangled against each other in his mind. + +Had he really been guilty of a sin against his conscience--satisfied +his desires irrespective of all sense of duty? + +He began to think he had, and to wonder in a disturbed fashion if God +thought so too. What was it Catherine had said? /"God has indeed taken +your punishment into His own Hands."/ + +Hugh was only too well aware of the facts which gave the speech its +trenchant significance. He himself had inherited owing to the death of +an elder brother in early childhood. But there was no younger brother +to step into his own shoes, and failing an heir in the direct line of +succession the title and entailed estate would of necessity go to +Rupert Vallincourt, a cousin--a gay and debonair young rake of much +charm of manner and equal absence of virtue. From both Catherine's and +Hugh's point of view he was the last man in the world fitted to become +the head of the family. Hence the eagerness with which they had +anticipated the arrival of a son and heir. + +And now, prompted by Catherine's bitter taunt, the birth of a daughter +as his first-born--the first happening of the kind for eight +successive generations--appeared to Hugh in the light of a direct +manifestation of God's intention that no son born of Diane Wielitzska +should be dowered with such influence as the heir to the Vallincourts +must necessarily wield. + +Better, even, that the title and estates should go to Rupert! Bad as +his reputation might be, good blood ran in his veins on either side-- +an inherited tradition of right-doing which was bound to assert itself +in succeeding generations. Whereas in the offspring of Diane heaven +alone knew what hidden inherited tendencies towards evil might lie +fallow, to develop later and work incalculable mischief in the world. + +Hugh felt crushed by the unexpected blow which had befallen him. Since +his marriage, he had opposed a forced indifference to his sister's +irreconcilable attitude, finding compensation in the glowing moments +of his passion for Diane. Nevertheless--since living in an atmosphere +of disapproval tends to fray the strongest nerves--his temper had worn +a little fine beneath the strain; and with Diane's faults and failings +thrust continually on his notice he had unconsciously grown more +critical of her. + +And now, all at once, it seemed as though scales had been torn from +his eyes. He saw his marriage for the first time from the same +standpoint as Catherine saw it, and in the unlooked-for birth of a +daughter he thought he recognised the Hand of God, sternly uprooting +his most cherished hopes and minimising, as much as possible, the +inevitable evil consequences of his weakness in marrying Diane. + +He was conscious of a rising feeling of resentment against his wife. +Words from an old Book flashed into his mind: /"The woman tempted +me."/ + +With the immediate instinct of a weak nature--the very narrowness and +rigidity of his views was a manifestation of weakness, had he but +realised it--he was already looking for someone with whom to share the +blame for his lapse from the Vallincourt standard of conduct, and in +that handful of wayward charm, red lips, and soft, beguiling eyes +which was Diane he found what he sought. + + + +Again the room door opened. This time, instead of putting a longed-for +end to a blank period of suspense, the little quiet clicking of the +latch cut almost aggressively across the conflict of Hugh's thoughts. +He turned round irritably. + +"What is it?" he demanded. + +A uniformed nurse was standing in the doorway. At the sound of his +curtly-spoken question she glanced at him with a certain contemplative +curiosity in her eyes. They might have held surprise as well as +curiosity had she not lately stood beside that huge, canopied bed +upstairs, listening pitifully to a woman's secret fears and longings, +unveiled in the delirium of pain. + +"I know you sometimes wish you hadn't married me. . . . I'm not good +enough. And Catherine hates me. Yes, she does, she does! And she'll +make you hate me too! But you won't hate me when my baby comes, will +you, Hugh? You want a little son . . . a little son . . ." + +Nurse Maynard could hear again the weary, complaining voice, trailing +off at last in the silence of exhaustion, and an impulse of +indignation added a sharp edge to her tone as she responded to Hugh's +query. + +"Her ladyship is asking to see you, Sir Hugh. She ought to rest now, +but she is too excited. She has been expecting you." + +There was no mistaking the implied rebuke in the last sentence, and +Hugh's face darkened. + +"I'll come," he said, briefly, and followed the crisp starched figure +up the stairs and into a half-darkened room, smelling faintly of +antiseptics. + +Vaguely the white counterpane outlined the slim figure of Diane upon +the bed. The nurse raised the blind a little, and the light of the +westering sun fell across the pillow, revealing a small, dark head +which turned eagerly at the sound of Hugh's entrance. + +"Hugh!" The voice from the bed came faintly. + +Hugh looked down at his wife. Probably never had Diane looked more +beautiful. + +The little worldly, sophisticated expression common to her features +had been temporarily obliterated by the holy suffering of motherhood, +and the face of the "foreign dancing-woman," born and bred in a +quarter of the world where virtue is a cheap commodity, was as pure +and serene as the face of a Madonna. + +She held out her hands to her husband, her lips curving into a smile +that was all love and tenderness. + +"Hugh--/mon adore!/" + +The lover in him sent him swiftly to her side, and as he drew her into +his arms she let her head fall back against his shoulder with a +tremulous sigh of infinite content. + +And then, from the firelit corner of the room, came the sound of a +feeble wailing. Hugh started as though stung, and his eyes left his +wife's face and riveted themselves upon the figure in the low chair by +the hearth--Virginie, rocking a little as she sat, and crooning a +Breton lullaby to the baby in her arms. + +In a moment remembrance rushed upon him, cutting in twain as though +with a dividing sword this exquisite moment of reunion with his wife. +Insensibly his arms relaxed their clasp of the frail body they held, +and Diane, sensing their slackening, looked up startled and +disconcerted. + +Her eyes followed the direction of his glance, then, coming back to +his face, searched it wildly. Instantly she knew the meaning of that +suddenly limp clasp and all that it implied. + +"Hugh!" The throbbing tenderness had gone out of her voice, leaving it +dry and toneless. "Hugh! You don't mean . . . you're /angry/ that it's +a girl?" + +He looked down at her--at the frightened eyes, the lovely face fined +by recent pain, and all his instinct was to reassure and comfort her. +But something held him back. The old, narrow creed in which he had +been reared, whose shackles he had broken through when he had +recklessly followed the bidding of his heart and married Diane, was +once more mastering him--bidding him resist the natural human impulses +of love and kindliness evoked by his wife's appeal. + +/"God Himself has taken your punishment into His own Hands."/ + +Again he seemed to hear Catherine's accusing tones, and the fanatical +strain inbred in him answered like a boat to its helm. There must be +no more compromise, no longer any evasion of the issues of right and +wrong. He had sinned, and both he and the woman for whose sake he had +defied his own creed, and that of his fathers before him, must make +atonement. He drew himself up, and stood stiff and unbending beside +the bed. In his light-grey eyes there shone that same indomitable +ardour of the zealot which had shone in Catherine's. + +"No," he said. "I am not angry that the child is a girl. I accept it +as a just retribution." + +No man possessed of the ordinary instincts of common humanity would +have so greeted his wife just when she had emerged, spent and +exhausted, from woman's supreme conflict with death. But the fanatic +loses sight of normal values, and Hugh, obsessed by his newly +conceived idea of atoning for the sin of his marriage, was utterly +oblivious of the enormity of his conduct as viewed through unbiased +eyes. + +The woman who had just fought her way through the Valley of the Shadow +stared at him uncomprehendingly. + +"Retribution?" she repeated blankly. + +"For my marriage--our marriage." + +Diane's breath came faster. + +"What--what do you mean?" she asked falteringly. Suddenly a look of +sheer terror leaped into her eyes, and she clutched at Hugh's sleeve. +"Oh, you're not going to be like Catherine? Say you're not! Hugh, +you've always said she was crazy to call our marriage a sin. . . . /A +sin!/" She tried to laugh, but the laugh stuck in her throat, caught +and pinned there by the terror that gripped her. + +"Yes, I've said that. I've said it because I wanted to think it," he +returned remorselessly, "not because I really thought it." + +Diane dragged herself up on to her elbow. + +"I don't understand. You've not changed?" Then, as he made no answer: +"Hugh, you're frightening me! What do you mean? What has Catherine +been saying to you?" + +Her voice rose excitedly. A patch of feverish colour appeared on +either cheek. Old Virginie sprung up from her chair by the fire, +alarmed. + +"You excite madame!" + +Hugh turned to leave the room. + +"We'll discuss this another time, Diane," he said. + +Diane moved her head fretfully. + +"No. Now--now! Don't go! Hugh!" + +Her voice rose almost to a scream and simultaneously the nurse came +hurrying in from the adjoining room. She threw one glance at the +patient, huddled flushed and excited against the pillows, then without +more ado she marched up to Hugh and, taking him by the shoulders with +her small, capable hands, she pushed him out of the room. + +"Do you want to /kill/ your wife?" she demanded in a low voice of +concentrated anger. "If so, you're going the right way about it." + +The next moment the door closed behind her, and Hugh found himself +standing alone on the landing outside it. + + + +Although the scene with her husband did not kill Diane, it went very +near it. For some time she was dangerously ill, but at last the +combined efforts of doctor and nurse restored her once more to a frail +hold upon life, and the resiliency of youth accomplished the rest. + +Curiously enough, the remembrance of Hugh's brief visit to her bedside +held for her no force of reality. When the fever which had ensued +abated, she described the whole scene in detail to Virginie and the +nurse as an evil dream which she had had--and pitifully they let her +continue in this belief. + +Even Hugh himself had been compelled, under protest, to take part in +this deception. The doctor, a personal friend of his, had not minced +matters. + +"You've acted the part of an unmitigated coward, Vallincourt--salving +your own fool conscience at your wife's expense. Even if you no longer +love her--" + +"But I do love her," protested Hugh. "I--I /worship/ her!" + +Jim Lancaster stared. In common with most medical men he was more or +less used to the odd vagaries of human nature, but Hugh's attitude +struck him as altogether incomprehensible. + +"Then what in the name of thunder have you been getting at?" he +demanded. + +"I both love and hate her," declared Hugh wretchedly. + +"That's rot," retorted the other. "It's impossible." + +"It's not impossible." + +Hugh rose and began pacing backwards and forwards. Lancaster's eyes +rested on him thoughtfully. The man had altered during the last few +weeks--altered incredibly. He was a stone lighter to start with, and +his blond, clear-cut face had the worn look born of mental conflict. +His eyes were red-rimmed as though from insufficient sleep. + +"It's not impossible." Hugh paused in his restless pacing to and fro. +"I love her because I can't help myself. I hate her because I ought +never to have married her--never made a woman of her type the mother +of my child." + +"All mothers are sacred," suggested the doctor quietly. + +Hugh seemed not to hear him. + +"How long is this pretence to go on, Lancaster?" he demanded +irritably. + +"What pretence?" + +"This pretence that nothing is changed--nothing altered--between my +wife and myself?" + +"For ever, I hope. So that, after all, there will have been no +pretence." + +But the appeal of the speech was ineffectual. Hugh looked at the other +man unmoved. + +"It's no use hoping that you and I can see things from the same +standpoint," he added stubbornly. "I've made my decision--laid down +the lines of our future life together. I'm only waiting till you, as a +medical man, tell me that Diane's health is sufficiently restored for +me to inform her." + +"No woman is ever in such health that you can break her heart with +impunity." + +Hugh's light-grey eyes gleamed like steel. + +"Will you answer my question?" he said curtly. + +Lancaster sprang up. + +"Diane is in as good health now as ever she was," he said violently. +And strode out of the room. + + + +During the period of her convalescence Diane, attended by Nurse +Maynard, had occupied rooms situated in a distant wing of the house, +where the invalid was not likely to be disturbed by the coming and +going of other members of the household, and it was with almost the +excitement of a schoolgirl coming home for the holidays that, when she +was at last released from the doctor's supervision, she retook +possession of her own room. She superintended joyously the restoration +to their accustomed place her various little personal possessions, and +finally peeped into her husband's adjoining room, thinking she heard +him moving there. + +On the threshold she paused irresolutely, conscious of an odd sense of +confusion. The room was vacant. But, beyond that, its whole aspect was +different somehow, unfamiliar. Her eyes wandered to the dressing- +table. Instead of holding its usual array of silver-backed brushes and +polished shaving tackle, winking in the sunshine, it was empty. She +stared at it blankly. Then her glance travelled slowly round the room. +It had a strangely untenanted look. There was no sign of masculine +attire left carelessly about--not a chair or table was a hairbreadth +out of its appointed place. + +Her hand, resting lightly on the door-handle, gripped it with a sudden +tensity. The next moment she had crossed the room and torn open the +doors of the great armoire where Hugh kept his clothes. This, too, was +empty--shelves and hanger alike. Impulsively she rang the bell and, +when a maid appeared in response, demanded to know the meaning of the +alteration. + +The girl glanced at her with the veiled curiosity of her class. + +"It was made by Sir Hugh's orders, my lady." + +With an effort, Diane hid the sudden tumult of bewilderment and fear +that filled her. Her dream! Had it been only a dream? Or had it been +an actual happening--that terrible little scene with her husband when, +standing rigid and unbending beside her bed, he had told her that the +birth of their daughter was a just retribution for a union he regarded +as a sin? + +Memories of their brief year of marriage came surging over her in a +torrent--Catherine's narrow-minded opposition and disapproval, Hugh's +own moodiness and irritability and, latterly, his not infrequent +censure. There had been times when Diane--rebuked incessantly--had +fancied she must be the Scarlet Woman herself, or at least a very near +relative. And then had come moments when Hugh, carried away by his +ardour, had once more played the lover as he alone knew how, with all +the warmth and abandon of those days when he had wooed her in Italy, +and Diane would forget her unhappiness and fears in the sure knowledge +that she was a passionately beloved woman. + +But always she was subconsciously aware of a sense of strife--of +struggle, as though Hugh loved her in spite of himself, in defiance of +some inner mandate of conscience which accused him. + +And now, fear mastered her. Her dream had been a reality. And this-- +this sweeping away from what had been his room of every familiar +little personal possession--was the symbol of some new and terribly +changed relation between them. + +Forcing herself to move composedly while the maid still watched her, +she walked slowly out of the room, but the instant the door had closed +behind her she flew downstairs to her husband's study and, not pausing +to comply with the unwritten law which forbade entrance there without +express permission, broke in upon him as he sat at his desk, busily +occupied with his morning mail. + +"Diane!" + +Hugh turned towards her with a cold light of astonished disapproval in +his eyes. + +"You know I don't like to be interrupted----" + +"I know, I know. But I /had/ to come. Something's happened. There's +been a mistake. . . . Hugh, they've taken everything out of your room. +All your things." + +She stood beside him breathlessly awaiting his reply--her passionate +dark eyes fixed on his face, two patches of brilliant colour showing +on the high cheek-bones that bore witness to her Russian origin. + +They made a curious contrast--husband and wife. She, a slender thing +of fire and flame, hands clenched, lips quivering--woman every inch of +her; he, immaculate and composed, his face coldly expressionless, yet +with a hint of something warmer, a suppressed glow, beneath the +deliberately chill glance of those curious light-grey eyes--the man +and bigoted fanatic fighting for supremacy within him. + +"Hugh! Answer me! Don't sit staring at me like that!" Diane's voice +held a sharpened sound. + +At last he spoke, very slowly and carefully. + +"There has been no mistake, Diane. Everything that has been done has +been with my sanction--by my order. Our marriage has been a culpable +mistake. Catherine realised it from the beginning. I only realise my +full guilt now that I am punished. But whatever I can do in atonement +--reparation, that I have made up my mind to do. The first--the chief +thing--is that our married life is at an end." + +She heard him with a curious absence of surprise. Somehow, from the +instant she had seen his dismantled room she had known, known surely, +that the long fight between herself and Catherine was over. And that +Catherine had won. + +"At an end? Hugh, what do you mean? What are you going to do? You're +not, you're not going to send me away?" + +"No, not that. I've no right to punish you. You've been guilty of no +fault--" + +"Except the fault of being myself," she flung back bitterly. + +"But I ought never to have married you. I did it, knowing you were not +fit--suitable"--he corrected himself hastily. "So I alone am to blame. +You will retain your position here as my wife--mistress of my home." +Diane, remembering Catherine's despotic rule, smiled mirthlessly. "But +henceforth you will be my wife in name only. I shall have no wife." + +Diane caught that note of dull endurance in his voice, and seized upon +it. He still cared! + +"Hugh, you've listened to Catherine till you've lost all sense of +truth." She spoke gently, pleadingly. "Don't do this thing. We've been +guilty of no sin that needs atonement. It isn't wrong to love." + +But he was implacable. + +"No," he returned. "It isn't wrong to love--but sometimes love should +be denied." + +Diane drew nearer to him, and laid her hand on his arm. + +"Not ours, Hugh," she whispered. "Not love like ours--" + +"Be silent!" + +Hugh sprang to his feet, his eyes ablaze, his voice hoarse and +shaking. + +"Don't tempt me! Do you think I've found it easy to decide on this? +When every fibre of my body is calling out for you? My God, no!" + +"Then don't do it! Hugh--dearest--" + +With sudden violence he caught her by the arms. + +"Be silent, I tell you! Don't tempt me! I'll make my penance, accept +the burden laid on me--that my first-born should be a girl!" + +Diane clung to him, resisting his attempt to thrust her from him. + +"Hugh! Ah, wait! Listen to me! . . . Dear, some day there may be a +little son, yours and mine--" + +He flung her from him violently. + +"There shall never be a son of ours! Never! It is the Will of God." + +With an immense effort he checked the rising frenzy within him--the +ecstasy of the martyr embracing the stake to which he shall be bound. +He moved across to the door and held it open for her. + +"And now, will you please go? That is my last word on the matter." + +Diane turned hesitatingly towards the doorway, then paused. + +"Hugh----" + +There was an infinite appeal in her voice. Her eyes were those of a +frightened, bewildered child. + +"Go, please," he repeated mechanically. + +A convulsive sob tore its way through her throat. She stepped blindly +forward. The next moment the door closed inexorably between husband +and wife. + + + +CHAPTER III + +SAINT-MICHAEL AND THE WONDER-CHILD + +Day by day her husband's complete estrangement from her was rendered +additionally bitter to Diane by Catherine's complacent air of triumph. +The latter knew that she had won, severed the tie which bound her +brother to "the foreign dancing-woman," and she did not scruple to let +Diane see that she openly rejoiced in the fact. + +At first Diane imagined that Catherine might rest content with what +she had accomplished, but the grim, hard-featured woman still +continued to exhibit the same self-righteous disapproval towards her +brother's wife as hitherto. + +Diane endured it in resentful silence for a time, but one day, stung +by some more than usually acid speech of Catherine's, she turned on +her, demanding passionately why she seemed to hate her even more since +the birth of the child. + +"I nearly gave my life for her," she protested with fierce simplicity. +"I could do no more! Is it because /le bon dieu/ has sent me a little +daughter instead of a little son that you hate me so much?" + +And Catherine had answered her in a voice of quiet, concentrated +animosity: + +"If you had died then--/died childless/--I should have thanked God day +and night." + +Diane, isolated and unhappy, turned to her baby for consolation. It +was all that was left to her out of the wreck of her life, and the +very fact that both Hugh and Catherine seemed to regard the little +daughter with abhorrence only served to strengthen the passionate +worship which she herself lavished upon her. + +The child--they had called her Magda--was an odd little creature, as +might have been expected from the violently opposing characteristics +of her parents. + +She was slenderly made--built on the same lithe lines as her mother-- +and almost as soon as she was able to walk she manifested an amazing +balance and suppleness of limb. By the time she was four years old she +was trying to imitate, with uncertain little feet and dimpled, +aimlessly waving arms, the movements of her mother, when to amuse the +child, she would sometimes dance for her. + +However big a tragedy had occurred in Magda's small world--whether it +were a crack across the insipid china face of a favourite doll or the +death of an adored Persian kitten--there was still balm in Gilead if +/"petite maman"/ would but dance for her. The tears shining in big +drops on her cheeks, her small chest still heaving with the sobs that +were a passionate protest against unkind fate, Magda would sit on the +floor entranced, watching with adoring eyes every swift, graceful +motion of the dancer, and murmuring in the quaint shibboleth of French +and English she had imbibed from old Virginie. + +On one of these occasions Hugh came upon the two unexpectedly and +brought the performance to a summary conclusion. + +"That will do, Diane," he said icily. "I should have thought you would +have had more self-respect than to dance--in that fashion--in front of +a child." + +"It is, then, a sin to dance--as it is to be married?" demanded Diane +bitterly, abruptly checked in an exquisite spring-flower dance of her +own invention. + +"I forbid it; that is sufficient," replied Hugh sternly. + +His assumption of arrogant superiority was unbearable. Diane's self- +control wavered under it and broke. She turned and upbraided him +despairingly, alternately pleading and reproaching, battering all her +slender forces uselessly against his inflexible determination. + +"This is a waste of time, Diane--mine, anyway," he told her. And left +her shaken with grief and anger. + +Driven by a sense of utter revolt, she stormed her way to Catherine, +who was composedly sorting sheets in the linen room. + +"I will not bear it!" she burst out at her furiously. "What have I +done that I should be treated as an outcast--a pariah?" + +Catherine regarded the tense, quivering little figure with chill +dislike. + +"You married my brother," she replied imperturbably. + +"And you have separated us! But for you, we should be happy together-- +he and baby and I! But you have spoilt it all. I suppose"--a hint of +the Latin Quarter element in her asserting itself--"I suppose you +think no one good enough to marry into your precious family!" + +Catherine paused on her way to the cupboard, a pile of fine linen +pillowslips in her hands. + +"Yes," she said quietly. "It is I who have separated you--spoilt your +happiness, if you like. And I am glad of it. I can't expect anyone +like you to understand"--there was the familiar flavour of +disparagement in her tones--"but I am thankful that my brother has +seen the wickedness of his marriage with you, that he has repented of +it, and that he is making the only atonement possible!" + +She turned and composedly laid the pile of pillowslips in their +appointed place on the shelf. A faint fragrance of dried lavender +drifted out from the dark depths of the cupboard. Diane always +afterwards associated the smell of lavender with her memories of +Catherine Vallincourt, and the sweet, clean scent of it was spoiled +for her henceforward. + +"I hate you!" she exclaimed in a low voice of helpless rage. "I hate +you--and I wish to God Hugh had never had a sister!" + +"Well"--composedly--"he will not have one much longer." + +Diane stared. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that as far as our life together is concerned, it is very +nearly over." + +"Do you mean"--Diane bent towards her breathlessly--"do you mean that +you are /going away/--going away from Coverdale?" + +"Yes. I am entering a sisterhood--that of the Sisters of Penitence, a +community Hugh is endowing with money that is urgently needed." + +"Endowing?" + +"As part of the penance he has set himself to perform." Catherine's +steely glance met and held the younger woman's. "Thanks to you, the +remainder of his life will be passed in expiation." + +Diane shook her head carelessly. Such side-issues were of relatively +small importance compared with the one outstanding, amazing fact: +Catherine was going away! Going away from Coverdale--for ever! + +"Yes"--Catherine read her thoughts shrewdly--"yes, you will be rid of +me. I shall not be here much longer." + +Diane struck her hands together. For once, not even the fear of +Catherine's gibing tongue could hold her silent. + +"I'm glad--glad--/glad/ you're going away!" she exclaimed +passionately. "When you are gone I will win back my husband." + +"Do you think so?" was all she said. + +But to Diane's keyed-up consciousness it was as though the four short +words contained a threat--the germ of future disaster. + + + +In due time Catherine quitted Coverdale for the austere seclusion of +the sisterhood, and a very few weeks sufficed to convince Diane that +her forebodings had been only too well founded. + +Catherine had long been anxious to enter a community, restrained from +doing so solely by Hugh's need of her as mistress of his house, and +now that her wish was an accomplished fact, it seemed as though he +were spurred on to increasing effort by the example of his sister's +renunciation of the world. He withdrew himself even more completely +from his wife, sometimes avoiding her company for days at a time, and +adopted a stringently ascetic mode of life, denying himself all +pleasure, fasting frequently, and praying and meditating for hours at +a stretch in the private chapel which was attached to Coverdale. As +far as it was possible, without actually entering a community, his +existence resembled that of a monk, and Diane came to believe that he +had voluntarily vowed himself to a certain form of penance and +expiation for the marriage which the bigotry of his nature had led him +to regard as a sin. + +His life only impinged upon his wife's in so far as the upbringing of +their child was concerned. He was unnecessarily severe with her, and, +since Diane opposed his strict ruling at every opportunity, Magda's +early life was passed in an atmosphere of fierce contradictions. + +The child inherited her mother's beauty to the full, and, as she +developed, exhibited an extraordinary faculty for getting her own way. +Servants, playmates, and governesses all succumbed to the nameless +charm she possessed, while her mother and old Virginie frankly +worshipped her. + +The love of dancing was instinctive with her, and this, unknown to +Hugh, her mother cultivated assiduously, fostering in her everything +that was imaginative and delicately fanciful. Magda believed firmly in +the existence of fairies and regarded flowers as each possessed of a +separate entity with personal characteristics of its own. The +originality of the dances she invented for her own amusement was the +outcome. + +But, side by side with this love of all that was beautiful, she +absorbed from her mother a certain sophisticated understanding of life +which was somewhat startling in one of her tender years, and this, +too, betrayed itself in her dancing. For it is an immutable law that +everything--good, bad, and indifferent--which lies in the soul of an +artist ultimately reveals itself in his work. + +And Magda, inheriting the underlying ardour of her father's +temperament and the gutter-child's sharp sense of values which was her +mother's Latin Quarter garnering, at the age of eight danced, with all +the beguilement and seductiveness of a trained and experienced dancer. + +Even Hugh himself was not proof against the elusive lure of it. He +chanced upon her one day, dancing in her nursery, and was so carried +away by the charm of the performance that for the moment he forgot +that she was transgressing one of his most rigid rules. + +In the child's gracious, alluring gestures he was reminded of the +first time that he had seen her mother dance, and of how it had +thrilled him. Beneath the veneer with which his self-enforced +austerity had overlaid his emotions, he felt his pulses leap, and was +bitterly chagrined at being thus attracted. + +He found himself brought up forcibly once more against the inevitable +consequences of his marriage with Diane, and reasoned that through his +weakness in making such a woman his wife, he had let loose on the +world a feminine thing dowered with the seductiveness of a Delilah and +backed--here came in the exaggerated family pride ingrained in him--by +all the added weight and influence of her social position as a +Vallincourt. + +"Never let me see you dance again, Magda," he told her. "It is +forbidden. If you disobey you will be severely punished." + +Magda regarded him curiously out of a pair of long dark eyes the +colour of black smoke. With that precociously sophisticated instinct +of hers she realised that the man had been emotionally stirred, and +divined in her funny child's mind that it was her dancing which had so +stirred him. It gave her a curious sense of power. + +"Sieur Hugh is /afraid/ because he likes me to dance," she told her +mother, with an impish little grin of enjoyment. + +(On one occasion Hugh had narrated for her benefit the history of an +ancestor, one Sieur Hugues de Vallincourt, whose effigy in stone +adorned the church, and she had ever afterwards persisted in referring +to her father as "Sieur Hugh"--considerably to his annoyance, since he +regarded it as both disrespectful and unseemly.) + +From this time onwards Magda seemed to take a diabolical delight in +shocking her father--experimenting on him, as it were. In some +mysterious way she had become conscious of her power to allure. Young +as she was, the instinct of conquest was awakened within her, and she +proceeded to "experiment" on certain of her father's friends--to their +huge delight and Hugh's intense disgust. Once, in an outburst of fury, +he epitomised her ruthlessly. + +"The child has the soul of a courtesan!" + +If this were so, Hugh had no knowledge of how to cope with it. His +fulminations on the subject of dancing affected her not at all, and a +few days after he had rebuked her with all the energy at his command +he discovered her dancing on a table--this time for the delectation of +an enraptured butler and staff in the servants' hall. + +Without more ado Hugh lifted her down and carried her to his study, +where he administered a sound smacking. The result astonished him +considerably. + +"Do you think you can stop me from dancing by beating me?" + +Magda arraigned him with passionate scorn. + +"I do," he returned grimly. "If you hurt people enough you can stop +them from committing sin. That is the meaning of remedial punishment." + +"I don't believe it!" she stormed at him. "You might hurt me till I +/died/ of hurting, but you couldn't make me good--not if I hated your +hurting me all the time! Because it isn't good to hate," she added out +of the depths of some instinctive wisdom. + +"Then you'd better learn to like being punished--if that will make you +good," retorted Hugh. + +Magda sped out into the woods. Hugh's hand had been none too light, +and she was feeling physically and spiritually sore. Her small soul +was aflame with fierce revolt. + +Just to assure herself of the liberty of the individual and of the +fact that "hurting couldn't make her good," she executed a solitary +little dance on the green, mossy sward beneath the trees. It was +rather a painful process, since certain portions of her anatomy still +tingled from the retributive strokes of justice, but she set her teeth +and accomplished the dance with a consciousness of unholy glee that +added appreciably to the quality of the performance. + +"Are you the Fairy Queen?" + +The voice came suddenly out of the dim, enfolding silence of the +woods, and Magda paused in the midst of a final pirouette. A man was +standing leaning against the trunk of a tree, watching her with +whimsical grey eyes. Behind him, set up in the middle of a clearing +amongst the trees, an easel and stool evidenced his recent occupation. + +Magda returned the scrutiny of the grey eyes. She was no whit +embarrassed and slowly lowered her foot--she had been toe-dancing--to +its normal position while she surveyed the newcomer with interest. + +He was a tall, lean specimen of mankind, and the sunlight, quivering +between the interlacing boughs above his head, flickered on to kinky +fair hair that looked almost absurdly golden contrasted with the brown +tan of the face beneath it. It was a nice face, Magda decided, with a +dogged, squarish jaw that appealed to a certain tenacity of spirit +which was one of her own unchildish characteristics, and the keen +dark-grey eyes she encountered were so unlike the cold light-grey of +her father's that it seemed ridiculous the English language could only +supply the one word "grey" to describe things that were so totally +dissimilar. + +"They're like eyes with little fires behind them," Magda told herself. +Then smiled at their owner radiantly. + +"Are you the Fairy Queen?" he repeated gravely. + +She regarded him with increasing approval. + +"Yes," she assented graciously. "These are my woods." + +"Then I'm afraid I've been trespassing in your majesty's domain," +admitted the grey-eyed man. "But your woods are so beautiful I simply +had to try and make a sketch of them." + +Magda came back to earth with promptitude. + +"Oh, are you an artist?" she demanded eagerly. + +He nodded, smiling. + +"I'm trying to be." + +"Let me look." She flashed past him and planted herself in front of +the easel. + +"/Mais, c'est bon!/" she commented coolly. "Me, I know. We have good +pictures at home. This is a good picture." + +The man with the grey eyes looked suitably impressed. + +"I'm glad you find it so," he replied meekly. "I think it wants just +one thing more. If"--he spoke abstractly--"if the Fairy Queen were +resting just there"--his finger indicated the exact point on the +canvas--"tired, you know, because she had been dancing to one of the +Mortals--lucky beggar, wasn't he?--why, I think the picture would be +complete." + +Magda shot him a swift glance of comprehension. Then, without a word, +she moved towards the bole of a tree and flung herself down with all +the supple grace of a young faun. The artist snatched up his palette; +the pose she had assumed without a hint from him was inimitable--the +slender limbs relaxed and drooping exactly as though from sheer +fatigue. He painted furiously, blocking in the limp little figure with +swift, sure strokes of his brush. + +When at last he desisted he flung a question at her. + +"Who taught you to pose--and to dance like that, you wonder-child?" + +Magda surveyed him with that mixture of saint and devil in her long, +suddenly narrow eyes which, when she grew to womanhood, was the +measure of her charm and the curse of her tempestuous life. + +"/Le bon dieu/," she responded demurely. + +The man smiled and shook his head. It was a crooked little smile, +oddly humorous and attractive. + +"No," he said with conviction. "No. I don't think so." + +The daylight was beginning to fade, and he started to pack up his +belongings. + +"What's your name?" asked Magda suddenly. + +"Michael." + +She looked at him with sudden awe. + +"Not--not /Saint Michel/?" she asked breathlessly. + +Virginie had told her all about "/Saint Michel/." He was a very great +angel indeed. It would be tremendously exciting to find she had been +talking to him all this time without knowing it! And the grey-eyed man +had fair hair; it shone in the glinting sunset-light /almost/ like a +halo! + +He quenched her hopes with that brief, one-sided smile of his. + +"No," he said. "I'm not Saint Michael. I'm only a poor devil of a +painter who's got his way to make in the world. Perhaps, you've helped +me, Fairy Queen." + +And seeing that "The Repose of Titania" was the first of his paintings +to bring Michael Quarrington that meed of praise and recognition which +was later his in such full measure, perhaps she had. + +"I think I'm glad you're not a saint, after all," remarked Magda +thoughtfully. "Saint's are dreadfully dull and superior." + +He smiled down at her. + +"Are they? How do you know?" + +"Because Sieur Hugh is preparing to be one. At least Virginie says so +--and she sniffs when she says it. So you see, I know all about it." + +"I see," he replied seriously. "And who are Sieur Hugh and Virginie?" + +"Sieur Hugh is my father. And Virginie is next best to /petite maman/. +Me, I love Virginie." + +"Lucky Virginie!" + +Magda made no answer, but she stood looking at him with an odd, +unchildlike deviltry in her sombre eyes. + +"Fairy Queen, I should like to kiss you," said the man suddenly. Then +he jerked his head back. "No, I wouldn't!" he added quickly to +himself. "By Jove, it's uncanny!" + +Magda remained motionless, still staring at him with those long dark +eyes of hers. He noticed that just at the outer corners they slanted +upwards a little, giving her small, thin face a curiously Eastern +look. + +At last-- + +"Please kiss me, Saint Michael," she said. + +For a moment he hesitated, a half-rueful, half-whimsical smile on his +lips, rather as though he were laughing at himself. Then, with a shrug +of his shoulders, he stooped quickly and kissed her. + +"Witch-child!" he muttered as he strode away through the woods. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SEED OF EVIL + +Diane sat in the twilight, brooding. Winter had come round again, +gripping the world with icy fingers, and she shivered a little as she +crouched in front of the fire. + +She felt cold--cold in body and soul. The passage of time had brought +no cheery warmth of love or loving-kindness to her starved heart, and +the estrangement between herself and Hugh was as definite and absolute +as it had been the day Catherine quitted Coverdale for the Sisterhood +of Penitence. + +But the years which had elapsed since then had taken their inevitable +toll. Hugh had continued along the lines he had laid down for himself, +rigidly ascetic and austere, and his mode of life now revealed itself +unmistakably in his thin, emaciated face and eyes ablaze with +fanatical fervour. + +Diane, thrust into a compulsory isolation utterly foreign to her +temperament, debarred the fulfilment of her womanhood which her +spontaneous, impetuous nature craved, had drooped and pined, gradually +losing both her buoyant spirit and her health in the loveless +atmosphere to which her husband had condemned her. + +She had so counted on the prospect that a better understanding between +herself and Hugh would ensue after Catherine's departure that the +downfall of her hopes had come upon her as a bitter disappointment. +Once she had stifled her pride and begged him to live no longer as a +stranger to her. But he had repulsed her harshly, refusing her +pleading with an inexorable decision there was no combating. + +Afterwards she had given herself up to despair, and gradually--almost +imperceptibly at first--her health had declined until finally, at the +urgent representations of Virginie, Hugh had called in Dr. Lancaster. + +"There is no specific disease," he had said. "But none the less"-- +looking very directly at Hugh--"your wife is dying, Vallincourt." + +Diane had been told the first part of the doctor's pronouncement, and +recommended by her husband to "rouse herself" out of her apathetic +state. + +"'No specific disease!'" she repeated bitterly, as she sat brooding in +the firelight. "No--only this death in life which I have had to +endure. Well, it will be over soon--and the sooner the better." + +The door burst open suddenly and Magda came in to the room, checking +abruptly, with a child's stumbling consciousness of pain, as she +caught sight of her mother curled up in front of the fire, staring +mutely into its glowing heart. + +"/Maman/?" she begin timidly. "/Petite maman/?" + +Diane turned round. + +"Cherie, is it thou?" + +She kneeled up on the hearthrug and, taking the child in her arms, +searched her face with dry, bright eyes. + +"Baby," she said. "Listen! And when thou art older, remember always +what I have said." + +Magda stared at her, listening intently. + +"Never, never give your heart to any man," continued Diane. "If you +do, he will only break it for you--break it into little pieces like +the glass scent-bottle which you dropped yesterday. Take everything. +But do not give--anything--in return. Will you remember?" + +And Magda answered her gravely. + +"/Oui, maman/, I will remember." + +What happened after that remained always a confused blur in Magda's +memory--a series of pictures standing out against a dark background of +haste and confusion, and whispered fears. + +Suddenly her mother gave a sharp little cry and her hands went up to +her breast, while for a moment her eyes, dilated and frightened- +looking, stared agonisingly ahead. Then she toppled over sideways and +lay in a little heap on the great bearskin rung in front of the fire. + +After that Virginie came running, followed by a drove of scared- +looking servants and, last of all, by Hugh himself, his face very +white and working strangely. + +The car was sent off in frantic haste in search of Dr. Lancaster, and +later in the day two white-capped nurses appeared on the scene. Then +followed hours of hushed uncertainty, when people went to and fro with +hurried, muffled footsteps and spoke together in whispers, while +Virginie's face grew yellow and drawn-looking, and the tears trickled +down her wrinkled-apple cheeks whenever one spoke to her. + +Last of all someone told Magda that "/petite maman/" had gone away-- +and on further inquiry Virginie vouchsafed that she had gone to +somewhere called Paradise to be with the blessed saints. + +"When will she come back again?" demanded Magda practically. + +Upon which Virginie had made an unpleasant choking noise in her throat +and declared: + +"Never!" + +Magda was frankly incredulous. /Petite maman/ would never go away like +that and leave her behind! Of that she felt convinced, and said so. +Gulping back her sobs, Virginie explained that in this case madame had +been given no choice, but added that if Magda comported herself like a +good little girl, she would one day go to be with her in Paradise. +Magda found it all very puzzling. + +But when, later, she was taken into her mother's room and saw the +slender, sheeted figure lying straight and still on the great bed, +hands meekly crossed upon the young, motionless breast, while tall +white candles burned at head and foot, the knowledge that /petite +maman/ had really gone from her seemed all at once to penetrate her +childish mind. + +That aloofly silent figure could not be her gay, pretty /petite maman/ +--the one who had played and laughed with her and danced so +exquisitely that sometimes Magda's small soul had ached with the sheer +beauty and loveliness of it. . . . + +She met Dr. Lancaster as she came out from the candle-lit room and +clutched him convulsively by the hand. + +"Is that--being dead?" she whispered, pointing to the room she had +just quitted. + +Very gently he tried to explain things to her. Afterwards Magda +overheard the family lawyer asking him in appropriately shocked tones +of what complaint Lady Vallincourt had died, and there had been a +curious grim twist to Lancaster's mouth as he made answer. + +"Heart," he said tersely. + +"Ah! Very sad. Very sad indeed," rejoined the lawyer feelingly. "These +heart complaints are very obscure sometimes, I believe?" + +"Sometimes," said Lancaster. "Not always." + + + +The next happening that impressed itself on Magda's cognisance as an +event was the coming of Lady Arabella Winter. She arrived on a day of +heavy snow, and Magda's first impression of her, as she came into the +hall muffled up to the tip of her patrician nose in a magnificent +sable wrap, was of a small, alert-eyed bird huddled into its nest. + +But when the newcomer had laid aside her furs Magda's impression +qualified itself. Lady Arabella was not in the least of the "small +bird" type, but rather suggested a hawk endowed with a grim sense of +humour--quick and decisive in movement, with eyes that held an +incalculable wisdom and laughed a thought cynically because they saw +so clearly. + +Her hair was perfectly white, as white as the snow outside, but her +complexion was soft and fine-grained as that of a girl of sixteen-- +pink and white like summer roses. She had the manner of an empress +with extremely modern ideas. + +Magda was instructed that this great little personage was her +godmother and that she would in future live with her instead of at +Coverdale. She accepted the information without surprise though with +considerable interest. + +"Think you'll like it?" Lady Arabella shot at her keenly. + +"Yes," Magda replied unhesitatingly. "But why am I going to live with +you? Sieur Hugh isn't dead, too, is he?"--with impersonal interest. + +"And who in the name of fortune is Sieur Hugh?" + +Lady Arabella looked around helplessly, and Virginia, who was hovering +in the background, hastened to explain the relationship. + +"Then, no," replied Lady Arabella. "Sieur Hugh is not dead--though to +be sure he's the next thing to it!" + +Magda eyed her solemnly. + +"Is he very ill?" she asked. + +"No, merely cranky like all the Vallincourts. He's in a community, +joined a brotherhood, you know, and proposes to spend the rest of his +days repenting his sins and making his peace with heaven. I've no +patience with the fool!" continued the old lady irascibly. "He marries +to please himself and then hasn't the pluck of a rabbit to see the +thing through decently. So you're to be my responsibility in future-- +and a pretty big one, too, to judge by the look of you." + +Magda hardly comprehended the full meaning of this speech. Still she +gathered that her father had left her--though not quite in the same +way as /petite maman/ had done--and that henceforth this autocratic +old lady with the hawk's eyes and quick, darting movements was to be +the arbiter of her fate. She also divined, beneath Lady Arabella's +prickly exterior, a humanness and ability to understand which had been +totally lacking in Sieur Hugh. She proceeded to put it to the test. + +"Will you let me dance?" she asked. + +"Tchah!" snorted the old woman. "So the Wielitzska blood is coming out +after all!" She turned to Virginia. "Can she dance?" she demanded +abruptly. + +"Mais oui, madame!" cried Virginie, clasping her hands ecstatically. +"Like a veritable angel!" + +"I shouldn't have thought it," commented her ladyship drily. + +Her shrewd eyes swept the child's tense little face with its long, +Eastern eyes and the mouth that showed so vividly scarlet against its +unchildish pallor. + +"Less like an angel than anything, I should imagine," muttered the old +woman to herself with a wicked little grin. Then aloud: "Show me what +you can do, then, child." + +"Very well." Magda paused, reflecting. Then she ran forward and laid +her hand lightly on Lady Arabella's knee. "Look! This is the story of +a Fairy who came to earth and lost her way in the woods. She met one +of the Mortals, and he loved her so much that he wouldn't show her the +way back to Fairyland. So"--abruptly--"she died." + +Lady Arabella watched the child dance in astonished silence. +Technique, of course, was lacking, but the interpretation, the telling +of the story, was amazing. It was all there--the Fairy's first wonder +and delight in finding herself in the woods, then her realisation that +she was lost and her frantic efforts to find the way back to +Fairyland. Followed her meeting with the Mortal and supplication to +him to guide her, and finally the Fairy's despair and death. Magda's +slight little figure sank to the ground, drooping slowly like a storm- +bent snowdrop, and lay still. + +Lady Arabella sat up with a jerk. + +"Good gracious! The child's a born dancer! Lydia Tchinova must see +her. She'll have to train. Poor Hugh!" She chuckled enjoyably. "This +will be the last straw! He'll be compelled to invent a new penance." + + + + + + +PART TWO + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE FLOWERING + +"You're very trying, Magda. Everyone is talking about you, and I'm +tired of trying to explain you to people." + +Lady Arabella paused in her knitting and spoke petulantly, but a +secret gleam of admiration in her sharp old eyes as they rested upon +her god-daughter belied the irritation of her tones. + +Magda leaned back negligently against the big black velvet cushions in +her chair and lit a cigarette. + +"I /want/ everyone to talk about me," she returned composedly. Her +voice was oddly attractive--low-pitched and with a faint blur of +huskiness about it that caught the ear with a distinctive charm. "It +increases the box-office receipts. And there's no reason in the world +for you to 'explain' me to people." + +Her godmother regarded her with increasing irritation, yet at the same +time acutely conscious of the arresting quality of the young, vividly +alive face that gleamed at her from its black-velvet background. + +Ten years had only served to emphasise the unusual characteristics of +the child Magda. Her skin was wonderful, of a smooth, creamy-white +texture which gave to the sharply angled face something of the pale, +exotic perfection of a stephanotis bloom. Her eyes were long, the +colour of black pansies--black with a suggestion of purple in their +depths. They slanted upwards a little at the outer corners, and this +together with the high cheek-bones, alone would have betrayed her +Russian ancestry. When Lady Arabella wanted to be particularly +obnoxious she told her that she had Mongolian eyes, and Magda would +shrug her shoulders and, thrusting out a foot which was so perfect in +shape that a painting of it by a certain famous artist had been the +most talked-of picture of the year, would reply placidly: "Well, thank +heaven, /that's/ not English, anyway!" + +"It certainly required some explanation when you chose to leave me and +go off and live by yourself," pursued Lady Arabella, resuming her +knitting. "A girl of twenty! Of course people have talked. Especially +as half the men in town imagine themselves in love with you." + +"Well, I'm perfectly respectable now. I've engaged a nice, tame pussy- +cat person to take charge of my morals and chaperon me generally. Not +--like you, Marraine--an Early Victorian autocrat with a twentieth- +century tongue." + +"If you mean Mrs. Grey, she doesn't give me the least impression of +being a 'nice, tame pussy-cat,'" retorted Lady Arabella. "You'll find +that out, my dear." + +Magda regarded her thoughtfully. + +"Do you think so?" + +"I do." + +"Oh, Gillian is all right," affirmed Magda, dismissing the matter +airily. "She's a gorgeous accompanist, anyway--almost as good as +Davilof himself. Which reminds me--I must go home and rehearse my solo +dance in the /Swan-Maiden/. I told Davilof I'd be ready for him at +four o'clock; and it's half-past three now. I shall never get back to +Hampstead through this ghastly fog in half an hour." She glanced +towards the window through which was visible a discouraging fog of the +"pea-soup" variety. + +Lady Arabella sniffed. + +"You'd better be careful for once in your life, Magda. Davilof is in +love with you." + +"Pouf! What if he is?" + +Magda rose, and picking up her big black hat set it on her head at +precisely the right angle, and proceeded to spear it through with a +wonderful black-and-gold hatpin of Chinese workmanship. + +Lady Arabella shot a swift glance at her. + +"He's just one of a crowd?" she suggested tartly. + +Magda assented indifferently. + +"You're wrong--quite wrong," returned her godmother crisply. "Antoine +Davilof is not one of a crowd--never will be! He's half a Pole, +remember." + +Magda smiled. + +"And I'm half a Russian. It must be a case of deep calling to deep," +she suggested mockingly. + +Lady Arabella's shining needles clicked as they came to an abrupt +stop. + +"Does that mean you're in love with him?" she asked. + +Magda stared. + +"Good gracious, no! I'm never in love. You know that." + +"That doesn't prevent my hoping you may develop--some day--into a +normal God-fearing woman," retorted the other. + +"And learn to thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love?" Magda +laughed lightly. "I shan't. At least, I hope not. Judging from my +friends and acquaintances, the condition of being in love is a most +unpleasant one--reduces a woman to a humiliating sense of her own +unworthiness and keeps her in a see-saw state of emotional +uncertainty. No, thank you! No man is worth it!" + +Lady Arabella looked away. Her hard, bright old eyes held a sudden +wistfulness foreign to them. + +"My dear--one man is. One man in every woman's life is worth it. Only +we don't always find it out in time." + +"Why, Marraine--you don't mean--you weren't ever----" + +Lady Arabella rose suddenly and came across to where Magda stood by +the fire, one narrow foot extended to the cheerful warmth. + +"Never mind what I mean," she said, and her voice sounded a little +uncertain. "Only, if it comes your way, don't miss the best thing this +queer old world of ours has to offer. If it brings you nothing else, +love at least leaves you memories. Even that's something." + +Magda glanced at her curiously. Somehow she had never imagined that +behind the worldly-wise old woman's sharp speeches and grim, ironic +humour there lay the half-buried memory of some far-distant romance. +Yet now in the uneven tones of her voice she recognised the throb of +an old wound. + +"And meanwhile"--Lady Arabella suddenly resumed in her usual curt +manner--"meanwhile you might play fair with one or two of those boys +you have trailing around--Kit Raynham for instance." + +"I don't understand," began Magda. + +"You understand perfectly. A man of the world's fair game. He can look +after himself--and probably sizes you up for what you are--a +phenomenally successful dancer, who regards her little court of +admirers as one of the commonplaces of existence--like her morning cup +of tea. But these boys--they look upon you as a woman, even a possible +wife. And then they proceed to fall in love with you!" + +Magda's foot tapped impatiently on the floor. + +"What's this all leading up to?" + +Lady Arabella met her glance squarely. + +"I want you to leave Kit Raynham alone. His mother has been to me-- +Magda, I'm sick of having their mothers come to me!--and begged me to +interfere. She says you're ruining the boy's prospects. He's a +brilliant lad, and they expect him to do something rather special. And +now he's slacking completely. He's always on your doorstep. If you +care about him--do you, Magda?--tell him so. But, if you don't, for +goodness' sake send him about his business." + +She waited quietly for an answer. Magda slipped into a big fur-coat +and caught up her gloves. Then she turned to her godmother abruptly. + +"Lady Raynham is absurd. I can't prevent Kit's making a fool of +himself if he wants to. And--and"--rather helplessly--"I can't help it +if I don't fall in love to order." She kissed her godmother lightly. +"So that's that." + +A minute later Lady Arabella's butler had swung open the front door, +and Magda crossed the pavement and entered her waiting car. + +Outside, the fog hung like a thick pall over London--thick enough to +curtain the windows of the car with a blank, grey veil and to make +progress through the streets a difficult and somewhat dangerous +process. Magda snuggled into her furs and leant back against the +padded cushions. All sight of the outside world was cut off from her, +except for the blurred gleam of an occasional street-lamp or the +menacing shape of a motor-bus looming suddenly alongside, and she +yielded herself to the train of thought provoked by her talk with Lady +Arabella. + +In a detached sort of way she felt sorry about Kit Raynham-- +principally because Lady Arabella, of whom she was exceedingly fond, +seemed vexed about the matter. It had not taken her long to discover, +when as a child she had come to live with her godmother, the warm +heart that concealed itself beneath the old lady's somewhat shrewish +exterior. And to Lady Arabella the advent of her god-child had been a +matter for pure rejoicing. + +Having no children of her own, she lavished a pent-up wealth of +affection upon Magda of which few would have thought her capable, and +though she was by no means niggardly in her blame of Hugh Vallincourt +for his method of shelving his responsibilities, she was grateful that +his withdrawal into the monastic life had been the means of throwing +Magda into her care. Five years later, when death claimed him, she +found he had appointed her the child's sole guardian. + +True to her intention, she had asked the opinion of Lydia Tchinova, +the famous dancer, and under Madame Tchinova's guidance Magda had +received such training that when she came to make her debut she leaped +into fame at once. Hers was one of those rare cases where the initial +drudgery and patient waiting that attends so many careers was +practically eliminated, and at the age of twenty she was probably the +most talked-of woman in London. + +She had discarded the family surname for professional purposes, and +appeared in public under the name of Wielitzska--"to save the reigning +Vallincourts from a soul convulsion," as she observed with a twinkle. +During the last year, influenced by the growing demands of her +vocation, she had quitted her godmother's hospitable roof and +established herself in a house of her own. + +Nor had Lady Arabella sought to dissuade her. Although she and Magda +were the best of friends, she had latterly found the onus of +chaperoning her god-child an increasingly heavy burden. As she herself +remarked: "You might as well attempt to chaperon a comet!" + +It was almost inevitable that Magda, starred and feted wherever she +went, should develop into a rather erratic and self-willed young +person, but on the whole she had remained singularly unspoilt. Side by +side with her gift for dancing she had also inherited something of her +mother's sweetness and wholesomeness of nature. There was nothing +petty or mean about her, and many a struggling member of her own +profession had had good cause to thank "the Wielitzska" for a helping +hand. + +Women found in her a good pal; men, an elusive, provocative +personality that bewitched and angered them in the same breath, coolly +accepting all they had to offer of love and headlong worship--and +giving nothing in return. + +It was not in the least that Magda deliberately set herself to wile a +man's heart out of his body. She seemed unable to help it! Apart from +everything else, her dancing had taught her the whole magic of the art +of charming by every look and gesture, and the passage of time had +only added to the extraordinary physical allure which had been hers +even as a child. + +Yet for all the apparent warmth and ardour of her temperament, to +which the men she knew succumbed in spite of themselves, she herself +seemed untouched by any deeper emotion than that of a faintly amused +desire to attract. The lessons of her early days, the tragedy of her +mother's married life, had permeated her whole being, and her ability +to remain emotionally unstirred was due to an instinctive reserve and +self-withdrawal--an inherent distrust of the passion of love. + +/"Take everything. But do not give--anything--in return."/ +Subconsciously Diane's words, wrested from her at a moment of poignant +mental anguish, formed the credo of her daughter's life. + +No man, so far, had ever actually counted for anything in Magda's +scheme of existence, and as she drove slowly home from Lady Arabella's +house in Park Lane she sincerely hoped none ever would. Certainly--she +smiled a little at the bare idea--Kit Raynham was not destined to be +the man! He was clever, and enthusiastic, and adoring, and she liked +him quite a lot, but his hot-headed passion failed to waken in her +breast the least spark of responsive emotion. + +Her thoughts drifted idly backward, recalling this or that man who had +wanted her. It was odd, but of all the men she had met the memory of +one alone was still provocative of a genuine thrill of interest--and +that was the unknown artist whom she had encountered in the woods at +Coverdale. + +Even now, after the lapse of ten years, she could remember the young, +lean, square-jawed face with the grey eyes, "like eyes with little +fires behind them," and hear again the sudden jerky note in the man's +voice as he muttered, "Witch-child!" + +That brief adventure with "Saint Michel"--she remembered calling him +"Saint Michel"--stood out as one of the clearest memories of her +childhood. That, and the memory of her mother, kneeling on the big +bearskin rug and saying in a hard, dry voice: "Never give your heart +to any man. Take everything. But do not give--anything--in return." + + + +CHAPTER II + +OUT OF THE FOG + +A sudden warning shout, the transient glare of fog-blurred headlights, +then a crash and a staggering blow on the car's near side which sent +it reeling like a drunken thing, bonnet foremost, straight into a +motor-omnibus. + +Magda felt herself pitched violently forward off the seat, striking +her head as she fell, and while the car yet rocked with the force of +its collision with the motor-bus another vehicle drove blindly into it +from the rear. It lurched sickeningly and jammed at a precarious +angle, canted up on two wheels. + +Shouts and cries, the frenzied hooting of horns, the grinding of +brakes and clash of splintered glass combined into a pandemonium of +terrifying hubbub. + +Magda, half-dazed with shock, crouched on the floor of the car where +she had been flung. She could see the lights appearing and +disappearing in the fog like baleful eyes opening and shutting +spasmodically. A tumult of hoarse cries, cursing and bellowing +instructions, crossed by the thin scream of women's cries, battered +against her ears. + +Then out of the medley of raucous noise came a cool, assured voice: + +"Don't be frightened. I'll get you out." + +Magda was conscious of a sudden reaction from the numbed sense of +bewildered terror which had overwhelmed her. The sound of that unknown +voice--quiet, commanding, and infinitely reassuring--was like a hand +laid on her heart and stilling its terrified throbbing. + +She heard someone tugging at the handle of the door. There came a +moment's pause while the strained woodwork resisted the pull, then +with a scrape of jarring fittings the door jerked open and a man's +figure loomed in the aperture. + +"Where are you?" he asked, peering through the dense gloom. "Ah!" She +felt his outstretched hands close on her shoulders as she knelt +huddled on the floor. "Can you get up? Or are you hurt?" + +Magda tested her limbs cautiously, to discover that no bones were +broken, though her head ached horribly, so that she felt sick and +giddy with the pain. + +"No, I'm not hurt," she answered. + +"Then come along. The car's heeled up a bit, but I'll lift you out if +you can get to the door." + +She stumbled forward obediently, groping her way towards the vague +panel of lighter grey revealed by the open door. + +Once more, out of the swathing fog, hands touched her. + +"There you are! That's right. Now lean forward." + +She found herself clasped by arms like steel--so strong, so sure, that +she felt as safe and secure as when Vladimir Ravinski, the amazingly +clever young Russian who partnered her in several of her dances, +sometimes lifted her, lightly and easily as a feather, and bore her +triumphantly off the stage aloft on his shoulder. + +"You're very strong," she murmured, as the unknown owner of the arms +swung her down from the tilted car. + +"You're not very heavy," came the answer. There was a kind of laughter +in the voice. + +As the man spoke he set her down on her feet, and then, just as Magda +was opening her lips to thank him, the fog seemed to grow suddenly +denser, swirling round her in great murky waves and surging in her +ears with a noise like the boom of the ocean. Higher and higher rose +the waves, a resistless sea of blackness, and at last they swept right +over her head and she sank into the utter darkness of oblivion. + + + +"Drink this!" + +Someone was holding a glass to her lips and the pungent smell of sal +volatile pricked her nostrils. Magda shrank back, her eyes still shut, +and pressed her head further into the cushions against which it +rested. She detested the smell of sal volatile. + +"Drink it! Do you hear?" + +The voice seemed to drive at her with its ring of command. She opened +her eyes and looked straight up into other eyes--dark-grey ones, these +--that were bent on her intently. To her confused consciousness they +appeared to blaze down at her. + +"No," she muttered, feebly trying to push the glass away. + +The effort of moving her arm seemed stupendous. Her head swam with it. +The sea of fog came rolling back again, and this time she sank under +it at once. + +Then--after an immensity of time, she was sure--she felt herself +struggling up to the surface once more. She was lying rocking gently +on the top of the waves now; the sensation was very peaceful and +pleasant. A little breeze played across her face. She drew in deep +breaths of the cool air, but she did not open her eyes. Presently a +murmur of voices penetrated her consciousness. + +"She's coming round again." A man was speaking. "Go on fanning her." + +"Poor young thing! She's had a shaking up and no mistake!" This in a +woman's voice, very kindly and commiserating. A hand lightly smoothed +the fur of her coat-sleeve. "Looks as if she was a rich young lady. +Her people must be anxious about her." + +Someone laughed a little, softly. + +"Oh, yes, she's a rich enough young lady, Mrs. Braithwaite. Don't you +know who it is we've rescued?" + +"I, sir? No. How should I?" + +"Then I'll tell you. This is Mademoiselle Wielitzska, the famous +dancer." + +"Never, sir! Well, I do declare----" + +"Now, drink this at once, please." The man's voice cut sharply across +the impending flow of garrulous interest, and Magda, who had not +gathered the actual sense of the murmured conversation, felt an arm +pass behind her head, raising it a little, while once more that +hateful glass of sal volatile was held to her lips. + +Her eyes unclosed fretfully. + +"Take it away," she was beginning. + +"Drink it! Do you hear? Do as you're told!" + +The sharp, authoritative tones startled her into sudden compliance. +She opened her mouth and swallowed the contents of the glass with a +gulp. Then she looked resentfully at the man whose curt command she +had obeyed in such unexpected fashion. Magda Wielitzska was more used +to giving orders than to taking them. + +"There, that's better," he observed, regarding the empty glass with +satisfaction. "No, lie still"--as she attempted to rise. "You'll feel +better in a few minutes." + +"I'm better now," declared Magda sulkily. + +Her head was growing clearer every minute. She was even able to feel +an intense irritation against this man who had just compelled her to +drink the sal volatile. + +He looked at her unperturbedly. + +"Are you? That's good. Still, you'll stay where you are till I tell +you that you may get up." He turned to a comfortable-looking woman who +was standing at the foot of the couch on which Magda lay--a +housekeeper of the nice old-fashioned black-satin kind. "Now, Mrs. +Braithwaite, I think this lady will be glad of a cup of tea by the +time you can have one ready." + +"Very good, sir." + +With a last, admiring glance at the slender figure on the couch the +good woman bustled away, leaving Magda alone with her unknown host and +burning with indignation at the cool way in which he had ordered her +to remain where she was. + +He had his back to her for the moment, having turned to poke up the +fire, and Magda raised herself on her elbow, preparatory to getting +off the couch. He swung round instantly. + +"I told you to stay where you were," he said peremptorily. + +"I don't always do as I'm told," she retorted with spirit. + +"You will in this instance, though," he rejoined, crossing the room +swiftly towards her. + +But quick though he was, she was still quicker. Her eyes blazing +defiance, she slipped from the couch and stood up before he could +reach her side. She took a step forward. + +"There!" she began defiantly. The next moment the whole room seemed to +swim round her as she tottered weakly and would have fallen had he not +caught her. + +"What did I tell you?" he said sharply. "You're not fit to stand." + +Without more ado he lifted her up in his arms and deposited her again +on the couch. + +"I--I only turned a little giddy," she protested feebly. + +"Precisely. Just as I thought you would. Another time, perhaps, you'll +obey orders." + +He stood looking down at her with curiously brilliant grey eyes. Magda +almost winced under their penetrating glance. She felt as though they +could see into her very soul, and she summoned up all her courage to +combat the man's strange force. + +"I'm not used to obeying orders," she said impatiently. + +"No?"--with complete indifference. "Then it will be a salutary +experience for you. Now, lie still until tea comes. I have a letter to +write." + +He walked away and, seating himself at a desk in the window, appeared +to forget all about her, while his pen travelled swiftly over the +sheet of notepaper he had drawn towards him. + +Magda watched him with rebellious eyes. Gradually, however, the +rebellion died out of them, replaced by a puzzled look of interest. +There was something vaguely familiar about the man. Had she ever seen +him before? Or was it merely one of those chance resemblances which +one comes across occasionally? That fair hair with its crisp wave, the +lean, square-jawed face, above all, the dark-grey eyes with their +bright, penetrating glance--why did she feel as though every detail of +the face were already known to her? + +She failed to place the resemblance, however, and finally, with a +little sigh of fatigue, she gave up the attempt. Her brain still felt +muddled and confused from the blow she had received. Perhaps later she +would be able to think things out more clearly. + +Meanwhile she lay still, her eyes resting languidly on the face that +so puzzled her. It was not precisely a handsome face, but there was a +certain rugged fineness in its lines that lifted it altogether out of +the ruck of the ordinary. It held its contradictions, too. +Notwithstanding the powerful, determined jaw, the mouth had a +sensitive upward curve at the corners which gave it an expression of +singular sweetness, and beneath the eyes were little lines which +qualified their dominating glance with a hint of whimsical humour. + +The clock ticked on solemnly. Presently Mrs. Braithwaite bustled in +with the tea and withdrew again. But the man remained absorbed in his +writing, apparently oblivious of everything else. + +Magda, who was rapidly recovering, eyed the teapot longingly. She was +just wondering whether she dared venture to draw his attention to its +arrival or whether he would snap her head off if she did, when he +looked up suddenly with that swift, hawk-like glance of his. + +"Ready for some tea?" he queried. + +She nodded. + +"Yes. Am I"--sarcastically--"allowed to get up now?" + +He surveyed her consideringly. + +"No, I think not," he said at last. "But as the mountain can't go to +Mahomet, Mahomet shall come to the mountain." + +He crossed the room and, while Magda was still wondering what he +proposed to do, he stooped and dexterously wheeled the couch with its +light burden close up to the tea-table. + +"Now, I'll fix these cushions," he said. And with deft hands he +rearranged the cushions so that they should support her comfortably +while she drank her tea. + +"You would make a very good nurse, I should think," commented Magda, +somewhat mollified. + +"Thanks," was all he vouchsafed in answer. + +He busied himself pouring out tea, then brought her cup and placed it +beside her on a quaint little table of Chinese Chippendale. + +"Mrs. Braithwaite--my housekeeper--is looking after your chauffeur in +the kitchen," he observed presently. "Possibly you may be interested +to hear"--sarcastically--"that he wasn't hurt in the smash-up." + +Magda felt herself flushing a little under the implied rebuke--as much +with annoyance as anything else. She knew that she was not really the +heartless type of woman he inferred her to be, to whom the fate of her +dependents was only of importance in so far as it affected her own +personal comfort, and she resented the injustice of his assumption +that she was. + +She had been so bewildered and dazed by the suddenness of the accident +and by the blow she herself had received that she had hardly yet +collected her thoughts sufficiently to envisage the possible +consequences to others. + +With feminine perverseness she promptly decided that nothing would +induce her to explain matters. If this detestably superior individual +chose to think her utterly heartless and selfish--why, let him think +so! + +"And the car?" she asked in a tone of deliberate indifference. "That's +quite as important as the chauffeur." + +"More so, surely?"--with polite irony. "The car, I am sorry to say, +will take a good deal of repairing. At present it's still in the +middle of the street with red lights fore and aft. It can't be moved +till the fog lifts." + +"What a nuisance! How on earth am I to get home?" + +"There are such things as taxis"--suggestively. "Later, when it clears +a bit, I'll send out for one." + +"Thanks. I'm afraid I'm giving you a lot of trouble." + +He did not hastily disclaim the idea as most men would have done. + +"That can't be helped," he returned bluntly. + +Magda felt herself colouring again. This man was insufferable! + +"Evidently the role of knight-errant is new to you," she observed. + +"Quite true. I'm not in the habit of rescuing damsels in distress. But +how did you guess?"--with interest. + +"Because you do it with such a very bad grace," she flashed at him. + +He smiled--and once more Magda was aware of the sense of familiarity +even with that whimsical, crooked smile. + +"I see," he replied composedly. "Then you think I ought to have been +overwhelmed with delight that your car cannoned into my bus-- +incidentally I barked my shins badly in the general mix-up--and that I +had to haul you out and bring you round from a faint and so on?" + +The question--without trimmings--was unanswerable. But to Magda, +London's spoiled child, conscious that there were men who would have +given half their fortune for the chance to render a like service, and +then counted themselves amply rewarded by the subsequent hour or two +alone with her, the question was merely provocative. + +"Some men would have been," she returned calmly. + +"Ah! Just because you are the Wielitzska, I suppose?" + +She stared at him in blank astonishment. + +"You knew--you knew who I was all the time?" she gasped. + +"Certainly I knew." + +"Then--then----" + +"Then why wasn't I suitably impressed?" he suggested drily. + +She sprang to her feet. + +"Oh! you are intolerable!" she exclaimed hotly. "You know I didn't +mean that!" + +He regarded her quite placidly. + +"You did. That is precisely what you were thinking. Only you funked +putting it into plain words." + +He got up and came to her side and stood looking down at her. + +"Isn't it a fact?" he insisted. "Isn't it?" + +Magda looked up, tried to answer in the negative and failed. He had +spoken the simple truth and she knew it. But none the less she hated +him for it--hated him for driving her up into a corner and trying to +force an acknowledgment from her. She remained obstinately silent. + +He turned away with a short, amused laugh. + +"So you haven't even the courage of your convictions," he commented. + +Magda clenched her hands, driving the nails hard into the soft palms +of them. He was an absolute boor, this man who had come to her rescue +in the fog! He was taking a brutal advantage of their relative +positions to speak to her as no man had ever dared to speak to her +before. Or woman either! Even old Lady Arabella would hardly have +thrust the naked truth so savagely under her eyes. + +And now he had as good as told her that she was a coward! Well, at +least he should not have the satisfaction of finding he was right in +that respect. She walked straight up to him, her small head held high, +in her dark eyes a smouldering fire of fierce resentment. + +"So that is what you think, is it?" she said in a low voice of bitter +anger. "Well, I /have/ the courage of my convictions." She paused. +Then, with an effort: "Yes, I did think you weren't 'suitably +impressed,' as you put it. You are perfectly right." + +He threw her a swift glance of surprise. Presumably he hadn't +anticipated such a candid acknowledgment, but even so he showed no +disposition to lay down the probe. + +"You didn't think it possible that anyone could meet the Wielitzska +without regarding the event as a piece of stupendous good luck and +being appropriately overjoyed, did you?" he pursued relentlessly. + +Magda pressed her lips together. Then, with an effort: + +"No," she admitted. + +"And so, just because I treated you as I would any other woman, and +made no pretence of fatuous delight over your presence here, you +supposed I must be ignorant of your identity? Was that it?" + +Magda writhed under the cool, ironical questioning with its +undercurrent of keen contempt. Each word stung like the flick of a +lash on bare flesh. But she forced herself to answer--and to answer +honestly. + +"Yes," she said very low. "That was it." + +He shrugged his shoulders and turned away. + +"Comment is superfluous, I think." + +She made an impulsive step towards him. + +For some unfathomable reason she minded--minded intensely--that this +man should hold her in such poor esteem. She wanted to put herself +right with him, to justify her attitude in his eyes. + +"Have you ever seen me dance?" she asked abruptly. + +Surely if he had ever seen that wonderful artistry which she knew was +hers, witnessed the half-crazy enthusiasm with which her audience +received her, he would make allowance, judge her a little less harshly +for what was, after all, a very natural assumption on the part of a +stage favourite. + +An expression of unwilling admiration came into his eyes. + +"Have I seen you dance?" he repeated. "Yes, I have. Several times." + +He did not add--which would have been no more than the truth--that +during her last winter's season at the Imperial Theatre he had hardly +missed a dozen performances. + +"Then--then----" Magda spoke with a kind of incredulous appeal. "Can't +you understand--just a little?" + +"Oh, I understand. I understand perfectly. You've been spoilt and +idolised to such an extent that it seems incredible to you to find a +man who doesn't immediately fall down and worship you." + +Magda twisted her hands together. Once more he was thrusting at her +with the rapier of truth. And it hurt--hurt inexplicably. + +"Yes, I believe that's--almost true," she acknowledged falteringly. +"But if you understand so well, couldn't you--can't you"--with a swift +supplicating smile--"be a little more merciful?" + +"No. I--I /hate/ your type of woman!" + +There was an undertone of passion in his voice. It was almost as +though he were fighting against some impulse within himself and the +fierceness of the struggle had wrung from him that quick, unvarnished +protest. + +"Then you despise dancers?" + +"Despise? On the contrary, I revere a dancer--the dancer who is a +genuine artist." He paused, then went on speaking thoughtfully. +"Dancing, to my mind, is one of the most consistent expressions of +beauty. It's the sheer symmetry and grace of that body which was made +in God's own likeness developed to the utmost limit of human +perfection. . . . And the dancer who desecrates the temple of his body +is punished proportionately. No art is a harder taskmistress than the +art of dancing." + +Magda listened breathlessly. This man understood--oh, he understood! +Then why did he "hate her type of woman"? + +Almost as though he had read her thoughts he pursued: + +"As a dancer, an artist--I acknowledge the Wielitzska to be supreme. +But as a woman----" + +"Yes? As a woman? Go on. What do you know about me as a woman?" + +He laughed disagreeably. + +"I'd judge that in the making of you your soul got left out," he said +drily. + +Magda forced a smile. + +"I'm afraid I'm very stupid. Do you mind explaining?" + +"Does it need explanation?" + +"Oh--please!" + +"Then--one of my best pals was a man who loved you." + +Magda threw him a glance of veiled mockery from beneath her long white +lids. + +"Surely that should be a recommendation--something in my favour?" + +His eyes hardened. + +"If you had dealt honestly with him, it might have been. But you drew +him on, /made/ him care for you in spite of himself. And then, when he +was yours, body and soul, you turned him down! Turned him down-- +pretended you were surprised--you'd never meant anything! All the old +rotten excuses a woman offers when she has finished playing with a man +and got bored with him. . . . I've no place for your kind of woman. I +tell you"--his tone deepening in intensity--"the wife of any common +labourer, who cooks and washes and sews for her man day in, day out, +is worth a dozen of you! She knows that love's worth having and worth +working for. And she works. You don't. Women like you take a man's +soul and play with it, and when you've defiled and defaced it out of +all likeness to the soul God gave him, you hand it back to him and +think you clear yourself by saying you 'didn't mean it'!" + +The bitter speech, harsh with the deeply rooted pain and resentment +which had prompted it, battered through Magda's weak defences and +found her helpless and unarmed. Once she had uttered a faint cry of +protest, tried to check him, but he had not heeded it. After that she +had listened with bent head, her breath coming and going unevenly. + +When he had finished, the face she lifted to him was white as milk and +her mouth trembled. + +"Thanks. Well, I've heard my character now," she said unsteadily. "I-- +I didn't know anyone thought of me--like that." + +He stared at her--at the drooping lines of her figure, the quivering +lips, at the half-stunned expression of the dark eyes. And suddenly +realisation of the enormity of all he had said seemed to come to him. +But he did not appear to be at all overwhelmed by it. + +"I'm afraid I've transgressed beyond forgiveness now," he said curtly. +"But--you rather asked for it, you know, didn't you?" + +"Yes," she admitted. "I think I did--ask for it." Suddenly she threw +up her head and faced him. "If--if it's any satisfaction to you to +know it, I think you've paid off at least some of your friend's +score." She looked at him with a curious, almost piteous surprise. +"You--you've hurt me!" she whispered passionately. She turned to the +door. "I'll go now." + +"No!" He stopped her with a hand on her arm, and she obeyed his touch +submissively. For a moment he stood looking down at her with an oddly +conflicting expression on his face. It was as though he were arguing +out some point with himself. All at once he seemed to come to a +decision. + +"Look, you can't go till the fog clears a bit. Suppose we call a +truce? Sit down here"--pulling forward a big easy-chair--"and for the +rest of your visit let's behave as though we didn't heartily +disapprove of one another." + +Magda sank into the chair with that supple grace of limb which made it +sheer delight to watch her movements. + +"I never said I disapproved of you," she remarked. + +He seated himself opposite her, on the other side of the hearth, and +regarded her quizzically. + +"No. But you do, all the same. Naturally, you would after my candour! +And I'd rather you did, too," he added abruptly. "But at least you've +no more devoted admirer of your art. You know, dancing appeals to me +in a way that nothing else does. My job's painting--" + +"House-painting?" interpolated Magda with a smile. Her spirits were +rising a little under his new kindliness of manner. + +He laughed with sudden boyishness and nodded gaily. + +"Why, yes--so long as people continue to cover their wall-space with +portraits of themselves." + +Magda wondered whether he was possibly a well-known painter. But he +gave her no chance to find out, for he continued speaking almost at +once. + +"I love my art--but a still, flat canvas, however beautifully painted, +isn't comparable with the moving, living interpretation of beauty +possible to a dancer. I remember, years ago--ten years, quite--seeing +a kiddy dancing in a wood." Magda leaned forward. "It was the +prettiest thing imaginable. She was all by herself, a little, thin, +black-and-white wisp of a thing, with a small, tense face and eyes +like black smudges. And she danced as though it were more natural to +her than walking. I got her to pose for me at the foot of a tree. The +picture of her was my first real success. So you see, I've good reason +to be grateful to one dancer!" + +Magda caught her breath. She knew now why the man's face had seemed so +familiar! He was the artist she had met in the wood at Coverdale the +day Sieur Hugh had beaten her--her /"Saint Michel"/! She was conscious +of a queer little thrill of excitement as the truth dawned upon her. + +"What was the picture called?" she asked, forcing herself to speak +composedly. + +"'The Repose of Titania.'" + +She nodded. The picture was a very well-known one. Everybody knew by +whom it had been painted. + +"Then you must be Michael Quarrington?" + +"Yes. So now, we've been introduced, haven't we?" + +It seemed almost as if he had repented of his former churlish manner, +and were endeavouring to atone for it. He talked to her about his work +a little, then slid easily into the allied topics of music and books. +Finally he took her into an adjoining room, and showed her a small, +beloved collection of coloured prints which he had gathered together, +recounting various amusing little incidents which had attended the +acquisition of this or that one among them with much gusto and a +certain quaint humour that she was beginning to recognise as +characteristic. + +Magda, to whom the study of old prints was by no means an unknown +territory, was thoroughly entertained. She found herself enthusing, +discussing, arguing points, in a happy spirit of /camaraderie/ with +her host which, half an hour earlier, she would have believed +impossible. + +The end came abruptly. Quarrington chanced to glance out of the window +where the street lamps were now glimmering serenely through a clear +dusk. The fog had lifted. + +"Perhaps it's just as well," he said shortly. "I was beginning--" He +checked himself and glanced at her with a sudden stormy light in his +eyes. + +"Beginning--what?" she asked a little breathlessly. The atmosphere had +all at once grown tense with some unlooked-for stress of emotion. + +"Shall I tell you?" + +"Yes--tell me!" + +"I was beginning to forget that you're the 'type of woman I hate,'" +he said. And strode out of the room, leaving her startled and +unaccountably shaken. + +When he came back he had completely reassumed his former non-committal +manner. + +"There's a taxi waiting for you," he announced. "It's perfectly clear +outside now, so I think you will be spared any further adventures on +your way home." + +He accompanied her into the hall, and as they shook hands she murmured +a little diffidently: + +"Perhaps we shall meet again some time?" + +He drew back sharply. + +"No, we shan't meet again." There was something purposeful, almost +vehemently so, in the curtly spoken words. "If I had thought that----" + +"Yes?" she prompted. "If you had?" + +"If I'd thought that," he said quietly, "I shouldn't have dared to +risk this last half-hour." + +A momentary silence fell between them. Then, with a shrug, he added +lightly: + +"But we shan't meet again. I'm leaving England next week. That settles +it." + +Without giving her time to make any rejoinder he opened the street- +door and stood aside for her to pass out. A minute later she was in +the taxi, and he was standing bare-headed on the pavement beside it. + +"Good-bye," she said. "Good-bye--/Saint Michel/." + +His hand closed round hers in a grip that almost crushed the slender +fingers. + +"/You/!" he cried hoarsely. There was a note of sudden, desperate +recognition in his voice. "/You/!" + +As Magda smiled into his startled eyes--the grey eyes that had burned +their way into her memory ten years ago--the taxi slid away into the +lamp-lit dusk. + + + +CHAPTER III + +FRIARS' HOLM + +With a grinding of brakes the taxi slowed up and came to a standstill +at Friars' Holm, the quaint old Queen Anne house which Magda had +acquired in north London. + +Once within the high wall enclosing the old-world garden in which it +stood, it was easy enough to imagine oneself a hundred miles from +town. Fir and cedar sentinelled the house, and in the centre of the +garden there was a lawn of wonderful old turf, hedged round in summer +by a riot of roses so that it gleamed like a great square emerald set +in a jewelled frame. + +Magda entered the house and, crossing the cheerfully lit hall, threw +open the door of a room whence issued the sound of someone--obviously +a first-rate musician--playing the piano. + +As she opened the door the twilight, shot by quivering spears of light +from the fire's dancing flames, seemed to rush out at her, bearing +with it the mournful, heart-shaking music of some Russian melody. +Magda uttered a soft, half-amused exclamation of impatience and +switched on the lights. + +"All in the dark, Davilof?" she asked in a practical tone of voice +calculated to disintegrate any possible fabric of romance woven of +firelight and fifths. + +The flood of electric light revealed a large, lofty room, devoid of +furniture except for a few comfortable chairs grouped together at one +end of it, and for a magnificent grand piano at the other. The room +appeared doubly large by reason of the fact that the whole of one wall +was taken up by four immense panels of looking-glass, cleverly fitted +together so that in effect the entire wall was composed of a single +enormous mirror. It was in front of this mirror that Magda practised. +The remaining three walls were hung with priceless old tapestry woven +of sombre green and greys. + +As she entered the room a man rose quickly from the piano and came +forward to meet her. There was a kind of repressed eagerness in the +action, as though he had been waiting with impatience for her coming. + +He was a striking-looking man, tall, and built with the slender-limbed +grace of a foreigner. Golden-brown hair, worn rather longer than +fashion dictates, waved crisply over his head, and the moustache and +small Vandyck beard which partially concealed the lower part of his +face were of the same warmly golden colour. + +The word "musician" was written all over him--in the supple, capable +hands, in the careless stoop of his loosely knit shoulders, and, more +than all, in the imaginative hazel eyes with their curious mixture of +abstraction and fire. They rather suggested lightning playing over +some dreaming pool. + +Magda shook hands with him carelessly. + +"We shall have to postpone the practice as I'm so late, Davilof," she +said. "I had a smash-up in the fog. My car ran into a bus--" + +"And you are hurt?" Davilof broke in sharply, his voice edged with +fear. + +"No, no. I was stunned for a minute and then afterwards I fainted, but +I'm quite intact otherwise." + +"You are sure--sure?" + +"Quite." Hearing the keen anxiety in his tone she smiled at him +reassuringly and held out a friendly hand. "I'm all right--really, +Antoine." + +He took the hand in both his. + +"Thank God!" he said fervently. + +Antoine Davilof had lived so long in England that he spoke without +trace of accent, though he sometimes gave an unEnglish twist to the +phrasing of a sentence, but his quick emotion and the simplicity with +which he made no effort to conceal it stamped him unmistakably as a +foreigner. + +A little touched, Magda allowed her hand to remain in his. + +"Why, Davilof!" She chided him laughingly. "You're quite absurdly +upset about it." + +"I could not have borne it if you had been hurt," he declared +vehemently. "You ought not to go about by yourself. It's horrible to +think of /you/--in a street accident--alone!" + +"But I wasn't alone. A man who was in the other half of the accident-- +the motor-bus half--played the good Samaritan and carried me into his +house, which happened to be close by. He looked after me very well, I +assure you." + +Davilof released her hand abruptly. His face darkened. + +"And this man? Who was he?" he demanded jealously. "I hate to think of +any man--a stranger--touching you." + +"Nonsense! Would you have preferred me to remain lying in the middle +of the road?" + +"You know I would not. But I'd rather some woman had looked after you. +Do you know who the man was?" + +"I did not--at first." + +"But you do now. Who was it?" + +"No one you know, I think," she answered provokingly. His eyes +flashed. + +"Why are you making a mystery about it?" he asked suspiciously. +"You're keeping something from me! Who was this man? Tell me his +name." + +Magda froze. + +"My dear Antoine! Why this air of high tragedy?" she said lightly. +"And what on earth has it to do with you who the man was?" + +"You know what it has to do with me----" + +"With my accompanist?"--raising her brows delicately. + +"No!"--with sudden violence--"With the man who loves you! I'm that-- +and you know it, Magda! Could I play for you as I do if I did not +understand your every mood and emotion? You know I couldn't! And then +you ask what it matters to me when some unknown man has held you in +his arms, carried you into his house--kissed you, perhaps, while you +were unconscious!"--his imagination running suddenly riot. + +"Stop! You're going too far!" Magda checked him sharply. "You're +always telling me you love me. I don't want to hear it." She paused, +then added cruelly: "I want you for playing my accompaniments, +Davilof. That's all. Do you understand?" + +His eyes blazed. With a quick movement he stepped in front of her. + +"I'm a man--as well as an accompanist," he said hoarsely. "One day +you'll have to reckon with the man, Magda!" + +There was a new, unaccustomed quality in his voice. Hitherto she had +not taken his ardour very seriously. He was a Pole and a musician, +with all the temperament that might be expected from such a +combination, and she had let it go at that, pushing his love aside +with the careless hand of a woman to whom the incense of men's +devotion has been so freely offered as to have become commonplace. But +now the new ring of determination, of something unexpectedly dogged in +his voice, poignantly recalled the warning uttered by Lady Arabella +earlier in the day. + +Magda's nerve wavered. A momentary panic assailed her. Then she +intuitively struck the right note. + +"Ah, Davilof, don't worry me now--not to-night!" she said appealingly. +"I'm tired. It's been a bit of a strain--the accident and--and----" + +"Forgive me!" In a moment he was all penitence--overwhelmed with +compunction. "Forget it! I've behaved like a brute. I ought to have +seen that you were worn out." + +He was beside himself with remorse. + +"It's all right, Antoine." She smiled forgiveness at him. "Only I felt +--I felt I couldn't stand any more to-night. I suppose it's taken it +out of me more than I knew--the shock, and fainting like that." + +"Of course it has. You ought to rest. I wish Mrs. Grey were in." + +"Is she not?" + +"No. The maid told me she was out when I came, and she hasn't returned +yet." + +"She's been held up by the fog, I expect," answered Magda. "Never +mind. I'll sit here--in this big chair--and you shall switch off these +glaring lights and play to me, Antoine. That will rest me better than +anything." + +She was a little sorry for the man--trying to make up to him for the +pain she knew she had inflicted a moment before, and there was a +dangerous sweetness in her voice. + +Davilof's eyes kindled. He stooped swiftly and kissed her hand. + +"You are too good to me!" he said huskily. + +Then, while she lay back restfully in a chair which he heaped with +cushions for her, he played to her, improvising as he played--slow, +dreaming melodies that soothed and lulled but held always an undertone +of passionate appeal. The man himself spoke in his music; his love +pleaded with her in its soft, beseeching cadences. + +But Magda failed to hear it. Her thoughts were elsewhere--back with +the man who, that afternoon, had first rescued her and afterwards +treated her with blunt candour that had been little less than brutal. +She felt sore and resentful--smarting under the same dismayed sense of +surprise and injustice as a child may feel who receives a blow instead +of an anticipated caress. + +Indulged and flattered by everyone with whom she came in contact, it +had been like a slap in the face to find someone--more particularly +someone of the masculine persuasion--who, far from bestowing the +admiration and homage she had learned to look for as a right, quite +openly regarded her with contemptuous disapproval--and made no bones +about telling her so. + +His indictment of her had left nothing to the imagination. She felt +stunned, and, for the first time in her life, a little unwilling doubt +of herself assaulted her. Was she really anything at all like the +woman Michael Quarrington had pictured? A woman without heart or +conscience--the "kind of woman he had no place for"? + +She winced a little at the thought. It was strange how much she minded +his opinion--the opinion of a man whom she had only met by chance and +whom she was very unlikely ever to meet again. He himself had +certainly evinced no anxiety to renew the acquaintance. And this, too, +fretted her in some unaccountable way. + +She could not analyse her own emotions. She felt hurt and angry and +ashamed in the same breath--and all because an unknown man, an +absolute stranger, had told her in no measured terms exactly what he +thought of her! + +Only--he was not really quite a stranger! He was the "Saint Michel" of +her childhood days, the man with whom she had unconsciously compared +those other men whom the passing years had brought into her life--and +always to their disadvantage. + +The first time she had seen him in the woods at Coverdale was the day +when Hugh Vallincourt had beaten her; she had been smarting with the +physical pain and humiliation of it. And now, this second time they +had met, she had been once more forced to endure that strange and +unaccustomed experience called pain. Only this time she felt as though +her soul had been beaten, and it was Saint Michel himself who had +scourged her. + +The door at the far end of the room opened suddenly and a welcome +voice broke cheerfully across the bitter current of her thoughts. + +"Well, here I am at last! Has Magda arrived home yet?" + +Davilof ceased playing abruptly and the speaker paused on the +threshold of the room, peering into the dusk. Magda rose from her seat +by the fire and switched on one of the electric burners. + +"Yes, here I am," she said. "Did you get held up by the fog, Gillian?" + +The newcomer advanced into the circle of light. She was a small, +slight woman, though the furs she was wearing served to conceal the +slenderness of her figure. Someone had once said of her that "Mrs. +Grey was a charming study in sepia." The description was not inapt. +Eyes and hair were brown as a beechnut, and a scattering of golden- +brown freckles emphasised the warm tints of a skin as soft as velvet. + +"Did I get held up?" she repeated. "My dear, I walked miles--miles, I +tell you!--in that hideous fog. And then found I'd been walking +entirely in the wrong direction! I fetched up somewhere down Notting +Hill Gate way, and at last by the help of heaven and a policeman +discovered the Tube station. So here I am. But if I could have come +across a taxi I'd have been ready to /buy/ it, I was so tired!" + +"Poor dear!" Magda was duly sympathetic. "We'll have some tea. You'll +stay, Davilof?" + +"I think not, thanks. I'm dining out"--with a glance at his watch. +"And I shan't have too much time to get home and change as it is." + +Magda held out her hand. + +"Good-bye, then. Thank you for keeping me company till Gillian came." + +There was a sudden sweetness of gratitude in the glance she threw at +him which fired his blood. He caught her hand and carried it to his +lips. + +"The thanks are mine," he said in a stifled voice. And swinging round +on his heel he left the room abruptly, quite omitting to make his +farewells to Mrs. Grey. + +The latter looked across at Magda with a gleam of mirth in her brown +eyes. Then she shook her head reprovingly. + +"Will you never learn wisdom, Magda?" she asked, subsiding into a +chair and extending a pair of neatly shod feet to the fire's warmth. + +Magda laughed a little. + +"Well, it won't be the fault of my friends if I don't!" she returned +ruefully. "Marraine expended a heap of eloquence over my misdeeds this +afternoon." + +"Lady Arabella? I'm glad to hear it. Though she has about as much +chance of producing any permanent result as the gentleman who occupied +his leisure time in rolling a stone uphill." + +"Cat!" Magda made a small grimace at her. "Ah, here's some tea!" +Melrose, known among Magda's friends as "the perfect butler," had come +noiselessly into the room and was arranging the tea paraphernalia with +the reverential precision of one making preparation for some mystic +rite. "Perhaps when you've had a cup you'll feel more amiable--that +is, if I give you lots of sugar." + +"What was the text of Lady Arabella's homily?" inquired Gillian +presently, as she sipped her tea. + +"Oh, that boy, Kit Raynham," replied Magda impatiently. "It appears +I'm blighting his young prospects--his professional ones, I mean. +Though I don't quite see why an attack of calf-love for me should +wreck his work as an architect!" + +"I do--if he spends his time sketching 'the Wielitzska' in half a +dozen different poses instead of making plans for a garden city." + +Magda smiled involuntarily. + +"Does he do that?" she said. "But how ridiculous of him!" + +"It's merely indicative of his state of mind," returned Gillian. She +gazed meditatively into the fire. "You know, Magda, I think it will +mean the end of our friendship when Coppertop reaches years of +discretion." + +Coppertop was Gillian's small son, a young person of seven, who owed +his cognomen to the crop of flaming red curls which adorned his round +button of a head. + +Magda laughed. + +"Pouf! By the time that happens I shall be quite old--and harmless." + +Gillian shook her head. + +"Your type is never harmless, my dear. Unless you fall in love, you'll +be an unexploded mine till the day of your death." + +"That nearly occurred to-day, by the way," vouchsafed Magda +tranquilly. "In which case,"--smiling--"you'd have been spared any +further anxiety on Coppertop's account." + +"What do you mean?" demanded Gillian, startled. + +"I mean that I've had an adventure this afternoon. We got smashed up +in the fog." + +"Oh, my dear! How dreadful! How did it happen?" + +"Something collided with the car and shot us bang into a motor-bus, +and then, almost at the same moment, something else charged into us +from behind. So there was a pretty fair mix-up." + +"Why didn't you tell me before! Was anyone badly hurt? And how did you +get home?" Gillian's questions poured out excitedly. + +"No, no one was badly hurt. I got a blow on the head, and fainted. So +a man who'd been inside the bus we ran into performed the rescuing +stunt. His house was close by, and he carried me in there and +proceeded to dose me with sal volatile first and tea afterwards. He +wound up by presenting me with an unvarnished summary of his opinion +of the likes of me." + +There was an unwontedly hard note in Magda's voice as she detailed the +afternoon's events, and Gillian glanced at her sharply. + +"I don't understand. Was he a strait-laced prig who disapproved of +dancing, do you mean?" + +"Nothing of the sort. He had a most comprehensive appreciation of the +art of dancing. His disapproval was entirely concentrated on me-- +personally." + +"But how could it be--since he didn't know you?" + +Magda gave a little grin. + +"You mean it would have been quite comprehensible if he /had/ known +me?" she observed ironically. + +The other laughed. + +"Don't be so provoking! You know perfectly well what I meant! You +deserve that I should answer 'yes' to that question." + +"Do, if you like." + +"I would--only I happen to know you a good deal better than you know +yourself." + +"What do you know about me, then, that I don't?" + +Gillian's nice brown eyes smiled across at her. + +"I know that, somewhere inside you, you've got the capacity for being +as sweet and kind and tender and self-sacrificing as any woman living +--if only something would happen to make it worth while. I wish--I +wish to heaven you'd fall in love!" + +"I'm not likely to. I'm in love with my art. It gives you a better +return than love for any man." + +"No," answered Gillian quietly. "No. You're wrong. Tony died when we'd +only been married a year. But that year was worth the whole rest of +life put together. And--I've got Coppertop." + +Magda leaned forward suddenly and kissed her. + +"Dear Gillyflower!" she said. "I'm so glad you feel like that--bless +you! I wish I could. But I never shall. I was soured in the making, I +think"--laughing rather forlornly. "I don't trust love. It's the thing +that hurts and tortures and breaks a woman--as my mother was hurt and +tortured and broken." She paused. "No, preserve me from falling in +love!" she added more lightly. "'A Loaf of Bread, and Thou beside me +in the Wilderness' doesn't appeal to me in the least." + +"It will one day," retorted Gillian oracularly. "In the meantime you +might go on telling me about the man who fished you out of the smash. +Was he young? And good-looking? Perhaps he is destined to be your +fate." + +"He was rather over thirty, I should think. And good-looking--quite. +But he 'hates my type of woman,' you'll be interested to know. So that +you can put your high hopes back on the top shelf again." + +"Not at all," declared Gillian briskly. "There's nothing like +beginning with a little aversion." + +Magda smiled reminiscently. + +"If you'd been present at our interview, you'd realise that 'a little +aversion' is a cloying euphemism for the feeling exhibited by my late +preserver." + +"What was he like, then?" + +"At first, because I wouldn't take the sal volatile--you know how I +detest the stuff!--and sit still where he'd put me like a good little +girl, he ordered me about as though I were a child of six. He +absolutely bullied me! Then it apparently occurred to him to take my +moral welfare in hand, and I should judge he considered that Jezebel +and Delilah were positively provincial in their methods as compared +with me." + +"Nonsense! If he didn't know you, why should he suppose himself +competent to form any opinion about you at all--good, bad, or +indifferent?" + +"I don't know," replied Magda slowly. Then, speaking with sudden +defiance: "Yes, I do know! A pal of his had--had cared about me some +time or other, and I'd turned him down. That's why." + +"Oh, Magda!" There was both reproach and understanding in Gillian's +voice. + +Magda shrugged her shoulders. + +"Well, if he wanted to pay off old scores on his pal's behalf, he +succeeded," she said mirthlessly. + +Gillian looked at her in surprise. She had never seen Magda quite like +this before; her sombre eyes held a curious strained look like those +of some wild thing of the forest caught in a trap and in pain. + +"And you don't know who he was--I mean the man who came to your help +and then lectured you?" + +"Yes, I do. It was Michael Quarrington, the artist." + +"Michael Quarrington? Why, he has the reputation of being a most +charming man!" + +Magda stared into the fire. + +"I dare say he might have a great deal of charm if he cared to exert +it. Apparently, however, he didn't think I was worth the effort." + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN THE MIRROR ROOM + +Shouts of mirth came jubilantly from the Mirror Room as Davilof made +his way thither one afternoon a few days later. The shrill peal of a +child's laughter rose gaily above the lower note of women's voices, +and when the accompanist opened the door it was to discover Magda +completely engrossed in giving Coppertop a first dancing lesson, while +Gillian sat stitching busily away at some small nether garments +afflicted with rents and tears in sundry places. Every now and again +she glanced up with softly amused eyes to watch her son's somewhat +unsteady efforts in the Terpsichorean art. + +Coppertop, a slim young reed in his bright green knitted jersey, was +clinging with one hand to a wooden bar attached to the wall which +served Magda for the "bar practice" which constitutes part of every +dancer's daily work, while Magda, holding his other hand in hers, +essayed to instruct him in the principle of "turning out"--that +flexible turning of the knees towards the side which gives so much +facility of movement. + +"Point your toes sideways--so," directed Magda. "This one towards me-- +like that." She stooped and placed his foot in position. "Now, kick +out! Try to kick me!" + +Coppertop tried--and succeeded, greeting his accomplishment with +shrieks of delight. + +It was just at this moment that Davilof appeared on the scene, pausing +abruptly in the doorway as he caught sight of Magda's laughing face +bent above the fiery red head. There was something very charming in +her expression of eager, light-hearted abandonment to the fun of the +moment. + +At the sound of the opening door Coppertop wriggled out of her grasp +like an eel, twisting his lithe young body round to see who the new +arrival might be. His face fell woefully as he caught sight of +Davilof. + +"Oh, you can't /never/ have come already to play for the Fairy Lady!" +he exclaimed in accents of dire disappointment. + +"Fairy Lady" was the name he had bestowed upon Magda when, very early +in their acquaintance, she had performed for his sole and particular +benefit a maturer edition of the dance she had evolved as a child--the +dance with which she had so much astonished Lady Arabella. Nowadays it +figured prominently on her programmes as "The Hamadryad," and was +enormously popular. + +"It's not never three o'clock!" wailed Coppertop disconsolately, as +Davilof dangled his watch in front of him. + +"I think it is, small son," interpolated Gillian, gathering together +her sewing materials. "Come along. We must leave the Fairy Lady to +practise now, because she's got to dance to half the people in London +to-morrow." + +"Must I really go?" appealed Coppertop, beseeching Magda with a pair +of melting green eyes. + +She dropped a light kiss on the top of his red curls. + +"'Fraid so, Coppertop," she said. "You wouldn't want Fairy Lady to +dance badly and tumble down, would you?" + +But Coppertop was not to be taken in so easily. + +"Huh!" he scoffed. "You /couldn't/ tumble down--not never!" + +"Still, you mustn't be greedy, Topkins," urged Magda persuasively. +"Remember all the grown-up people who want me to dance to them! I +can't keep it all for one little boy." He stared at her for a moment +in silence. Suddenly he flung his arms round her slender hips, +clutching her tightly, and hid his face against her skirt. + +"Oh, Fairy Lady, you are so booful--/so booful/!" he whispered in a +smothered voice. Then, with a big sigh: "But one little boy won't be +greedy." He turned to his mother. "Come along, mummie!" he commanded +superbly. And trotted out of the room beside her with his small head +well up. + +Left alone, Davilof and Magda smiled across at one another. + +"Funny little person, isn't he?" she said. + +The musician nodded. + +"Grown-ups might possibly envy the freedom of speech permitted to +childhood," he said quietly. Then, still more quietly: "'Fairy Lady, +you are so beautiful!'" + +"But you're not a child, so don't poach Coppertop's preserves!" +retorted Magda swiftly. "Let's get to work, Antoine. I'll just change +into my practice-kit and then I want to run through the 'Swan- +Maiden's' dance. You fix the lighting." + +She vanished into an adjoining room, while Davilof proceeded to switch +off most of the burners, leaving only those which illumined the space +in front of the great mirror. The remainder of the big room receded +into a grey twilight encircling the patch of luminance. + +Presently Magda reappeared wearing a loose tunic of some white silken +material, girdled at the waist, but yet leaving her with perfect +freedom of limb. + +Davilof watched her as she came down the long room with the feather- +light, floating walk of the trained dancer, and something leaped into +his eyes that was very different from mere admiration--something that, +taken in conjunction with Lady Arabella's caustic comments of a few +days ago, might have warned Magda had she seen it. + +But with her thoughts preoccupied by the work in hand she failed to +notice it, and, advancing till she faced the great mirror, she +executed a few steps in front of it, humming the motif of /The Swan- +Maiden/ music under her breath. + +"Play, Antoine," she threw at him over her shoulder. + +Davilof hesitated, made a movement towards her, then wheeled round +abruptly and went to the piano. A moment later the exquisite, smoothly +rippling music which he had himself written for the Swan-Maiden dance +purled out into the room. + +The story of the Swan-Maiden had been taken from an old legend which +told of a beautiful maiden and the youth who loved her. + +According to the narrative, the pair were unfortunate enough to incur +the displeasure of the evil fairy Ritmagar, and the latter, in order +to punish them, transformed the maiden into a white swan, thus +separating the hapless lovers for ever. Afterwards, the disconsolate +youth, bemoaning the cruelty of fate, used to wander daily along the +shores of the lake where the maiden was compelled to dwell in her +guise of a swan, and eventually Ritmagar, apparently touched to a +limited compassion, permitted the Swan-Maiden to resume her human form +once a day during the hour immediately preceding sunset. But the +condition was attached that she must always return to the lake ere the +sun sank below the horizon, when she would be compelled to reassume +her shape of a swan. Should she fail to return by the appointed time, +death would be the inevitable consequence. + +Every reader of fairy tales--and certainly anyone who knows anything +at all about being in love--can guess the sequel. Comes a day when the +lovers, absorbed in their love-making, forget the flight of time, so +that the unhappy maiden returns to the shore of the lake to find that +the sun has already dipped below the horizon. She falls on her knees, +beseeching the witch Ritmagar for mercy, but no answer is vouchsafed, +and gradually the Swan-Maiden finds herself growing weaker and weaker, +until at last death claims her. + +A dance, based upon this legend, had been devised for Magda in +conjunction with Vladimir Ravinski, the brilliant Russian dancer, he +taking the lover's part, and the whole tragic little drama was +designed to terminate with a solo dance by Magda as the dying Swan- +Maiden. Davilof had written the music for it, and the dance was to be +performed at the Imperial Theatre for the first time the following +week. + +Davilof played ever more and more softly as the dance drew to its +close. The note of lament sounded with increasing insistence through +the slowing ripple of the accompaniment, and at last, as Magda sank to +the ground in a piteous attitude that somehow suggested both the +drooping grace of a dying swan and the innocence and helplessness of +the hapless maiden, the music died away into silence. + +There was a little pause. Then Davilof sprang to this feet. + +"By God, Magda! You're magnificent!" he exclaimed with the spontaneous +appreciation of one genuine artist for another. + +Magda raised her head and looked up at him with vague, startled eyes. +She still preserved the pose on which the dance had ceased, and had +hardly yet returned to the world of reality from that magic world into +which her art had transported her. + +The burning enthusiasm in Davilof's excited tones recalled her +abruptly. + +"Was it good--was it really good?" she asked a little shakily. + +"Good?" he said. "It was superb!" + +He held out his hands and she laid hers in them without thinking, +allowing him to draw her to her feet beside him. + +She stood quite still, breathing rather quickly from her recent +exertions and supported by the close clasp of his hands on hers. Her +lips were a little parted, her slight breast rose and fell unevenly, +and a faint rose-colour glowed beneath the ivory pallor of her skin. + +Suddenly Davilof's grip tightened. + +"You beautiful thing!" he exclaimed huskily. "Magda----" + +The next moment, with a swift, ungoverned movement, he caught her to +him and was crushing her in his arms. + +"Antoine! . . . Let me go!" + +But the pressure of her soft, pulsing body against his own sent the +blood racing through his veins. He smothered the words with his mouth +on hers, kissing her breathless with a headlong passion that defied +restraint--slaking his longing for her as a man denied water may at +last slake his thirst at some suddenly discovered pool. + +Magda felt herself powerless as a leaf caught up in a whirlwind--swept +suddenly into the hot vehemence of a man's desire while she was yet +unstrung and quivering from the emotional strain of the Swan-Maiden's +dance, every nerve of her quickened to a tingling sentience by the +underlying passion of the music. + +With an effort she wrenched herself out of his arms and ran from him +blindly into the furthest corner of the room. She had no clear idea of +making for the door, but only of getting away--anywhere--heedless of +direction. An instant later she was standing with her back to the +wall, leaning helplessly against the ancient tapestry that clothed it. +In that dim corner of the vast room her slim figure showed faintly +limned against its blurred greens and greys like that of some pallid +statue. + +"Go . . . go away!" she gasped. + +Davilof laughed triumphantly. Nothing could hold him now. The barriers +of use and habit were down irrevocably. + +"Go away?" he said. "No, I'm not going away." + +He strode straight across the space that intervened between them. She +watched his coming with dilated eyes. Her hands, palms downwards, were +pressed hard against the woven surface of the tapestry on either side +of her. + +As he approached she shrank back, her whole body taut and straining +against the wall. Then she bent her head and flung up her arms, +curving them to shield her face. Davilof could just see the rounded +whiteness of them, glimmering like pale pearl next the satin sheen of +night-black hair. + +With a stifled cry he sprang forward and gripped them in his strong, +supple hands, drawing them down inexorably. + +"Kiss me!" he demanded fiercely. "Magda, kiss me!" + +She shook her head, struggling for speech. + +"No!" she gasped. "No!" + +She glanced desperately round, but he had her hemmed in, prisoned +against the wall. + +"Kiss me!" he repeated unsteadily. "You--you'd better, Magda." + +"And if I don't?" she forced the words through her stiff lips. + +"But you will!" he said hoarsely. "You will!" + +There was a dangerous note in his voice. The man had got beyond the +stage to be played with. In the silence of the room Magda could hear +his laboured breathing, feel his heart leaping against her own soft +breast crushed against his. It frightened her. + +"You'll let me go if I do?" The words seemed to run into each other in +her helpless haste. + +"I'll let you go." + +"Very well." + +Slowly, reluctantly she lifted her face to his and kissed him. But the +touch of her lips on his scattered the last vestige of his self- +control. + +"My beloved . . . Beloved!" + +He seized her roughly in his arms. She felt his kisses overwhelming +her, burning against her closed eyelids, bruising her soft mouth and +throat. + +"I love you . . . worship you----" + +"Let me go!" she cried shrilly, struggling against him. "Let me go-- +you promised it!" + +He released her, drawing slowly back, his arms falling unwillingly +away from her. + +"Oh, yes," he muttered confusedly. "I did promise." + +The instant she felt his grip relax, Magda sprang forward and switched +on the centre burners, flooding the room with a blaze of light, and in +the sudden glare she and Davilof stood staring silently at each other. + +With the springing up of the lights it was as though a spell had +broken. The strained, hunted expression left Magda's face. She wasn't +frightened any longer. Davilof was no more the man whose sudden +passion had surged about her, threatening to break down all defences +and overwhelm her. He was just Davilof, her accompanist, who, like +half the men of her acquaintance, was more or less in love with her +and who had overstepped the boundary which she had very definitely +marked out between herself and him. + +She regarded him stormily. + +"Have you gone mad?" she asked contemptuously. + +He returned her look, his eyes curiously brilliant. Then he laughed +suddenly. + +"Mad?" he said. "Yes, I think I /am/ mad. Mad with love for you! +Magda"--he came and stood close beside her--"don't send me away! Don't +say you can't care for me! You don't love me now--but I could teach +you." His voice deepened. "I love you so much. Oh, sweetest!--/Soul/ +of me! Love is so beautiful. Let me teach you how beautiful it is!" + +Magda drew back. + +"No," she said. The brief negative fell clear and distinct as a bell. + +"I won't take no," he returned hotly. "I won't take no. I want you. +Good God! Don't you understand? My love for you isn't just a boy's +infatuation that you can dismiss with a word. It's all of me. I +worship you! Haven't I been with you day after day, worked with you, +followed your every mood--shared your very soul with you? You're mine! +Mine, because I understand you. You've shown me all you thought, all +you felt. You couldn't have done that if I hadn't meant something to +you." + +"Certainly you meant something to me. You meant an almost perfect +accompanist. Why should you have imagined you meant more? I gave you +no reason to think so." + +"/No reason/?" + +It was as though the two short words were the key which unlocked the +floodgates of some raging torrent. Magda could never afterwards recall +the words he used. She only knew they beat upon her with the cruel, +lancinating sharpness of hail driven by the wind. + +She had treated him much as other men, evoking the love of his ardent +temperament by that subtle witchery which was second nature to her and +which can be such a potent weapon in the hands of a woman whose own +emotions remain untouched. And now the thwarted passion of the lover +and the savage anger of a man who felt himself deceived and duped +broke over her in a resistless storm--an outburst so bitter and so +trenchant that for the moment she remained speechless before it, +buffeted into helpless, resentful silence. When he ceased, he had +stripped her of every rag of feminine defence. + +"Have you finished?" she asked in a stifled voice. + +She made no attempt to palliate matters or to refute anything he had +said. In his present frame of mind it would have been useless pointing +out to him that she had treated him no differently from other men. He +was a Pole, and he had caught fire where others would merely have +glowed smoulderingly. + +"Yes," he rejoined sullenly. "I've finished." + +"So much the better." + +He regarded her speculatively. + +"What are you made of, I wonder? Does it mean nothing to you that a +man has given you his very best--all that he has?" + +She appeared to reflect a moment. + +"I'm afraid it doesn't. There's only one thing really means much to me +--and that is my art. And Lady Arabella," she added after a pause. +"She'll always mean a good deal." + +She sat down by the fire and held out her hands to its warmth. The +slender fingers seemed almost transparent, glowing rosily in the +firelight. Davilof turned to go. + +"Good-bye, then," he said curtly. + +"Good-bye." Magda nodded indifferently. Then, carelessly: "I shall +want you to-morrow, Davilof--same time." + +He swung round. + +"I will never play for you again. Did you imagine I should?" + +She smiled at him--that slow, subtle smile of hers with its hint of +mockery. + +"You won't be able to keep away," she replied. + +"I will never play for you again," he repeated. "Never! I will teach +myself to hate you." + +She shook her head lightly. + +"Impossible, Davilof." + +"It's not impossible. There's very little difference between love and +hate--sometimes. And I want all or nothing." + +"I'm afraid it must be nothing, then." + +"We shall see. But if I can't have you, /I/ swear no other man shall!" + +She glanced up at him, lifting her brows a little. + +"Aren't you going too far, Antoine? You can hate me, if you like, or +love me--it's a matter of indifference to me which you do. But I don't +propose to allow you to arrange my life for me. And in any case"-- +after a moment--"I'm not likely to fall in love--with you or anyone +else." + +"You think not?" He stood looking down at her sombrely. "You'll fall +in love right enough some day. And when you do it will be all or +nothing with you, too. You're that kind. Love will take you--and break +you, Magda." + +He spoke slowly, with an odd kind of tensity. To Magda it seemed +almost as if his quiet speech held the gravity of prophecy, and she +shivered a little. + +"And when that time comes, then you'll come back to me," he added. + +Magda threw up her head, defying him. + +"You propose to be waiting round to pick up the pieces, then?" she +suggested nonchalantly. + +But only the sound of the closing door answered her. Davilof had gone. + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SWAN-MAIDEN + +Lady Arabella was in her element. She had two brilliant and unattached +young men dining with her--one, Michael Quarrington, a lion in the +artistic world, and the other, Antoine Davilof, who showed +unmistakable symptoms of developing sooner or later into a lion in the +musical world. + +It was Davilof who was responsible for the artist's presence at Lady +Arabella's dinner table. She had expressed--in her usual autocratic +manner--a wish that he should be presented to her, and had determined +upon the evening of the first performance of /The Swan-Maiden/ as the +appointed time. + +Davilof appeared doubtful, and declared that Quarrington was leaving +England and had already fixed the date of his departure. + +"He's crossing from Dover the very day before the one you want him to +dine with you," he told her. + +But Lady Arabella swept his objections aside with regal indifference. + +"Crossing, is he?" she snapped. "Well, tell him I want him to dine +here and go to the show with us afterwards. He'll cross the day +/after/, you'll find--if he crosses at all!" she wound up +enigmatically. + +So it came about that her two lions, the last-arrived artist and the +soon-to-arrive musician, were both dining with her on the appointed +evening. + +Lady Arabella adored lions. Also, notwithstanding her seventy years, +she retained as much original Eve in her composition as a girl of +seventeen, and she adored young men. + +In particular, she decided that she approved of Michael Quarrington. +She liked the clean English build of him. She liked his lean, square +jaw and the fair hair with the unruly kink in it which reminded her of +a certain other young man--who had been young when she was young--and +to whom she had bade farewell at her parents' inflexible decree more +than fifty years ago. Above all, she liked the artist's eyes--those +grey, steady eyes with their look of reticence so characteristic of +the man himself. + +Reticence was an asset in her ladyship's estimation. It showed good +sense--and it offered provocative opportunities for a battle of wits +such as her soul loved. + +"Have you seen my god-daughter dance, Mr. Quarrington?" she asked him. + +"Yes, several times." + +His tone was non-committal and she eyed him sharply. + +"Don't admire dancing, do you?" she threw at him. + +Quarrington regarded her with a humorous twinkle. + +"And I an artist? How can you ask, Lady Arabella?" + +"Well, you sounded supremely detached," she grumbled. + +"I think Mademoiselle Wielitzska's dancing the loveliest thing I have +ever seen," he returned simply. + +The old woman vouchsafed him a smile. + +"Thank you," she answered. "I enjoyed that quite as much as I used to +enjoy being told I'd a pretty dimple when I was a girl." + +"You have now," rejoined Quarrington audaciously. + +Lady Arabella's eyes sparkled. She loved a neatly turned compliment. + +"Thank you again. But it's a pity to waste your pretty speeches on an +old woman of seventy." + +"I don't," retorted the artist gravely. "I reserve them for the young +people I know of that age." + +She laughed delightedly. Then, turning to Davilof, she drew him into +the conversation and the talk became general. + +Later, as they were all three standing in the hall preparatory to +departure, she flashed another of her sudden remarks at Quarrington. + +"I understand you came to my god-daughter's rescue in that bad fog +last week?" + +The quiet grey eyes revealed nothing. + +"I was privileged to be some little use," he replied lightly. + +"I hardly gathered you regarded it as a privilege," observed her +ladyship drily. + +The shaft went home. A fleeting light gleamed for a moment in the grey +eyes. Davilof was standing a few paces away, being helped into his +coat by a man-servant, and Quarrington spoke low and quickly. + +"She told you?" he said. There was astonishment--resentment, almost-- +in his voice. + +"No, no." Lady Arabella, smiling to herself, reassured him hastily. +"It was a shot in the dark on my part. Magda never confides details. +She hands you out an unadorned slice of fact and leaves you to +interpret it as you choose. But if you know her rather well--as I do-- +and can add two and two together and make five or any unlikely number +of them, why, then you can fill in some of the blanks for yourself." + +She glanced at him with impish amusement as she moved towards the +door. + +"Come along, Davilof," she said. "I suppose you want to hear your own +music--even if Magda's dancing no longer interests you?" + +Davilof gave her his arm down the steps. + +"What do you mean, miladi?" he asked. "There is no more beautiful +dancing in the world." + +"Then why have you jacked up your job of accompanist? Shoes beginning +to pinch a little, eh?"--shrewdly. + +"You mean I grow too big for my boots? No, madame. If I were the +greatest musician in Europe, instead of being merely Antoine Davilof, +it could only be a source of pride to be asked to accompany the +Wielitzska." + +Lady Arabella paused on the pavement, her foot on the step of the +limousine. + +"Then how is it that Mrs. Grey accompanies her now? She was playing +for her at the Duchess of Lichbrooke's the other evening. + +"Magda didn't tell you, then?" + +"No, she didn't; or I'd not be wasting my breath in asking you. I +asked her, and she said you had taken to playing wrong notes." + +A faint smile curved the lips above the small golden beard. + +"Then it must be true. Undoubtedly I played wrong notes, miladi." + +"Very careless of you, I'm sure." Under the garish light of a +neighbouring street-lamp her keen old eyes met his significantly. "Or +--very imprudent, Davilof. You need the tact of the whole Diplomatic +Service to deal with Magda. And you ought to know it." + +"True, miladi. But I was not designed for diplomacy, and a man can +only use the weapons heaven has given him." + +"I wouldn't have suggested heaven as invariably the source of your +inspirations," retorted Lady Arabella. And hopped into the car. + +They arrived at the Imperial Theatre to find Mrs. Grey already seated +in Lady Arabella's box. Someone else was there, too--old Virginie, +with her withered-apple cheeks and bright brown, bird-like eyes, still +active and erect and very little altered from the Virginie of ten +years before. Just as she had devoted herself to Diane, so now she +devoted herself to Diane's daughter, and no first performance of a new +dance of the Wielitzska's took place without Virginie's presence +somewhere in the house. To-night, Lady Arabella had invited her into +her box and Virginie was a quivering bundle of excitement. She rose +from her seat at the back of the box as the newcomers entered. + +"Sit down, Virginie." Lady Arabella nodded kindly to the Frenchwoman. +"And pull your chair forward. You'll see nothing back there, and there +is plenty of room for us all." + +"/Merci, madame. Madame est bien gentille./" Virginie's voice was +fervent with ecstatic gratitude as she resumed her seat and waited +expectantly for Magda's appearance. + +Other dances, performed principally by lesser lights of the company +and affording only a briefly tantalising glimpse of Magda herself, +preceded the chief event of the evening. But at last the next item on +the programme read as /The Swan-Maiden (adapted from an Old Legend)/, +and a tremour of excitement, a sudden hush of eager anticipation, +rippled through the audience like wind over grass. + +Slowly the heavy silken curtains drew to either side of the stage, +revealing a sunlit glade. In the background glimmered the still waters +of a lake, while at the foot of a tree, in an attitude of tranquil +repose, lay the Swan-Maiden--Magda. One white, naked arm was curved +behind her head, pillowing it, the other lay lightly across her body, +palm upward, with the rosy-tipped fingers curled inwards a little, +like a sleeping child's. She looked infinitely young as she lay there, +her slender, pliant limbs relaxed in untroubled slumber. + +Lady Arabella, with Quarrington sitting next to her in the box, heard +the quick intake of his breath as he leaned suddenly forward. + +"Yes, it has quite a familiar look," she observed. "Reminds me of your +'Repose of Titania.'" + +His eyes flickered inquiringly over her face, but it was evident that +hers had been merely a chance remark. The old lady had obviously no +idea as to who it was who had posed for the Titania of the picture. +That was one of the "slices of fact" which Magda had omitted to hand +out when recounting her adventure in the fog to her godmother. +Quarrington leaned back in his chair satisfied. + +"It's not unlike," he agreed carelessly. + +Then the entrance of Vladimir Ravinski, the lovelorn youth of the +legend, riveted his attention on the stage. + +The dance which followed was exquisite. The Russian was a beautiful +youth, like a sun-god with his flying yellow locks and glorious +symmetry of body, and the /pas de deux/ between him and Magda was a +thing to marvel at--sweeping through the whole gamut of love's +emotion, from the first shy, delicate hesitancy of worshipping boy and +girl to the rapturous abandon of mated lovers. + +Then across the vibrant, pulsating scene fell the deadly shadow of the +witch Ritmagar. The stage darkened, the violins in the orchestra +skirled eerily in chromatic showers of notes, and the hunched figure +of Ritmagar approaching menaced the lovers. A wild dance followed, the +lovers now kneeling and beseeching the evil fairy to have pity on +them, now rushing despairingly into each other's arms, while the +witch's own dancing held all of threat and malevolence that superb +artistry could infuse into it. + +The tale unfolded itself with the inevitableness of preordained +catastrophe. + +Ritmagar declines to be appeased. She raises her claw-like hand, +pointing a crooked finger at the lovers, and with a clash of brazen +sound and the dull thrumming of drums the whole scene dissolves into +absolute darkness. When the darkness lifts once more, the stage is +empty save for a pure white swan which sails slowly down the lake and +disappears. . . . Followed a solo dance by Ravinski in which he gave +full vent to the anguish of the bereft lover, while now and again the +swan swam statelily by him. At length the witch appeared once more +and, yielding to his impassioned entreaties, declared that the Swan- +Maiden might reassume her human form during the hour preceding sunset, +and Magda--the Swan-Maiden released from enchantment for the time +being--came running in on the stage. + +This love-duet was resumed and presently, when the lovers had made +their exit, Ritmagar was seen gleefully watching while the red sun +dropped slowly down the sky, sinking at last below the rim of the +lake. + +Then a low rumble of drums muttered as she stole from the stage, the +personification of vindictive triumph, and all at once the great +concourse of people in the auditorium seemed to strain forward, +conscious that the climax of the evening, the wonderful solo dance by +the Wielitzska, was about to begin. + +The moon rose on the left, and Magda, a slim white figure in her dress +which cleverly suggested the plumage of a swan, floated on to the +stage with that exquisite, ethereal lightness of movement which only +toe-dancing--and toe-dancing of the most perfectly finished quality-- +seems able to convey. It was as though her feet were not touching the +solid earth at all. The feather-light drifting of blown petals; the +swaying grace of a swan as it glides along the surface of the water; +the quivering, spirit-like flight of a butterfly--it seemed as though +all these had been caught and blended together by the dancer. + +The heavier instruments of the orchestra were silenced, but the +rippling music of the strings wove and interwove a dreaming melody, +unutterably sweet and appealing, as the Swan-Maiden, bathed in pallid +moonlight, besought the invisible Ritmagar for mercy, praying that she +might not die even though the sun had set. . . . But there comes no +answer to her prayers. A sombre note of stern denial sounds in the +music, and the Swan-Maiden yields to utter despair, drooping slowly to +earth. Just as Death himself claims her, her lover, demented with +anguish, comes rushing to her side, and turning towards him as she +lies dying upon the ground, she yields to his embrace with a last +gesture of passionate surrender. + + + +Slowly the heavy curtains swung together, hiding the limp, lifeless +body of the Swan-Maiden and the despairing figure of her lover as he +knelt beside her, and after a breathless pause, the great audience, +carried away by the tragic drama of the dance, its passion and its +pathos, broke into a thunder of applause that rolled and reverberated +through the theatre. + +Again and again Magda and her partner were called before the curtain, +the former laden with the sheafs of flowers which had been handed up +on to the stage. But the audience refused to be satisfied until at +last Magda appeared alone, standing very white and slender under the +blaze of lights, a faint suggestion of fatigue in the poise of her +lissome figure. + +Instantly the applause broke out anew--thunderous, overwhelming. Magda +smiled, then held out her arms in a little disarming gesture of +appeal, touching in its absolute simplicity. It was as though she +said: "Dear people, I love you all for being so pleased, but I'm very, +very tired. Please, won't you let me go?" + +So they let her go, with one final round of cheers and clapping, and +then, as the curtains fell together once more and the orchestra slid +unobtrusively into the /entr'acte/ music, a buzz of conversation +arose. + +Michael Quarrington turned and spoke to Davilof as they stood +together. + +"This will be my last memory of England for some time to come. +Mademoiselle Wielitzska is very wonderful. As much actress as dancer-- +and both rather superlatively." + +There was an odd note in Quarrington's voice, as if he were forcibly +repressing some less measured form of words. + +Davilof glanced at him sharply. + +"You think so?" he said curtly. + +The musician's hazel eyes were burning feverishly. One hand was +clenched on the back of the chair from which he had just risen; the +other hung at his side, the fingers opening and shutting nervously. + +Quarrington smiled. + +"Don't you?" + +The eyes of the two men met, and Michael became suddenly conscious +that the other was struggling in the grip of some strong emotion. He +could even sense its atmosphere of antagonism towards himself. + +"I think"--Davilof spoke with slow intensity--"I think she's a +soulless piece of devil's mechanism." And turning abruptly, he swung +out of the box, slamming the door behind him. + +Quarrington frowned. With his keen perceptions it was not difficult +for him to divine what lay at the back of Davilof's bitter criticism. +The man was in love--hopelessly in love with the Wielitzska. Probably +she had turned him down, as she had turned down better men than he, +but he had been unable to resist the bitter-sweet temptation of +watching her dance, and throughout the evening had almost certainly +been suffering the torments of the damned. + +The artist smiled a little grimly to himself, remembering the many +evenings he, too, had spent at the Imperial Theatre, drawn thither by +the magnetism of a white, slender woman with night-black hair, whose +long, dark eyes haunted him perpetually, even coming between him and +his work. + +And then, just as he had made up his mind to go away, first to Paris +and afterwards to Spain or perhaps even further afield, and thus set +as many miles of sea and land as he could betwixt himself and the +"kind of woman he had no place for," fate had played him a trick and +sent her out of the obscurity of the fog-ridden street straight to his +very hearth and home, so that the fragrance and sweetness and charm of +her must needs linger there to torment him. + +He thought he could make a pretty accurate guess at the state of +Davilof's feelings, and was ironically conscious of a sense of +fellowship with him. + +Lady Arabella's sharp voice cut across his reflections. + +"I don't care for this next thing," she said, flicking at her +programme. "Mrs. Grey and I are going round to see Magda. Will you +come with us?" + +Quarrington had every intention of politely excusing himself. Instead +of which he found himself replying: + +"With pleasure--if Mademoiselle Wielitzska won't think I'm intruding." + +Lady Arabella chuckled. + +"Well, she intruded on you that day in the fog, didn't she? So you'll +be quits." She glanced impatiently round the box. "Where on earth has +Davilof vanished to? Has he gone up in flame?" + +Michael laughed involuntarily. + +"Something of the kind, I fancy," he replied. "Anyway, he departed +rather hurriedly." + +"Poor Antoine!" Gillian spoke with a kind of humorous compassion. "He +has a temperament. I'm glad I haven't." + +"You have the best of all temperaments, Mrs. Grey," answered Michael, +as they both followed Lady Arabella out of the box. + +She looked at him inquiringly. + +"The temperament that understands other people's temperaments," he +added. + +"How do you know?" she asked, smiling. + +Lady Arabella was prancing on ahead down the corridor, and for the +moment Michael and Gillian were alone. + +"We artists learn to look for what lies below the surface. If your +work is sincere, you find when you've finished a portrait that the +soul of the sitter has revealed itself unmistakably." + +Gillian nodded. + +"I've been told you've an almost diabolical genius for expressing just +what a man or woman is really like--in character, I mean--in your +portraits." + +"I can't help it," he said simply. "It comes--it reveals itself--if +you paint sincerely." + +"And do you--always paint sincerely?" + +He laughed. + +"I try to. Though once I got hauled over the coals pretty sharply for +doing so. My sitter happened to be a pretty society woman, possessed +of about as much soul as would cover a threepenny-bit, and when I'd +finished her portrait she simply turned and rent me. 'I wanted a +taking picture,' she informed me indignantly, 'not the bones of my +personality laid bare for public inspection.'" + +They were outside Magda's dressing-room by this time, and Virginie, +who had flown to her nurseling the moment the dance was at an end, +opened the door in response to Lady Arabella's preemptory knock. +Gillian paused a moment before entering the room. + +"Yours is a wonderful gift of perception," she said quietly. "It ought +to make you--very merciful." + +Michael looked at her swiftly. Her eyes seemed to be asking something +of him--entreating. But before he could speak Lady Arabella's voice +interposed remorselessly. + +"Come in, you two; and for goodness' sake shut the door. There's +draught enough to waft one to heaven." + +There was no choice but to obey, and silently Quarrington followed +Mrs. Grey into the room. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MICHAEL CHANGES HIS MIND + +Magda's dressing-room at the Imperial Theatre was something rather +special in the way of dressing-rooms. It had been designed expressly +for her by the management, and boasted a beautifully appointed +bathroom adjoining it where she could luxuriate in a refreshing dip +immediately after the strain and fatigue of her work on the stage. + +She had been very firm about the bathroom, airily dismissing a +plaintive murmur from the manager to the effect that they were +"somewhat crowded for space at the Imperial." + +"Then take another theatre, my dear man," she had told him. "Or build! +Or give the /corps de ballet/ one less dressing-room amongst them. But +if you want /me/, I must have a bathroom. If I dance, I bathe +afterwards. If not, I don't dance." + +Being a star of the first magnitude, the Wielitzska could dictate her +own terms, and accordingly a bathroom she had. + +She had just emerged from its white-tiled, silver-tapped luxury a few +minutes before Lady Arabella, together with Gillian and Michael +Quarrington, presented themselves at her dressing-room door, and they +found her ensconced in an easy-chair by the fire, sipping a cup of +steaming hot tea. + +"I've brought Mr. Quarrington to see you," announced Lady Arabella. "I +thought perhaps you'd like some other congratulations besides family +ones." + +"Am I permitted?" asked Quarrington, taking the hand Magda held out to +him. "Or are you too tired to be bothered with an outsider?" + +Magda looked up at him. + +"I've very glad to see you," she said quietly. + +She appeared unwontedly sweet and girlish as she sat there, clad in a +negligee of some soft silken stuff that clung about the lissom lines +of her figure, and with her satiny hair coiled in a simple knot at the +nape of her neck. There was little or nothing about her to remind one +of the successful ballerina, and Michael found himself poignantly +recalling the innocent, appealing charm of the Swan-Maiden. It was +difficult to associate this woman with that other who had so +unconsciously turned down his pal--the man who had loved her. + +"Well? Did it go all right?" + +Magda's eyes sought Gillian's eagerly as she put the question. + +"Did it go?" Mrs. Grey's voice held all the unqualified enthusiasm any +artiste could desire. + +"Oh, Magda! It was wonderful! The most wonderful, beautiful dance I've +ever seen." + +"And you know it as well as we do," interpolated Lady Arabella tartly, +but smiling pridefully in spite of herself. + +"Still, of course, she likes to hear us /say/ it." Gillian championed +her friend stoutly. + +"The whole world will be saying it to-morrow," observed Quarrington +quietly. + +Here Virginie created a diversion by handing round cups of freshly +brewed tea. + +"You'll get nerves--drinking tea at this hour of the night," commented +Lady Arabella, accepting a cup with alacrity, nevertheless. + +"I take it very weak," protested Magda, smiling faintly. "It's the +only thing I like after dancing." + +But Lady Arabella was already deep in conversation with Gillian and +Virginie--a conversation which resolved itself chiefly into a +laudatory chorus regarding the evening's performance. In the +background Magda's maid moved quietly to and fro, carefully putting +away her mistress's dancing dresses. For the moment Michael and Magda +were to all intents and purposes alone. + +"I shall not easily forget to-night," he said rather low, drawing a +chair up beside her. + +"You liked it, then?" she asked hesitatingly--almost shyly. + +"'Like' is hardly the word." + +Magda flashed him a swift glance. + +"And yet," she said slowly, "I'm the 'type of woman you hate.'" + +"You make it rather difficult to maintain the point of view," he +admitted. + +She was silent a moment. + +"You were very unkind to me that day," she said at last. + +Their eyes met and in hers was something soft and dangerously +disarming. Quarrington got up suddenly from his chair. + +"Perhaps I was unkind to you so that I might not be unkind to myself," +he replied curtly. + +Magda's soft laugh rippled out. + +"But how selfish! And--and aren't you being rather mysterious?" + +"Am I?" he returned pointedly. "Surely self-preservation is the first +instinct of the human species?" + +She picked up the challenge and tossed it lightly back to him. + +"Is the danger, then, very great?" + +"I think it is. So, like a wise man, I propose to avoid it." + +"How?" + +"Why, by quitting the danger zone. I go to Paris to-morrow." + +"To Paris?" + +Magda experienced a sudden feeling of blankness. It was inexplicable, +but somehow the knowledge that Quarrington was going away seemed to +take all the savour out of things. It was only by a supreme effort +that she contrived to keep her tone as light and unconcerned as his +own as she continued: + +"And then--after Paris?" + +"After Paris? Oh, Spain possibly. Or the Antipodes!"--with a short +laugh. + +"Who's talking about the Antipodes?" suddenly chimed in Lady Arabella. +"Home to bed's my next move. Gillian, you come with me--the car can +take you on to Hampstead after dropping me in Park Lane. And Virginie +can drive back with Magda." + +"Yes, do go with Marraine," said Magda, nodding acquiescence in reply +to Gillian's glance of interrogation. "I have to dress yet." + +There was a general move towards the door. + +"Good-bye"--Magda's slim hand lay for a moment in Quarrington's. "I-- +I'm sorry you're going away, Saint Michel." + +Only Michael heard the last two words, uttered in that /trainante/, +slightly husky voice that held so much of music and appeal. He turned +abruptly and made his way out of the room in the wake of Gillian and +Lady Arabella. + +"You'd better postpone your visit to the Antipodes, Mr. Quarrington," +said the latter, as presently they all three stood together in the +vestibule, halted by the stream of people pouring out from the +theatre. "I'm giving a dinner-party next week, with a 'crush' to +follow. Stay and come to it." + +"It's awfully kind of you, Lady Arabella, but I'm afraid it's +impossible." + +"Fiddlesticks! You're a free agent, aren't you?"--looking at him +keenly. + +A whimsical light gleamed for an instant in the grey eyes. + +"I sometimes wonder if I am," he returned. + +"There's only one cord I know of that can't be either unknotted--or +cut. And that's lack of money. That's not your complaint"-- +significantly. + +"No." + +"So you'll come?" + +"I'm afraid not." + +"Magda has promised to dance for me," proceeded Lady Arabella, +entirely disregarding his quietly uttered negative. "They're not +giving /The Swan-Maiden/ that night at the Imperial. She can't dine, +of course, poor dear. Really, dancers have a lot to put up with--or +rather, to put up /without/! Magda never dares to enjoy a good square +meal. Afraid of getting fat, of course! After all, a dancer's figure's +her fortune." + +Like a low, insistent undertone beneath the rattle of Lady Arabella's +volubility Michael could hear again the murmur of a soft, dragging +voice: "I'm sorry you're going away, Saint Michel." + +It seemed almost as though Lady Arabella, with that uncanny shrewdness +of hers, divined it. + +"You'll come, then?" She smiled at him over her shoulder, moving +forward as the crush in the vestibule lessened a little. + +And Michael, with an odd expression in his eyes, answered suddenly: + +"Yes, I'll come." + + + +Later, as Lady Arabella and Gillian drove home together, the former +laughed quietly. There was an element of pride and triumph in the +laughter. Probably the hen who has reared a duckling and sees it sail +off into the water experiences, alongside her natural apprehension and +astonishment, a somewhat similar pride in the startling proclivities +evinced by her nurseling. + +"That nice artist-man is in love with Magda," crowed Lady Arabella +contentedly. + +Gillian smiled. + +"Do you think so?" + +"I do. Only it's very much against his will, for some reason or other. +Crossing from Dover to-morrow, forsooth!"--with a broad smile. "Not +he! He'll be at my party--and asking Magda to marry him before the +week's out, bar accidents! . . . After all, it's not surprising that +the men are falling over each other to marry her. She's really rather +wonderful. Where do you think she gets it all from, Gillian, my dear? +Not from the Vallincourts, I'll swear!"--chuckling. + +Mrs. Grey shook her head. + +"I don't know. But I think Magda is a standing argument in favour of +the doctrine of reincarnation! She always seems to me to be a kind of +modern embodiment of Helen of Troy or Cleopatra." + +"Only without the capacity for falling in love! She's as chilly as an +iceberg and yet somehow gives you the idea she's all fire and passion. +No wonder the men get misled, poor lambs!" + +"She's not cold, really," asserted Gillian positively. "Of that I'm +sure. No one could dance as she does--and be an iceberg." + +Lady Arabella chuckled again, wickedly. + +"A woman who can dance like that ought to be preceded through life by +a red flag. She positively stirs my old blood--that's been at a +comfortably tepid temperature for the last thirty years!" + +"Some day," said Gillian, "she'll fall in love. And then--" + +"Then there'll be fireworks." + +Lady Arabella completed the sentence briskly just as the car pulled up +in front of her house. She skipped nimbly out on to the pavement. + +"Fireworks, my dear," she repeated emphatically. "And a very fine +display, too! Good-night." + +The car slid away north with Gillian inside it reflecting rather +ruefully upon the very great amount of probability contained in Lady +Arabella's parting comment. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE GARDEN OF EDEN + +Lady Arabella's big rooms were filling rapidly. The dinner to which +only a few of the elect had been bidden was over, and now those who +had been invited to the less exclusive reception which was to follow +were eagerly wending their way towards Park Lane. + +The programme for the evening promised to be an attractive one. A solo +from Antoine Davilof, Lady Arabella's pet lion-cub of the moment; a +song from the leading operatic tenor; and afterwards a single dance by +the Wielitzska--who could never be persuaded to perform at any other +private houses than those of her godmother and the Duchess of +Lichbrooke--the former's half sister. So, in this respect, Lady +Arabella enjoyed almost a monopoly, and such occasions as the present +were enthusiastically sought after by her friends and acquaintances. +Later, when the artistes had concluded their programme, there was to +be a dance. The ballroom, the further end of which boasted a fair- +sized stage, had been temporarily arranged with chairs to accommodate +an audience, and in one of the anterooms Virginie, with loving, +skilful fingers, was putting the finishing touches to Magda's +toilette. + +Magda submitted passively to her ministrations. She was thinking of +Michael Quarrington, the man who had come into her life by such +strange chance and who had so deliberately gone out of it again. By +the very manner of his going he had succeeded in impressing himself on +her mind as no other man had ever done. Other men did not shun her +like the plague, she reflected bitterly! + +But from the very beginning he had shown her that he disapproved of +her fundamentally. She was the "type of woman he hated!" Night and day +that curt little phrase had bitten into her thoughts, stinging her +with its quiet contempt. + +She felt irritated that she should care anything about his opinion. +But if she were candid with herself she had to admit that she did +care, intensely. More than that, his departure from England had left +her conscious of an insistent and unaccountable little ache. The +knowledge that there could be no more chance meetings, that he had +gone right out of her ken, seemed like the sudden closing of a door +which had just been opening to her. It had somehow taken the zest out +of things. + +"Voila!" Virginie drew back to survey the results of her labours, +turning for approval to Gillian, who was in attendance in her capacity +of accompanist. "Is it not that mademoiselle looks ravishing?" + +"Quite ravishing, Virginie," agreed Gillian. "Did you expect her to +look anything else by the time you had finished decking her out?" she +added teasingly. + +"It is nothing that I do," responded the old Frenchwoman seriously. +"Mademoiselle cannot help but be beautiful to the eye--/le bon dieu/ +has created her like that." + +"I believe He has," assented Gillian, smiling. + +As she spoke the bell of the telephone instrument on the table beside +her rang imperatively and she lifted the receiver. Magda, watching her +face as she took the message, saw it suddenly blanch. + +"Coppertop! . . . He's ill!" she gasped. + +"Ill?" Magda could hardly credit it. Two hours ago they had left the +child in perfect health. + +"Yes." Gillian swallowed, moistening her dry lips. "They've sent for +the doctor. It's croup. Oh!"--despairingly, and letting the receiver +fall unheeded from her grasp--"What am I to do? What am I to do?" + +Magda stepped forward, the filmy draperies of the dress in which she +was to dance floating cloudily about her as she moved. She picked up +the receiver as it hung dangling aimlessly from the stand and replaced +it on its clip. + +"Do?" she said quietly. "Why, you'll go straight home, of course. As +quickly as the car can take you. Virginie"--turning to the maid--"fly +and order the car round at once." + +Gillian looked at her distractedly. + +"But you? Who'll play for you? I can't go! I can't leave you!" Her +voice was shaken by sobs. "Oh, Coppertop!" + +Magda slipped a comforting arm round her shoulder. + +"Of course you'll go--and at once, too. See, here's your coat"-- +lifting it up from the back of the chair where Gillian had thrown it. +"Put it on." + +Hardly conscious of what was happening, Gillian allowed herself to be +helped into the coat. Suddenly recollection returned. + +"But your dance--your dance, Magda? You've forgotten!" + +Magda shook her head. + +"No. It will be all right," she said soothingly. "Don't worry, +Gillyflower. /You've/ forgotten that Davilof is playing here +to-night." + +"Antoine?" Gillian stared at her incredulously. "But you can't ask him +to play for you! You'd hate asking him a favour after--after his +refusal to accompany you any more." + +Magda smiled at her reassuringly. + +"My dear," she said, and there was an unaffected kindliness in her +voice which few people ever heard. "My dear, I'm not going to let a +little bit of cheap pride keep you away from Coppertop." + +She bent suddenly and kissed Gillian's white, miserable face just as +Virginie reappeared in the doorway to announce that the car was +waiting. + +"There, run along. Look, would you like to take Virginie with you?" + +"No, no." Gillian shook her head decidedly. "I shall be quite all +right. Oh, Magda!"--impulsively drawing the slender figure close into +her arms a moment. "You are /good/!" + +Magda laughed a trifle bitterly. + +"That would be news to the world at large!" she replied. Then +cheerfully: "Now, don't worry, Gillyflower. Remember they've got a +doctor there. And 'phone me presently about Coppertop. If he's worse, +I'll come home as early as I can get away. Send the car straight back +here." + +As soon as Gillian had gone, Magda flung a loose wrap over her +diaphanous draperies and turned to Virginie. + +"Where is Monsieur Davilof? Do you know?" + +"/Mais oui, mademoiselle/! I saw him through the doorway as I came +from ordering the car. He is in the library." + +"Alone?" + +"/Oui, mademoiselle/!" Virginie nodded eloquently. "He smokes a +cigarette--to steady the nerves, I suppose." + +Magda went swiftly out of the room. She reached the hall by way of an +unfrequented passage and slipped into the library closing the door +behind her. + +"Antoine!" + +At the sound of her voice Davilof, who had been standing by the fire, +wheeled round. + +"You!" he exclaimed violently. "You!" And then remained silent, +staring at her. + +"You knew I was dancing here to-night," she said chidingly. "Why are +you so startled? We were bound to meet, weren't we?" + +"No, we were not. I proposed leaving the house the moment my solo was +over." + +Magda laughed a little. + +"So afraid of me, Antoine?" she mocked gently. + +He made no answer, but his hands, hanging at his sides, clenched +suddenly. + +Magda advanced a few steps towards him and paused. + +"Davilof," she said quietly. "Will you play for me to-night?" + +He looked at her, puzzled. + +"Play for you?" he repeated. "But you have Mrs. Grey." + +"No. She can't accompany me this evening." + +"And you ask me?" His voice held blank amazement. + +"Yes. Will you do it?" + +"Do you remember what I told you the last time we met? That I would +never play for you again?" + +Magda drew her breath slowly. It was hurting her pride far more than +Gillian knew or could imagine to ask a favour of this man. And he +wasn't going to make it easy for her, either--that was evident. But +she must ask it, nevertheless. For Gillian's sake; for the sake of +poor little Coppertop fighting for breath and with no "mummie" at hand +to help and comfort him; and for the sake of Lady Arabella, too. After +promising to dance for her she couldn't let her godmother down by +crying off at the last moment, when all the world and his wife had +come crowding to her house on the strength of that promise. + +So she bent her head in response to Davilof's contemptuous question. + +"Yes, I remember," she said quietly. + +"And you still ask me to play for you?" + +"I still ask you." + +Davilof laughed. + +"You amaze me! And supposing I reply by saying I refuse?" + +"But you won't," dared Magda. + +Davilof's eyes held something of cruelty in their hazel depths as he +answered quietly: + +"On the contrary--I do refuse." + +Her hand went up to her throat. It was going to be more difficult than +she had anticipated! + +"There is no one else who can play for me as you do," she suggested. + +"No," fiercely. "Because no one loves you as I do." + +"What is the use of saying you love me when you won't do the one +little thing I ask?" she retorted. "It is not often that I ask +favours. And--and no one has ever refused me a request before." + +Davilof could hear the note of proud resentment in her voice, and he +realised to the full that, in view of all that had passed between them +in the Mirror Room, it must have been a difficult matter for a woman +of Magda's temperament to bring herself to ask his help. + +But he had no intention of sparing her. None but himself knew how +bitterly she had hurt him, how cruelly she had stung his pride, when +she had flung him that contemptuous command: "I shall want you +to-morrow, Davilof!--same time." He had unveiled his very soul before +her--and in return she had tossed him an order as though he were a +lackey who had taken a liberty. All his pain and brooding resentment +came boiling up to the surface. + +"If I meant anything to you," he said slowly, "if you had even looked +upon me as a friend, you could have asked what you liked of me. But +you showed me once--very clearly--that in your eyes I was nothing more +than your paid accompanist. Very well, then! Pay me--and I'll play for +you to-night." + +"Pay you?" + +"Oh, not in money"--with a short laugh. + +"Then--then what do you mean?" Her face had whitened a little. + +"It's quite simple. Later on there is a dance. Give me a dance with +you!" + +Magda hesitated. In other circumstances she would have refused point- +blank. Davilof had offended her--and more than that, the revelation of +the upsettingly vehement order of his passion for her that day in the +Mirror Room had frightened her not a little. There was something +stormy and elemental about it. To the caloric Pole, love was love, and +the fulfilment of his passion for the adored woman the supreme +necessity of life. + +Realising that she had to withstand an ardour essentially unEnglish in +its violently inflammable quality, Magda was loth to add fuel to the +flame. And if she promised to dance with Davilof she must let him hold +her in his arms, risk that dangerous proximity which, she knew now, +would set the man's wild pulses racing unsteadily and probably serve +as the preliminary to another tempestuous scene. + +"Well?" Davilof broke in upon her self-communings. "Have I asked too +high a price?" + +Time was flying. She must decide, and decide quickly. She took her +courage in both hands. + +"No," she returned quickly. "I will dance with you, Antoine." + +He bowed. + +"Our bargain is complete, then," he said ironically. "I shall be +charmed to play for you, mademoiselle." + + + +An hour or so later the last burst of applause had died away, and the +well-dressed crowd which had sat in enthralled silence while the +Wielitzska danced emerged chattering and laughing from the great +ballroom. + +Their place was immediately taken by deft, felt-slippered men, who +proceeded swiftly to clear away the seats and the drugget which had +been laid to protect the surface of the dancing floor. In the +twinkling of an eye, as it were, they transformed what had been to all +intents and purposes a concert-hall into a flower-decked ballroom, +while the members of the band engaged for the dance began climbing +agilely into their allotted places on the raised platform preparatory +to tuning up for the evening's work. + +Magda, released at last from Virginie's worshipfully careful hands, +came slowly down the main staircase. She was in black, diaphanous and +elusive, from which her flower-pale face and shoulders emerged like a +water-lily starring the dark pool on which it floats. A crimson rose +glowed just above her heart--that and her softly scarlet lips the only +touches of colour against the rare black-and-white loveliness of her. + +She was descending the stairs reluctantly, mentally occupied in +screwing up courage to fulfil her promise to Davilof. A 'phone message +from Friars' Holm had come through saying that Coppertop was better. +All danger was passed and there was no longer any need for her to +return early. So it remained, now, for her to keep her pact with the +musician. + +As she rounded the last bend in the staircase, she saw that a man was +standing with bent head at the foot of the stairs, apparently waiting +for someone, and she threw a quick, nervous glance in the direction of +the motionless figure, thinking it might be Davilof himself. It would +be like his eager impatience to await her coming there. Then, as the +lights gleamed on fair, crisply waving hair she realised that the man +was Michael--Michael, whom she believed to be on his way to Spain! + +Perhaps it was merely chance, or perhaps it was at the direct +inspiration of Lady Arabella, but, whatever may have been the cause, +Gillian had not confided to Magda that Quarrington was to be at her +godmother's reception. The sudden, totally unexpected meeting with +him--with this man who had contrived to dominate her thoughts so +inexplicably--startled a little cry of surprise from her lips. She +drew back abruptly, and then--quite how it happened she could not +tell--but she missed her footing and fell. + +For the fraction of a second she experienced a horrible sensation of +utter helplessness to save herself; then Michael's arms closed round +her as he caught her before she reached the ground. + +The shock of the fall stupefied her for a moment. She lay against his +breast like a terrified child, clinging to him convulsively. + +"It's all right," he murmured soothingly. "You're quite safe." + +Unconsciously his arms tightened round her. His breath quickened. The +satin-soft hair had brushed his cheek as she fell; the pale, exquisite +face and warm white throat lay close beneath his lips--all the +fragrant beauty of her gathered unresisting against his heart. He had +only to stoop his head---- + +With a stifled exclamation he jerked himself backward, squaring his +shoulders, and released her, though he still steadied her with a hand +beneath her arm. + +"There, you are all right," he said reassuringly. "No bones broken." + +The commonplace words helped to restore her poise. + +"Oh! Thank you!" The words came a little gaspingly still. "I--I don't +know how I came to fall like that. I think you startled me--I didn't +expect to see you here." + +"I didn't expect to be," he returned, smiling a little. + +Magda did not ask how it had come to pass. For the moment it was +enough for her that he /was/ there--that he had not gone away! She was +conscious of a sudden incomprehensible sense of tumult within her. + +"It was lucky for me you happened to be standing just at the foot of +the stairs," she said a little unsteadily. + +"I didn't 'happen.' I was there of /malice prepense/"--the familiar +crooked smile flashed out--"waiting for you." + +"Waiting for me?" + +"Yes. Lady Arabella asked me to shepherd you into the supper-room and +see that you had a glass of champagne and a sandwich before the +dancing begins." + +"Orders from headquarters?"--smiling up at him. + +"Exactly." + +He held out his arm and they moved away together. As they passed +through the crowded rooms one man murmured ironically to another: + +"Quarrington's got it badly, I should say." + +The second man glanced after the pair with amused eyes. + +"So he's the latest victim, is he? I head young Raynham's nose was out +of joint." + +"You don't mean she's fired him?" + +The other nodded. + +"Got the push the day before yesterday," he answered tersely. + +"Poor devil! He'll take it hard. He's a hotheaded youngster. Just the +sort to go off and blow his brains out." + +Meanwhile Quarrington had established Magda at a corner table in the +empty supper-room and was seeing to it that Lady Arabella's commands +were obeyed, in spite of Magda's assurances that she was not in the +least hungry. + +"Then you ought to be," he replied. "After dancing. Besides, unlike +the rest of us, you had no dinner." + +"Oh, I had a light meal at six o'clock. But naturally, you can't +consume a solid dinner just before giving a performance." + +"I'm not going to pay you compliments about your dancing," he observed +quietly, after a pause. "You must receive a surfeit of them. But"-- +looking at her with those direct grey eyes of his--"I'm glad I didn't +leave England when I intended to." + +"Why didn't you?" she asked impulsively. + +He laughed. + +"Because it's so much easier to yield to temptation than to resist," +he answered, not taking his eyes from her face. + +She flushed a little. + +"What was the temptation?" she asked uncertainly. + +He waited an instant, then answered with deliberation: + +"The temptation of seeing you again." + +"I should have thought you disapproved of me far too much for that to +be the case! Saint Michel, don't you think you're rather hard on me?" + +"Am I? I had an old-fashioned mother, you see. Perhaps my ideas about +women are out of date." + +"Tell me them." + +He regarded her reflectively. + +"Shall I? Well, I like to think of a woman as something sweet and +fragrant, infinitely tender and compassionate--not as a marauder and +despoiler. Wherever she comes, the place should be the happier for her +coming--not bereft by it. She should be the helper and healer in this +battered old world. That's the sort of woman I should want my wife to +be; that's the sort of woman my mother was." + +"And you think I'm--not like that? I'm the marauder, I suppose?" + +He remained silent, and Magda sat with her bent head, fingering the +stem of her wine-glass restlessly. + +"You like my dancing?" she said at last. + +"You know I do." + +"Well"--she looked at him with a mixture of defiance and appeal. "My +dancing is me--the real me." + +He shook his head. + +"You're not the 'Swan-Maiden,' whose love was so great that she forgot +everything except the man she loved--and paid for it with her life." + +"The process doesn't sound exactly encouraging," she retorted with a +flash of dry humour. "But how do you know I'm not--like that?" + +"How do I know? Because, if you knew anything at all about love, you +couldn't pay with it as you do. Even the love you've no use for is the +biggest thing the poor devil who loves you has to offer you; you've no +right to play battledore and shuttlecock with it." + +He spoke lightly, but Magda could hear the stern accusation that +underlay the words. She rose from the table abruptly. + +"I think," she said, "I think I'm afraid of love." + +As she spoke, she made a movement as though to quit the supper-room, +but, either by accident or design, Michael barred her way. + +"Love," he said, watching her face intently, "means sacrifice-- +surrender." + +"And you believe I'm not capable of it?" + +"I think," he replied slowly, drawing aside to let her pass, "I think +I'm afraid to believe." + +Something in the deep tones of his voice sent a thrill of +consciousness through her. She felt her breath come and go unevenly +and, afraid to trust herself to speak, she moved forward without +response in the direction of the door. A moment later they were drawn +into the stream of people wending their way by twos and threes towards +the ballroom. + +As they entered, Antoine Davilof broke away from a little group of men +with whom he had been conversing and came to Magda's side. + +"The next dance is just beginning," he said. "Are you engaged? Or may +I have it?" + +"No, I'm not engaged," she answered. + +She spoke flurriedly. She was dreading this dance with Antoine. She +felt as though the evening had drained her of her strength and left +her unequal to a battle of wills should Antoine prove to be in one of +his hotheaded moods. + +She glanced round her with a hint of desperation in her eyes. If only +Michael had asked her to dance with him instead! But he had bowed and +left her as soon as the musician joined them, so that there was no +escape to be hoped for that way. + +Davilof was watching her curiously. + +"I believe," he said, "that you're afraid to dance with me!" + +On an impulse she answered him with perfect candour. + +"I believe I am." + +"Then why did you promise? You did promise, you know." + +"I know. I promised. I promised because Coppertop had croup and they +had telephoned down for his mother to go to him. And you wouldn't +accompany me unless I gave you this dance. So I promised it." + +Davilof's eyes held a curiously concentrated expression. + +"And you did this so that Mrs. Grey could go to her little boy--to +nurse him?" + +Magda inclined her head. + +"Yes," she said simply. + +"But you hated asking me--/loathed/ it!" + +"Yes," she said again. + +He was silent for a moment. Then he drew back from her. "That was +kind. Extraordinarily kind," he commented slowly. His expression was +one of frank amazement. "I did not believe you could be so kind--so +womanly." + +"Womanly?" she queried, puzzled. + +"Yes. For is not a woman--a good woman--always ready to sacrifice +herself for those she loves?" + +Magda almost jumped. It was as though she were listening to an echo of +Quarrington's own words. + +"And you sacrificed yourself," continued Davilof. "Sacrificed your +pride--crushed it down for the sake of Mrs. Grey and little Coppertop. +Mademoiselle"--he bowed gravely--"I kiss your hands. And see, I too, I +can be generous. I release you from your promise. I do not claim that +dance." + +If any single thing could have astonished Magda more than another, it +was that Davilof should voluntarily, in the circumstances, renounce +the dance she had promised him. It argued a fineness of perception and +a generosity for which she would never have given him credit. She felt +a little warm rush of gratitude towards him. + +"No, no!" she cried impulsively, "you shan't give up your dance." +Then, as he still hesitated: "I should /like/ to dance with you-- +really I should, Antoine. You've been so--so /decent/." + +Davilof's face lit up. He looked radiant--like a child that has been +patted on the back and told it is good. + +"No wonder we are all in love with you!" he exclaimed in low, vehement +tones; adding quickly, as he detected a flicker of apprehension in +Magda's eyes: "But you need not fear to dance with me. I will be as +your brother--I will go on being 'decent.'" + +And he was. He danced as perfectly as any of his music-loving +nationality can dance, but there was a restraint, a punctilious +deference about him that, even while it amazed, availed to reassure +Magda and restore her shaken confidence in the man. + +She did not realise or suspect that just those two simple actions of +hers--the good turn she had done Gillian at some considerable cost to +herself in the matter of personal pride, and her quick recognition of +the musician's sense of fair play in renouncing his dance with her +when he knew the circumstances which had impelled her to promise it-- +these two things had sufficed to turn Davilof's heady, emotional +devotion into something more enduring and perhaps more dangerous, an +abiding, deeply rooted love and passion for her which was stronger +than the man himself. + +He left the house immediately after the conclusion of his dance with +her, and Magda was speedily surrounded by a crowd of would-be +partners. But she felt disinclined to dance again, and, always chary +of her favours in this respect, she remained watching the dancing in +preference to taking any part in it, exchanging small-talk with the +men who, finding she could not be induced to reconsider her decision, +clustered round her chair like bees round a honey-pot. + +It was towards the end of the evening that Michael Quarrington finally +joined the group. Magda's eyes rested on him with a mixture of +annoyance and approval--annoyance because she had expected him to ask +her for a dance quite early in the course of the programme and he had +failed to do so, and approval because he was of that clean-cut, fair- +haired type of man who invariably contrives to look particularly well- +groomed and thoroughbred in evening kit. + +She had no intention of permitting him to request a dance at this late +hour, however, and rose from her seat as he approached. + +"Ah! You, Mr. Quarrington?" she said gaily. "I am just going home. +It's been a charming evening, hasn't it?" + +"Charming," he rejoined courteously. "May I see you to your car?" + +He offered his arm and Magda, dismissing her little court of +disgruntled admirers with a small gracious nod, laid her slim hand on +his sleeve. As they moved away together the orchestra broke into the +swinging seductive rhythm of a waltz. + +Quarrington paused abruptly. + +"Don't go yet!" he said. "Dance this with me." + +His voice sounded strained and uneven. It was as though the words were +dragged from him without his own volition. + +For an instant the two pairs of eyes met--the long, dark ones with +their slumbrous fire brooding beneath white lids, and the keen, hawk- +like grey ones. Then: + +"Very well," she answered a trifle breathlessly. + +She was almost glad when the waltz came to an end. They had danced it +in utter silence--a tense, packed silence, vibrant with significances +half-hidden, half-understood, and she found herself quivering with a +strange uncertainty and nervousness as she and Quarrington together +made their way into the dim-lit quiet of the winter-garden opening off +the ballroom. + +Overhead the green, shining leaves of stephanotis spread a canopy, +pale clusters of its white, heavy-scented bloom gleaming star-like in +the faint light of Chinese lanterns swung from the leaf-clad roof. +From somewhere near at hand came the silvery, showering plash of a +fountain playing--a delicate and aerial little sound against the +robust harmonies of the band, like the notes of a harp. + +It seemed to Magda as though she and Michael had left the world behind +them and were quite alone, enfolded in the sweet-scented, tender +silence of some Garden of Eden. + +They stood together without speaking. In every tingling nerve of her +she was acutely conscious of his proximity and of some rapidly rising +tide of emotion mounting within him. She knew the barrier against +which it beat and a little cry escaped her, forced from her by some +impulse that was stronger than herself. + +"Oh, Saint Michel! Can't you--can't you believe in me?" + +He swung round at the sound of her voice and the next moment she was +crushed against his breast, his mouth on hers, his kisses burning +their way to her very heart. . . . + +Then voices, quick, light footsteps--someone else had discovered the +Eden of the winter-garden, and Michael released her abruptly. + + + +Behind the chimneystacks the grey fingers of dawn were creeping up in +the sky as Magda drove home. In the wan light her face looked +unusually pale, and beneath the soft lace at her breast her heart +throbbed unevenly. + +Five minutes ago Michael had held her in his arms and she had felt +herself stirred to a sudden passionate surrender and response that +frightened her. + +Was this love--the love against which Diane had warned her? It had all +happened so suddenly--that last, unpremeditated dance, those tense, +vibrant moments in the winter-garden, then the jarring interruption of +other couples seeking its fragrant coolness. And she and Michael +suddenly apart. + +Afterwards, only the barest conventionalities had passed between them. +Nothing else had seemed possible. Their solitude had been ruthlessly +destroyed; the outside world had thrust itself upon them without +warning, jerking them back to the self-consciousness of suddenly +arrested emotion. + +"I must be going." The stilted, banal little phrase had fallen +awkwardly from Magda's lips, and Quarrington had assented without +comment. + +She felt confused and bewildered. What had he meant? Had he meant +anything at all? Was it possible that he believed in her now--trusted +her? It had been in answer to that low, imploring cry of hers--"/Saint +Michel, can't you believe in me?/"--that he had taken her in his arms. + +Looking out through the mist-blurred window at the pale streamers of +dawnlight penciling the sky, Magda's eyes grew wistful--wonderingly +questioning the future. Was she, too, only waiting for the revelation +of dawn--the dawn of that mysterious thing called love which can +transmute this everyday old world of ours into heaven or hell? + + + +Gillian was at the door to welcome her when at length the car pulled +up at Friars' Holm. She looked rather white and there were purple +shadows under her eyes, but her lips smiled happily. + +"Coppertop? How is he?" asked Magda quickly. + +"Sleeping, thank God! He's safe now! But--oh, Magda! It's been awful!" + +And quite suddenly Gillian, who had faced Death and fought him with a +dogged courage and determination that had won the grave-eyed doctor's +rare approval, broke down and burst into tears. + +Magda petted and soothed her, until at last her sobs ceased and she +smiled through her tears. + +"I /am/ a fool!" she said, dabbing at her eyes with a moist, screwed- +up ball of something that had once been a cambric handkerchief. "But +I've quite recovered now--really. Come and tell me about everything. +Did Davilof play for you all right? And did you enjoy the dance +afterwards? And, oh, I forgot! There's a letter for you on the +mantelpiece. It was delivered by hand while we were both at Lady +Arabella's." + +Mechanically, as she responded to Gillian's rapid fire of questions, +Magda picked up the square envelope propped against the clock and slit +open the flap. It was probably only some note of urgent invitation-- +she received dozens of them. An instant later a half-stifled cry broke +from her. Gillian turned swiftly. + +"What is it?" she asked, a note of apprehension sharpening her voice. + +Magda stared at her dumbly. Then she held out the letter. + +"Read it," she said flatly. "It's from Kit Raynham's mother." + +Gillian's eyes flew along the two brief lines of writing: + + + "Kit has disappeared. Do you know where he is?-- + ALICIA RAYNHAM." + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE FIRST REAPING + +At breakfast, some hours later, Magda was in a curiously petulant and +uncertain mood. To some extent her fractiousness was due to natural +reaction after the emotional excitement of the previous evening. +Granted the discovery of the Garden of Eden, and add to this the +almost immediate intrusion of outsiders therein--for everybody else is +an "outsider" to the pair in possession--and any woman might be +forgiven for suffering from slightly frayed nerves the following day. +And in Magda's case she had been already rather keyed up by finding +the preceding few days punctuated by unwelcome and unaccustomed +happenings. + +They all dated from the day of the accident which had befallen her in +the fog. It almost seemed as though that grey curtain of fog had been +a symbol of the shadow which was beginning to dog her footsteps--the +shadow which stern moralists designate "unpleasant consequences." + +First there had been Michael Quarrington's plain and candid utterance +of his opinion of her. Then had followed Davilof's headlong wooing and +his refusal, when thwarted, to play for her again. He, too, had not +precisely glossed things over in that tirade of accusation and +reproach which he had levelled at her! + +And now, just when it seemed as though she had put these other ugly +happenings behind her, Kit Raynham, who for the last six months had +been one of the little court of admirers which surrounded her, had +seen fit to complicate matters by vanishing without explanation; while +his mother, in an absurd maternal flurry of anxiety as to what had +become of him, must needs write to her as though it inevitably +followed that she was responsible for his disappearance! + +Magda was conscious of an irritated sense of injury, which Gillian's +rather apprehensive little comments on the absence of further news +concerning young Raynham scarcely tended to allay. + +"Oh, don't be tiresome, Gillian!" she exclaimed. "The boy's all right. +I expect he's been having a joy-day--which has prolonged itself a +bit." + +"It seems he hasn't been seen or heard of since the day before +yesterday," responded Gillian gravely. "They're afraid he may--may +have committed suicide"--she brought out the word with a rush. +"They've been dragging the lake at his home." + +Magda flared. + +"Where did you hear all this--this nonsense? You said nothing about it +last night." + +"Lady Raynham told me. She rang up half an hour ago--before you were +down--to ask if by any chance we had had any news of him," replied +Gillian gently. + +Magda pushed away her plate and, leaving her breakfast unfinished, +moved restlessly across to the window. + +"There's nothing about it in this morning's paper, is there?" she +asked. Her tone sounded apprehensive. + +Gillian's eyes grew suddenly compassionate. + +"Yes. There is--something," she returned, laying her hand quickly over +the newspaper as though to withhold it. + +But Magda swung round and snatched it from her. Gillian half rose from +her chair. + +"Don't look--don't read it, Magda!" she entreated hastily. + +The other made no response. Instead, she deliberately searched the +columns of the paper until she found a paragraph headed: Disappearance +of the Honourable Kit Raynham. + +No exception could reasonably be taken to the paragraph in question. +It gave a brief resume of Kit Raynham's short life up to date, +referred to the distinguished career which had been predicted for him, +and, in mentioning that he was one of the set of brilliant young folks +of whom Magda Wielitzska, the well-known dancer, was the acknowledged +leader, it conveyed a very slightly veiled hint that he, in +particular, was accounted one of her most devoted satellites. The +sting of the paragraph lay in its tail: + + + "It will be tragic indeed if it should eventually transpire that a + young life so full of exceptional promise has foundered in seas + that only a seasoned swimmer should essay." + + +It was easy enough for Magda to read between the lines. If anything +had happened to Kit Raynham--if it were ultimately found that he had +taken his own life--society at large was prepared to censure her as +more or less responsible for the catastrophe! + +Side by side with this paragraph was another--a panegyric on the +perfection of Wielitzska's dancing as a whole, and dwelling +particularly upon her brilliant performance in /The Swan-Maiden/. + +To Magda, the juxtaposition of the two paragraphs was almost +unendurable. That this supreme success should be marred and +overshadowed by a possible tragedy! She flung the newspaper to the +ground. + +"I think--I think the world's going mad!" she exclaimed in a choked +voice. + +Gillian looked across at her. Intuitively she apprehended the mental +conflict through which her friend was passing--the nervous +apprehension and resentment of the artiste that any extraneous +happening should infringe upon her success contending with the genuine +regret she would feel if some untoward accident had really befallen +Kit Raynham. And behind both these that strange, aloof detachment +which seemed part of the very fibre of her nature, and which Gillian +knew would render it almost impossible for her to admit or even +realise that she was in any way responsible for Kit Raynham's fate-- +whatever it might be. + +Of what had taken place in the winter-garden at Lady Arabella's +Gillian was, of course, in ignorance, and she had therefore no idea +that the intrusion of Kit Raynham's affairs at this particular +juncture was doubly unwelcome. But she could easily see that Magda was +shaken out of her customary sang-froid. + +"Don't worry, Magda." The words sprang consolingly to her lips, but +before she could give them utterance Melrose opened the door and +announced that Lady Raynham was in the library. Would Mademoiselle +Wielitzska see her? + +The old man's face wore a look of concern. They had heard all about +the disappearance of Lady Raynham's son in the servants' hall--the +evening papers had had it. Moreover, it always seems as though there +exists a species of wireless telepathy by which the domestic staff of +any household, great or small, speedily becomes acquainted with +everything good, bad, or indifferent--and particularly bad!--which +affects the folks "above-stairs." + +A brief uncomfortable pause succeeded Melrose's announcement; then +Magda walked quietly out of the room into the library. + +Lady Raynham rose from a low chair near the fire. She was a little, +insignificant woman, rather unfashionably attired, with neat grey hair +and an entirely undistinguished face, but as she stood there, +motionless, waiting for Magda to come up to her, she was quite +unconsciously impressive--transformed by that tragic dignity with +which great sorrow invests even the most commonplace of people. + +Her thin, middle-aged features looked drawn and puckered by long hours +of strain. Her eyes were red-rimmed with sleeplessness. They searched +Magda's face accusingly before she spoke. + +"What have you done to my son?" + +"Where is he?" Magda's answering question came in almost breathless +haste. + +"You don't know!" + +Lady Raynham sat down suddenly. Her legs were trembling beneath her-- +had been trembling uncontrollably even as she nerved herself to stand +and confront the woman at whose door she laid the ruin of her son. But +now the spurt of nervous energy was exhausted, and she sank back into +her chair, thankful for its support. + +"I don't know where he is," she said tonelessly. "I don't even know +whether he is alive or dead." + +She fumbled in the wrist-bag she carried, and withdrawing a crumpled +sheet of notepaper held it out. Magda took it from her mechanically, +recognising, with a queer tightening of the muscles of her throat, the +boyish handwriting which sprawled across it. + +"You want me to read this?" she asked. + +"You've /got/ to read it," replied the other harshly. "It is written +to you. I found it--after he'd gone." + +Her gaze fastened on Magda's face and clung there unwaveringly while +she read the letter. + +It was a wild, incoherent outpouring--the headlong confession of a +boy's half-crazed infatuation for a beautiful woman. A pathetic enough +document in its confused medley of passionate demand and boyish +humbleness. The tragic significance of it was summed up in a few lines +at the end--lines which seemed to burn themselves into Magda's brain: + + + "I suppose it was cheek my hoping you could ever care, but you were + so sweet to me you made me think you did. I know now that you + don't--that you never really cared a brass farthing, and I'm going + right away. The same world can't hold us both any longer. So I'm + going out of it." + + +Magda looked up from the scrawled page and met the gaze of the sad, +merciless eyes that were fixed on her. + +"Couldn't you have left him alone?" Lady Raynham spoke in a low, +difficult voice. "You have men enough to pay you compliments and run +your errands. I'd only Kit. Couldn't you have let me keep him? What +did you want with my boy's love. You'd nothing to give him in return?" + +"I had!" protested Magda indignantly. "You're wrong. I was very fond +of Kit. I gave him my friendship." + +Her indignation was perfectly sincere. To her, it seemed that Lady +Raynham was taking up a most unwarrantable attitude. + +"Friendship?" repeated the latter with bitter scorn. "Friendship? Then +God help the boys to whom you give it! Before Kit ever met you he was +the best and dearest son a woman could have had. He was keen on his +work--wild to get on. And he was so gifted it looked as if there were +nothing in his profession that he might not do. . . . Then you came! +You turned his head, filled his thoughts to the exclusion of all else +--work, duty, everything that matters to a lad of two-and-twenty. You +spoilt his chances--spoilt his whole life. And now I've lost him. I +don't know where he is--whether he is dead or alive." She paused. "I +think he's dead," she said dully. + +"I'm sorry if--" + +"Sorry!" Lady Raynham interrupted hysterically. Her composure was +giving way under the strain of the interview. "Sorry if my son has +taken his own life--" + +"He hasn't," asserted Magda desperately. "He was far too sensible and +--and ordinary." + +"Yes. Till you turned his head!" + +Lady Raynham rose and walked towards the door as though she had said +all she came to say. Magda sprang to her feet. + +"I won't--I won't be blamed like this!" she exclaimed rebelliously. +"It's unfair! Can I help it if your son chose to fall in love with me? +You--you might as well hold me responsible because he is tall or +short--or good or bad!" + +The other stopped suddenly on her way to the door as though arrested +by that last defiant phrase. + +"I do," she said sternly. "It's women like you who are responsible +whether men are good--or bad." + +In silence Magda watched the small, unassuming figure disappear +through the doorway. She felt powerless to frame a reply, nor had Lady +Raynham waited for one. If her boy were indeed dead--dead by his own +hand--she had at least cleared his memory, laid the burden of the mad, +rash act he had committed on the shoulders that deserved to bear it. + +Normally a shy, retiring kind of woman, loathing anything in the +nature of a scene, the tragedy which had befallen her son had inspired +Alicia Raynham with the reckless courage of a tigress defending its +young. And now that the strain was over and she found herself once +more in her brougham, driving homeward with the familiar clip-clop of +the fat old carriage-horse's hoofs in her ears, she shrank back +against the cushions marvelling at the temerity which had swept her +into the Wielitzska's presence and endowed her with words that cut +like a two-edged sword. + +Like a two-edged sword in very truth! Lady Raynham's final thrust, +stabbing at her with its stern denunciation, brought back vividly to +Magda Michael Quarrington's bitter speech--"I've no place for your +kind of woman." + +Side by side with the recollection came a sudden dart of fear. How +would all this stir about Kit Raynham--the impending gossip and +censure which seemed likely to be accorded her--affect him? Would he +judge her again--as he had judged her before? + +She was conscious of a fresh impulse of anger against Lady Raynham. +She wanted to forget the past--blot it all out of her memory--and out +of the memory of the man whose contempt had hurt her more than +anything in her whole life before. And now it seemed as though +everything were combining to emphasise those very things which had +earned his scorn. + +But, apart from a certain apprehension as to how the whole affair +might appear in Michael's eyes, she was characteristically unimpressed +by her interview with Lady Raynham. + +"I don't see," she told Gillian indignantly, "that I'm to blame +because the boy lost his head. His mother was--stupid." + +Gillian regarded her consideringly. To her, the whole pitiful tragedy +was so clear. She could envisage the point of view of Kit's mother +only too well, and sympathise with it. Yet, understanding Magda better +than most people did, she realised that the dancer was hardly as +culpable as Lady Raynham thought her. + +Homage and admiration were as natural to Magda as the air she +breathed, and it made very little impression on her whether a man more +or less lost his heart to her or not. Moreover, as Gillian recognised +it was almost inevitable that this should be the case. The influences +by which Magda had been surrounded during the first ten plastic years +of childhood had all tended to imbue her with the idea that men were +only to be regarded as playthings, and that from the simple standpoint +of self-defence it was wiser not to take them seriously. If you did, +they invariably showed a disposition to become tyrants. Gillian made +allowance for this; nevertheless she had no intention of letting Magda +down lightly. + +"I believe you were created without a soul," she informed her +candidly. + +Magda smiled a little. + +"Do you know you're the second person to tell me that?" she said. "The +idea's not a bit original. Michael Quarrington told me the same thing +in other words. Perhaps, perhaps it's true." + +"Of course, it's not true!" Gillian contradicted her warmly. "I only +said it because I was so out of patience with you." + +"Everybody seems to be hating me rather badly just now." Magda spoke +somewhat forlornly. "And yet--I don't think I'm any different from +usual." + +"I don't think you are," retorted Gillian. "But it's your 'usual' +that's so disastrous. You go sailing through life like a beautiful +cold star--perfectly impassive and heartless." + +"I'm not heartless. I love you--and Marraine. You surely don't blame +me because I don't 'fall in love'? . . . I don't /want/ to fall in +love," she added with sudden vehemence. + +"I wish to goodness you would!" exclaimed Gillian impatiently. "If +only you cared enough about anybody to do something really outrageous +--run off with another woman's husband, even--I believe I should +respect you more than I do now." + +Magda laughed. + +"Gillyflower, I'm afraid you've no morals. And you here in the +capacity of watchdog and duenna, too!" + +"It's all very well to make a joke of everything. But I know--I'm sure +this business about Kit Raynham is going to be more serious than you +think. It's bound to affect you." + +Magda stared at her blankly. + +"What nonsense! Affect me--why should it? How can it?" + +"How can it?"--with bitterness. "Everyone will talk--more than usual! +You can't smash up people's only sons--not lovable, popular boys like +Kit--without there being a fuss. You--you should have left a kid like +that alone." + +And she went out of the room, banging the door behind her like a big +full-stop. + + + +Gillian's prophecy proved only too accurate. People did talk. Kit +Raynham had been a general favourite in society, and his +disappearance, taken in conjunction with the well-known fact of his +infatuation for Magda, created a sensation. + +Even when the theory of suicide was finally disproved by his mother's +receiving a letter from Australia, whither it appeared, the boy had +betaken himself and his disappointment, people seemed at first +disinclined to overlook Magda's share in the matter. For a time even +her immense prestige as a dancer suffered some eclipse, but this, with +a performer of her supreme artistry, was bound to be only a passing +phase. + +The world will always condone where it wants to be amused. And--now +that the gloom of young Raynham's supposed suicide was lifted from the +affair--there was a definite aroma of romance about it which was not +without its appeal to the younger generation. + +So that gradually the pendulum swung back and Magda's audiences were +once again as big and enthusiastic as ever. Perhaps even more +enthusiastic, since the existence of a romantic and dramatic +attachment sheds a certain glamour about any well-known artiste. + +All of which affected Magda herself comparatively little--though it +irritated her that her actions should be criticised. What did affect +her, however, absorbing her thoughts to the exclusion of all other +matters, was that since the night of Lady Arabella's reception she had +received neither word nor sign from Michael Quarrington. + +She could not understand it. Had he been a different type of man she +might have credited him with having yielded to a sudden impulse, +kissing her as some men will kiss women--lightly and without giving or +asking more than the moment's caress. + +But Quarrington was essentially not the man to be carried away by a +passing fancy. That he had cared for her against his will, against his +better judgment, Magda could not but realise. /But he had cared!/ She +was sure of it. And he was the only man for whom her own pulses had +ever beaten one whit the faster. + +His touch, the sound of his voice, the swift, hawk-like glance of +those grey eyes of his, had power to wake in her a vague tumult of +emotion at once sweet and frightening; and in that brief moment in the +"Garden of Eden," when he had held her in his arms, she had been +tremulously ready to yield--to surrender to the love which claimed +her. + +But the days had multiplied to weeks and still the silence which had +followed remained unbroken. As far as Magda was concerned, Michael +seemed to have walked straight out of her life, and she was too proud +--and too much hurt--to inquire amongst her friends for news of him. +It was her godmother who finally tersely enlightened her as to his +whereabouts. + +Characteristically, Lady Arabella had withheld her judgment regarding +the Kit Raynham affair until it was found that he had betaken himself +off to Australia. But when the whole of the facts were evident, she +allowed nothing--neither the romantic dreams of the episode nor her +own warm affection for her god-daughter--to obscure her clear-sighted +vision. + +Magda twisted her slim shoulders irritably when taken to task. + +"I think I'm tired of being blamed for Kit Raynham's idiocy," she +said, a note of resentment in her voice. "No one seems to consider my +side of the question! I was merely nice to him in an ordinary sort of +way, and there wasn't the least need for him to have chucked up +everything and rushed off to the other side of the world like that. +/I/ couldn't help it!" + +Lady Arabella made a gesture of despair. + +"I don't believe you could," she acknowledged helplessly. "I'm really +beginning to have a sneaking sympathy with poor Hugh for shelving the +responsibility of having brought you into the world. But at least you +might refrain from baby-snatching!" she added wrathfully. + +Magda protested. + +"Marraine! You're abominable! Kit is four-and-twenty if he's a day. +And I'm barely twenty." + +"That has nothing whatever to do with it," retorted Lady Arabella +incisively. "Kit is a babe in arms, while you--you're as old as Eve." +She paused. "Anyway, you've broken his heart and driven him to the +ends of the earth." + +"Where he'll probably paste together the pieces and offer the repaired +article to someone else." + +Lady Arabella looked up sharply. Cynicism was usually far enough away +from Magda. She was too full of the joy of life and of the genuine +delight an artist finds in his art to have place for it. Egoist she +might be, with the unthinking egotism of youth, irresponsible in her +gay acceptance of the love and admiration showered on her, but there +was nothing bitter or sour in her composition. Lady Arabella, seeking +an explanation for the unwonted, cast her mind back on the events of +the last few weeks--and smiled to herself. + +"I suppose you know you've driven someone else out of England besides +Kit Raynham?" she said. + +"Whom do you mean?" + +Magda spoke mechanically. A faint colour crept up under her white +skin, and she avoided her godmother's keen gaze. + +"That charming artist-man--Michael Quarrington." + +"Has--he left England?" Magda's throat felt suddenly parched. Then +with an effort she went on: "You're surely not going to put the entire +steamship's passenger list down to me, Marraine?" + +"Only those names for which I happen to know you're responsible." + +"You don't know about Saint Mi--about Mr. Quarrington. It's mere +guesswork on your part." + +"Most of the things we really know in life are mere guesswork," +replied Lady Arabella sagely. "But in this case----" + +"Yes. In this case?" + +There was a long pause. Then Lady Arabella answered slowly: + +"In this case I'm speaking from first-hand information." + +Magda's slender figure tautened. She moistened her lips. + +"Do you mean that Mr. Quarrington told you he was leaving England on +my account?" she asked. + +"I don't often meddle, Magda--not really meddle." Lady Arabella's +voice sounded unusually deprecating. "But I did in this instance. +Because--oh, my dear, he's the only man I've ever seen to whom I'd be +glad to give you up. He'd--he'd manage you, Magda." + +Magda's head was turned away, but the sudden scarlet flush that flew +up into her face surged over even the white nape of her neck. + +"And he loves you," went on Lady Arabella, her voice softening +incredibly. "It's only a man here or there who really /loves/ a woman, +my dear. Most of them whip up a hotch-potch of quite commonplace +feelings with a dash of passion and call it love, while all they +actually want is a good housekeeper and presentable hostess and +someone to carry on the name." + +No answer came from Magda, unless a stifled murmur could be regarded +as such, and after a few minutes Lady Arabella spoke again, irritably. + +"Why couldn't you have left Kit alone?" + +Magda raised her head. + +"What has that to do with it?" + +"Everything"--succinctly. "I told you I meddled. Michael Quarrington +came to see me before he went away--and I know precisely why he left +England. I asked him to go and see you before he sailed." + +"What did he say?" The words were almost inaudible. + +Lady Arabella hesitated. Then she quoted quickly: "'There is no need. +She will understand.'" + +To Magda the brief sentence held all the finality of the bolting and +barring of a door. So Quarrington, like everyone else, had heard the +story of Kit Raynham! And he had judged and sentenced her. + +That night in the winter-garden he had been on the verge of trusting +her, ready to believe in her, and she had vowed to herself that she +would prove worthy of his trust. She had meant never to fall short of +all that Michael demanded in the woman he loved. And now, before she +had had a chance to justify his hardly-won belief, the past had risen +up to destroy her, surging over her like a great tidal wave and +sweeping away the whole fabric of the happiness she had visioned. + +She had not wholly realised before that she loved. But she knew now. +As the empty weeks dragged along she learned what it meant to long for +the beloved one's presence--the sound and touch of voice or hand--with +an aching, unassuagable longing that seems to fuse body and soul into +a single entity of pain. + +Outwardly she appeared unchanged. Her pride was indomitable, and +exactly how much Michael's going had meant to her not even Gillian +suspected--though the latter was too sensitive and sympathetic not to +realise that Magda had passed through some experience which had +touched her keenly. Ignorant of the incidents that had occurred on the +night of Lady Arabella's party, she was disposed to assign the +soreness of spirit she discerned in her friend to the general +happenings which had followed from the Raynham episode. And amongst +these she gave a certain definite place to the abrupt withdrawal of +Quarrington's friendship, and resented it. She felt curiously +disappointed in the man. With such fine perceptive faculty as he +possessed she would have expected him to be more tolerant--more +merciful in his judgment. + +Once she had tentatively approached the subject, but Magda had clearly +indicated that she had no intention of discussing it. + +Not even to Gillian, whom she had gradually come to look upon as her +closest friend, could Magda unveil the wound to her pride. No one, no +one in the whole world, should know that she had been ready to give +her love--and that the offering had been silently, but none the less +decisively, rejected. + +Diane's warning now found its echo in her own heart: "Never give your +heart to any man. If you do he will only break it for you--break it +into little pieces like the glass scent-bottle which you dropped +yesterday." + +"She was right," Magda told herself bitterly. "A thousand times +right!" + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE BACK OF BEYOND + +The season was drawing to its close. London lay sweltering under a +heat-wave which had robbed the trees in the Park of their fresh June +greenness and converted the progress of foot-passengers along its +sultry pavements into something which called to mind the mediaeval +ordeal of walking over hot ploughshares. + +Even the garden at Friars' Holm, usually a coolly green oasis in the +midst of the surrounding streets, seemed as airless as any back court +or alley, and Coppertop, who had been romping ever more and more +flaggingly with a fox-terrier puppy he had recently acquired, finally +gave up the effort and flung himself down, red-faced and panting, on +the lawn where his mother and Magda were sitting. + +"Isn't it nearly time for us to go to the seaside, mummie?" he +inquired plaintively. + +Magda smiled down at the small wistful face. + +"How would you like to go to the country instead, Topkins?" she asked. +"To a farm where they have pigs and horses and cows, and heaps of +cream--" + +"And strawberries?" interpolated Coppertop pertinently. + +"Oh, of course. Or, no--they'll be over by the time we get there. But +there'll be raspberries. That's just as good, isn't it?" + +Gillian looked up, smiling a little. + +"It's settled we're going 'there,' then--wherever it is?" she said. + +"Do you think you'd like it, Gillyflower?" asked Magda. "It's a farm +I've heard of in Devonshire, where they want to take paying-guests for +the summer." + +Gillian, guessing from Magda's manner that the whole matter was +practically arranged, nodded acquiescence. + +"I'm sure I should. But will /you/?"--whimsically. She glanced at the +sophisticated simplicity of Magda's white gown, at the narrow suede +shoes and filmy stockings--every detail of her dress and person +breathing the expensiveness and luxury and highly specialised +civilisation of the city. "Somehow I can't imagine you--on a farm in +the depths of the country! I believe you'll hate it." + +"I shall like it." Magda got up restlessly. "I'm sick of society and +the theatre and the eternal gossip that goes on in London. I--I want +to get away from it all!" + +Gillian's thoughts turned back to the happenings of the last few +months. She thought she understood what lay behind Magda's sudden +decision to bury herself in the country. + +"Have you taken rooms at this farm?" she asked. + +"Yes, I have"--shortly. Then, with one of those sudden flashes of +affectionate insight which were part of her essential lovableness, she +went on: "Gilly, are you sure you don't mind? I ought to have asked +you first"--remorsefully. "I expect you'll be bored to death. Perhaps +you'd rather not come?" + +Gillian's quiet brown eyes smiled at her reassuringly. + +"'Where thou goest--'" she quoted. "Of course I want to come. I've +never been to Devonshire. And I know Coppertop will adore the pigs and +cows--" + +"And cream," put in Coppertop ruminatively. + +"Tell me about the place," said Gillian. "How did you hear of it?" + +"Through the prosaic columns of the /Daily Post/," replied Magda. "I +didn't want a place recommended by anyone I knew. That doesn't cut the +connecting line one bit. Probably the people who've recommended it to +you decide to look you up in their car, just when you think you're +safely buried, and disinter you. I don't /want/ to be disinterred. I +propose to get right away into the country, out of reach of everybody +we know, for two months. I shan't give our address to anyone except +Melrose, and he can forward on all letters." A small amused smile +crossed her lips. "Then we can answer them or not, exactly as we feel +disposed. It will be heavenly." + +"Still I don't know where this particular paradise is which you've +selected," returned Gillian patiently. + +"It's at the back of beyond--a tiny village in Devonshire called +Ashencombe. I just managed to find it on the Ordnance map with a +magnifying glass! The farm itself is called Stockleigh and is owned +and farmed by some people named Storran. The answer to my letter was +signed Dan Storran. Hasn't it a nice sound--Storran of Stockleigh?" + +"And did you engage the rooms on those grounds, may I ask? Because the +proprietor's name 'had a nice sound'?" + +Magda regarded her seriously. + +"Do you know, I really believe that had a lot to do with it," she +acknowledged. + +Gillian went off into a little gale of laughter. + +"How like you!" she exclaimed. + + + +The train steamed fussily out of Ashencombe station, leaving Magda, +Gillian, and Coppertop, together with sundry trunks and suitcases, in +undisputed possession of the extremely amateurish-looking platform. +Magda glanced about her with amusement. + +"What a ridiculous little wayside place!" she exclaimed. "It has a +kind of 'home-made' appearance, hasn't it? You'd hardly expect a real +bona fide train to stop here!" + +"This your luggage, miss?" + +A porter--or, to be accurate, /the/ porter, since Ashencombe boasted +but one--addressed her abruptly. From a certain inimical gleam in his +eye Magda surmised that he had overheard her criticism. + +"Yes." She nodded smilingly. "Is there a trap of any kind to meet us?" + +Being a man as well as a porter he melted at once under Magda's +disarming smile, and replied with a sudden accession of amiability. + +"Be you going to Stockleigh?" he asked. The soft sing-song intonation +common to all Devon voices fell very pleasantly on ears accustomed to +the Cockney twang of London streets. + +"Yes, to Storran of Stockleigh," announced Coppertop importantly. + +The porter's mouth widened into an appreciative grin. + +"That's right, young master, and there's the wagonette from the Crown +and Bells waiting to take you there." + +A few minutes later, the luggage precariously piled up on the box-seat +beside the driver, they were ambling through the leafy Devon lanes at +an unhurried pace apparently dictated by the somewhat ancient +quadruped between the shafts. The driver swished his whip negligently +above the animal's broad back, but presumably more with the idea of +keeping off the flies than with any hope of accelerating his speed. +There would be no other train to meet at Ashencombe until the down +mail, due four hours later, so why hurry? No one ever appears to be in +a hurry in the leisurely West Country--a refreshing characteristic in +a world elsewhere so perforated by tubes and shaken by the ubiquitous +motor-bus. + +Magda leaned back in the wagonette with a sigh of pleasure. The +drowsy, sunshiny peace of the July afternoon seemed very far removed +from the torrid rush and roar of the previous day in London. + +It was almost like entering another world. Instead of the crowded, +wood-paved streets, redolent of petrol, this winding ribbon of a lane +where the brambles and tufted grass leaned down from close-set hedges +to brush the wheels of the carriage as it passed. Overhead, a restful +sky of misty blue flecked with wisps of white cloud, while each +inconsequent turn of the narrow twisting road revealed a sudden +glimpse of distant purple hills, or a small friendly cottage built of +cob and crowned with yellow thatch, or high-hedged fields of standing +corn, deepening to gold and quiveringly still as the sea on a windless +afternoon. + +At last the wagonette swung round an incredibly sharp turn and rumbled +between two granite posts--long since denuded of the gate which had +once swung between them--pulling up in front of a low, two-storied +house, which seemed to convey a pleasant sense of welcome, as some +houses do. + +The casement windows stood wide open and through them you caught +glimpses of white curtains looped back with lavender ribbons. Roses, +pink and white and red, nodded their heads to you from the walls, even +peering out impertinently to catch the sun from beneath the eaves of +the roof, whose thatch had mellowed to a somber brown with wind and +weather. Above the doorway trails of budding honeysuckle challenged +the supremacy of more roses in their summer prime, and just within, in +the cool shadow of the porch, stood a woman's slender figure. + +Gillian never forgot that first glimpse of June Storran. She looked +very simple and girlish as she stood there, framed in the rose-covered +trellis of the porch, waiting with a slight stir of nervousness to +receive the travellers. The sunlight, filtering between the leaves of +the honeysuckle, dappled her ash-blond hair with hovering flecks of +gold, and a faint, shy smile curved her lips as she came forward, a +little hesitatingly, to greet them. + +"I am so glad to see you," she said. "Dan--my husband had to go to +Exeter to-day. He was sorry he could not meet you himself at the +station." + +As she and Magda stood side by side the contrast between them was +curiously marked--the one in her obviously homemade cotton frock, with +her total absence of poise and her look of extreme youth hardly +seeming the married woman that she was, the other gowned with the +simplicity of line and detailed finish achieved only by a great +dressmaker, her quiet assurance and distinctive little air of /savoir +vivre/ setting her worlds apart from Dan Storran's young wife. + +"Will you come in? The man will see to your luggage." + +June was speaking again, still shyly but with her shyness tempered by +a sensitive instinct of hospitality. She led the way into the house +and they followed her through a big, low-raftered living-room and up a +flight of slippery oak stairs. + +"These are your rooms," said June, pausing at last at the end of a +rambling passage-way. "I hope"--she flushed a little anxiously--"I do +hope you will like them. I've made them as nice as I could. But, of +course"--she glanced at Magda deprecatingly--"you will find them very +different from London rooms." + +Magda flashed her a charming smile. + +"I'm sure we shall love them," she answered, glancing about her with +genuine appreciation. + +The rooms were very simply furnished, but sweet and fresh with chintz +and flowers, and the whitewashed ceilings, sloping at odd, unexpected +angles, gave them a quaint attractiveness. The somewhat coarse but +spotless bed-linen exhaled a faint fragrance of lavender. + +"You ought to charge extra for the view alone," observed Gillian, +going to one of the open lattice windows and looking across the rise +and fall of hill and valley to where the distant slopes of Dartmoor, +its craggy tors veiled in a grey-blue haze, rimmed the horizon. + +"I hope you didn't think the terms too high?" said June. "You see, I-- +we never had paying-guests before, and I really didn't know what would +be considered fair. I do hope you'll be happy and comfortable here," +she added timidly. + +There was something very appealing in her ingenuousness and wistful +desire to please, and Magda reassured her quickly. + +"I haven't any doubt about it," she said, smiling. "This is such a +charming house"--glancing about her--"so dear and old-fashioned. I +think it's very good of you to let us share your home for a little +while. It will be a lovely holiday for us." + +June Storran had no possibility of knowing that this dark, slender +woman to whom she had let her rooms was the famous dancer, Magda +Wielitzska, since the rooms had been engaged in the name of Miss +Vallincourt, but she responded to Magda's unfailing charm as a flower +to the sun. + +"It will be lovely for us, too," she replied. "Do you know, we were so +frightened about putting in that advertisement you answered! Dan was +terribly against it." A troubled little frown knitted her level brows. +"But we've had such bad luck on the farm since we were married--the +rain spoilt all our crops last year and we lost several valuable +animals--so I thought it would help a bit if we took paying-guests +this summer. But Dan didn't really approve." + +"I can quite understand," said Gillian. "Naturally he wanted to keep +his home to himself--an Englishman's home is his castle, you know! And +I expect"--smilingly--"you haven't been married very long." + +Mrs. Storran flushed rosily. She was evidently a sensitive little +person, and the blood came and went quickly under her clear skin at +the least provocation. + +"Not very long," she acknowledged. "But we've been very happy--in +spite of our bad luck on the farm! After all, that's what matters, +isn't it?" + +"It's the only thing that really matters at all," said Gillian. Her +eyes had grown suddenly soft with some tender recollection of the +past. "But you mustn't let us give you a lot of trouble while we're +here. You don't look over-strong." Her glance rested kindly on her +hostess's young face. In spite of its dewy blue eyes and clear skin +with the tinge of wild-rose pink in the cheeks, it conveyed a certain +impression of fragility. She looked almost as though a vigorous puff +of wind might blow her away. + +"Oh, I'm quite well. Of course I found looking after a farmhouse +rather heavy work--just at first. I hadn't been used to it, and we +can't afford to keep a servant. You see, I married Dan against the +wishes of my people, so of course we couldn't accept any help from +them, though they have offered it." + +"I don't see why not," objected Magda. "They can't feel very badly +about it if they are willing to help you." + +"Oh, no--they would, gladly. But Dan would hate it in the +circumstances. You can understand that, can't you?"--appealingly. "He +wants to justify himself--to prove that he can keep his own wife. He'd +be too proud to let me take anything from them." + +"Storran of Stockleigh appears to be considerably less attractive than +his name," summed up Gillian, as, half an hour later, she and Magda +and Coppertop were seated round a rustic wooden table in the garden +partaking of a typical Devonshire tea with its concomitants of jam and +clotted cream. + +"Apparently," she continued, "he has married 'above him.' Little Mrs. +Storran obviously comes of good stock, while I expect he himself is +just an ordinary sort of farmer and doesn't half appreciate her. +Anyway, he doesn't seem to consider her much." + +Magda made no answer. Characteristically her interest in June Storran +had evaporated, pushed aside by something of more personal concern. + +"This is the most restful, peaceful spot I've ever struck," she said, +leaning back with a sigh of pleasure. "Isn't it lovely, Gilly? There's +something homelike and friendly about the whole landscape--a sort of +/intimate/ feeling. I feel as if I'd known it all for years--and +should like to know it for years more! Don't they say Devon folk +always want to come home to die? I'm not surprised." + +"Yes, it's very beautiful," agreed Gillian, her gaze resting +contentedly on the gracious curves of green and golden fields, broken +here and there by stretches of ploughed land glowing warmly red +between the ripening corn and short-cropped pasture. + +"I believe I could be quite good here, Gillyflower," pursued Magda +reflectively. "Just live happily from one day to the next, breathing +this glorious air, and eating plain, simple food, and feeding those +adorable fluffy yellow balls Mrs. Storran calls chickens, and churning +butter and--" + +Gillian's ringing, whole-hearted laughter checked this enthusiastic +epitome of the simple life. + +"Never, Magda!" she asserted, shaking her head. "I'm quite expecting +you to get bored in about a week and to rush me off to Deauville or +somewhere of that ilk. And as to being 'good'--why, it isn't in you!" + +"I'm not so sure." Magda rose and together they strolled over the +grass towards the house, Coppertop skirmishing happily behind them. "I +really think I might be good here--if only for the sole reason that +there's no temptation to be anything else"--drily. + +As she spoke a gate clicked close at hand. Followed the sound of +quick, striding steps, and the next moment a man's figure rounded the +tall yew hedge which skirted the foot of the garden and came towards +them. + +He was a big giant of a man--at least six foot two in his socks, and +proportionately broad and muscular in build. There was something free +and bold in his swinging gait that seemed to challenge the whole +world. It suggested an almost fierce independence of spirit that would +give or take as it chose, but would never brook dictation from any man +--or woman either. + +Instinctively Magda and Gillian paused, and Magda held out a slim +hand, smiling, as he overtook them. + +"I'm sure you must be Mr. Storran," she said. + +He halted abruptly and snatched off his cap, revealing a crop of +crinkly dark-brown hair thatching a lean sunburnt face, out of which +gleamed a pair of eyes as vividly blue as periwinkles. + +"Yes, I'm Dan Storran," he said simply. "Is it Miss Vallincourt?" + +Magda nodded and proceeded to introduce Gillian. But Storran's glance +only rested cursorily on Gillian's soft, pretty face, returning at +once to Magda's as though drawn thither by a magnet. + +"I'm sorry I couldn't meet your train myself to-day," he said, a note +of eager apology in his voice. + +Magda smiled at him. + +"So am I," she answered. + + + +CHAPTER X + +FOREBODINGS + +Gillian was sitting alone in the yew-hedged garden, her slim fingers +busy repairing the holes which appeared with unfailing regularity in +the heels of Coppertop's stockings. From the moment he had come to +Stockleigh the number and size of the said holes had increased +appreciably, for, although five weeks had elapsed since the day of +arrival, Coppertop was still revelling whole-heartedly in the +incredible daily delights which, from the viewpoint of six years old, +attach to a farm. + +Day after day found him trotting contentedly in the wake of the +stockman, one Ned Honeycott, whom he had adopted as guide, +philosopher, and friend, and whom he regarded as a veritable fount of +knowledge and the provider of unlimited adventure and entertainment. + +It was Honeycott who lifted Coppertop on to the broad back of the +steadiest cart-horse; who had taught him how to feed calves by dipping +his chubby little hand into a pail of milk and then letting them suck +the milk from off his fingers; who beneficently contrived that hardly +a load of hay was driven to the great rick without Coppertop's small +person perched proudly aloft thereon, his slim legs dangling and his +shrill voice joining with that of the carter in an encouraging "Come- +up, Blossom," to the bay mare as she plodded forward between the +shafts. + +Gillian experienced no anxiety with regard to Coppertop's safety while +he was in Ned Honeycott's charge, but she missed the childish +companionship, the more so as she found herself frequently alone these +days. June Storran was naturally occupied about her house and dairy, +while Magda, under Dan Storran's tutelage, appeared smitten with an +extraordinary interest in farm management. + +It seemed to Gillian that Magda and Dan were in each other's company +the greater part of the time. Every day Dan had some suggestion or +other to make for Miss Vallincourt's amusement. Either it was: "Would +you care to see the hay-loader at work?" Or: "I've just bought a +couple of pedigree Devon cows I'd like to show you, Miss Vallincourt." +Or, as yesterday: "There's a pony fair to be held to-morrow at +Pennaway Bridge. Would you care to drive in it?" And to each and all +of Storran's suggestions Magda had yielded a ready assent. + +So this morning had seen the two of them setting out for Pennaway in +Dan's high dog-cart, while Gillian and June stood together in the +rose-covered porch and watched them depart. + +"Wouldn't you like to have gone?" Gillian asked on a sudden impulse. + +She regretted the question the instant it had passed her lips, for in +the wide-apart blue eyes June turned upon her there was something of +the mute, puzzled misery of a dog that has received an unexpected +blow. + +"I couldn't spare the time," she answered hastily. "You see"--the +sensitive colour as usual coming and going quickly in her face--"Miss +Vallincourt is on a holiday." + +She turned and went quickly into the house, leaving Gillian conscious +of a sudden uneasiness--that queer "trouble ahead" feeling which +descends upon us sometimes, without warning and without our being able +to assign any very definite cause for it. + +She was thinking over the little incident now, as she sat sewing in +the evening light, and meditating whether she should give Magda a hint +that it might be kinder of her not to monopolise so much of Dan's +society. And then the crisp sound of a horse trotting on the hard, dry +road came to her ears, and almost immediately the high dog-cart swung +between the granite gateposts and clattered into the yard. + +Dan tossed the reins on to the horse's neck and, springing to the +ground, came round to help Magda down from the cart. + +"It's rather a steep step. Let me lift you down," he said. + +"Very well." + +Magda stood up in the trap and looked down at him with smiling eyes, +unconsciously delighting in his sheer physical good looks. He was a +magnificent specimen of manhood, and the good yeoman blood in him, +which had come down through the generations of the same sturdy stock, +proclaimed itself in his fine physique and splendid virility. + +A moment later he had swung her down as easily as though she were a +child, and she was standing beside him. + +She laughed up at him. + +"Oh, 'girt Jan Ridd'!" she exclaimed softly. + +He laughed back, well pleased. (Was there ever a man who failed to be +ridiculously flattered by a feminine tribute to his physical +strength?) Nor did his hands release her quite at once. + +"You're as light as a feather! I could carry you all day and--" + +"Not know it!" concluded Magda gaily. + +His hands fell away from her slim body abruptly. + +"Oh, I should know it right enough!" he said jerkily. + +His eyes kindled, and Magda, conscious of something suddenly +disturbing and electric in the atmosphere, turned quickly and, leaving +Storran to unharness the horse, made her way to where she espied +Gillian sitting. + +The latter looked up from her sewing. + +"So you've got back? Did you have a good time?" + +"Yes. It was quite amusing. There were heaps and heaps of ponies--some +of them wild, unbroken colts which had been brought straight off the +Moor. They were rearing and plunging all over the place. I loved them! +By the way, I'm gong to learn riding, Gillyflower. Mr. Storran has +offered to teach me. He says he has a nice quiet mare I could start +on." + +A small frown puckered Gillian's brows. + +"Do you think Mrs. Storran will like it?" + +Magda started. + +"Why on earth shouldn't she?" + +"Well,"--Gillian spoke with a vague discomfort. "He's her husband!" + +"I don't see what that has to do with it," replied Magda. "We're +staying here and, of course, the Storrans want to make it as nice as +they can for us. Anyway, I'm going to take such goods as the gods +provide." + +She got up abruptly and went in the direction of the house, leaving +Gillian to digest as best she might the hint that her interference was +not likely to be either welcomed or effective. + +Left to herself, Gillian sighed unhappily. Almost she wished they had +never come to Stockleigh, only that it was pure joy to her to see +Coppertop's rather thin little cheeks filling out and growing sunburnt +and rosy. He had not picked up strength very readily after his attack +of croup, and subsequently the intense heat in London had tried him a +good deal. + +But she was gradually becoming apprehensive that disturbing +consequences might accrue from Magda's stay at Stockleigh Farm. A +woman of her elusive charm, equipped with all the subtle lore that her +environment had taught her, must almost inevitably hold for a man of +Storran's primitive way of life the fascination of something new and +rather wonderful. To contrast his wife with her was to contrast a +field-flower with some rare, exotic bloom, and Gillian was conscious +of a sudden rush of sympathy for June's unarmoured youth and +inexperience. + +Magda's curiously uncertain moods of late, too, had worried her not a +little. She was unlike herself--at times brooding and introspective, +at other times strung up to a species of forced gaiety--a gaiety which +had the cold sparkle of frost or diamonds. With all her faults Magda +had ever been lovably devoid of bitterness, but now it seemed as +though she were developing a certain new quality of hardness. + +It puzzled Gillian, ignorant of that sudden discovery and immediate +loss of the Garden of Eden. It might have been less of an enigma to +old Lady Arabella, to whom the jigsaw puzzle of human motives and +impulses was always a matter of absorbing interest, and who, as more +or less an onlooker at life during the last thirty years, had become +an adept in the art of fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. + +Magda herself was only conscious of an intense restlessness and +dissatisfaction with existence in general. She reflected bitterly that +she had been a fool to let slip her hold of herself--as she had done +the night of Lady Arabella's reception--even for a moment. + +It had been thoroughly drilled into her both by precept and example-- +her mother's precept and her father's example--that to let a man count +for anything much in her life was the biggest mistake a woman could +make, and Michael's treatment of her had driven home the truth of all +the warnings Diane had instilled. + +He had hurt her as she had never been hurt before, and all that she +craved now was change. Change and amusement to drug her mind so that +she need not think. Whether anyone else got hurt in the process was a +question that never presented itself to her. + +She had not expected to find amusement at Stockleigh. She had been +driven there by an overmastering desire to escape from London--for a +few weeks, at least, to get right away from her accustomed life and +from everyone who knew her. And at Stockleigh she had found Dan +Storran. + +The homage that had leaped into his eyes the first moment they had +rested on her, and which had slowly deepened as the days slipped by, +had somehow soothed her, restoring her feminine poise which Michael's +sudden defection had shaken. + +She knew--as every woman always does know when a man is attracted by +her--that she had the power to stir this big, primitive countryman, +whose way of life had never before brought him into contact with her +type of woman, just as she had stirred other men. And she carelessly +accepted the fact, without a thought that in playing with Dan +Storran's emotions she was dealing with a man who knew none of the +moves of the game, to whom the art of love-making as a pastime was an +unknown quantity, and whose fierce, elemental passions, once aroused, +might prove difficult to curb. He amused her and kept her thoughts off +recent happenings, and for the moment that was all that mattered. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +STORRAN OF STOCKLEIGH + +It was a glorious morning. The sun blazed like a great golden shield +out of a cloudless sky, and hardly a breath of air stirred the foliage +of the trees. + +Magda, to content an insatiable Coppertop, had good-naturally suffered +herself to be dragged over the farm. They had visited the pigs--a new +and numerous litter of fascinating black ones having recently made +their debut into this world of sin--and had watched the cows being +milked, and been chased by the irascible gander, and finally, laughing +and breathless, they had made good their escape into the garden where +Gillian sat sewing, and had flung themselves down exhaustedly on the +grass at her feet. + +"I'm in a state of mental and moral collapse, Gilly," declared Magda, +fanning herself vigorously with a cabbage leaf. "Whew! It is hot! As +soon as I can generate enough energy, I propose to bathe. Will you +come?" + +Gillian shook her head lazily. + +"I think not to-day. I want to finish this overall for Coppertop. And +it's such a long trudge from here down to the river." + +"Yes, I know." Magda nodded. "It's three interminable fields away--and +the thistles and things prick one's ankles abominably. Still, it's +lovely when you /do/ get there! I think I'll go now"--springing up +from the velvet turf--"before I get too lazy to move." + +Gillian's eyes followed her thoughtfully as she made her way into the +house. She had never seen Magda so restless--she seemed unable to keep +still a moment. + +Half an hour later Magda emerged from the house wrapped in a cloak, a +little scarlet bathing-cap turbanning her dark hair, and a pair of +sandals on the slim supple feet that had danced their way into the +hearts of half of Europe. + +"Good-bye!" she called gaily, waving her hand. And went out by the +wicket gate leading into the fields. + +There was not a soul in sight. Only the cows, their red, burnished +coats gleaming like the skin of a horse-chestnut in the hot sun, cast +ruminative glances at her white-cloaked figure as it passed, and +occasionally a peacefully grazing sheep emitted an astonished bleat at +the unusual vision and skedaddled away in a hurry. + +Magda emulated Agag in her progress across the field which intervened +between the house and the river, now and then giving vent to a little +cry of protest as a particularly prickly thistle or hidden trail of +bramble whipped against her bare ankles. + +At last from somewhere near at hand came the cool gurgle of running +water and, bending her steps in the direction of the sound, two +minutes' further walking brought her to the brink of the river. +Further up it came tumbling through the valley, leaping the rocks in a +churning torrent of foam, a cloud of delicate up-flung spray +feathering the air above it; but here there were long stretches of +deep, smooth water where no boulder broke the surface into spume, and +quiet pools where fat little trout heedlessly squandered the joyous +moments of a precarious existence. + +Magda threw off her wrapper and, picking her way across the moss-grown +rocks, paused for an instant on the bank, her slender figure, clad in +its close-fitting scarlet bathing-suit, vividly outlined against the +surrounding green of the landscape. Then she plunged in and struck out +downstream, swimming with long, even strokes, the soft moorland water +laving her throat like the touch of a satin-smooth hand. + +She was heading for a spot she knew of, a quarter of a mile below, +where a wooden bridge spanned the river and the sun's heat poured down +unchecked by sheltering trees. Here she proposed to scramble out and +bask in the golden warmth. + +She had just established herself on a big, sun-warmed boulder when a +familiar step sounded on the bridge and Dan Storran's tall figure +emerged into view. He pulled up sharply as he caught sight of her, his +face taking on a schoolboy look of embarrassment. Deauville /plage/, +where people bathed in companionable parties and strolled in and out +of the water as seemed good to them, was something altogether outside +Dan's ken. + +"Oh, I'm sorry," he began, flushing uncomfortably. + +Magda waved to him airily. + +"You needn't be. I'm having a sun-bath. You can stay and talk to me if +you like. Or are you too busy farming this morning?" + +"No, I'm not too busy," he said slowly. + +There was a curious dazzled look in his eyes as they rested on her. +Sheathed in the stockingette bathing-suit she wore, every line and +curve of her supple body was revealed. Her wet, white limbs gleamed +pearl-like in the quivering sunlight. The beauty of her ran through +his veins like wine. + +"Then come and amuse me!" Magda patted the warm surface of the rock +beside her invitingly. "You can give me a cigarette to begin with." + +Storran sat down and pulled out his case. As he held a match for her +to light up from, his hand brushed hers and he drew it away sharply. +It was trembling absurdly. + +He sat silent for a moment or two; then he said with an odd +abruptness: + +"I suppose you find it frightfully dull down here?" + +Magda laughed a little. + +"Is that because I told you to come and amuse me? . . . No, I don't +find it dull. Change is never really dull." + +"Well, you must find it change enough here from the sort of life +you've been accustomed to lead." + +"How do you know what sort of life I lead?"--teasingly. + +"I can guess. One has only to look at you. You're different--different +from everyone about here. The way you move--you're like a thoroughbred +amongst cart-horses." He spoke with a kind of sullen bitterness. + +Magda drew her feet up on to the rock and clasped her hands round her +knees. + +"Now you're talking nonsense, you know," she said amusedly. "Frankly, +I like it down here immensely. I happened to be--rather worried when I +came away from London, and there's something very soothing and +comforting about the country--particularly your lovely Devon country." + +"Worried?" Storran's face darkened. "Who'd been worrying you?" + +"Oh"--vaguely. "All sorts of things. Men--and women. But don't let's +talk about worries to-day. This glorious sunshine makes me feel as +though there weren't any such things in the world." + +She leaned back, stretching her arms luxuriously above her head with +the lithe, sensuous grace of movement which her training had made +second nature. Storran's eyes dwelt on her with a queer tensity of +expression. Every gesture, every tone of her curiously attractive +voice, held for him a disturbing allure which he could not analyse and +against which he was fighting blindly. + +He had never doubted his love for his wife. Quite honestly he had +believed her the one woman in the world when he married her. Yet now +he was beginning to find every hour a blank that did not bring him +sight or sound of this other woman--this woman with her slender limbs +and skin like a stephanotis petal, and her long Eastern eyes with the +subtle lure which seemed to lie in their depths. Beside her June's +young peach-bloom prettiness faded into something colourless and +insignificant. + +"It must be nice to be you"--Magda nodded at him. "With no vague, +indefinable sort of things to worry you." + +He smiled reluctantly. + +"How do you know I haven't?" + +"Oh, because I do." + +"A woman's reason!" + +"Quite. But women's reasons are generally very sound--we were endowed +with a sixth sense, you know! Besides--it's obvious, isn't it? Here +you are--you and June--living a simple, primitive kind of existence, +all to yourselves, like Adam and Eve. And if you do have a worry it's +a real definite one--as when a cow inconveniently goes and dies or +your root crop fails. Nothing intangible and uncertain about that!" + +"Have you forgotten that the serpent intruded even upon Adam and Eve?" +he asked quietly. + +She laughed. + +"Is that a hit at Gillian and me? I know--June told us--that you were +horribly opposed to anyone's coming here for the summer. I thought +that you had got over that by now?" + +"So I have"--bluntly. + +"Then we're not--not unwelcome visitors any longer?" the soft, +tantalising voice went on. The low cadence of it seemed to tug at his +very heartstrings. + +He leaned nearer to her and, catching both her hands in his, twisted +her round so that she faced him. + +"Why do you ask?" he demanded, his voice suddenly roughened and +uneven. + +"Because I wanted to know--of course!"--lightly. + +"Then--you're not an unwelcome visitor. You never have been! From the +moment you came the place was different somehow. When you go----" + +He stopped as though startled by the sound of his own words--struck by +the full significance of them. + +"When you go!" he repeated blankly. His grip of her slight hands +tightened till it was almost painful. "But you won't go! I can't let +you go now! Magda--" + +The situation was threatening to get out of hand. Magda drew quickly +away from him, springing to her feet. + +"Don't talk like that," she said hastily. "You don't mean it, you +know." + +With a sudden, unexpected movement she slipped from his side and ran +down to the river's edge. He caught a flashing glimpse of scarlet, +heard the splash as her slim body cleaved the water, and a moment +later all he could see was the red of her turban cap, bobbing like a +scarlet poppy on the surface of the river, and the glimmer of a moon- +white arm and shoulder as a smooth overhand stroke bore her swiftly +away from him. + +He stood staring after her, conscious of a sudden bewildered sense of +check and thwarting. The blood seemed leaping in his veins. His heart +thudded against his ribs. He stepped forward impetuously as though to +plunge in after the receding gleam of scarlet still flickering betwixt +the branches which overhung the river. + +Then, with a stifled exclamation, he drew back, brushing his hand +across his eyes as though to clear their vision. What mad impulse was +this urging him on to say and do such things as he had never before +conceived himself saying or doing? + +Magda had checked him on the brink of telling her--what? The sweat +broke out on his forehead as the realisation surged over him. + +"God!" he muttered. "God!" + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LATEST NEWS + +Magda hardly knew what impulse had bidden her save Dan Storran from +himself--check the hot utterance to which he had so nearly given voice +and which to a certain extent she had herself provoked. Driven by the +bitterness of spirit which Michael's treatment of her had engendered, +she knew that she had flirted outrageously with Dan ever since she had +come to Stockleigh. She had bestowed no thought on June--pretty, +helpless June, watching with distressed, bewildered eyes while Dan +unaccountably changed towards her, his moods alternating from sullen +unresponsiveness to a kind of forced and contrite tenderness which she +had found almost more difficult to meet and understand. + +It was indeed something altogether apart from any sympathy for June +which had prompted Magda to leave Storran before he uttered words that +he might regret, but which no power on earth could ever recall. Still +beneath the resentment and wounded pride which Michael's going had +caused her flickered the spark of an ideal utterly at variance with +the whole tenor of the teaching of poor Diane's last embittered days-- +the ideal of womanhood which had been Michael's. And the impulse which +had bade her leave Storran so abruptly was born of the one-time +resolution she had made to become the sort of woman Michael would wish +his wife to be. + +She felt oddly perturbed when at last she reached the seclusion of her +chintzy bedroom underneath the sloping roof. A vague sense of shame +assailed her. The game, as between herself and Dan, was hardly a fair +one, after all, and she could well picture the cold contempt in +Michael's eyes had he been looking on at it. + +Though he had no right to disapprove of her now! He had forfeited that +right--if he had ever had it--when he went away without a word of +farewell--without giving her even the chance to appeal against the +judgment which, by his very going, he had silently pronounced against +her. + +For months, now, she had been a prey to a conflicting jumble of +emotions--the pain and hurt pride which Michael's departure had +occasioned her, the craving for anything that might serve to distract +her thoughts and keep them from straying back to those few vibrant +meetings with him, and deep down within her an aching, restless wonder +as to whether she would ever see him again. + +With an effort she dismissed the fresh tangle of thought provoked by +the morning's brief scene with Dan Storran, and, dressing quickly, +went downstairs to the mid-day dinner which was the order of things at +Stockleigh. + +At first the solid repast, with its plentitude of good farmhouse fare +partaken of during the hottest hour of the day, had somewhat appalled +Magda. But now she had grown quite accustomed to the appearance of a +roast joint or of a smoking, home-cured ham, attended by a variety of +country vegetables and followed by fruit tart and clotted cream. + +Although she herself, as befitted a woman whose "figure was her +fortune" according to Lady Arabella, partook extremely sparingly of +this hospitable meal, it somehow pleased her to see big Dan Storran +come in from his work in the fields and do full justice to the +substantial fare. To Magda, ultra-modern and over-civilised as she +was, there was something refreshing in the simple and primitive usages +of Stockleigh Farm and its master--this man who toiled, and satisfied +his hunger, and rested from toil, just as his fathers had done before +him, literally fulfilling the law: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou +eat bread. + +And perhaps if Magda had never crossed his path Dan Storran might have +gone his way contentedly, toiling from sun-up to sun-down till all his +days were finished. + +Even although she had crossed it, she might still have left him pretty +much as she found him--unawakened to the deeps of his own nature--if +she had remained in her present ambiguous mood, half-remorseful, half +indifferent. But it was precisely at this particular juncture that it +pleased Fate to give a fresh twist to her swiftly turning wheel. + +Storran did not come in until dinner was half over, and when finally +he appeared he was somewhat taciturn and avoided meeting Magda's eyes. +June got up from the table and went dutifully into the kitchen to +fetch the joint of meat and vegetables which she had been keeping hot +for him there. Abruptly Dan followed her. + +"Sorry I'm late, June," he said awkwardly. "Here, give the tray to me; +I'll carry it in." + +June paused in the middle of the kitchen, flushing right up to the +soft tendrils of hair that curled about her forehead. It was weeks +since Dan had offered to relieve her of any of her housewifely tasks, +although at one time he had been wont to hurry home, if he could +manage to do so, on purpose to help her. Dozens of times they had laid +the table together, punctuating the process with jokes and gay little +bursts of laughter and an odd kiss or two thrown in to sweeten the +work. But not lately--not since the visitors from London had come to +Stockleigh Farm. + +So June blushed and looked at her husband with eyes that were suddenly +sweet and questioning. She knew, though she had not told him yet, that +there was a reason now why he should try to save her when his greater +strength could do so, and for a moment she wondered shyly if he had +guessed. + +"Why, Dan, Dan----" she stammered. + +His face darkened. Her obvious surprise irritated him, pricking his +conscience. + +"It's not very complimentary of you to look so taken aback when I +offer to carry something for you," he said. "Anyone might think I +never did wait on my wife." + +The blood drained away from June's face as suddenly as it had rushed +there. + +"Well, you don't often, do you?" she returned shortly. + +They re-entered the sitting-room together and Magda glanced up, +smiling approval. She, too, was feeling somewhat conscience-stricken, +and to see Dan helping his wife in this everyday, intimate sort of +fashion seemed to minimise the significance of that little incident +which had occurred by the river's edge. + +"What a nice, polite husband!" she commented gaily. "Mr. Storran, you +really out to come up to London and give classes--'Manners for Men,' +you know. Very few of them wait on their wives these days." + +June upset the salt and busied herself spooning it up again from the +cloth. There was no answering smile on her face. She was not quite +clear /why/ Dan had followed her out into the kitchen so unexpectedly, +but she sensed that it was not the old, quick impulse to wait upon her +which had actuated him. + +Had she but known it, it was the same instinct, more primitively +manifested, which induces a man whose conscience is not altogether +clear respecting his loyalty towards his wife to bring her home an +unexpected gift of jewellery. + +The disturbing memory of a lithe, scarlet-sheathed figure had been +with Dan all morning as he went about his work, and he was sullenly +ashamed of the riot which the vision occasioned within him and of his +own utter helplessness to master it. It--it was damnable! So he +accompanied his wife to the kitchen and offered to carry in the joint. + +Following upon this incident the atmosphere seemed to become all at +once constrained and difficult. June sat very silent, her eyes holding +that expression of pain and bewilderment which was growing habitual to +them, while Storran hurried through his meal in the shortest possible +time. As soon as he had finished he pushed back his chair abruptly +and, with a muttered apology, quitted the room and went out again on +to the farm. June rose and began clearing the table mechanically. + +"Can't I help you?" Gillian paused as she was about to follow Magda +out of the room. "You look so tired to-day." + +June's lip quivered sensitively. She was in the state of nerves when a +little unexpected sympathy is the most upsetting thing imaginable. + +"Oh, I can't let you!" she answered hastily. "No--really!"--as Gillian +calmly took the tray she was carrying out of her hands. + +"Supposing you go and lie down for a little while," suggested Gillian +practically. "And leave the washing-up to Coppertop and me!" + +The tears suddenly brimmed up into the wide-open blue eyes. + +"Oh, I couldn't!" + +"Wouldn't you like a little rest?" urged Gillian persuasively. "I +believe you'd be asleep in two minutes!" + +"I believe I should," acknowledged June faintly. "I--I haven't been +sleeping very well lately." + +A little shudder ran through her as she recalled those long hours each +night when she lay at Dan's side, staring wide-eyed into the darkness +and wondering dully what it was that had come between herself and her +husband--come just at the time when, with his unborn child beneath her +heart, they two should have been drawn together in to the most +wonderful and blessed comradeship and understanding. Only Dan didn't +know this--didn't know that before the snowdrops lifted their white +heads again from the green carpet of spring there would be a little +son--June was sure it would be a son, to grow up tall and strong like +Dan himself!--born of the love which had once been so sweet and +untroubled by any creeping doubts. + +"I assure you"--Gillian broke in on the miserable thoughts that were +chasing each other through June's tired brain--"I assure you, +Coppertop and I are very competent people. We won't break a single +dish!" + +"But you've never been used to that kind of thing--washing-up!" +protested June, glancing significantly at Gillian's white hands and +soft, pretty frock of hyacinth muslin. + +"Haven't I?" Gillian laughed gaily. "I haven't always been as well off +as I am not, and I expect I know quite as much about doing 'chores' as +you! Come now!" She waited expectantly. + +"Dan would be awfully angry if he knew--it's my duty, you see," +objected June, visibly weakening. + +"If he knew! But what a husband doesn't know his heart doesn't grieve +over," replied Gillian sagely. "There, that's settled. Come along +upstairs and let me tuck you up in your bed, and leave the rest to +Coppertop and me." + +And June, with her heart suddenly warmed and comforted in the way in +which an unexpected kindness does warm and comfort, went very +willingly and, tired out in body and mind, fell asleep in ten minutes. + +Meanwhile Magda had established herself in the hammock slung from the +boughs of one of the great elms which shaded the garden. She had +brought a book with her, since her thoughts were none too pleasant +company just at the moment, and was speedily absorbed in its contents. + +It was very soothing and tranquil out there in the noonday heat. The +gnats hovered in the sunlight, dancing and whirling in little +transient clusters; now and again a ladybird flickered by or a swallow +swooped so near that his darting shadow fell across her book; while +all about her sounded the pleasant hum of a summer's day--the soft +susurration of the pleasant hum of a thousand insect voices blending +into an indefinite, murmurous vibration of the air. + +Occasionally the whir of a motor-car sweeping along the adjacent road +broke harshly across the peaceful quiet. Magda glanced up with some +annoyance as the first one sped by, dragging her back to an unwilling +sense of civilisation. Then she bent her head resolutely above her +book and declined to be distracted any further, finally losing herself +completely in the story she was reading. + +So it came about that when a long, low, dust-powdered car curved in +between the granite gateposts of Stockleigh Farm and came abruptly to +a standstill, she remained entirely oblivious of its advent. Nor did +she see the tall, slender-limbed man who had been driving, and whose +questing hazel eyes had descried her almost immediately, slip from his +seat behind the steering-wheel and come across the grass towards her. + +"/Antoine!/" + +The book fell from her hand and she sat up suddenly in the hammock. + +"What on earth are you doing here?" she demanded. There was no welcome +in her tone. + +For a moment Davilof remained watching her, the sunshine, slanting +between the leaves of the trees, throwing queer little flickering +lights into the hazel eyes and glinting on his golden-brown hair and +beard. + +"What are you doing here?" she repeated. + +"I came--to see you," he said simply. + +There was something disarming in the very simplicity of his reply. It +seemed to imply an almost child-like wonder that she should ask--that +there could possibly be any other reason for his presence. + +But it failed to propitiate Magda in the slightest degree. She felt +intensely annoyed that anyone from the outside world--from her world +of London--should have intruded upon her seclusion at Ashencombe, nor +could she imagine how Davilof had discovered her retreat. + +"How did you learn I was here?" she asked. + +"From Melrose." + +Magda's eyes darkened sombrely. + +"Do you mean you bribed him?" she asked quickly. "Oh, but surely not!" +--in dismayed tones. "Melrose would go to the stake sooner than accept +a bribe!" + +Davilof's mouth twisted in a rueful smile. + +"I'm sure he would! I tried him, but he wouldn't look at a bribe of +any sort. So I had to resort to strategy. It was one evening, when he +was taking your letters to post, and I waited for him at the pillar- +box. I came up very quietly behind him and just nipped one of the +letters, readdressed to you, out of his hand. I read the address and +then posted the letter for him. It was very simple." + +He recounted the incident with a little swaggering air of bravado, +boyishly delighted at the success of his small ruse. Vexed as she was +Magda could hardly refrain from smiling; the whole thing was so +eminently un-English--so exactly like Davilof! + +"Well, now that you have seen me, will you please go away again?" she +said coolly, reopening her book as though to end the conversation. + +He regarded her with unqualified reproach. + +"Won't you even ask me to tea?" he said plaintively. + +"Certainly not," Magda was beginning. But precisely as she spoke June +Storran, looking more herself again after her short sleep, came +towards them from the house. + +Her face brightened as she caught sight of Davilof. Even to June's +inexperienced eyes it was quite obvious that he admired the woman with +whom he was talking. The very way he looked at her told her that. +Presumably he was one of her London friends who had motored to +Devonshire to see her. No man--within the limited scope of June's +knowledge of men--did that deliciously absurd, extravagant kind of +thing unless he was tremendously in love. Nor would any nice woman let +a man take such a journey on her behalf unless she reciprocated his +feelings. Of this June--whose notions were old-fashioned--felt +assured. So her spirits rose accordingly. Since, if these two were on +the verge of becoming engaged, the mere fact would clear away the +indefinable shadows which seemed to have been menacing her own +happiness from the time Miss Vallincourt had come to Stockleigh. + +"Tea is just ready," she announced, approaching. "Will you come in? +And perhaps your friend will have tea with us?" she added shyly. + +Davilof was presented and June repeated her invitation. He shot a +glance of triumph at Magda. + +"I shall be delighted, madame," he said, giving June one of his quaint +little foreign bows. "But--the sun is shining so gloriously--might we +not have it out here?" + +June looked round her doubtfully. As is often the case with people +born and bred in the country, it never occurred to the Storrans to +have the family meals out-of-doors, and June felt considerable +misgiving as to whether Dan would appreciate the innovation. + +"Ah, please, madame!" pleaded Davilof persuasively. "Let us have it +here--under this tree. Why, the tree grows here expressly for the +purpose!" + +Davilof had all the charm of his nationality, and June capitulated, +retreating to make the necessary arrangements. + +"I don't fancy Dan Storran will at all approve of the alteration from +his usual customs which you've engineered," observed Magda when they +were again alone. + +"Dan Storran?" Davilof's glance flashed over her face, searching, +questioning. + +"The owner of the place. He's been teaching me to ride," she added +inconsequently. + +"Who is he?"--with swift jealousy. "The little fair-haired lady's +brother?" + +"No, her husband. I said /Mrs./ Storran." + +Davilof's interest waned suddenly. + +"Did you?"--indifferently. "I didn't notice. She's a pretty little +person." + +Magda agreed absently. A fresh difficulty had occurred to her; Davilof +might chance to give away to the Storrans the secret of her identity. + +"Oh, by the way," she said hurriedly. "They don't know me here as +Magda Wielitzska. I'm plain Miss Vallincourt to them--enjoying the +privileges of being a nobody! You'll be sure to remember, won't you?" +He nodded, and she pursued more lightly: "And now, as you insist on +having your tea here, you might begin to earn it by telling me the +latest London gossip. We hear nothing at all down here. We don't even +get a London newspaper. + +"I don't think there is much news. There never is at this time of the +year. Everybody's out of town." + +He vouchsafed one or two items concerning mutual friends--an +engagement here, a forthcoming divorce there. So-and-so was in Italy +and Mrs. Somebody Else was said to have eloped with a well-known +actor-manager to America--all the odds and ends of gossip that runs +like wildfire over the social prairie. + +"Oh, by the way," he went on, "your artist friend--" + +"Which artist friend?" Magda interrupted almost rudely. She was moved +by a perfectly irrational impulse to stop him, to delay what he had to +say. + +"Why, Quarrington--Michael Quarrington. It seems he has married a +Spanish woman--a rather lovely person who had been sitting to him for +one of his pictures. That's the latest bit of news." + +For an instant it seemed to Magda as though the whole world stood +still--gripped in a strange, soundless stillness like the catastrophic +pause which for an infinitesimal space of time succeeds a bad +accident. Then she heard herself saying: + +"Really? Where did you hear that?" + +"Oh, there've been several rumours of a beautiful Spaniard whom he has +been using as a model. The Arlingtons were travelling in Spain and saw +her. Mrs. A. said she was a glorious creature--a dancer. And the other +day I saw in one of the papers--the /Weekly Gossip/ I think it was-- +that he'd married her." + +The carelessly spoken words drove at Magda with the force of utter +certainty. It was true, then--quite true! The fact that the Spaniard +had been a dancer gave an irrefutable reality to the tale; Michael so +worshipped every form of dancing. + +"Never give your heart to any man." Her mother's last cynical warning +beat in Magda's brain with a dull iteration that almost maddened her. +She put her hand up to her throat, feeling as if she were choking. + +Then, dimly, as though from a great way off, she heard Antoine's voice +again: + +"I'm glad Quarrington's married. He was the man who saved you in the +fog--you remember?--and I've always been afraid you might get to care +for him." + +Magda was conscious of one thing and one thing only--that somewhere, +deep down inside her, everything had turned to ice. She knew she would +never feel anything again--much. . . . She thought death must come +like that sometimes--just one thrust of incredible, immeasurable +agony, and then a dull, numbed sense of finality. + +". . . afraid you might get to care for him." The meaning of Antoine's +last words slowly penetrated her mind. She gave a hard little laugh. + +"Why should I? Does one 'get to care' for a man just because he does +the only obvious thing there is to do in an emergency?" + +She was surprised to hear how perfectly natural her voice sounded. It +was quite steady. Reassured, she went on, shrugging her shoulders: + +"Besides--do I ever care?" + +Antoine, sitting on the grass at her feet, suddenly raised himself a +little and put his hand over hers as they lay very still and folded on +her lap. + +"You shall care--some time," he said in a low, tense voice. "I swear +it!" + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +DAN STORRAN'S AWAKENING + +"Fairy Lady, we're going to have a picnic tea!" + +Coppertop's excited voice, shrilling across the garden as he came +racing over the grass, put an abrupt end to a scene that was +threatening to develop along the familiar tempestuous lines dictated +by Antoine's temperament. + +The child's advent was somewhat differently received--by Magda with +unmixed relief, by Antoine with a baulked gesture of annoyance. +However, he recovered himself almost immediately, and when, a moment +later, June reappeared, laden with the paraphernalia for tea, he +rushed forward with his usual charming manners to assist her. + +Presently Gillian joined them, exclaiming with surprise as she +perceived who was the visitor. + +"Why, this is like a bit of London appearing in our very midst," she +declared, shaking hands with Davilof. "Where have you hailed from? I +heard the car but never suspected you were the arrival." + +"I'm on holiday," he replied. "And it struck me"--his hazel eyes +smiled straight into hers--"that Devonshire might be a very delightful +place in which to spend my holiday." + +Magda looked up suddenly from stirring her tea. + +"I think you've made a mistake, Davilof," she said curtly. "You're not +likely to enjoy a holiday in Devonshire." + +June, innocently unaware of any double entente in Magda's speech, +glanced across at her in astonishment. + +"Oh, but why not, Miss Vallincourt? Devon is a lovely county; most +people like it so much. But perhaps you don't care for the country, +Mr.--Mr. Davilof?" She stumbled a little over the foreign name. + +"I think it would depend upon who my neighbours were--whether I liked +it or nor," he returned, meeting Magda's glance challengingly over the +top of June's head, bent above the teacups. "I feel sure I should like +it here. And there is a charming little inn at Ashencombe where one +might stop." + +Gillian divined that a veiled passage of arms between Magda and the +musician underlay the light discussion. Moreover--though she had no +clue to the cause--she was sensitively conscious that the former was +not quite herself. She had seen that white, set look on her face +before. Something had distressed her, and Gillian felt apprehensive +lest Davilof had been the bearer of unwelcome tidings. It was either +that, or else he must have succeeded in frictioning Magda in some way +himself, since, beyond flinging an occasional double-edged sentence in +his direction, she seemed absent and disinclined to take part in the +conversation. + +It was almost a relief to Gillian when Dan Storran appeared, although +the recollection of the strained atmosphere which had attended the +previous meal did not hold out much promise of better things to come. +His face was still clouded and he glowered at the tea-table under the +elms with dissatisfied eyes. + +"What on earth's the meaning of this?" he demanded ungraciously of his +wife. "Is it some newfangled notion that's got you?" + +June coloured up nervously, and was about to falter an explanation of +the innovation when Magda suddenly took the matter out of her hands. + +"There's nothing newfangled about tea out-of-doors, on a glorious day +like this," she said. "It's the only sensible thing to do. You don't +really mind, do you?" + +She smiled up at him provocatively and his sombre face lightened. + +"Not if you like it," he replied shortly. + +"Well, I do. So sit down and be pleased--instead of looking like a +thundercloud, please." The softness in her voice robbed the speech of +its sharpness. "I have a friend here--and we're having tea outside in +his honour." + +She introduced the two men, who exchanged a few commonplace words-- +each, meanwhile, taking the measure of the other through eyes that +were frankly hostile. They were of such dissimilar type that there was +practically no common ground upon which they could meet, and with the +swift, unerring intuition of the lover each had recognised the other +as standing in some relationship to Magda which premised a just cause +for jealousy. Both men endeavoured to secure her undivided attention +and, failing lamentably, their mutual antagonism deepened, smouldering +visibly beneath the stiff platitudes they exchanged with one another. + +Gillian, thrust rather into the position of an onlooker, watched the +proceedings with amused eyes--her amusement only tempered by the +slightly apprehensive feeling concerning Magda of which she had been +vaguely conscious from the first moment she had found her in Davilof's +company, and which continued to obsess her. + +True, she no longer wore that set, still look which Gillian had +observed on her face prior to Dan Storran's appearance upon the scene. +But even when she smiled and talked, playing the men off one against +the other with a deft skill that was inimitable, there seemed a +curious new hardness underlying it all--a certain reckless deviltry +for which Gillian was at a loss to account. + +June watched, too, with troubled eyes. Half an hour ago she had been +feeling ridiculously happy, comfortably assured in her own mind that +this tall, rather exquisite foreigner and the woman whose presence in +her home had occasioned so much bitter heart-burning were only +hesitating, as it were, on the brink of matrimony. And now--now she +did not know what to think! Miss Vallincourt was treating Davilof with +an airy negligence that to June's honest and candid soul seemed +altogether incompatible with such circumstances. + +Meanwhile, with her own ears attuned to catch each varying shade of +Dan's beloved voice, she could not but perceive its change of quality, +slight, but unmistakable, when he spoke to Magda--the sudden deepening +of it--and the unconscious self-betrayal of his glance as it rested on +her. It was a relief when at last he got up and moved off, excusing +himself on the plea that he had some work he must attend to. As he +shook hands with Davilof the eyes of the two men met, hard as steel +and as hostile. + +Storran's departure was the signal for the breaking-up of the party. +June returned to the house, while Gillian allowed herself to be +carried off by Coppertop to visit the calves, which were a never- +failing source of interest to him. + +Left alone, an awkward pause ensued between Davilof and Magda, +backwash of the obvious clash of antagonism between the two men. + +"So!" commented Davilof, at last. "It looks as though there might be +another Raynham episode down here before long." + +The colour rushed up into Magda's face. + +"Don't you think that remark is in rather bad taste?" she replied +icily. + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +"Perhaps it was. But the men who love you get rather beyond +considering the matter of good or bad taste." + +She made a petulant gesture. + +"Oh, don't begin that old subject again. We've had it all out before. +It's finished." + +"It's not finished." + +There was a clipped, curt force about the brief denial. The good- +humoured, big-child mood in which Davilof had joyously narrated to her +how he had circumvented the unfortunate Melrose had passed, leaving +the man--turbulent and passionately demanding as of old. + +"It's not finished," he repeated. "It never will be--till you're my +wife." + +Magda laughed lightly. + +"Then I'm afraid it will have to remain unfinished--a continued-in- +our-next kind of thing. For I certainly haven't the least intention of +becoming your wife. Do understand that I /mean/ it. And please go +away. You had no business to come down here at all." + +A smouldering fire lit itself in his eyes. + +"No!" he said, taking a step nearer her. "No! I'm not going. I came +because I can't bear it any longer without you. Since you went away +I've been half-mad, I think. I can't eat or sleep! I can't even play!" +--he flung out his sensitive musician's hands in a gesture of despair. + +Magda glanced at him quickly. It was true. The man looked as though he +had been suffering. She had not noticed it before. His face had +altered--worn a trifle fine; the line from chin to cheek-bone had +hollowed somewhat and his eyes held a certain feverish brightness. But +although she could see the alteration, it did not move her in the +least. She felt perfectly indifferent. It was as though the band of +ice which seemed to have clasped itself about her heart when she heard +of Michael's marriage had frozen her capacity for feeling anything at +all. + +"I thought once"--Davilof was speaking again--"I thought once that you +had said 'no' to me because of Quarrington. But now I know you never +cared for him----" + +"How do you know?" + +The question sprang from her lips before she was aware. + +"How do I know?" Davilof laughed harshly. "Why, because the man who +was loved by Magda Wielitzska wouldn't marry any other woman. There +would be no other woman in the world for him. . . . There's no other +woman in the world for me." His control was rapidly deserting him. +"Magda, I can't live without you! I've told you--I can neither eat nor +sleep. I burn for you! If you refuse to give yourself to me, you +destroy me!" + +Swept by an emotion stronger than himself, his acquired Englishisms +went by the board. He was all Pole in the picturesque ardour of his +speech. + +Magda regarded him calmly. + +"My dear Davilof," she said quietly. "What weight do you suppose such +an argument would have with me?" + +The cool, ironic little question, with its insolent indifference, +checked him like the flick of a lash across the face. He turned away. + +"None, I suppose," he admitted bitterly. "You are fire and flame--but +within, you are ice." + +"Yes," she said, almost as though to herself. "Within, I'm ice. I +believe that's true." + +"True!" he repeated. "Of course it's true. If it were not----" + +A slight smile tilted her mouth. + +"Well?" she echoed. "If it were not?" + +He swung round. With a quick stride he was beside her. His eyes +blazing with a sudden fury of passion and resentment, he caught her by +the shoulders, forcing her to face him. + +"God!" he muttered thickly. "What are you made of? You make men go +through hell for you! Even here--here in this little country place-- +you do it! Storran's wife--one can see her heart breaks, and it is you +who are breaking it. Yet nothing touches you! You've no conscience +like other women--no heart--" + +Magda pulled herself out of his grasp. + +"Oh, do forget that I'm a woman, Davilof! I'm a dancer. Nothing else +matters. I don't want to be troubled with a heart. And--and I think +they left out my soul." + +"Yes," he agreed with intense bitterness. "I think they did. One day, +Magda some man will kill you. You'll try him too far." + +"Indeed? Is that what you contemplate doing when you finally lose +patience with me?" + +He shook his head. + +"I shall not lose patience--until you are another man's wife," he said +quietly. "And I don't intend you to be that." + + + +An hour later, Gillian, having dispatched her small son to bed and +seen him safely tucked up between the lavender-scented sheets, +discovered Magda alone in the low-raftered sitting-room. She was lying +back idly in a chair, her hands resting on the arms, in her eyes a +curious abstracted look as though she were communing with herself. + +Apparently she was too absorbed in her own thoughts to notice +Gillian's entrance, for she did not speak. + +"What are you thinking about? Planning a new dance that shall out-vie +/The Swan-Maiden/?" asked Gillian at last, for the sake of something +to say. The silence and Magda's strange aloofness frightened her in +some way. + +It was quite a moment before Magda made any answer. When she did, it +was to say with a bitter kind of wonder in her voice: + +"What centuries ago it seems since the first night of /The Swan- +Maiden/!" + +"It's not very long," began Gillian, then checked herself and asked +quickly: "Is there anything the matter, Magda? Did Antoine bring you +bad news of some kind?" + +"He brought me the offering of his hand and heart. That's no news, is +it?" + +The opening was too good to be lost. With the remembrance of June's +wistful face before her eyes, Gillian plunged in recklessly. + +"Apropos of such offerings--don't you think it would be wiser if you +weren't quite so nice to Dan Storran?" + +"Am I nice to him?" + +"Too much so for my peace of mind--or his! It worries me, Magda-- +really. You'll play with fire once too often." + +"My dear Gillian, I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself. Do +you imagine"--with a small, fine smile--"that I'm in danger of losing +my heart to a son of the soil?" + +Gillian could have shaken her. + +"/You?/ You don't suppose I'm afraid for you! It's Dan Storran who +isn't able to look after himself." She stooped over Magda's chair and +slipped an arm persuasively round her shoulders. "Come away, Magda. +Let's leave Stockleigh--go home to London." + +"Certainly not." Magda stood up suddenly. "I'm quite well amused down +here. I don't propose to leave till our time is up." + +She spoke with unmistakable decision, and Gillian, feeling that it +would be useless to urge her further at the moment, went slowly out of +the room and upstairs. As she went she could hear Dan's footstep in +the passage below. It sounded tired--quite unlike his usual swinging +stride with its suggestion of impetuous force. + +But it was not work that had tired Dan Storran that afternoon. When he +had quitted the little party gathered beneath the elms, he had started +off across the fields, unheeding where he went, and for hours he had +been tramping, deaf and blind to the world around him, immersed in the +thoughts that had driven him forth. + +The full significance of the last few weeks had suddenly come home to +him. Till now he had been drifting--drifting unthinkingly, conscious +only that life had become extraordinarily full of interest and of a +breathless kind of happiness, half sweet, half bitter. Bitter when +Magda was not with him, sweet with a maddening sweetness when she was. + +He had not stopped to consider what it all meant--why the dull, +monotonous round of existence on the farm to which he had long grown +accustomed should all at once have come alive--grown vibrant and quick +with some new impulse. + +But the happenings of to-day had suddenly shown him where he stood. +That revealing moment by the river's edge with Magda, the swift, +unreasoning jealousy of Davilof which had run like fire through his +veins--jealousy because the other man was so evidently an old +acquaintance with prior rights in her which seemed to set him, Dan +Storran, quite outside the circle of their intimacy--had startled him +into recognition of how far he had drifted. + +He loved her--craved for her with every fibre of his being. She was +his woman, and beside the tumultuous demand for her of all his lusty +manhood the quiet, unexacting affection which he bore his wife was as +water is to wine. + +And since in Dan's simple code of ethics a man's loyalty to his wife +occupied a very definite and unassailable position, the realisation +came to him fraught with the acme of bitterness and self-contempt. Nor +did he propose to yield to the madness in his blood. Hour after hour, +as he tramped blindly across country, he thrashed the matter out. This +love which had come to him was a forbidden thing--a thing which must +be fought and thrust outside his life. For the sake of June he must +see no more of Magda. She must go--leave Stockleigh. Afterwards he +would tear the very memory of her out of his heart. + +Dan was a very direct person. Having taken his decision he did not +stop to count the cost. That could come afterwards. Dimly he +apprehended that it might be a very heavy one. But he was strong, now +--strong to do the only possible thing. As he stood with his hand on +the latch of the living-room door, he wondered whether what he had to +say would mean to Magda all, or even a part, of what it meant to him-- +wondered with a sudden uncontrollable leaping of his pulses. . . . The +latch grated raucously as he jerked it up and flung open the door. +Magda was standing by the window, the soft glow of the westering sun +falling about her. Dan's eyes rested hungrily on the small dark head +outlined against the tender light. + +"Why--Dan----" She faltered into tremulous silence before the look on +his face--the aching demand of it. + +The huskily sweet voice robbed him of his strength. He strode forward +and caught her in his arms, staring down at her with burning eyes. +Then, almost violently, he thrust her away from him, unkissed, +although the soft curved lips had for a moment lain so maddeningly +near his own. + +"When can you and Mrs. Grey make it convenient to leave Stockleigh +Farm?" he asked, his voice like iron. + +The crudeness of it whipped her pride--that pride which Michael had +torn down and trampled on--into fresh, indignant life. + +"To leave? Why should we leave?" + +Storran's face was white under his tan. + +"Because," he said hoarsely, "because you're coming between me and my +wife. That's why." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE MOONLIT GARDEN + +The chintzy bedroom under the sloping roof was very still and quiet. +The moonlight, streaming in through the open casement, revealed the +bed unoccupied, its top-sheet neatly folded back just as when June had +made her final round of the house some hours earlier, leaving +everything in order for the night. + +Magda, crouched by the window, glanced back at it indifferently. She +did not want to go to bed. If she went, she knew she would not sleep. +She felt as though she would never sleep again. + +She had no idea of the time. She might have been there half an hour or +half eternity--she did not know which. The little sounds of movement +in the different bedrooms had gradually died down into silence, until +at least the profound tranquillity and peace of night enshrouded the +whole house. Only for her there was neither tranquility nor peace. + +She was alone now, face to face with the news which Davilof had +brought her--the news of Michael's marriage. Throughout the rest of +the day, after Davilof had gone, she had forced the matter into the +background of her thoughts, and during supper she had kept up a light- +hearted ripple of talk and laughter which had deceived even Gillian, +convincing her that her apprehensions of the afternoon were unfounded. + +Perhaps she was helped by the fact that Dan failed to put in an +appearance at the supper-table. It was easier to scintillate +successfully for the sole benefit of a couple of other women than +under the eyes of a man who had just ordered you out of his life. But +when at last she was alone in her own room, the sparkle was suddenly +quenched. There was no longer any need to pretend. + +Michael was married! Married! And the bitterness which she had been +strenuously keeping at bay since the day, months ago now, when she had +learned from Lady Arabella that he had deliberately left England +without seeing her again swept over her in a black flood. + +It had hurt her badly enough when he had gone away, but somewhere in +the depths of her consciousness there had always lurked a little +fugitive hope that he would come back--that she would be given another +chance. Now she knew that he would never come back--that one isn't +always given a second chance in this world. + +And beneath the sick anguish of the realisation she was aware of a +fierce resentment--a bitter, rebellious anger that any man could make +her suffer as she was suffering now. It was unjust--a burden that had +been forced upon her unfairly. She could not help her own character-- +that was a heritage with which one comes into the world--and now she +was being punished for simply having been herself! + +An hour--two hours crept by. Hours of black, stark misery. The clock +in the hall struck one--a single, bell-like stroke that reverberated +through the silent house. It penetrated the numbed confusion of her +mind, rousing her to a sudden recognition of the fact that she had +been crouched so long in one position that her limbs were stiff and +aching. + +She drew herself up to her feet, stretching her cramped muscles. The +night was warm and the room felt stiflingly hot. She looked longingly +through the window to where the garden lay drenched in moonlight, with +cool-looking alleyways of moon-washed paths threading the black gloom +of overhanging trees, ebony-edged in the silver light. + +She felt as though she could hardly breathe in the confined space of +the room. Its low, sloping roof, which she had thought so quaintly +attractive, seemed to press down on her like the lid of a box. She +must get out--out into the black and silver night which beckoned to +her through the open window. She could not stay in this room--this +little room, alone with her thoughts. + +She glanced down dubiously at the soft, chiffony negligee which she +had slipped on in place of a frock. Her feet, too, were bare. She had +stripped off her shoes and stockings first thing upon coming upstairs, +for the sake of coolness. Certainly her attire was not quite suitable +for out-of-doors. . . . But there would be no one to see her. +Ashencombe folk did not take their walks abroad at that hour of the +night. And she longed to feel the cool touch of the dewy grass against +her feet. + +Very quietly she opened her door and stole out into the passage. The +house was strangely, wonderfully still. Only the ticking of the hall- +clock broke the silence. So lightly that not a board creaked beneath +her step, Magda flitted down the old stairway, and, crossing the hall, +felt gingerly for the massive bolt which barred the heavy oaken door. +She wondered if it would slide back quietly; she rather doubted it. +She remembered often enough having heard it grate into its place as +Storran went his nightly round, locking up the house. But, as her +slender, seeking fingers came in contact with the knob, she realised +that to-night by some oversight he had forgotten to shoot the bolt +and, noiselessly lifting the iron latch, she opened the door and +slipped out into the moonlit garden. Down the paths she went and +across the lawns, the touch of the earth coming clean and cool to her +bare feet. Now and again she paused to draw a long breath of the night +air, fresh and sweet with the lingering scents of the day's blooming. + +An arch of rambler roses led into the distant part of the garden +towards which she was wending her way, its powdering of tiny blossoms +gleaming like star clusters borrowed from the Milky Way. Magda stooped +as she passed beneath it to avoid an overhanging branch. Then, as she +straightened herself, lifting her head once more, she stood still, +suddenly arrested. On a stone bench, barely twenty yards away, sat Dan +Storran! + +Against the pallid ghost-white of the bench his motionless figure +showed black and sombre like some sable statue. His big shoulders were +bowed, his hands hung loosely clasped between his knees, the white +mask of his face, mercilessly revealed in the clear moonlight, was +twisted into harsh lines of mental conflict. A certain grim triumph +manifested itself in the set of his mouth and out-thrust jaw. + +He did not see the slight figure standing just within the shade of the +rose-twined arch, and Magda remained for a moment or two watching him +in silence. The unbarred door was explained now. Storran had not come +in at all that night. She guessed the struggle which had sent him +forth to seek the utter solitude of the garden. Almost she thought she +could divine the processes of thought which had closed his lips in +that strange line of ironic triumph. He had told her to go--when every +nerve of him ached to bid her stay. And he was glad that the strength +in him had won. + +A bitter smile flitted across her face. Men were all the same! They +idolised a woman just because she was beautiful--for her lips and eyes +and hair and the nameless charm that was in her--and set her up on an +altar at which they could kneel becomingly. Then, when they found she +was merely an ordinary human being like themselves, with her bundle of +faults and failings, hereditary and acquired, the prig in them was +appropriately shocked--and they went away! + +An unhappy woman is very often a bitter one. And Magda had been slowly +learning the meaning of unhappiness for the first time in her life--a +life that had been hitherto roses and laurel all the way. + +The devils that lie in wait for our weak moments prompted her then. +The bitterness faded from her lips and they curved in a smile that +subtly challenged the stern decision in Dan Storran's face. She +hesitated an instant. Then, with feet that scarcely seemed to brush +the grass, she glided forward, swaying, bending to some rhythmic +measure, floating spirit-like across the lawn. + +With a great cry Dan leaped to his feet and stared at her, transfixed. +At the sound of his voice she paused, poised on one bare foot, leaning +a little towards him with curving, outstretched arms. Then, before he +could touch her, she drew away, step by step, and Dan Storran, +standing there in tense, breathless silence, beheld what no one else +had ever seen--the Wielitzska dancing in the moonlight as she alone +could dance. + +He knew nothing of art, nor of the supreme technique which went to +make each supple movement a thing of sheer perfection, instinct with +rhythm and significance. But he was a man, and a man in love, fighting +the strongest instincts of his nature; and the bewildering beauty of +her as she danced, the languorous, ethereal allure, delicately +sensuous as the fragrance of a La France rose, sent the hot blood +rioting through his veins. . . . She was going--slowly retreating from +him. The primal man in him, the innate hunter who took his mate by +capture, swept him headlong. With a bound he sprang past the dusky +shrubbery that hedged the lawn and overtook her, catching her in his +arms. She did not struggle. He felt her yield, and strained the soft, +panting body closer to him. Beneath his hand he could feel the +hurrying beat of her heart. Her breath, quickened by the exertion of +the dance, came unevenly between her lips as she smiled at him. + +"Do you still want me to go away, Dan Storran?" + +There was a note of half-amused, half-triumphant mockery in her voice. +The last bonds that held him snapped suddenly: "Yes!" he cried +hoarsely. "Yes, I do. To go away with me!" + +He crushed his mouth down on hers, draining the sweetness of her in +burning kisses he had thwarted through all these weeks that they had +been together, pouring out his love in disjointed, stumbling phrases +which halted by very reason of the force of passion which evoked them. + +Frightened by the tempest of emotion she had aroused she strained away +from him. But she was powerless against his huge strength, helpless to +resist him. + +At length the fierce tensity of his grip relaxed, though his arms +still clasped her. + +"Tell me," he commanded triumphantly. "Tell me you love me. I want to +hear it!" His voice vibrated and his eyes sought her face hungrily. + +She summoned up all her forces to deny him--to deny him in such a +manner that he should realise his mistake absolutely and at once. "But +I don't! I don't love you! If you thought that, you misunderstood me." + +His hands released their hold of her and fell heavily to his sides. +"Misunderstood?" he muttered. The glad triumph went suddenly out of +his voice. "Misunderstood?" he repeated dully. + +"Yes. Misunderstood me altogether." + +"I don't believe it!" + +"But you /must/ believe it," she insisted. "It's the truth!" + +He stared at her. + +"Then what have you meant all these weeks?" + +"I've not meant anything." + +"It's a lie!" he gave back savagely. "Unless"--he came closer to her-- +"unless--is it that man, that damned foreigner, who was here to-day?" + +"Antoine? No. Oh, Dan"--she forced an uncertain little laugh to her +lips--"if you knew me better you'd know that I never /do/--'mean +anything'!" + +The bitter intonation in her voice--the gibe at her own poor ruins of +love fallen about her--was lost on him. He was in total ignorance of +her friendship with Quarrington. But the plain significance of her +words came home to him clearly enough. He did not speak for a minute +or two. Then: "You've been playing with me, then--fooling me?" he said +heavily. + +Magda remained silent. The heavy, laboured speech seemed to hold +something minatory in it--the sullen lowering which precedes a +tempest. + +"Answer me!" he persisted. "Was that it?" + +"I--I suppose it was," she faltered. + +He drew still closer and instinctively she shrank away. A +consciousness of repressed violence communicated itself to her. She +half expected him to strike her. + +"And you don't love me? You're quite sure?" + +There was an ominous kind of patience in the persistent questioning. +It was as though he were deliberately giving her every possible chance +to clear herself. Her nerves frayed a little. + +"Of course I'm sure--perfectly sure," she said with nervous asperity. +"I wish you'd believe me, Dan!" + +"I only wanted to make sure," he returned. + +Something in the careful precision of his answer struck her with a +swift sense of apprehension. She looked up at him and what she saw +made her catch her breath convulsively. His face was ashen, the veins +in his forehead standing out like weals, and his eyes gleamed like +blue flame--mad eyes. His hands, hanging at his sides, twitched +curiously. + +"I'm sure now," he said. "Sure. . . . Do you know what you've done? +You've smashed up my life. Smashed it. June and I were happy enough +till you came. Now we'll never be happy again. I expect you've smashed +other lives, too. But you won't do it any more. I'm the last. Women +like you are better dead!" + +His great arms swung out and gripped her. + +"No, don't struggle. It wouldn't be any good, you know." He went on +speaking very carefully and quietly, and while he spoke she felt his +left arm tighten round her, binding her own arms down to her sides as +might a thong, while his right hand slid up to the base of her throat. +She writhed, twisting her body desperately in his grip. "Keep still. +I've kissed you. And now I'm going to kill you. You'll be better +dead." + +There was implacable purpose in his strangely quiet, unhurried +accents. Magda recognised it--recognised that death was very close to +her. It would be useless to scream. Before help could come--if anyone +heard her cries, which was unlikely--Dan would have accomplished what +he meant to do. + +In the last fraction of time these thoughts flashed through her mind. +Her brain seemed to be working with abnormal clarity and speed. This +was death, then--unavoidable, inevitable. + +She felt Dan's hand creep upward, closing round her throat. Quite +suddenly she ceased to struggle and lay still in his grasp. After all, +she didn't know that she would much mind dying. Life was not so sweet. +There would be pain, she supposed . . . a moment's agony. . . . + +All at once, Storran's hands fell away from her passive, silent body +and he stepped back. "I can't do it!" he muttered hoarsely. "I can't +do it!" + +For a moment the suddenness of her release left Magda swaying dizzily +on her feet. Then her brain clearing, she looked across to where Dan +Storran's big figure faced her. The nonchalance with which she usually +met life, and with which a few moments earlier she had been prepared +to face inevitable death, stood by her now. A faint, quizzical smile +tilted her mouth. + +"So you couldn't do it after all, Dan?" The familiar note of half- +indifferent mockery sounded in her voice. + +Storran stared at her. "By God! I don't believe you are a woman!" he +exclaimed thickly. + +She regarded him contemplatively, her hands lightly touching the red +marks scored by his fingers on the whiteness of her throat. + +"Do you know," she replied dispassionately, "I sometimes wonder if I +am? I don't seem to have--feelings, like other women. It doesn't +matter to me, really, a bit that I've--what was it you said?--smashed +up your life. I don't know that it would have mattered much if you had +strangled me." She paused, then stepped towards him. "Now you know the +truth. Do you still want to kill me, Dan Storran! . . . Or may I go?" + +He swung aside from her. + +"Go!" he muttered sullenly. "Go to /hell/!" + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE DAY AFTER + +"Magda, how could you?" Gillian's voice was full of blank dismay. "You +ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself!" + +Magda perched on the foot of Gillian's bed, her hands clasped round +her knees, nodded. + +"Yes, I suppose I ought. I don't know what made me do it--except that +he'd suggested I should leave Stockleigh! I'm not used to being-- +shunted!" + +"Heaven knows you're not!" agreed Gillian ruefully. "It would be a +wholesome tonic for you if you were. I told you only yesterday that it +would be better if we left here. And on top of that you must needs go +and dance in the moonlight, of all things, while Dan Storran looks on! +What ordinary man is going to keep his head in such circumstances, do +you suppose? Especially when he was more than half in love with you to +start with. . . . Oh, I should like to shake you!" + +"Well, I'll leave now--as soon as ever you like," replied Magda, +slipping down from the bed. She was unwontedly meek, from which +Gillian judged that for once she felt herself unable to cope with the +situation she had created. "Will you arrange it?" + +Gillian shrugged her shoulders. + +"I suppose so," she returned resignedly. "As usual, you break the +crockery and someone else has to sweep up the pieces." + +Magda bent down and kissed her. + +"You're such a dear, Gillyflower," she said with that impulsive, +lovable charm of manner which it was so difficult to resist. "Still"-- +her voice hardening a little--"perhaps there are a few odd bits that +I'll have to sweep up myself." + +And she departed to her own room to complete her morning toilette, +leaving Gillian wondering rather anxiously what she could have meant. + +When, half an hour later, the two girls descended for breakfast, Dan +Storran was not visible. He had gone off early to work, June +explained, and Magda experienced a sensation of distinct relief. She +had dreaded meeting Dan this morning. The mad, bizarre scene of the +night before, with sudden unleashing of savage and ungoverned +passions, had shaken even her insouciant poise, though she was very +far from seeing it in its true proportions. + +June received Gillian's intimation that they proposed leaving +Stockleigh Farm that day without comment. She was very quiet and self- +contained, and busied herself in making the necessary arrangements for +their departure, sending a boy into Ashencombe to order the wagonette +from the Crown and Bells to take them to the station whilst she +herself laboriously made out the account that was owing. When she +presented the latter, with a perfectly composed and business-like air, +and proceeded conscientiously to stamp and receipt it, no one could +have guessed how bitter a thing it was to her to accept Miss +Vallincourt's money. Within herself she recognised that every penny of +it had been earned at the cost of her own happiness. + +But as she stood at the gate, watching the ancient vehicle from the +Crown and Bells bearing the London visitors towards the station, a +little quiver of hope stirred in her heart. Early that morning Dan +himself had said to her before starting out to his work: "Get those +people away! They must be out of the house before I come into it +again. Pay them a week's money instead of notice if necessary. We can +afford it." So it was evident that he, too, had realised the danger of +their happiness--hers and his--if Miss Vallincourt remained at +Stockleigh any longer. + +He did not come in till late in the evening, when June was sitting in +the lamplight, adding delicate stitchery to some tiny garments upon +which she was at work. She hid them hastily at the sound of his +footsteps, substituting one of his own socks that stood in need of +repair. Not yet could she share with him that wonderful secret joy +which was hers. There must be a clearer understanding between them +first. They must get back to where they were before Miss Vallincourt +came between them, so that nothing might mar the sweetness of the +telling. + +Presently Dan came into the room and sat down heavily. June looked +across at him. + +"She has gone, Dan," she said quietly. She did not use the word +"they." Those others did not count as far as she was concerned. Her +use of the pronoun sounded significantly in Storran's ears. + +"You know, then?" he said dully. Adding, after a moment's pause. "Did +she tell you?" + +"Tell me?" repeated June doubtfully. "Tell me what?" + +"That she's robbed you of all that belongs to you." + +Her face blanched. "What do you mean, Dan?" she asked falteringly. "I +don't think I understand." + +Her wide, questioning blue eyes, with that softness and depth of +expression dawning in them which motherhood gives to women's eyes, +searched his face. The innocent appeal of them cut him to the heart. +He had loved his wife; and now he had to tell her that he loved her no +longer. + +"You've got to understand," he said roughly. His hatred of being +compelled to hurt her made him almost brutal. "I--everything is +changed between us, June." He stopped, not knowing how to go on. + +"Changed? How, Dan?" Her voice sharpened with apprehension. "Do you +mean--that you don't--care any longer?" + +"Yes. It's that. It's Magda--Oh, good God! Can't you understand?" + +"You love Miss Vallincourt?" June spoke in carefully measured accents. +She felt that if she did not speak very quietly indeed she should +scream. She wanted to laugh, too. It sounded so absurd to be asking +her husband if he loved Miss Vallincourt! + +Dan's eyes met her own. + +"Yes," he said. "I love her." He paused a moment, then added: "I asked +her to go away with me." + +June stared at him dumbly. The whole thing seemed unreal. She could +not feel as though what Dan was saying had any relation to herself, +any bearing on their life together. At last: + +"Why didn't you go, then?" she heard herself say--at least, she +supposed she must be saying it, although the voice didn't sound a bit +like her own. + +Dan turned on her with sudden savagery. His nerves were raw. + +"You speak as though you were disappointed," he said roughly. + +"No. But if you care for Miss Vallincourt and she cares for you, I'm +wondering what stopped you." + +"She doesn't care for me"--shortly. + +June felt a thrill of pure joy. If Magda didn't care, then she could +win him back--win back her husband! Within her she was instinctively +aware that if Magda /had/ cared, no power of hers could have won back +Dan's allegiance. A faint doubt assailed her. + +"She--she /seemed/ as if she cared?" she ventured. + +Dan nodded indifferently. + +"Yes. I was a summer holiday's amusement for her." + +"And--was that all?" + +As June spoke, her direct gaze sought her husband's face. He met it +fair and square, unflinchingly. + +"That's all," he replied quietly. + +She crossed the room swiftly to his side. + +"Then, if that's all, Dan, we--we won't speak of it again--ever," she +said steadily. "It--it was just a mistake. It need never come between +us. You'll get over it, and I"--her small head reared itself bravely-- +"I'll forget it." + +The pathetic courage of her! Storran turned away with a groan. + +"No," he answered. "I shan't 'get over it.' When a man loves a woman +as I love Magda he doesn't 'get over it.' That's what I meant when I +told you she had robbed you." + +"You /will/ get over it, Dan," she persisted. "I'll help you." + +"You can't," he returned doggedly. "You, least of all! Every touch of +your hand--I should be thinking what her touch would have meant! The +sound of your step--I'd be listening for hers!" + +He saw her wince. He wanted to kick himself for hurting her like this. +But he knew what he intended doing; and sooner or later she must know +too. It would be better for her in the long run to face it now than to +be endlessly waiting and hoping and longing for what he knew could +never be. + +"Dan, I'll be very patient. Don't you think--if you tried--you could +conquer this love of yours for Miss Vallincourt?" + +He shook his head. + +"It's conquered me, June. It's--it's torture!" + +"It will be easier now she's gone away," she suggested. + +"Gone away? . . . Aye, as far as London! And in five hours I could be +with her--see her again----" + +He broke off. At the bare thought his heart was pounding against his +ribs, his breath labouring in his throat. + +"Won't you try, Dan?" Even to herself June's voice sounded faint and +far away. + +"It would be useless." He got up and strode aimlessly back and forth, +coming at last to a standstill in front of her. "A man knows his own +limits, June. And I've reached mine. England can't hold the two of +us." + +June gave a little stifled cry. + +"What do you mean? You're not--you're not going to leave me? To go +abroad--now?" + +There would be need for him in England soon--in a few months. But of +course he couldn't know that. Should she tell him. Tell him why he +/must not/ leave her now? Keep him with her by a sure and certain +chain--the knowledge that she was soon to be the mother of his child? + +She debated the question wildly in her mind, tempted to tell him, yet +feeling that even if then he stayed with her it would not be because +he loved her or had ceased to care for Miss Vallincourt, but only +because he was impelled by a sense of duty. And her pride rebelled +against holding him by that. + +His voice broke in upon her conflicting thoughts. + +"Yes. I'm going abroad. It's the only thing, June. I can't stay in +England--and keep away from her." + +June was silent a moment. Then she said in a very low voice, almost as +though speaking to herself: + +"I wonder if--if you ever loved me." + +He wheeled round, and the desperate misery in his eyes hurt her almost +physically. + +"Yes," he said harshly. "I did love you. In a way, I do now. But it's +nothing--nothing to the madness in my blood! I'm a brute to leave you. +But I'm going to do it. No civilised country can hold me now!" + +So that was to be the end of it! June recognised the bitter truth at +last. Magda had indeed robbed her of everything she possessed. And +robbed her wantonly, seeing that she herself set no value on Dan's +love--had, in fact, tossed it aside like an outworn plaything. + +June ceased to plead with Dan then. She would not wish to hold him by +any other chain than his love for her. And if that chain had snapped-- +broken irrevocably--then the child born of what had once been love +would only be an encumbrance in his eyes, an unwelcome tie, shackling +him to a duty from which he longed to escape. + +So she let him go--let him go in silence. . . . + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +WHAT LADY ARABELLA KNEW + +Lady Arabella might disapprove of her god-daughter from every point of +the compass, but she was nevertheless amazingly fond of her, so that +when Gillian appeared on her spotless Park Lane doorstep one afternoon +with the information that she and Magda had returned from Devonshire, +she hailed the announcement with enthusiasm. + +"But where is Magda? Why didn't she come with you?" she demanded +impatiently. + +"Her manager rang up to know if he could see her about various things +in connection with this next winter's season, so there's a great +council in progress. But she's coming to see you to-morrow. Won't I +do"--Gillian wrinkled her brows whimsically--"for to-day?" + +"Bless the child! Of course you will! Come along and tell me all about +your Devonshire trip. I suppose," she went on, "you heard the news of +Michael Quarrington's marriage? Or didn't you get any newspapers down +in your benighted village?" + +"No, we had no London papers," replied Gillian doubtfully. "But--I +don't understand. Mr. Quarrington isn't married, is he? I thought--I +thought----" + +"You thought he was in love with Magda. So he was. The announcement +startled everybody, I can tell you! And Davilof promptly decided that +a motoring trip would benefit his health and shot off to Devonshire at +top speed. Of course he wanted to impart the news to Magda. He must +have felt a pretty fool since!" And Lady Arabella gave one of her +enjoyable chuckles. + +"Yes. Antoine came down to see us," replied Gillian in puzzled tones. +"But Magda never confided anything special he had said. I suppose he +/must/ have told her----" She broke off as all at once illumination +penetrated the darkness. "That explains it, then! Explains +everything!" she exclaimed. + +"What explains what?" demanded Lady Arabella bluntly. + +"Why----" And Gillian proceeded to recount the events which had led up +to the abrupt termination of the visit to Stockleigh Farm. + +"She was in a very odd kind of mood after Antoine had gone. I even +asked her if he had brought any bad news, but I couldn't get any +sensible answer out of her. And that night she proceeded to dance in +the moonlight with Dan Storran for audience--out of sheer devilment, +of course!" + +"Or sheer heartsickness," suggested Lady Arabella, with one of those +quick flashes of tender insight which combined so incongruously with +the rest of her personality. + +"Do you think she--cared, then?" asked Gillian. + +"For Quarrington? Of course I do. Oh, well it will all come right in +the end, I hope. And, anyway"--with a wicked little grin--"Davilof +won't have quite such a clear coast as he anticipated." + +"But if Michael Quarrington is married--" + +"He isn't," interrupted Lady Arabella briskly. "It was contradicted in +the papers the very next morning. Only I suppose Davilof hustled off +to Devonshire in such a hurry that he never saw it. + +"Contradicted? But how did such a mistake arise?" + +"Oh, whoever supplied that particular tidbit of news got the names +mixed. It ought really to have been /Warrington/, not Quarrington-- +Mortrake Warrington, the sculptor, you know. It seems he and Michael +were both using the same woman as a model--only Warrington married +her! Spoiled Michael's picture--or his temper--when he ran off with +her for a honeymoon, I expect!" + +On her return to Friars' Holm Gillian hastened to retail for Magda's +benefit the information she had acquired from Lady Arabella, and was +rewarded by the immediate change in her which became apparent. The +haunted, feverish look in her eyes was replaced by a more tranquil +shining, the intense restlessness she had evinced of late seemed to +fall away from her, and she ceased to pepper her conversation with the +bitter speeches which had worried Gillian more than a little, +recognising in them, as she did, the outcrop of some inward and +spiritual turmoil. + +To Magda, the fact that Michael was not married, after all, seemed to +re-create the whole world. It left hope still at the bottom of the box +of life's possibilities. Looking backward, she realised now how +strongly she had clung to the belief that some day he would come back +to her. It had been the one gleam of light through all those dark +months which had followed his abrupt departure; and the intolerable +pain of the hours that had succeeded Davilof's announcement of his +marriage to the Spanish woman had taught her how much Michael meant to +her. + +She was beginning to appreciate, too, the tangle of convictions and +emotions which had driven him from her side. His original attitude +toward her, based on the treatment she had accorded to his friend who +had loved her, had been one of plain censure and distrust, +strengthened and intensified by that strong "partisan" feeling of one +man for another--fruit of the ineradicable sex antagonism which so +often colours the judgments men pass on women and women on men. Then +had come love, against which he had striven in vain, and gradually, +out of love, had grown a new tentative belief which the pitiful +culmination of the Raynham episode had suddenly and very completely +shattered. + +Of late, circumstances had combined to impress on Magda an altogether +new point of view--the viewpoint from which other people might +conceivably regard her actions. She had never troubled about such a +thing before, nor was she finding the experience at all a pleasant +one. But it helped her to understand to a certain extent--though still +only in a very modified degree--the influences which had sent Michael +Quarrington out of England. + +And now, in the passionate relief bred of the knowledge that he was +still free, that he had not gone straight from her to another woman, +much of the resentful hardness which had embittered her during the +last few months melted away, and she became once more the nonchalant, +tantalising but withal lovable and charming personality of former +days. + +She was even conscious of a certain compunction for her behaviour at +Stockleigh. She had been bitterly hurt herself, and since, for the +moment, to experiment with a new and, to her, quite unknown type of +man had amused her and helped to distract her thoughts, she had not +paused to consider the possible resultant consequences to the subject +of the experiment. + +She endeavoured to solace herself with the belief that after she had +gone he would instinctively turn to June once more, and that life on +the farm would probably resume the even tenor of its way. Gradually, +with the passage of time, her thoughts reverted less and less often to +the happenings at Stockleigh, and the prickings of conscience--which +beset her return to London--grew considerably fainter and more +infrequent. + +It was almost inevitable that this should be so. With the autumn came +the stir and hustle of the season, with its thousand-and-one claims +upon her thought and time. The management of the Imperial Theatre was +nothing if not enterprising, and designed to present a series of +ballets throughout the course of the winter, in the greater number of +which Magda would be the bright and particular star. And in the +absorption of work and the sheer joy she found in the art which she +loved, the recollection of her holiday at Stockleigh slipped by +degrees into the background of her mind. Fraught with such immense +significance and catastrophe to those others, Dan and June--to Magda +it soon came to occupy no more than an incidental niche in her memory. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +CROSS CURRENTS + +Winter had slipped away, pushed from his place by the tender, +resistless hands of spring. And now spring had given place to summer, +and June, arms filled with flowers, was converting the earth into a +garden of roses. + +Magda's car, purring its way southward along the great road from +London, sped between fields that still gleamed with the first +freshness of their young green, while through the open window drifted +vagrant little puffs of clean country air, coming delicately to her +nostrils, fragrant of leaf and bloom. + +She was motoring to Netherway, a delightfully small and insignificant +place on the Hampshire coast where Lady Arabella had what it pleased +her to term her "cottage in the country," a charming old place, +Elizabethan in character--the type of "cottage" which boasted a score +or so of rooms and every convenience which an imaginative estate +agent, sustained by the knowledge that his client regarded money as a +means and not an end, could devise. + +Summer invitations to the Hermitage--as the place was quite inaptly +called, since no one could be less akin to a hermit than its +gregarious owner--were much sought after by the younger generation of +Lady Arabella's set. The beautifully wooded park, with its green +aisles of shady solitude sloping down from the house to the very edge +of the blue waters of the Solent, was an ideal spot in which to bring +to a safe and happy conclusion a love affair that might seem to have +hung fire a trifle during the hurly-burly of the London season. And if +further inducement were needed, it was to be found in the fact that +Lady Arabella herself constituted the most desirable of chaperons, +remaining considerately inconspicuous until the moment when her +congratulations were requested. + +This year a considerable amount of disappointment had been occasioned +by the fact that she had left town quite early during the season, and +later on had apparently limited her invitations exclusively to the +trio at Friars' Holm. She declared that the number of matrimonial +ventures for which the Hermitage was responsible was beginning to +weigh on her conscience. Also, she wanted a quiet holiday and she +proposed to take one. + +And now Magda was on her way to join her, Gillian remaining behind in +order to close up the house at Hampstead and settle the servants on +board wages. It had been arranged that she and Coppertop should come +on to Netherway immediately this was accomplished. + +Magda could hardly believe that only a year had elapsed since last the +roses beckoned her out of London. It seemed far longer since that hot +summer's day when she had rushed away to Devonshire, vainly seeking a +narcotic for the new and bewildering turmoil of pain that was +besetting her. + +She had learned now that you carry a heartache with you, and that no +change of scenery makes up for the beloved face you can no longer see. +For Michael had not come back. He had remained abroad and had never by +sign or letter acknowledged that he even remembered her existence. +Magda had come to accept it as a fact now that he had gone out of her +life entirely. + +A whiff of air tinged with the salt tang of the sea blew in at the +window, and she came suddenly out of her musings to find that the car +was winding its way up the hill upon which the Hermitage was perched. + +A long, low house, clothed in creeper, it stood just below the hill's +brow, sheltered to the rear by a great belt of woods, and overlooking +a sea which sparkled in the sunlight as though strewn with diamond- +dust. + +Lady Arabella was waiting in the porch when the car drew up and +welcomed her god-daughter with delight. She seemed bubbling over with +good spirits, and there was a half-mischievous, half-guilty twinkle in +her keen old eyes which suggested that there might be some ulterior +cause for her effervescence. + +"If you were poor I should say you'd just come into a fortune," +commented Magda, regarding her judicially. "As you're not, I should +like to know why you're looking as pleased as a child with a new toy. +Own up, now, Marraine! What's the secret you've got up your sleeve?" + +"Yes, there is a secret," acknowledged Lady Arabella gleefully. "Come +along and I'll show it you." + +Magda smiled and followed her across the long hall and into a room at +the further end of which stood a big easel. On the easel, just nearing +completion, rested a portrait of her godmother. It was rather a +wonderful portrait. The artist seemed to have penetrated beyond the +mere physical lineaments of his sitter into the very crannies of her +soul. It was all there--the thoroughly worldly shrewdness, the +mordant, somewhat cynical humour, and the genuine kindness of heart +which went to make up Lady Arabella's personality as her world knew +it. And something more. Behind all these one sensed the glamour of a +long-past romance, the unquenched spark of a faith that, as Lady +Arabella had herself once put it in a rare moment of self-revelation, +"love is the best thing this queer old world of ours has to offer." +The portrait on the easel was that of a woman who had visioned the +miracle of love only to be robbed of its fulfilment. + +Magda stood silently in front of the picture, marvelling at its keen +perceptive powers. And then quite suddenly she realised who must have +painted it. It almost seemed to her as though she had really known it +from the first moment her eyes had rested on the canvas. The +brushwork, and that uncannily clever characterisation, were +unmistakable. + +"Good likeness, don't you think?" + +Lady Arabella's snapping speech broke the silence. + +"It's rather more than that, isn't it?" said Magda. "How did you +seduce Michael Quarrington? I thought"--for an instant her voice +wavered, then steadied again--"I thought he was abroad." + +"He was. At the present moment he's at the Hermitage." + +"/Here/?" + +Magda turned her head aside so that Lady Arabella might not see the +wave of scarlet which flooded her face and then receded, leaving it +milk-white. Michael . . . /here/! She felt her heart beating in great +suffocating throbs, and the room seemed to swim round her. If he were +here, knowing that she was to be his fellow-guest, surely he could not +hate her so badly! She was conscious of a sudden wild uprush of hope. +Perhaps--perhaps happiness was not so far away, after all! + +And then she heard Lady Arabella's voice breaking across the riot of +emotion which stirred within her. + +"Yes, he has been here the last three weeks painting my portrait. It's +for you, the portrait. I thought you'd like to have it when you +haven't got the original any longer." + +Magda turned to her suddenly, her affection for her godmother alertly +apprehensive. + +"What do you mean?" she said anxiously. "You're--you're not ill, +Marraine?" + +"Ill? No. But I'm over seventy. And after seventy you've had your +allotted span, you know. Anything beyond that's an extra. And whether +fate gives me a bit more rope or not, I've nothing to grumble at. I've +/lived/, not vegetated--and I've had a very good time, too." She +paused, then added slowly: "Though I've missed the best." + +Magda slipped her hand into the old woman's thin, wrinkled one with a +quick gesture of understanding, and a little sympathetic silence fell +between them. + +"Then you'll find the hanging-room for the portrait at Friars' Holm?" +queried Lady Arabella, breaking it at last in practical tones. + +"You know we'd love to have it," replied Magda warmly. In a studiously +casual voice she pursued: "By the way, does Mr. Quarrington know I'm +here?" + +Lady Arabella nodded. Secretly she was congratulating herself on +having successfully tided over the awkwardness of explaining Michael's +presence at the Hermitage. She had been somewhat apprehensive as to +how Magda would take it. It was quite on the cards that she might have +ordered her car round again and driven straight back to London! + +But she had accepted the fact with apparent composure--one's mental +states, fortunately, being invisible to the curious eyes of the +outside world!--and Lady Arabella felt proportionately relieved. Nor +had Quarrington himself evinced any particular emotion, either of +dissatisfaction or otherwise, when she had confided to him the fact +that she was expecting her god-daughter. And although the extreme +composure exhibited by both Michael and Magda was a trifle baffling, +Lady Arabella was fain to comfort herself with her confirmed belief in +propinquity as the resolution of most lovers' problems and +misunderstandings. + +She was fully determined to bring these two together once more if it +were in any way possible, and the commission to paint her portrait had +been merely part of her scheme. Her three score years and ten had had +little enough to do with it. They weighed extremely lightly on her +erect old shoulders, and her spirit was as unquenchable as it had been +twenty years ago. It seemed more than likely that fate was preparing +to allow her quite a good deal of rope. + +As for Quarrington, he would probably have refused to return to +England at this juncture to please anyone other than Lady Arabella. +But somehow no one ever did refuse Lady Arabella anything that she +particularly set her heart upon. Moreover, as he reflected upon +receipt of her assured little missive commissioning him to paint her +portrait, he would be obliged to return to England sooner or later, +and by now he felt he had himself sufficiently in hand to risk the +contingency of a possible meeting with Magda. But he had hardly +counted upon finding himself actually under the same roof with her for +days together, and, although outwardly unmoved, he was somewhat taken +aback when halfway through his visit to the Hermitage, Lady Arabella +cheerfully communicated the prospect to him. + +He could read between the lines and guess her purpose, and it afforded +him a certain sardonic amusement. It was like Lady Arabella's +temerity, he reflected! No other woman, knowing as much of the special +circumstances as she did, would have ventured so far. + +Well, she would soon realise that her attempt to bridge matters over +between himself and her god-daughter was foredoomed to failure. He +would never trust Magda, or any other woman, again. From the moment he +had left England he had made up his mind that henceforth no woman +should have any place in his life, and certain subsequent occurrences +had confirmed him in this determination. + +At the same time he was not going to run away. He would stay and face +it out. He would remain at the Hermitage until he had finished the +portrait upon which he was at work, and then he would pack up and +depart. + +So that when finally he and Magda met in the sun-filled South Parlour +at the Hermitage each of them was prepared to treat the other with a +cool detachment. + +But Magda found it difficult to maintain her pose after her first +glance at his face. The alteration in it sent a swift pang to her +heart. It had hardened--hardened into lines of a grim self-control +that spoke of long mental conflict. The mouth, too, had learned to +close in a new line of bitterness, and in the grey eyes as they rested +on her there lay a certain cynical indifference which seemed to set +her as far away from him as the north is from the south. She realised +that the gulf between them was almost as wide and impassable as though +he were in very truth the Spanish dancer's husband. This man proposed +to give her neither love nor forgiveness. Only the feminine instinct +of pride--the pride of woman who must be sought and never the seeker-- +carried her through the ordeal of the first meeting. Nor did he seek +to make it easier for her. + +"It is a long time since you were in England," she remarked after the +first interchange of civilities. + +"Very long," agreed Quarrington politely. "It would probably have been +still longer if Lady Arabella had not tempted me. But her portrait was +too interesting a commission to refuse." + +"It sounds banal to say how good I think it. You never paint anything +that /isn't/ good, do you?" + +"I paint what I see." + +"In that case quite a lot of people might be afraid to have their +portraits painted by you--beauty being so much in the eye of the +beholder!" returned Magda with the flippancy that is so often only the +defence behind which a woman takes refuge. + +"I don't think so. As a matter of fact I have no objection to painting +a plain face--provided there's a beautiful soul behind it." + +"But I suppose a beautiful soul in a beautiful body would satisfy you +better?" + +"It might, if such a combination existed." + +Magda flushed a little. + +"You don't think it does?" + +The grey, contemptuous eyes swept her face suddenly. + +"My experience has not led me to think so." + +There was an almost calculated insolence in the careless answer. It +was as though he had tossed her an epitome of his opinion of her. +Magda's spirit rose in opposition. + +"Perhaps your experience has been somewhat limited," she observed. + +"Perhaps it has. If so, I have no wish to extend it." + +In spite of Michael's taciturnity--or perhaps, more truly, on account +of it--Magda's spirits lightened curiously after that first interview +with him. The mere fact of his presence had stilled the incessant ache +at her heart--the ache to see him again and hear his voice. And the +morose cynicism of his thrusts at her was just so much proof that, +although he had forced himself to remain out of England for a year and +a half, yet he had not thereby achieved either peace of mind or +indifference. Magda was too true a daughter of Eve not to know that a +man doesn't expend powder and shot on a woman to whom he is completely +indifferent. + +The next day or two were not without their difficulties, as Lady +Arabella speedily realised. A triangular party, when two out of the +three share certain poignant memories, is by no means the easiest +thing to stage-manage. There were inevitable awkward moments that +could only be surmounted by the exercise of considerable tact, and the +hours which Lady Arabella passed sitting to Quarrington for her +portrait, while Magda wandered alone through the woods or sculled a +solitary boat up the river, helped to minimize the strain +considerably. + +Nevertheless, it was a relief to everyone concerned when Gillian and +Coppertop were added to the party. A strained atmosphere was somewhat +difficult of accomplishment anywhere within the joyous vicinity of the +latter, while Gillian's tranquil and happy nature reacted on the whole +household. + +"That's an extraordinary friendship," commented Quarrington one day as +he and his hostess stood at the window watching Gillian and Magda, +returned from shopping in the village, approaching up the drive. "Mrs. +Grey is so simple and--to use an overworked word--so essentially +womanly." + +"And Magda?" + +The hard look deepened in Michael's eyes. + +"Essentially--feminine," he answered curtly. "A quite different +thing." + +"She hasn't found her soul yet," said Lady Arabella. Adding with +sudden daring: "Suppose you find it for her, Michael?" + +"I don't think the search would interest me," he returned coolly. "I +haven't the instinct of the prospector." He paused, then went on +slowly and as though making the admission almost against his will: +"But I'd like to paint her." + +"A portrait of her?" + +"No, not a portrait." + +"Then you mean you want her to sit for your 'Circe'?" + +Lady Arabella knew all about the important picture he had in mind to +paint. They had often discussed it together during the progress of the +sittings she had been giving him, and she was aware that so far he had +been unable to find a suitable model. + +"Yes," he said slowly. "She is the perfect model for such a subject-- +body and soul." + +Lady Arabella ignored the sneer. + +"Then why not ask her to sit for you?" + +Quarrington's brows drew together. + +"You know the answer to that, I think, Lady Arabella," he answered +curtly. + +"Oh, you men! I've no patience with you!" exclaimed the old lady +testily. "/I/ shall ask her, then!" + +Gillian and Magda, laden with parcels, entered the room as she spoke, +and, before Quarrington could prevent her, she had flashed round on +her god-daughter. + +"Magda, here's Michael in need of a model for the best picture he's +ever likely to paint, and it seems you exactly fit the bill. Will you +sit for him?" + +Followed an astonished silence. Gillian glanced apprehensively towards +Magda. She felt as though Lady Arabella had suddenly let off a +firework in their midst. Magda halted in the process of unwrapping a +small parcel. + +"What is the subject of the picture?" + +There was a perceptible pause. Then Lady Arabella took the bull by the +horns. + +"Circe," she said tersely. + +"Oh!" Magda seemed to reflect. "She turned men into swine, didn't +she?" She looked across at Quarrington. "And I'm to understand you +think I'd make a suitable model for that particular subject?" + +"She was a very beautiful person," suggested Gillian hastily. + +"Mr. Quarrington hasn't answered my question," persisted Magda. + +He met her glance with cool defiance. + +"Then, yes," he returned with a little bow. "As Mrs. Grey has just +remarked--Circle was very beautiful." + +"You score," observed Magda demurely. There was a glint of amusement +in her eyes. + +"Yes, I think he does," agreed Lady Arabella, who was deriving an +impish, pixie-like enjoyment from the situation. Then, recognising +that it might be more diplomatic not to press the matter any further +at the moment, she skilfully drew the conversation into other +channels. + +It was not until evening, after dinner, that she reverted to the +subject. They had all four been partaking of coffee and cigarettes on +the verandah, and subsequently she had proposed a stroll in the garden +--a suggestion to which Gillian responded with alacrity. Magda, her +slim length extended on a comfortably cushioned wicker lunge, shook +her head. + +"I'm too comfortable to stir," she declared idly. + +Lady Arabella paused at the edge of the verandah and contemplated her +critically. Something in the girl's pose and in the long, lithe lines +of her recumbent figure was responsible for her next remark. + +"I can see you as Circe," she commented, "quite well." She tucked her +arm into Gillian's and, as they moved away together, threw back over +her shoulder: "By the way, have you two settled the vexed question of +the model for the picture yet?" + +Quarrington blew a thin stream of smoke into the air before replying. +Then, looking quizzically across at Magda, he asked: "Have we?" + +"Have we what?" + +"Decided whether you will sit for my picture of Circe?" + +Magda lifted her long white lids and met his glance. + +"Why should I?" she asked lazily. + +He shrugged his shoulders with apparent unconcern. + +"No reason in the world--unless you feel inclined to do a good turn." + +His indifference was maddening. + +"I don't make a habit of doing good turns," she retorted sharply. + +"So I should imagine." + +The contemptuous edge to his voice roused her to indignation. As +always, she found herself stung to the quick by the man's coolly +critical attitude towards her. She was back once more in the +atmosphere of their first meeting on the day he had come to her +assistance in the fog. It seemed almost incredible that all that +followed had ever taken place--incredible that he had ever cared for +her or taught her to care for him. At least he was making it very +clear to her now that he intended to cut those intervening memories +out of his life. + +It was a sheer challenge to her femininity, and everything that was +woman in her rose to meet it. + +She smiled across at him engagingly. + +"I might--perhaps--make an exception." + +For a moment there was silence. Quarrington's gaze was riveted on her +slim, supple figure with its perfect symmetry and rare grace of limb. +It was difficult to interpret his expression. Magda wondered if he +were going to reject her offer. He seemed to be fighting something out +with himself--pulled two ways--the artist in him combating the man's +impulse to resist her. + +Suddenly the artist triumphed. He rose and, coming to her side, stood +looking down at her. + +"Will you?" he said. "/Will you/?" + +Something more than the artist spoke in his voice. It held a note of +passionate eagerness, a clipped tensity that set all her pulses +racing. + +She turned her head aside. + +"Yes," she answered, a little breathlessly. "Yes--if you want me to." + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A READJUSTMENT OF IDEAS + +Magda glanced from the divan covered with a huge tiger-skin to +Michael, wheeling his easel into place. A week's hard work on the part +of the artist had witnessed the completion of Lady Arabella's +portrait, and to-day he proposed to make some preliminary sketches for +"Circe." + +Magda felt oddly nervous and unsure of herself. This last fortnight +passed in daily companionship with Quarrington had proved a +considerable strain. Not withstanding that she had consented to sit +for his picture of Circe, he had not deviated from the attitude which +he had apparently determined upon from the first moment of her arrival +at the Hermitage--an attitude of aloof indifference to which was added +a bitterness of speech that continually thrust at her with its +trenchant cynicism. It was as though he had erected a high wall +between them which Magda found no effort of hers could break down, and +she was beginning to ask herself whether he could ever really have +cared for her at all. Surely no man who had once cared could be so +hard--so implacably hard! + +And now, alone with him in the big room which had been converted into +a temporary studio, she found herself overwhelmed by a feeling of +intense self-consciousness. She felt it would be impossible to bear +the coolly neutral gaze of those grey eyes for hours at a time. She +wished fervently that she had never consented to sit for the picture +at all. + +"How do you want me to pose?" she inquired at last, endeavouring to +speak with her usual detachment and conscious that she was failing +miserably. "You haven't told me yet." + +He laughed a little. + +"I haven't the least intention of telling you," he replied. "'The +Wielitzska' doesn't need advice as to how to pose." + +Magda looked at him uncertainly. + +"But you've given me no idea of what you want," she protested. "I must +have some idea to start from!" + +"I want a recumbent Circe," he vouchsafed at last. "Hence the divan. +Here is the goblet"--he held it out--"supposed to contain the fatal +potion which transformed men into swine. I leave the rest to you. You +posed very successfully for me some years ago--without my issuing any +stage directions. Afterwards you played the part of a youthful Circe, +I remember. You should be more experienced now." + +She flushed under the cool, satirical tone. It seemed as though he +neglected no opportunity of impressing on her the poor estimation in +which he held her. Her thoughts flew back to a sunlit glade in a wood +and to the grey-eyed, boyish-looking painter who had kissed her and +called her "Witch-child!" + +"You--you were kinder in those days," she said suddenly. She made a +few steps towards him and stood looking up at him, her hands hanging +loosely clasped in front of her, like a penitent school-girl. + +"Saint Michel"--and at the sound of her old childish name for him he +winced. "Saint Michel, I don't think I can sit for you if--if you're +going to be unkind. I thought I could, but--but--I can't!" + +"Unkind?" he muttered. + +"Yes," she said desperately. "Since I came here you've said a good +many hard things to me. I--I dare say I've deserved them. But"-- +smiling up at him rather wanly--"it isn't always easy to accept one's +deserts." She paused, then spoke quickly: "Couldn't we--while we're +here together--behave like friends? Just friends? It's only for a +short time." + +His face had whitened while she was speaking. He was silent for a +little and his hand, grasping the side of the big easel, slowly +tightened its grip till the knuckles showed white like bone. At last +he answered her. + +"Very well--friends, then! So be it." + +Impulsively she held out her hand. He took it in his and held it a +moment, looking down at its slim whiteness. Then he bent his head and +she felt his lips hot against her soft palm. + +A little shaken, she drew away from him and moved towards the divan. +She paused beside it and glanced down reflectively at the goblet she +still carried in her hand, mentally formulating her conception of +Circe before she posed. An instant later and her voice roused +Quarrington from the momentary reverie into which he had fallen. + +"How would this do?" + +He looked up, and as his gaze absorbed the picture before him an eager +light of pure aesthetic satisfaction leaped into his eyes. + +"Hold that!" he exclaimed quickly. "Don't move, please!" And, +snatching up a stick of charcoal, he began to sketch rapidly with +swift, sure strokes. + +The pose she had assumed was matchless. She was half-sitting, half- +lying on the divan, the swathing draperies of her tunic outlining the +wonderful modelling of her limbs. The upper part of her body, twisting +a little from the waist, was thrown back as she leaned upon one arm, +hand pressed palm downward on the tiger-skin. In her other hand she +held a golden goblet, proffering the fatal draught, and her tilted +face with its strange, enigmatic smile and narrowed lids held all the +seductive entreaty and beguilement, and the deep, cynical knowledge of +mankind, which are the garnerings of the Circes of this world. + +At length Quarrington laid down his charcoal. + +"It's a splendid pose," he said enthusiastically. "That sideways bend +you've given to your body--it's wonderful! But can you stand it, do +you think? Of course I'll give you rests as often as I can, but even +so it will be a very trying pose to hold." + +Magda sat up, letting her feet slide slowly over the edge of the +divan. The "feet of Aurora" someone had once called them--white and +arched, with rosy-tipped toes curved like the petals of a flower. + +"I can hold it for a good while, I think," she answered evasively. + +She did not tell him that even to her trained muscles the preservation +of this particular pose, with its sinuous twist of the body, was +likely to prove somewhat of a strain. If the pose was so exactly what +he wanted for his Circe, he should have it, whatever the cost to +herself. + +And without knowing it, yielding to an impulse which she hardly +recognised, Magda had taken the first step along the pathway of +service and sacrifice trodden by those who love. + + + +"It seems as though you were destined to be the model of my two +'turning-point' pictures," commented Quarrington some days later, +during one of the intervals when Magda was taking a brief rest. "It +was the 'Repose of Titania' which first established my reputation, you +know." + +"But this can't be a 'turning-point,' " objected Magda. "When you've +reached the top of the pinnacle of fame, so to speak, there isn't any +'turning-point'--unless"--laughing--"you're going to turn round and +climb down again!" + +"There's no top to the pinnacle of work--of achievement," he answered +quietly. "At least, there shouldn't be. One just goes on--slipping +back a bit, sometimes, then scrambling on again." His glance returned +to the picture and Magda watched the ardour of the creative artist +light itself anew in his eyes. "That"--he nodded towards the canvas-- +"is going to be the best bit of work I've done." + +"What made you"--she hesitated a moment--"what made you choose Circe +as the subject?" + +His face clouded over. + +"The experience of a friend of mine." + +Magda caught her breath. + +"Not--you don't mean-----" + +"Oh, no"--divining her thought--"not the friend of whom you know--who +loved the dancer. She hurt him"--looking at her significantly--"but +she didn't injure him to that extent. Circe turned men into swine, you +remember. My friend was too fine a character for her to spoil like +that." + +"I'm glad." Magda spoke very low, her head bent. She felt unable to +meet his eyes. After a short silence she asked: "Then what inspired-- +this picture?" + +Was it some woman-episode that had occurred while he was abroad which +had scored those new lines on his face, embittering the mouth and +implanting that sternly sad expression in the grey eyes? She must know +--at all hazards, she must know! + +Quarrington lit a cigarette. + +"It's not a pretty story," he remarked harshly. + +Magda glanced towards the picture. The enchanting, tilted face smiled +at her from the canvas, faintly derisive. + +"Tell it me," was all she said. + +"There's very little to tell," he answered briefly. "There was a man +and his wife--and another woman. Till the latter came along they were +absolutely happy together--sufficient unto each other. The other woman +was one of the Circe type, and she broke the man. Broke him utterly. I +happened to be in Paris at the time, and he came to see me there on +his way out to South America. He'd left his wife, left his work-- +everything. Just /quitted/! Since then I believe 'Frisco has seen more +of him than any other place. A man I know ran across him there and +told me he'd gone under--utterly." + +"And the wife?" + +"Dead"--shortly. "She'd no heart to go on living--no wish to. She died +when their first child was born--she and the child together--a few +months after her husband had left her." + +Magda uttered a stifled cry of pity, but Quarrington seemed not to +hear it. + +"That woman was a twentieth-century Circe." He paused, then added with +grim conviction: "There's no forgiveness for a woman like that." + +"Ah! Don't say that!" + +The words broke impulsively from Magda's lips. The recollection of the +summer she had spent at Stockleigh rushed over her accusingly--and she +realised that actually she had come between Dan Storran and his wife +very much as the Circe woman of Michael's story had come between some +other husband and wife. + +A deep compassion for that unknown woman surged up within her. Surely +her burden of remorse must be almost more than she could endure! And +Magda--to whom penalties and consequences had hitherto been but very +unimportant factors with which she concerned herself as little as +possible--was all at once conscious of an intense thankfulness that +she had not been thus punished, that she had quitted Stockleigh +leaving husband and wife still together. Together, they would find the +way back into each other's hearts! + +"Don't say that!" she repeated imploringly. "It sounds so hard--so +relentless!" + +"I don't think that it is a case for relenting. But I oughtn't to have +told you about it. After all, neither the husband nor wife were +friends of yours. And you're looking quite upset over it. I didn't +imagine that you were so easily moved to sympathy." + +She looked away. Of late she had been puzzled herself at the new and +unwonted emotions which stirred her. + +"I don't think--I used to be," she said at last, uncertainly. + +"Well, please don't take the matter too much to heart or you won't be +able to assume the personality of Circe again when you've rested. I +don't want to paint the picture of a model of propriety!" + +It seemed as though he were anxious to restore the conversation to a +lighter vein, and Magda responded gladly. + +"I'm quite rested now. Shall I pose again?" she suggested a few +minutes later. + +Michael assented and, picking up his palette, began squeezing out +fresh shining little worms of paint on to it while Magda reassumed her +pose. For a while he chatted intermittently, but presently he fell +silent, becoming more and more deeply absorbed in his work. Finally, +when some remark of hers repeated a second time still remained +unanswered, she realised that he had completely forgotten her +existence. As far as he was concerned she was no longer Magda +Wielitzska, posing for him, but Circe, the enchantress, whose amazing +beauty he was transferring to his canvas in glowing brushstrokes. As +with all genius, the impulse of creative work had seized him suddenly +and was driving him on regardless of everything exterior to his art. + +Time had ceased to matter to him, and Magda, with little nervous pains +shooting first through one limb, then another, was wondering how much +longer she could maintain the pose. She was determined not to give in, +not to check him while that fervour of creation was upon him. + +The pain was increasing. She felt as though she were being stabbed +with red-hot knives. Tiny beads of sweat broke out on her forehead, +and her breath came gaspingly between her lips. + +All at once the big easel at which Michael was standing receded out of +sight, and when it reappeared again it was quite close to her, swaying +and nodding like a mandarin. Instinctively she put out her hand to +steady it, but it leaned nearer and nearer and finally gave a huge +lurch and swooped down on top of her, and the studio and everything in +it faded out of sight. . . . + + + +The metallic tinkle of the gold goblet as it fell from her hand and +rolled along the floor startled Michael out of his absorption. With a +sharp exclamation he flung down his brush and palette and strode +hurriedly to the divan. Magda was lying half across it in a little +crumpled heap, unconscious. + +His first impulse to lift her up was arrested by something in her +attitude, and he stood quite still, looking down at her, his face +suddenly drawn and very weary. + +In the limp figure with its upturned face and the purple shadows which +fatigue had painted below the closed eyelids, there was an +irresistible appeal. She looked so young, so helpless, and the +knowledge that she had done this for him--forced her limbs into +agonised subjection until at last conscious endurance had failed her-- +moved him indescribably. + +Surely this was a new Magda! Or else he had never known her. Had he +been too hard--hard to her and pitilessly hard to himself--when he had +allowed the ugly facts of her flirtation with Kit Raynham to drive him +from her? + +Eighteen months ago! And in all those eighteen months no word of +gossip, no lightest breath of scandal against her, had reached his +ears. Had he been merely a self-righteous Pharisee, enforcing the +penalty of old sins, bygone failings? A grim smile twisted his lips. +If so, and he had made her suffer, he had at least suffered equally +himself! + +He stooped over the prone figure on the divan. Lower, lower still, +till a tendril of dark hair that had strayed across her forehead +quivered beneath his breath. Then suddenly he drew back, jerking +himself upright. Striding across the room he pealed the bell and, when +a neat maidservant appeared in response, ordered sharply: + +"Bring some brandy--quick! And ask Mrs. Grey to come here. +Mademoiselle Wielitzska has fainted." + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +AT THE END OF THE STORM + +"This is very nice--but it won't exactly contribute towards finishing +the picture!" + +As she spoke Magda leaned back luxuriously against her cushions and +glanced smilingly across at Michael where he sat with his hand on the +tiller of the /Bella Donna/, the little sailing-yacht which Lady +Arabella kept for the amusement of her guests rather than for her own +enjoyment, since she herself could rarely be induced to go on board. + +It had been what Magda called a "blue day"--the sky overhead a deep +unbroken azure, the dimpling, dancing waters of the Solent flinging +back a blue almost as vivid--and she and Quarrington had put out from +Netherway harbour in the morning and crossed to Cowes. + +Here they had lunched and Magda had purchased one or two of the +necessities of life (from a feminine point of view) not procurable in +the village emporia at Netherway. Afterwards, as there was still ample +time before they need think of returning home, Michael had suggested +an hour's run down towards the Needles. + +The /Bella Donna/ sped gaily before the wind, and neither of its +occupants, engrossed in conversation, noticed that away to windward a +bank of sullen cloud was creeping forward, slowly but surely eating up +the blue of the sky. + +"Of course it will contribute towards finishing the picture." +Quarrington answered Magda's laughing comment composedly. "A blow like +this will have done you all the good in the world, and I shan't have +you collapsing on my hands again as you did a week ago." + +"Oh, then, you brought me out on hygienic grounds alone?" derided +Magda. + +She was feeling unaccountably happy and light-hearted. Since the day +when she had fainted during the sitting Michael seemed to have +changed. He no longer gave utterance to those sudden, gibing speeches +which had so often hurt her intolerably. That sense of his aloofness, +as though a great wall rose between them, was gone. Somehow she felt +that he had drawn nearer to her, and once or twice those grey, +compelling eyes had glowed with a smothered fire that had set her +heart racing unsteadily within her. + +"Haven't you enjoyed to-day, then?" he inquired, responding to her +question with another. + +"I've loved it," she answered simply. "I think if I'd been a man I +should have chosen to be a sailor." + +"Then it's a good thing heaven saw to it that you were a woman. The +world couldn't have done without its Wielitzska." + +"Oh, I don't know"--half-indifferently, half-wistfully. "It's +astonishing how little necessary anyone really is in this world. If I +were drowned this afternoon the Imperial management would soon find +someone to take my place." + +"But your friends wouldn't," he said quietly. + +Magda laughed a little uncertainly. + +"Well, I won't suggest we put them to the test, so please take me home +safely." + +As she spoke a big drop of rain splashed down on to her hand. Then +another and another. Simultaneously she and Michael glanced upwards to +the sky overhead, startlingly transformed from an arch of quivering +blue into a monotonous expanse of grey, across which came sweeping +drifts of black cloud, heavy with storm. + +"By Jove! We're in for it!" muttered Quarrington. + +His voice held a sudden gravity. He knew the danger of those +unexpected squalls which trap the unwary in the Solent, and inwardly +he cursed himself for not having observed the swift alteration in the +weather. + +The /Bella Donna/, too, was by no means the safest of craft in which +to meet rough weather. She was slipping along very fast now, and +Michael's keen glance swept the gray landscape to where, at the mouth +of the channel, the treacherous Needles sentinelled the open sea. + +"We must bring her round--quick!" he said sharply, springing up. "Can +you take the tiller? Do you know how to steer?" + +Magda caught the note of urgency in his voice. + +"I can do what you tell me," she said quietly. + +"Do you know port from starboard?" he asked grimly. + +"Yes. I know that." + +Even while they had been speaking the wind had increased, churning the +sea into foam-flecked billows that swirled and broke only to gather +anew. + +It was ticklish work bringing the /Bella Donna/ to the wind. Twice she +refused to come, lurching sickeningly as she rolled broadside on to +the race of wind-driven waves. The third time she heeled over till her +canvas almost brushed the surface of the water and it seemed as though +she must inevitably capsize. There was an instant's agonised suspense. +Then she righted herself, the mainsail bellied out as the boom swung +over, and the tense moment passed. + +"Frightened?" queried Quarrington when he had made fast the mainsheet. + +Magda smiled straight into his eyes. + +"No. We almost capsized then, didn't we?" + +"It was a near shave," he answered bluntly. + +They did not speak much after that. They had enough to do to catch the +wind which seemed to bluster from all quarters at once, coming in +violent, gusty spurts that shook the frail little vessel from stem to +stern. Time after time the waves broke over her bows, flooding the +deck and drenching them both with stinging spray. + +Magda sat very still, maintaining her grip of the wet and slippery +tiller with all the strength of her small, determined hands. Her limbs +ached with cold. The piercing wind and rain seemed to penetrate +through her thin summer clothing to her very skin. But unwaveringly +she responded to Michael's orders as they reached her through the +bellowing of the gale. Her eyes were like stars and her lips closed in +a scarlet line of courage. + +"Port your helm! /Hard/! . . . Hold on!" + +Then the thudding swing of the boom as the /Bella Donna/ slewed round +on a fresh tack. + +The hurly-burly of the storm was bewildering. In the last hour or so +the entire aspect of things had altered, and Magda was conscious of a +freakish sense of the unreality of it all. With the ridiculous +inconsequence of thought that so often accompanies moments of acute +anxiety she reflected that Noah probably experienced a somewhat +similar astonishment when he woke up one morning to find that the +Flood had actually begun. + +It seemed as though the storm had reached out long arms and drawn the +whole world of land and sea and sky into its turbulent embrace. +Driving sheets of rain blurred the coastline on either hand, while the +wind caught up the grey waters into tossing, crested billows and flung +them down again in a smother of angry spume. + +Overhead, it screamed through the rigging of the little craft like a +tormented devil, tearing at the straining canvas with devouring +fingers while the slender mast groaned beneath its force. + +Suddenly a terrific gust of wind seemed to strike the boat like an +actual blow. Magda saw Michael leap aside, and in the same instant +came a splitting, shattering report as the mast snapped in half and a +tangled mass of wood and cordage and canvas fell crash on to the deck +where he had been standing. + +Magda uttered a cry and sprang to her feet. For an instant her heart +seemed to stop beating as she visioned him beneath the mass of tackle. +Or had he been swept off his feet--overboard into the welter of grey, +surging waters that clamoured round the boat? + +The moment of uncertainty seemed endless, immeasurable. Then Michael +appeared, stepping across the wreckage, and came towards her. The +relief was almost unendurable. She stretched out shaking hands. + +"Oh, Michael! . . . Michael!" she cried sobbingly. + +And all at once she was in his arms. She felt them close about her, +strong as steel and tender as love itself. In the rocking, helpless +boat, with the storm beating up around them and death a sudden, +imminent hazard, she had come at last into haven. + +An hour later the storm had completely died away. It had begun to +abate in violence almost immediately after the breaking of the /Bella +Donna's/ mast. It was as though, having wreaked its fury and executed +all the damage possible short of absolute destruction, it was +satisfied. With the same suddenness with which it had arisen it sank +away, leaving a sulky, sunless sky brooding above a sullen sea still +heaving restlessly with the aftermath of tempest. + +The yacht had drifted gradually out of mid-channel shorewards, and +after one or two unsuccessful efforts Quarrington at last succeeded in +casting anchor. Then he turned to Magda, who had been assisting in the +operation, with a smile. + +"That's about all we can do," he said. "We're perfectly helpless till +some tug or steamer comes along." + +"Probably they'll run us down," she suggested. "We're in the fairway, +aren't we?" + +"Yes--which is about our best hope of getting picked up before night." +Then, laying his hand on her arm: "Are you very cold and wet?" + +Magda laughed--laughed out of sheer happiness. What did being cold +matter, or wet either, if Michael loved her? And she was sure now that +he did, though there had been but the one moment's brief embrace. +Afterwards he had had his hands full endeavouring to keep the /Bella +Donna/ afloat. + +"I think the wind has blown my things dry," she said. "How about you?" + +"Oh, I'm all right--men's clothing being adapted for use, not +ornament! But I must find something to wrap you up in. We may be here +for hours and the frock you're wearing has about as much warming +capacity as a spider's web." + +He disappeared below into the tiny, single-berthed cabin, and +presently returned armed with a couple of blankets, one of which he +proceeded to wrap about Magda's shoulders, tucking the other over her +knees where she sat in the stern of the boat. + +"I don't want them both," she protested, resisting. "You take one." + +There was something rather delightful in this unconventional +comradeship of discomfort. + +"You'll obey orders," replied Michael firmly. "Especially as you're +going to be my wife so soon." + +A warm flush dyed her face from brow to throat. He regarded her with +quizzical eyes. Behind their tender mockery lurked something else-- +something strong and passionate and imperious, momentarily held in +leash. But she knew it was there--could feel the essential, imperative +demand of it. + +"Well? Does the prospect alarm you?" + +Magda forced herself to meet his glance. + +"So soon?" she repeated hesitantly. + +"Yes. As soon as it can be accomplished," he said triumphantly. + +He seated himself beside her and took her in his arms, blankets and +all. + +"Did you think I'd be willing to wait?" he said. + +"I didn't think you wanted to marry me at all!" returned Magda, the +words coming out with a little rush. "I thought you--you disapproved +of me too much!" + +His mouth twisted queerly. + +"So I did. I'm scrapping the beliefs of half a lifetime because I love +you. I've fought against it--tried not to love you--kept away from +you! But it was stronger than I." + +"Saint Michel, I'm so glad--glad it was stronger," she said +tremulously, a little break in her voice. + +He bent his head and kissed her lips, and with the kiss she gave him +back she surrendered her very self into his keeping. She felt his arms +strain about her, and the fierce pressure of their clasp taught her +the exquisite joy of pain that is born of love. + +She yielded resistlessly, every fibre of her being quivering +responsive to the overwhelming passion of love which had at last +stormed and broken down all barriers--both the man's will to resist +and her own defences. + +Somewhere at the back of her consciousness Diane's urgent warning: +/"Never give your heart to any man. Take everything, but do not +give!"/ tinkled feebly like the notes of a worn-out instrument. But +even had she paused to listen to it she would only have laughed at it. +She knew better. + +Love was the most wonderful thing in the world. If it meant anything +at all, it meant giving. And she was ready to give Michael everything +she had--to surrender body, soul, and spirit, the threefold gift that +a man demands of his mate. + +She drew herself out of his arms and slipped to her knees beside him. + +"Saint Michel, do you believe in me now?" + +"Believe in you? I don't know whether I believe in you or not. But I +know I love you! . . . That's all that matters. I love you!" + +"No, no!" She resisted his arms that sought to draw her back into his +embrace. "I want more than that. I'm beginning to realise things. +There must be trust in love. . . . Michael, I'm not really hard--and +selfish, as they say. I've been foolish and thoughtless, perhaps. But +I've never done any harm. Not real harm. I've never"--she laughed a +little brokenly--"I've never turned men into swine, Michael. . . . +I've hurt people, sometimes, by letting them love me. But, I didn't +know, then! Now--now I know what love is, I shall be different. Quite +different. Saint Michel, I know now--love is self-surrender." + +The tremulous sweetness of her, the humble submissiveness of her +appeal, could not but win their way. Michael's lingering disbelief +wavered and broke. She had been foolish, spoilt and thoughtless, but +she had never done any real harm. Men had loved her--but how could it +be otherwise? And perhaps, after all, they were none the worse for +having loved her. + +Deliberately Michael flung the past behind him and with it his last +doubt of her. He drew her back into his arms, against his heart, and +their lips met in a kiss that held not only love but utter faith and +confidence--a pledge for all time. + +"Beloved!" he whispered. "My beloved!" + + + +CHAPTER XX + +NIGHT + +Michael and Magda stood together on the deck of the crippled yacht +which now rocked idly on a quite placid sea. Dusk was falling. That +first glorious, irrecoverable hour when love had come into its own was +past, and the consideration of things mundane was forcing itself on +their notice--more especially consideration of their particular +plight. + +"It looks rather as though we may have to spend the night here," +observed Quarrington, his eyes scanning the channel void of any +welcome sight of sail or funnel. + +Magda's brows drew together in a little troubled frown. + +"Marraine and Gillian will be frightfully worried and anxious," she +said uneasily. It was significant of the gradual alteration in her +outlook that this solicitude for others should have rushed first of +anything to her lips. + +"Yes." He spoke with a curious abruptness. "Besides, that's not the +only point. There's--Mrs. Grundy." + +Magda shrugged her shoulders and laughed. + +"Well, if it's to come to a choice between Mrs. Grundy and Davy Jones, +I think I should decide to face Mrs. Grundy! Anyway, people can't say +much more--or much worse--things about me than they've said already." + +Quarrington frowned moodily. + +"I'd like to kick myself for bringing you out to-day and landing you +into this mess. I can't stand the idea of people gossiping about you." + +"They've left me very little reputation at any time. A little less +can't hurt me." + +His eyes grew stormy. + +"Don't!" he said sharply. "I hate to hear you talk like that." + +"But it's true! No public woman gets a fair chance." + +"/You/ will--when you're my wife," he said between his teeth. "I'll +see to that." + +Magda glanced at him swiftly. + +"Then you don't want me to--to give up dancing after we're married?" + +"Certainly I don't. I shall want you to do just as you like. I've no +place for the man who asks his wife to 'give up' things in order to +marry him. I've no more right to ask you to give up dancing than you +have to ask me to stop painting." + +Magda smiled at him radiantly. + +"Saint Michel, you're really rather nice," she observed impertinently. +"So few men are as sensible as that. I shall call you the 'Wise Man,' +I think." + +"In spite of to-day?" he queried whimsically, with a rueful glance at +the debris of mast and canvas huddled on the deck. + +"/Because/ of to-day," she amended softly. "It's--it's very wise to be +in love, Michael." + +He drew her into his arms and his lips found hers. + +"I think it is," he agreed. + +Another hour went by, and still there came no sign of any passing +vessel. + +"Why the devil isn't there a single tug passing up and down just when +we happen to want one?" demanded Quarrington irately of the +unresponsive universe. He swung round on Magda. "I suppose you're +starving?" he went on, in his voice a species of savage discontent-- +that unreasonable fury to which masculine temperament is prone when +confronted with an obstacle which declines to yield either to force or +persuasion. + +Magda laughed outright. + +"I'll admit to being hungry. Aren't you? . . . It's horribly +unromantic of us, Michael," she added regretfully. + +Quarrington grinned. + +"It is," he assented. "All the same, I believe I could consume a tin +of bully beef and feel humbly grateful for it at the present moment!" + +Magda had a sudden inspiration. + +"Michael! Let's forage in the locker! There's almost sure to be some +biscuits or chocolate there. Marraine nearly always has things like +that put on board. And there may be something left from the last +supply." + +A brief search brought to light a half-tin of biscuits and some plain +chocolate, and off these, with the addition of a bottle of soda-water, +also discovered, they proceeded to make an impromptu meal. It was a +somewhat thin substitute for the perfectly appointed little dinner of +which they would have partaken in the ordinary course of events at the +Hermitage, but when you have been a good many hours without food of +any description, and spent the greater part of the time in "saving +your own life at sea," as Michael put it, even biscuits and chocolate +have their uses. + +When the improvised feast was over, Quarrington explored the recesses +of the tiny hold and unearthed a lantern, which he proceeded to light +and attach to the broken mast. It burned with a flickering, uncertain +light, momentarily threatening to go out altogether. + +"We're not precisely well-equipped with lights," he remarked grimly. +"But at least that's a precaution--as long as it lasts! It may--or may +not--save us from being run down." + +Twilight deepened slowly into dark. The lights of Yarmouth sprang into +being, a cluster of lambent orange points studding the dim coast of +the Island. One by one the stars twinkled out in the dusky sky, and a +waning moon, thin and frail like a worn sickle, flung a quivering +ribbon of silver across the sea. + +It was strangely still and quiet. Now and again the idle rudder +creaked as the boat swung to the current. Once there came the long- +drawn hoot of a distant siren. Beyond these fitful sounds only the +gurgle of water lapping the sides of the boat broke the silence. + +"We're here till morning," said Quarrington at last. "You may as well +go to bed." + +"To bed?" + +"Well, there's a cabin, isn't there?"--smiling. "And a more or less +uncomfortable bunk. Come down and see what you can make of it as an +abiding-place for the night." + +"And--and you? Can't we rig up anything for you?" Magda looked round +her vaguely. + +"I shan't sleep. I'll do sentry-go on deck"--laughing. "It wouldn't do +for us both to go comfortably asleep and get run down without even +having a shot at making our presence known!" + +"Then I'll keep watch with you," said Magda. + +"You'll do nothing of the sort. You'll go down to the cabin and +sleep." + +"Let me stay, Michael. I couldn't bear to think of your watching all +through the night while I slept comfortably below." + +"You won't sleep /comfortably/--if my estimate of the look of that +bunk is correct. But you'll be out of the cold. Come, be sensible, +Magda. You're not suitably attired for a night watch. You'd be +perished with cold before morning." + +"Well, let us take it in turns, then," she suggested. "I'll sleep four +hours and then I'll keep a look-out while you have a rest." + +"No," he said quietly. + +"Then we'll both watch," she asserted. Through the starlit dark he +could just discern her small head turned defiantly away from him. + +"Has it occurred to you," he asked incisively, "what a night spent in +the open might mean to you? Rheumatism is not precisely the kind of +thing a dancer wants to cultivate." + +"Well, I'm not going below, anyway." + +She sat down firmly and Quarrington regarded her a moment in silence. + +"You baby!" he said at last in an amused voice. + +And the next moment she felt herself picked up as easily as though she +were in very truth the baby he had called her and carried swiftly down +the few steps into the cabin. The recollection of that day of her +accident in the fog, when he had carried her from the wrenched and +twisted car into his own house, rushed over her. Now, as then, she +could feel the strength of his arms clasped about her, the masterful +purpose of the man that bore her whither he wished regardless of +whether she wanted to go or not. + +He laid her down on the bunk and, bending over her, kept his hands on +her shoulders. + +"Now," he demanded, "are you going to stay there?" + +A faint rebellion still stirred within her. + +"Supposing I say 'no'!"--irresolutely. + +"I'm not supposing anything so unlikely," he assured her. "I'm merely +waiting to hear you say 'yes.'" + +She recognised the utter futility of trying to pit her will against +the indomitable will of the man beside her. + +"Michael, you are a bully!" she protested indignantly, half angry with +him. + +"Then you'll stay there?" he persisted. + +"You don't give me much choice"--twisting her shoulders restlessly +beneath his hands. + +He laughed a little. + +"You haven't answered me." + +"Well, then--yes!" + +She almost flung the word at him, and instantly she felt him lift his +hands from her shoulders and heard his footsteps as he tramped out of +the cabin and up on to the deck. Presently he returned, carrying the +blankets which he had wrapped round her earlier in the course of their +vigil. Magda accepted them with becoming docility. + +"Thank you, Wise Man," she said meekly. + +He stood looking down at her in the faint moonlight that slanted in +through the open door of the cabin, and all at once something in the +intentness of his gaze awakened her to a sudden vivid consciousness of +the situation--of the hour and of her absolute aloneness with him. +Their solitude was as complete as though they had been cast on a +desert island. + +Magda felt her pulses throb unevenly. The whole atmosphere seemed +sentient and athrill with the surge of some deep-lying emotion. She +could feel it beating up against her--the clamorous demand of +something hardly curbed and straining for release. + +"Michael----" The word stammered past her lips. + +The sound of her voice snapped the iron control he had been forcing on +himself. With a hoarse, half-strangled exclamation he caught her up +from where she lay, crushing her slim, soft body in a grip that almost +stifled her, kissing her fiercely on eyes and lips and throat. Then +abruptly he released her and, without a word, without a backward look, +strode out of the cabin and up on to the deck. + +Magda sank down weakly on the edge of the narrow bunk. The storm of +his passion had swept through her as the wind sweeps through a tree, +leaving her spent and trembling. Sleep was an impossibility. Ten +minutes, twenty passed--she could not have told how long it was. Then +she heard him coming back, and as he gained the threshold she sprang +to her feet and faced him, nervously on the defensive. In the pale, +elusive moonlight, and with that startled poise of figure, she might +well have been the hamadryad at bay of one of her most famous dances. + +Michael looked rather white and there was a grim repression about the +set of his lips. As he caught sight of her face with its mute +apprehension and dilated eyes, he spoke quickly. + +"You should be resting," he said. "Let me tuck you up and then try to +go to sleep." + +There was something infinitely reassuring in the steady tones of his +voice. It held nothing but kindness--just comradeship and kindness. He +was master of himself once more. For her sake he had fought back the +rising tide of passion. It had no place while they two were here alone +on the wide waters. + +He stooped and picked up the blankets, laying them over her with a +tenderness that seemed in some subtle way to be part of his very +strength. Her taut nerves relaxed. She smiled up at him. + +"Good-night, Saint Michel," she said simply. "Take care of me." + +He stooped and kissed the slim hand lying outside the blanket. + +"Now and always," he answered gravely. + + + +When Magda awoke, seven hours later, the sunlight was streaming into +the cabin. She could hear Michael moving about the deck, and she +sprang up and proceeded to make such toilette as was possible in the +circumstances, taking down her hair and dressing it afresh at the tiny +looking-glass hung on the wall. She had barely completed the operation +when she heard Michael give a shout. + +"Ahoy! Ahoy there!" + +She ran up on deck. Approaching them was a small steam-tug, and once +again Quarrington sent his voice ringing lustily across the water, +while he flourished a large white handkerchief in the endeavour to +attract the attention of those on board. + +Suddenly the tug saw them and, altering her course, came fussing up +alongside. Quarrington briefly explained their predicament--in the +face of the /Bella Donna's/ battered appearance a lengthy explanation +was hardly necessary--and a few minutes later the tug was steaming for +Netherway harbour, towing the crippled yacht behind her. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE OTHER MAN + +"Please, Marraine, will you give us your blessing?" + +The joyous excitement and relief incidental to the safe return of the +voyagers had spent itself at last, and now, refreshed and invigorated +by a hot bath and by a meal of more varied constituents than biscuit +and plain chocolate, Magda propounded her question, a gleam of mirth +glancing in her eyes. + +Lady Arabella glanced doubtfully from one to the other. Then a look of +undisguised satisfaction dawned in her face. + +"Do you mean----" she began eagerly. + +"We've been and gone and got engaged," explained Quarrington. + +"My dears!" Lady Arabella jumped up with the agility of twenty rather +than seventy and proceeded to pour out her felicitations. Incidentally +she kissed everybody all round, including Quarrington, and her keen +old hawk's eyes grew all soft and luminous like a girl's. + +Coppertop was hugely excited. + +"Will the wedding be to-morrow?" he asked hopefully. "And shall I be a +page and carry the Fairy Lady's train?" + +Magda smiled at him. + +"Of course you shall be a page, Topkins. But the wedding won't be +quite as soon as to-morrow," she told him. + +"Why not?" insinuated Quarrington calmly. "There are such things as +special licences, you know." + +"Don't be silly," replied Magda scathingly. "I've only just been saved +from drowning, and I don't propose to take on such a risk as matrimony +till I've had time to recover my nerve." + +Lady Arabella surveyed them both with a species of irritated approval. + +"And to think," she burst out at last, indignantly, "of all the hours +I've spent having my silly portrait painted and getting cramp in my +stiff old joints, and that even then it needed Providence to threaten +you both with a watery grave to bring you up to the scratch!" + +"Well, we're engaged now," submitted Magda meekly. + +Lady Arabella chuckled sardonically. + +"If you weren't, you'd have to be--after last night!" she commented +drily. + +"No one need know about last night," retorted Magda. + +"Huh!" Lady Arabella snorted. "Half Netherway will know the tale by +midday. And you may be sure your best enemy will hear of it. They +always do." + +"Never mind. It will make an excellent advertisement," observed Magda +philosophically. "Can't you see it in all the papers?--'NARROW ESCAPE +OF THE WIELITZSKA.' In big capitals." + +They all laughed, realising the great amount of probability contained +in her forecast. And, thanks to an enterprising young journalist who +chanced to be prowling about Netherway on that particular day, the +London newspapers flared out into large headlines, accompanied by +vivid and picturesque details of the narrow escape while yachting of +the famous dancer and of the well-known artist, Michael Quarrington-- +who, in some of the cheaper papers, was credited with having saved the +Wielitzska's life by swimming ashore with her. + +The immediate result was an augmented post-bag for the Hermitage, and +Gillian had to waste the better part of a couple of sunshiny days in +writing round to Magda's friends assuring them of her continued +existence and wellbeing, and thanking them for their kind inquiries. + +It was decided to keep the engagement private for the present, and +life at the Hermitage resumed the even tenor of its way, Magda +continuing to sit daily for the picture of Circe which Michael was +anxious to complete before she returned to London for the autumn +season. + +"It's /our/ picture now, Saint Michel," she told him, with a happy, +possessive pride in his work. + +In this new atmosphere of tranquil happiness Magda bloomed like a +flower in the sun. To the nameless natural charm which was always hers +there was added a fresh sweetness and appeal, and the full revelation +of her love for him startled even Michael. He had not realised the +deep capacity for love which had lain hidden beneath her nonchalance. + +It seemed as though her whole nature had undergone a change. Alone +with him she was no longer the assured woman of the world, the spoilt +and feted dancer, but just a simple, unaffected girl, sometimes a +little shy, almost diffident, at others frank and spontaneous with the +splendid candour and simplicity of a woman who knows no fear of love, +but goes courageously to meet it and all that it demands of her. + +She was fugitively sweet and tender with Coppertop, and now and then +her eyes would shine with a quiet, dreaming light as though she +visioned a future wherein someone like Coppertop, only littler, might +lie in the crook of her arm. + +Often during these tranquil summer days the two were to be found +together, Magda recounting the most gorgeous stories of knights and +dragons such as Coppertop's small soul delighted in. On one such +occasion, at the end of a particularly thrilling narrative, he sat +back on his heels and regarded her with a certain wistful anxiety. + +"I suppose," he asked rather forlornly, "when you're married they'll +give you a little boy like me, Fairy Lady, won't they?" + +The clear, warm colour ran up swiftly beneath her skin. + +"Perhaps so, Topkins," she answered very low. + +He heaved a big sigh. "He'll be a very /lucky/ little boy," he said +plaintively. "If Mummie couldn't have been my mummie, I'd have choosed +you." + +And so, in this tender atmosphere of peace and contentment, the summer +slipped by until it was time for Magda to think of going back to +London. The utter content and happiness of these weeks almost +frightened her sometimes. + +"It can't last, Gilly," she confided to Gillian one day, caught by an +access of superstitious fear. "It simply /can't/ last! No one was +meant to be as happy as I am!" + +"I think we were all meant to be happy," replied Gillian simply. +"Happy and good!" she added, laughing. + +"Yes. But I haven't been particularly good. I've just done whatever it +occurred to me to do without considering the consequences. I expect I +shall be made to take my consequences all in a heap together one day." + +Gillian smiled. + +"Then I suppose we shall all of us have to rally round and get you out +of them," she said cheerfully. + +"Perhaps--perhaps you wouldn't be able to." + +There was a strange note of foreboding in Magda's voice--an accent of +fatality, and despite herself Gillian experienced a reflex sense of +uneasiness. + +"Nonsense!" she said brusquely. "What on earth has put all these +ridiculous notions into your head?" + +Magda smiled at her. "I think it was four lines I read in a book +yesterday. They set me thinking." + +"More's the pity then!" grumbled Gillian. "What were they?" + +Magda was silent a moment, looking out over the sea with abstracted +eyes. It was so blue to-day--all blue and gold in the dancing +sunlight. But she knew that self-same sea could be grey--grey and +chill as death. + +Her glance came slowly back to Gillian's face as she quoted the +fragment of verse which had persisted in her thoughts: + + + "To-day and all the still unborn To-morrows + Have sprung from Yesterday. For Woe or Weal + The Soul is weighted by the Burden of Dead Days-- + Bound to the unremitting Past with Ropes of Steel." + + +After a moment she added: + +"Even you couldn't cut through 'ropes of steel,' my Gillyflower." + +Gillian tried to shrug away this fanciful depression of the moment. + +"Well, by way of a counterblast to your dejection of spirit, I propose +to send an announcement of your engagement to the /Morning Post/. +You're not meaning to keep it private after we get back to town, are +you?" + +"Oh, no. It was only that I didn't want to be pestered with +congratulations while we were down here. I suppose they'll have to +come some day"--with a small grimace of disgust. + +"You'll be snowed under with them," Gillian assured her encouragingly. + +The public announcement of the engagement preceded Magda's return from +Netherway by a few days, so that by the time the Hermitage house-party +actually broke up, its various members returning to town, all London +was fairly humming with the news. The papers were full of it. +Portraits of the fiances appeared side by side, together with brief +histories of their respective careers up to date, and accompanied by +refreshing details concerning their personal tastes. + +"Dear me, I never knew Michael had a passion for raw meat before," +remarked Magda, after reading various extracts from the different +accounts aloud for Gillian's edification. + +"Has he?" Gillian was arranging flowers and spoke somewhat +indistinctly, owing to the fact that she had the stem of a +chrysanthemum between her lips. + +"Yes, he must have. Listen to this, 'Mr. Quarrington's wonderful +creations are evidently not entirely the fruit of the spirit, since we +understand that his staple breakfast dish consists of a couple of +underdone cutlets--so lightly cooked, in fact, as to be almost raw.' +I'm glad I've learned that," pursued Magda earnestly. "It seems to me +an important thing for a wife to know. Don't you think so, Gillian?" + +Gillian shouted with delight. + +"Of course I do! Do let's ask Michael to lunch and offer him a couple +of raw cutlets on a charger." + +"No," insisted Magda firmly. "I shall keep a splendid treat like that +for him till after we're married. Even at a strictly conservative +estimate it should be worth a new hat to me." + +"Or a dose of arsenic in your next cup of tea," suggested Gillian, +giggling. + +The following evening was the occasion of Magda's first appearance at +the Imperial after the publication of her engagement, and the theatre +was packed from floor to ceiling. "House Full" boards were exhibited +outside at quite an early hour, and when Magda appeared on the stage +she was received with such enthusiasm that for a time it was +impossible to proceed with the ballet. When finally the curtain fell +on what the critics characterised next day as "the most appealing +performance of /The Swan-Maiden/ which Mademoiselle Wielitzska has yet +given us," she received an absolute ovation. The audience went half- +crazy with excitement, applauding deliriously, while the front of the +stage speedily became converted into a veritable bank of flowers, from +amidst which Magda bowed and smiled her thanks. + +She enjoyed every moment of it, every handclap. She was radiantly +happy, and this spontaneous sharing in her happiness by the big public +which idolised her served but to intensify it. She was almost crying +as she returned to her dressing-room after taking a dozen or more +calls, and when, as usual, Virginie met her on the threshold, she +dropped the great sheaf of lilies she was carrying and flung her arms +round the old woman's neck. + +"Oh, the dears!" she exclaimed. "The blessed /dears/! Virginie, I +believe I'm the happiest woman alive!" + +"And who should be, /mon petite chou/, if not thou?" returned the old +woman with conviction. "Of course they love thee! /Mais bien sur/! +Doest thou not dance for them as none else can dance and give them +angel visions that they could not imagine for themselves?" She paused. +Then thrusting her hand suddenly into the pocket of her apron and +producing a card: "/Tiens/! I forgot! Monsieur Davilof waits. Will +mademoiselle receive him?" + +Magda nodded. She had not seen Antoine since her return from +Netherway. He had been away in Poland, visiting his mother whom, by +the way, he adored. But as her engagement to Michael was now public +she was anxious to get her first meeting with the musician over. He +would probably rave a little, despairing in the picturesque and +dramatic fashion characteristic of him, and the sooner he "got it out +of his system," as Gillian had observed on one occasion, the better +for everyone concerned. So Magda braced herself for the interview, and +prepared to receive a tragical and despondent Davilof. + +But she was not in the least prepared for the man as he appeared when +Virginie ushered him into the dressing-room and retired, discreetly +closing the door behind her. Magda, her hand outstretched to greet +him, paused in sheer dismay, her arm falling slowly to her side. + +She had never seen so great a change in any man. His face was grey-- +grey and lined like the face of a man who has had no sleep for days. +His shoulders stooped a little as though he were too weary to hold +himself upright, and there was a curiously rigid look about his +features, particularly the usually mobile mouth. The only live thing +about him seemed to be his eyes. They blazed with a burning brightness +that made her think of flame. With it all, he was as immaculately +groomed, his small golden beard as perfectly trimmed, as ever. + +"Antoine!" His name faltered from Magda's lips. The man's face, its +beauty all marred by some terrible turmoil of the soul, shocked her. + +He vouchsafed no greeting, but came swiftly to her side. + +"Is it true?" he demanded imperiously. + +She shrank back from him. There was a dynamic force about him that +startled her. + +"Is what true?" + +"Is it true that you're engaged to Quarrington?" + +"Of course it is. It was in all the papers. Didn't you see it?" + +"Yes, I saw it. I didn't believe it. I was in Poland when I heard and +I started for England at once. But I was taken ill on the journey. +Since then I've been travelling night and day." He paused, adding in a +tone of finality: "You must break it off." + +"Break it off? Are you crazy, Antoine?" + +"No, I'm not crazy. But you're mine. You're meant for me. And no other +man shall have you." + +Magda's first impulse was to order him out of the room. But the man's +haggard face was so pitifully eloquent of the agony he had been +enduring that she had not the heart. Instead, she temporised +persuasively. + +"Don't talk like that, Antoine." She spoke very gently. "You don't +mean it, you know. If--if you do care for me as you say, you'd like me +to be happy, wouldn't you?" + +"I'd make you happy," he said hoarsely. + +She shook her head. + +"No," she answered. "You couldn't make me happy. Only Michael can do +that. So you must let me go to him. . . . Antoine, I'd rather go with +your good wishes. Won't you give them to me? We've been friends so +long--" + +"/Friends/?" he broke in fiercely. "No! We've never been 'friends.' +I've been your lover from the first moment I saw you, and shall be +your lover till I die!" + +Magda retreated before his vehemence. She was still wearing her +costume of the Swan-Maiden, and there was something frailly virginal +and elusive about her as she drew away from him that set the hot, +foreign blood in him on fire. In two strides he was at her side, his +hands gripping her bare arms with a savage clasp that hurt her. + +"/Mon adoree/!" + +His voice was harsh with the tensity of passion, and the cry that +struggled from her throat for utterance was smothered by his lips on +hers. The burning kisses seemed to scorch her--consuming, overwhelming +her. When at last he took his mouth from hers she tried unavailingly +to free herself. But his clasp of her only tightened. + +"Now you know how I love you," he said grimly. He was breathing rather +fast, but in some curious way he seemed to have regained his self- +control. It was as though he had only slipped the leash of passion so +that she might, as he said, comprehend his love for her. "Do you think +I'll give you up? I tell you I'd rather kill you than see you +Quarrington's wife." + +Once more she made an effort to release herself. + +"Oh, you're mad, you're mad!" she cried. "Let me go, Davilof! At +once!" + +"No," he said in a measured voice. "Don't struggle. I'm not going to +let you go. Not yet. I've reached my limit. You shall go when you +promise to marry me. Me, not Quarrington." + +She had not been frightened by the storm of passion which had carried +him headlong. That had merely roused her to anger. But this quiet, +purposeful composure which had succeeded it filled her with an odd +kind of misgiving. + +"It's absurd to talk like that," she said, holding on desperately to +her self-possession. "It's silly--and melodramatic, and only makes me +realise how glad I am I shall be Michael's wife and not yours." + +"You will never be Quarrington's wife." + +He spoke with conviction. Magda called up all her courage to defy him. + +"And do you propose to prevent it?" she asked contemptuously. + +"Yes." Then, suddenly: "/Adoree/, don't force me to do it! I don't +want to. Because it will hurt you horribly. And it will all be saved +if you'll promise to marry me." + +He spoke appealingly, with an earnestness that was unmistakable. But +Magda's nerve was gradually returning. + +"You don't seem to understand that you can't prevent my marrying +Michael--or anyone else," she said coolly. "You haven't the power." + +"I can prevent your marrying Michael"--doggedly. + +She was silent a moment. + +"I suppose," she said at last, "you think that because he once thought +badly of me you can make him think the same again. Well, you can't. +Michael and I trust each other--absolutely!" + +Her face was transfigured. Michael trusted her now! Nothing could +really hurt her while he believed in her. She could afford to laugh at +Antoine's threat. + +"And now," she said quietly, "will you please release me?" + +Slowly, reluctantly Davilof's hands dropped from her arms, revealing +red weals where the grip of his fingers had crushed the soft, white +flesh. He uttered a stifled exclamation as his eyes fell on the angry- +looking marks. + +"/Mon dieu/! I've hurt you--" + +"No!" Magda faced him with a defiance that was rather splendid. "No! +/You can't/ hurt me, Davilof. Only the man I love can do that." + +He flinched at the proud significance of the words--denying him even +the power to hurt her. It was almost as though she had struck him, +contemptuously disdainful of his toy weapons--the weapons of the man +who didn't count. + +There was a long silence. At last he spoke. + +"You'll be sorry for that," he said in a voice of concentrated anger. +"Damned sorry. Because it isn't true. I /can/ hurt you. And by God, if +you won't marry me, I will! . . . Magda----" With one of the swift +changes so characteristic of the man he softened suddenly into +passionate supplication. "Have a little mercy! God! If you knew how I +love you, you couldn't turn me away. Wait! Think again--" + +"That will do." She checked him imperiously. "I don't want your love. +And for the future please understand that you won't even be a friend. +I don't wish to see or speak to you again!" + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE ROPES OF STEEL + +Magda sat gazing idly into the fire, watching with abstracted eyes the +flames leap up and curl gleefully round the fresh logs with which she +had just fed it. She was thinking about nothing in particular--merely +revelling in the pleasant warmth and comfort of the room and in the +prospect of a lazy evening spent at home, since to-night she was not +due to appear in any of the ballets to be given at the Imperial +Theatre. + +Outside, the snow was falling steadily in feathery flakes, hiding the +grime of London beneath a garment of shimmering white and transforming +the commonplace houses built of brick and mortar, each capped with its +ugly chimneystack, into glittering fairy palaces, crowned with silver +towers and minarets. + +The bitter weather served to emphasise the easy comfort of the room, +and Magda curled up into her chair luxuriously. She was expecting +Michael to dinner at Friars' Holm this evening. They had not seen each +other for three whole days, so that there was an added edge to her +enjoyment of the prospect. She would have so much to tell him! About +the triumphant reception she had had the other night down at the +theatre--he had been prevented from being present--and about the +unwarrantable attitude Davilof had adopted, which had been worrying +her not a little. He would sympathise with her over that--the +effortless sympathy of the man in possession! + +Then the unwelcome thought obtruded itself that if the snow continued +falling Michael might be weather-bound and unable to get out to +Hampstead. She uncurled herself from her chair and ran to the window. +The sky stretched sombrely away in every direction. No sign of a break +in the lowering, snow-filled clouds! She drummed on the window with +impatient fingers; and then, drowning the little tapping noise they +made, came the sound of an opening door and Melrose's placid voice +announcing: + +"Mr. Quarrington." + +Magda whirled round from the window. + +"Michael!" she exclaimed joyfully. "I was just wondering if you would +be able to get over this evening. I suppose you came while you could!" +--laughing. "I shouldn't be in the least surprised if you were snowed +up here. Shall you mind--dreadfully--if you are?" + +But Michael made no response to the tenderly mocking question, nor did +her smile draw from him any answering smile. She looked at him +waveringly. He had been in the room quite long enough to take her in +his arms and kiss her. And he hadn't done it. + +"Michael----" She faltered a little. "How queer you are! Have you-- +brought bad news?" A sudden dread rushed through her. "It's not-- +Marraine?" + +"No, no." He spoke hastily, answering the startled apprehension in her +eyes. "It's not that." + +Her mind, alertly prescient, divined significance in the mere wording +of the phrase. + +"Then there is--something?" + +"Yes, there is something." + +His voice sounded forced, and Magda waited with a strange feeling of +tension for him to continue. + +"I want to ask you a question," he went on in the same carefully +measured accents. "Did you ever stay at a place called Stockleigh-- +Stockleigh Farm at Ashencombe?" + +Stockleigh! At the sound of the word it seemed to Magda as though a +hand closed suddenly round her heart, squeezing it so tightly that she +could not breathe. + +"I--yes, I stayed there," she managed to say at last. + +"Ah-h!" It was no more than a suddenly checked breath. "When were you +there?" The question came swiftly, like the thrust of a sword. With +it, it seemed to Magda that she could feel the first almost +imperceptible pull of the "ropes of steel." + +"I was there--the summer before last," she said slowly. + +Michael made no answer. Only in the silence that followed she saw his +face change. Something that had been hope--a fighting hope--died out +of his eyes and his jaw seemed to set itself with a curious +inflexibility. + +She waited for him to speak--waited with a keyed-up intensity of +longing that was almost physically painful. At last, unable to bear +the continued silence, she spoke again. Her voice cracked a little. + +"Why--why do you ask, Michael?" + +He looked at her and a sudden cynical amusement gleamed in his eyes-- +an amusement so bitterly unmirthful that there seemed something almost +brutal about it. Her hand went up to her face as though to screen out +the sight of it. + +"You can't guess, I suppose?" he said with dry, harsh irony. Then, +after a moment: "Why did you never tell me you were there? You never +spoke of it. . . . Wasn't it curious you should never speak of it?" + +She made a step towards him. She could not endure this torturing +suspense another instant. It was racking her. She must know what +Stockleigh signified to him. + +"What do you mean? Tell me what you mean!" she asked desperately. + +"Do you remember the story I told you down at Netherway--of a man and +his wife and another woman?" + +"Yes, I remember"--almost whispering. + +"That was the story of my sister, June, and her husband, Dan Storran. +You--were the other woman." + +She felt his eyes--those eyes out of which all hope had died--fixed on +her. + +"June--your sister? Your sister? Are you sure?" she stammered +stupidly. + +It couldn't be true! Not even God could have thought of a punishment +so cruel, so awful as this. That June--the woman who had died just +because she "had no heart to go on living"--should be Michael's +sister! Oh, it was a crazy tangling of the threads--mad! Like some +macabre invention sprung from a disordered brain. She wanted to laugh, +and she knew if she began to laugh she should never stop. She felt she +was losing her hold over herself. With a violent effort she clutched +at her self-control. + +"Will you say it all over again, please?" she said in a flat voice. "I +don't think I understand." + +"Nor did I till to-day," he replied shortly. "Davilof made me +understand--this morning." + +"Davilof?" The word seemed to drag itself from her throat. . . . +Davilof--who had been at Stockleigh that summer! Then it was all going +to be true, after all. + +"Yes, Davilof. He had chanced on the fact that June was my sister. +Very few people knew it, because, when she married, it was against our +father's wishes, and she had cut herself adrift from the family. I +wanted to help her, but she would never let me." He paused, then went +on tonelessly: "It's all quite clear, isn't it? You know everything +that happened while you were at Stockleigh. I've told you what +happened afterwards. Storran cleared out of the country at once, and +June had nothing left to live for. The only thing I didn't know was +the name of the woman who had smashed up both their lives. I saw Dan +in Paris . . . He came to me at my studio. But he was a white man. He +never gave away the name of the woman who had ruined him. I only knew +she had spent that particular summer at Stockleigh. It was Davilof who +told me who the woman was." + +/"I can prevent your marrying Quarrington!"/ Magda could hear again +the quiet conviction of Antoine's utterance. So he had known, then, +when he threatened her, that June was Michael's sister! She wondered +dully how long he had been aware of the fact--how he had first +stumbled across it and realised its value as a hammer with which to +crush her happiness. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered any more. +The main fact was that he /had/ known. + +June was dead! Amid the confused welter of emotions which seemed to +have utterly submerged her during the last few minutes, Magda had +almost lost sight of this as a fact by itself--as distinct from its +identity with the fact that Michael's sister was dead. She felt +vaguely sorry for June. + +Since the day she and Gillian had left Ashencombe she had heard +nothing of Storran or his wife. No least scrap of news relating to +them had come her way. In the ordinary course of events it was hardly +likely that it would. The circles of their respective lives did not +overlap each other. And Magda had made no effort to discover what had +happened at Stockleigh after she had left there. She had been glad to +shut the door on that episode in her life. She was not proud of it. + +There were other incidents, too, which she could have wished were +blotted out--the Raynham incident amongst them. With the new insight +which love had brought her she was beginning to rate these things at +their true value, to realise how little she had understood of all +love's exquisite significance when she played with it as lightly as a +child might play with a trinket. She had learned better now--learned +that love was of the spirit as well as of the body, and that in +playing at love she had played with men's souls. + +She believed she had put that part of her life behind her--all those +unrecognising days before love came to her. And now, without warning, +sudden as an Eastern night, the past had risen up and confronted her. +The implacable ropes of steel held her in bondage. + +"Michael . . . can't you--forgive me?" + +Her voice wavered and broke as she realised the utter futility of her +question. Between them, now and always, there must lie the young, dead +body of June Storran. + +"Forgive you?" Michael's voice was harsh with an immeasurable +bitterness. "Good God! What are you made of that you can even ask me? +It's women like you who turn this world into plain hell! . . . Look +back! Have you ever looked back, I wonder?" He paused, and she knew +his eyes were searching her--those keen, steady eyes, hard, now, like +flint--searching the innermost recesses of her being. She felt as +though he were dragging the soul out of her body, stripping it naked +to the merciless lash of truth. + +"June--my little sister, the happiest of mortals--dead, through you. +And Storran--he was a big man, white all through--down and out. And +God knows who else has had their sun put out by you. . . . You're like +a blight--spreading disease and corruption wherever you go." + +A little moan broke from her lips. For a moment it was a physical +impossibility for her to speak. She could only shrink, mute and +quivering, beneath the flail of his scorn. + +At last: "Is--is that what you think of me?" she almost whispered. + +"Yes." + +She winced at the harsh monosyllable. There was a finality about it-- +definite, unalterable. She looked at him dry-eyed, her face tragically +beautiful in its agony. But he seemed impervious to either its beauty +or its suffering. There was no hint of softening in him. Without +another word he swung round on his heel and turned to leave her. + +"Michael . . . don't go!" The lovely voice was a mere thread of sound +--hoarse and strangulated. "Don't go! . . . Oh, be a little merciful!" + +She laid an imploring hand on his arm, and at the touch of her his +iron composure shook a little. For a moment the hardness in his eyes +was wiped out by a look of intolerable pain. Then, with a quiet, +inexorable movement he released himself from her straining clasp. + +"There's no question of mercy," he said inflexibly. "I'm not judging +you, or punishing you. It's simply that I can't marry you. . . . You +must see that June's death--my sister's death--lies at your door." + +"No," she said. "No. I suppose you can't marry me--now." + +Her breath came in short, painful gasps. Her face seemed to have grown +smaller--shrunk. There was a pinched look about the nostrils and every +drop of blood had drained away, leaving even her lips a curious +greyish-white. She leaned forward, swaying a little. + +"I suppose," she said in a clear, dry voice, "you don't even love me +any more?" + +His hands clenched and he took a sudden impetuous step towards her. + +"Not love you?" he said. And at last the man's own agony broke through +his enforced calm, shaking his voice so that it was hoarse and +terrible. "Not love you? I love you now as I loved you the day I first +saw you. God in heaven! Did you think love could be killed so easily? +Does it die--just because it's forbidden by every decent instinct that +a man possesses? If so, nine-tenths of us would find the world an +easier place to live in!" + +"And there is--no forgiveness, Michael?" The lovely grief-wrung face +was uplifted to his beseechingly. + +"Don't ask me!" he said hoarsely. "You know there can be none." + +He turned and strode to the door. He did not look back even when his +name tore itself like a cry between her lips. The next moment the +sound of a door's closing came dully to her ears. + +She looked vaguely round the room. The fire was dying, the charred +logs sinking down on to a bed of smouldering cinders. A touch would +scatter them from their semblance of logs into a heap of grey, +formless ash. Outside the window the snow still fell monotonously, +wrapping the world in a passionless, chill winding-sheet. + +With a little broken cry she stumbled forward on to her knees, her +arms outflung across the table. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +ACCOUNT RENDERED + +The long, interminable night was over at last. Never afterwards, all +the days of her life, could Magda look back on the black horror of +those hours without a shudder. She felt as though she had been through +hell and come out on the other side, to find stretching before her +only the blank grey desolation of chaos. + +She was stripped of everything--of love, of happiness, even of hope. +There was nothing in the whole world to look forward to. There never +would be again. And when she looked back it was with eyes that had +been vouchsafed a terrible enlightenment. + +Phrases which had fallen from Michael's lips scourged her anew +throughout the long hours of the night. "Women like you make this +world into plain hell," he had said. "You're like a blight--spreading +disease and corruption wherever you go." And the essential truth which +each sentence held left her writhing. + +It was all true--horribly, hideously true. The magical, mysterious +power of beauty which had been given her, which might have helped to +lighten the burden of the sad old world wherever she passed, she had +used to destroy and deface and mutilate. The debt against her--the +debt of all the pain and grief which she had brought to others--had +been mounting up, higher and higher through the years. And now the +time had come when payment was to be exacted. + + + +Quite simply and directly, without seeking in any way to exculpate +herself, she had told Gillian the bare facts of what had happened-- +that her engagement was broken off and the reason why. But she had +checked all comment and the swift, understanding sympathy which +Gillian would have given. Criticism or sympathy would equally have +been more than she could bear. + +"There is nothing to be said or done about it," she maintained. "I've +sinned, and now I'm to be punished for my sins. That's all." + +The child of Hugh Vallincourt spoke in that impassive summing up of +the situation and Lady Arabella, with her intimate knowledge of both +Hugh and his sister Catherine, would have ascribed it instantly to the +Vallincourt strain in her god-daughter. To Gillian, however, to whom +the Vallincourts were nothing more than a name, the strange +submissiveness of it was incomprehensible. As the days passed, she +tried to rouse Magda from the apathy into which she seemed to have +fallen, but without success. + +"It's no use, Gillyflower," she would reply with a weary little smile. +"There /is/ no way out. Do you remember I once said I was too happy +for it to last? It was quite true. . . . Have you told Marraine?" she +asked suddenly. + +"Yes. And she wants to see you." + +"I don't think I want to see her--or anyone just at present. I've got +to think--to think things out." + +"What do you mean? What are you going to do?" + +"I--don't know--yet." + +Gillian regarded her with some anxiety. That Magda, usually so +unreserved and spontaneous, should shut her out of her confidence +thoroughly disquieted her. She felt afraid. It seemed to her as though +the girl were more or less stunned by the enormity of the blow which +had befallen her. She went about with a curious absence of interest in +anything--composed, quiet, absorbed in her own thoughts, only rousing +herself to appear at the Imperial as usual. Probably her work at the +theatre was the one thing that saved her from utter collapse. + +As far as Gillian knew she had not shed a single tear. Only her face +seemed to grow daily more strained-looking, and her eyes held a +curious expression that was difficult to interpret. + +There were days which she spent entirely in the seclusion of her own +room, and then Virginie alone was allowed entrance. The old +Frenchwoman would come in with some special little dish she had cooked +with her own hands, hoping to tempt her beloved mistress's appetite-- +which in these days had dwindled to such insignificant proportions +that Virginie was in despair. + +"Thou must eat," she would say. + +"I don't want anything--really, Virginie," Magda would insist. + +"And wherefore not?" demanded Virginie indignantly one day. "Thou art +not one of the Sisters of Penitence that thou must needs deny thyself +the good things of life." + +Magda looked up with a sudden flash of interest. + +"The Sisters of Penitence, Virginie? Who are they? Tell me about +them." + +Virginie set a plate containing an epicurean omelet triumphantly in +front of her. + +"Eat that, then, /cherie/, while I tell thee of them," she replied +with masterly diplomacy. "It is good, the omelet. Virginie made it for +thee with her own hands." + +Magda laughed faintly in spite of herself and began upon the omelet +obediently. + +"Very well, then. Tell me about the Sisters of Penitence. Are they +always being sorry for what they've done?" + +"It is a sisterhood, /mademoiselle cherie/, for those who would +withdraw themselves from the world. They are very strict, I believe, +the sisters, and mortify the flesh exceedingly. Me, I cannot see why +we should leave the beautiful world the /bon dieu/ has put us into. +For certain, He would not have put us in if He had not meant us to +stay there!" + +"Perhaps--they are happier--out of the world, Virginia," suggested +Magda slowly. + +"But my niece, who was in the sisterhood a year, was glad to come out +again. Though, of course, she left her sins behind her, and that was +good. It is always good to get rid of one's sins, /n'est-ce pas/?" + +"Get rid of your sins? But how can you?" + +"If one does penance day and night, day and night, for a whole long +year, one surely expiates them! And then"--with calm certainty--"of +course one has got rid of them. They are wiped off the slate and one +begins again. At least, it was so with my niece. For when she came out +of the sisterhood, the man who had betrayed her married her, and they +have three--no, four /bebes/ now. So that it is evident /le bon dieu/ +was pleased with her penance and rewarded her accordingly." + +Magda repressed an inclination to smile at the naive simplicity of +Virginie's creed. Life would indeed be an easy affair if one could +"get rid of one's sins" on such an ingenuous principal of quid pro +quo! + +But Virginie came of French peasant stock, and to her untutored mind +such a process of wiping the slate clean seemed extremely reasonable. +She continued with enthusiasm: + +"She but took the Vow of Penitence for a year. It is a rule of the +sisterhood. If one has sinned greatly, one can take a vow of penitence +for a year and expiate the sin. Some remain altogether and take the +final vows. But my niece--no! She sinned and she paid. And then she +came back into the world again. She is a good girl, my niece Suzette. +Mademoiselle has enjoyed her omelet? Yes?" + +Magda nodded. + +"Yes, Virginie, I've enjoyed it. And I think your niece was certainly +a brave /fille/. I'm glad she's happy now." + +For long after Virginie had left her, Magda sat quietly thinking. The +story of the old Frenchwoman's niece had caught hold of her +imagination. Like herself she had sinned, though differently. Within +her own mind Magda wondered whether she or Suzette were in reality the +greater sinner of the two. Suzette had at least given all, without +thought of self, whereas she had only taken--taken with both hands, +giving nothing in return. + +Probably Suzette had been an attractive little person--of the same +type of brown-eyed, vivacious youth which must have been Virginie's +five-and-thirty years ago--and her prettiness had caused her downfall. +Magda glanced towards the mirror. It was through her beauty she +herself had sinned. It had given her so much power, that exquisite, +perfect body of hers, and she had pitifully misused the power it had +bestowed. The real difference between herself and Suzette lay in the +fact that the little French girl had paid the uttermost farthing of +the price demanded--had submitted herself to discipline till she had +surely expiated all the evil she had done. What if she, likewise, were +to seek some such discipline? + +The idea had presented itself to her at precisely the moment when she +was in the grip of an agony of recoil from her former way of life. +Like her father, she had been suddenly brought up short and forced to +survey her actions through the eyes of someone else, to look at all +that she had done from another's angle of vision. And coincidentally, +just as in the case of her father, the abrupt downfall of her hopes, +the sudden shattering of her happiness, seemed as though it were due +to the intervention of an angry God. + +The fanatical Vallincourt blood which ran in Magda's veins caused her +to respond instinctively to this aspect of the matter. But the strain +of her passionate, joy-loving mother which crossed with it tempered +the tendency toward quite such drastic self-immolation as had appealed +to Hugh Vallincourt. + +To Magda, Michael had come to mean the beginning and end of everything +--the pivot upon which her whole existence hung. So that if Michael +shut her out of his life for ever, that existence would no longer hold +either value or significance. From her point of view, then, the +primary object of any kind of self-discipline would be that it might +make her more fit to be the wife of "Saint Michel." + +He despised her now. The evil she had done stood between them like a +high wall. But if she were to make atonement--as Suzette had atoned-- +surely, when the wickedness had been purged out of her by pain and +discipline, Michael would relent! + +The idea lodged in her mind. It went with her by day and coloured her +thoughts by night, and it was still working within her like yeast when +she at last nerved herself to go and see her godmother. + +Lady Arabella, as might have been anticipated, concealed her own sore- +heartedness under a manner that was rather more militant than usual, +if that were possible. + +"Why you hadn't more sense than to spend your time fooling with a sort +of cave-man from the backwoods, I can't conceive," she scolded. "You +must have known how it would end." + +"I didn't. I never thought about it. I was just sick with Michael +because he had gone abroad, and then, when I heard that he was +married, it was the last straw. I don't think--that night--I should +have much cared what happened." + +Lady Arabella nodded. + +"Women like you make it heaven or hell for the men who love you." + +"And hell, without the choice of heaven, for ourselves," returned +Magda. + +The bitterness in her voice wrung the old woman's heart. She sighed, +then straightened her back defiantly. + +"We have to bear the burden of our blunders, my dear." + +There was a reminiscent look in the keen old eyes. Lady Arabella had +had her own battles to fight. "And, after all, who should pay the +price if not we ourselves?" + +"But if the price is outrageous, Marraine? What then?" + +"Still you've got to pay." + +Magda returned home with those words ringing in her ears. They fitted +into the thoughts which had been obsessing her with a curious +precision. It was true, then. You had to pay, one way or another. Lady +Arabella knew it. Little Suzette had somehow found it out. + +That night a note left Friars' Holm addressed to the Mother Superior +of the Sisters of Penitence. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +GILLIAN INTERCEDES + +It was a bald, austere-looking room. Magda glanced about her +curiously--at the plain, straight-backed chairs, at the meticulously +tidy desk and bare, polished floor. Everything was scrupulously clean, +but the total absence of anything remotely resembling luxury struck +poignantly on eyes accustomed to all the ease and beauty of +surroundings which unlimited money can procure. + +By contrast with the severity of the room Magda felt uncomfortably +conscious of her own attire. The exquisite gown she was wearing, the +big velvet hat with its drooping plume, the French shoes with their +buckles and curved Louis heels--all seemed acutely out of place in +this austere, formal-looking chamber. + +Her glance came back to the woman sitting opposite her, the Mother +Superior of the Sisters of Penitence--tall, thin, undeniably +impressive, with a stern, colourless face as clean-cut as a piece of +ivory, out of which gleamed cold blue eyes that seemed to regard the +dancer with a strange mixture of fervour and hostility. + +Magda could imagine no reason for the antagonism which she sensed in +the steady scrutiny of those light-blue eyes. As far as she was +concerned, the Mother Superior was an entire stranger, without +incentive either to like or dislike her. + +But to the woman who, while she had been in the world, had been known +as Catherine Vallincourt, the name of Magda Wielitzska was as familiar +as her own. In the dark, slender girl before her, whose pale, +beautiful face called to mind some rare and delicate flower, she +recognised the living embodiment of her brother's transgression--that +brother who had made Diane Wielitzska his wife and the mother of his +child. + +All she had anticipated of evil consequence at the time of the +marriage had crystallised into hard fact. The child of the "foreign +dancing-woman"--the being for whose existence Hugh's mad passion for +Diane had been responsible--had on her own confession worked precisely +such harm in the world as she, Catherine, had foreseen. And now, the +years which had raised Catherine to the position of Mother Superior of +the community she had entered had brought that child to her doors as a +penitent waveringly willing to make expiation. + +Catherine was conscious of a strange elevation of spirit. She felt +ecstatically uplifted at the thought that it might be given to her to +purge from Hugh's daughter, by severity of discipline and penance, the +evil born within her. In some measure she would thus be instrumental +in neutralising her brother's sin. + +She was supremely conscious that to a certain extent--though by no +means altogether--her zealous ardour had its origin in her rooted +antipathy to Hugh's wife and hence to the child of the marriage. But, +since beneath her sable habit there beat the heart of just an +ordinary, natural woman, with many faults and failings still +unconquered in spite of the austerities of her chosen life, a certain +very human element of satisfaction mingled itself with her fervour for +Magda's regeneration. + +With a curious impassivity that masked the intensity of her desire she +had told Magda that, by the rules of the community, penitents who +desired to make expiation were admitted there, but that if once the +step were taken, and the year's vow of penitence voluntarily assumed, +there could be no return to the world until the expiration of the time +appointed. + +Somehow the irrevocability of such a vow, undertaken voluntarily, had +not struck her in its full significance until Catherine had quietly, +almost tonelessly, in the flat, level voice not infrequently acquired +by the religious, affirmed it. + +"Supposing"--Magda looked round the rigidly bare room with a new sense +of apprehension--"supposing I felt I simply couldn't stand it any +longer? Do you mean to say, /then/, that I should not be allowed to +leave here?" + +"No, you would not be permitted to. Vows are not toys to be broken at +will." + +"A year is a long time," murmured Magda. + +The eyes beneath the coifed brow with its fine network of wrinkles +were adamant. + +"The body must be crucified that the soul may live," returned the cold +voice unflinchingly. + +Magda's thoughts drew her this way and that. A year! It was an +eternity! And yet, if only she could emerge purified, a woman worthy +to be Michael's wife, she felt she would be willing to go through with +it. + +It was as though the white-faced, passionless woman beside her read +her thoughts. + +"If you would be purified," said Catherine, "if you would cast out the +devil that is within you, you will have to abide meekly by such +penance as is ordained. You must submit yourself to pain." + +At the words a memory of long ago stirred in Magda's mind. She +remembered that when her father had beaten her as a child he had said: +"If you hurt people enough you can stop them from committing sin." + +Groping dimly for some light that might elucidate the problems which +bewildered her, Magda clutched at the words as though they were a +revelation. They seemed to point to the only way by which she might +repair the past. + +Catherine, watching closely the changes on the pale, sensitive face, +spoke again. + +"Of course, if you feel you have not the strength of will to keep your +vow, you must not take it." + +The words acted like a spur. Instantly, Magda's decision was taken. + +"If I take the vow, I shall have strength of mind to keep it," she +said. + +The following evening Magda composedly informed Gillian that she +proposed to take a vow of expiation and retire into the community of +the Sisters of Penitence for a year. Gillian was frankly aghast; she +had never dreamed of any such upshot to the whole miserable business +of Magda's broken engagement. + +"But it is madness!" she protested. "You would hate it!" + +Magda nodded. + +"That's just it. I've done what I liked all my life. And you know what +the result has been! Now I propose to do what I /don't/ like for a +year." + +Neither persuasion nor exhortation availed to shake her resolution, +and in despair Gillian referred the matter to Lady Arabella, hoping +she might induce Magda to change her mind. + +Lady Arabella accepted the news with unexpected composure. + +"It is just what one might expect from the child of Hugh Vallincourt," +she said thoughtfully. "It's the swing of the pendulum. There's always +been that tendency in the Vallincourts--the tendency towards atonement +by some sort of violent self-immolation. They are invariably +/excessive/--either excessively bad like the present man, Rupert, or +excessively devout like Hugh and Catherine! By the way, the Sisters of +Penitence is the community Catherine first joined. I wonder if she is +there still? Probably she's dead by now, though. I remember hearing +some years ago that she was seriously ill--somewhere about the time of +Hugh's death. That's the last I ever heard of her. I've been out of +touch with the whole Vallincourt family for so many years now that I +don't know what has become of them." + +"You don't mean to say that you're going to /let/ Magda do what she +proposes?" exclaimed Gillian, in dismayed astonishment. + +"There's never much question of 'letting' Magda do things, is there?" +retorted Lady Arabella. "If she's made up her mind to be penitential-- +penitential she'll be! I dare say it won't do her any harm." + +"I don't see how it can do her any good," protested Gillian. "Magda +isn't cut out for a sisterhood." + +"That's just why it may be good for her." + +"I don't believe in mortification of the flesh and all that sort of +thing, either," continued Gillian obstinately. + +"My dear, we must all work out our own salvation--each in his own way. +Prayer and fasting would never be my method. But for some people it's +the only way. I believe it is for the Vallincourts. In any case, it's +only for a year. And a year is very little time out of life." + +Nevertheless, at Gillian's urgent request, Lady Arabella made an +effort to dissuade Magda from her intention. + +"If you live long enough, my dear," she told her crispy, "providence +will see to it that you get your deserts. You needn't be so anxious to +make sure of them. Retribution is a very sure-footed traveller." + +"It isn't only retribution, punishment, I'm looking for," returned +Magda. "It is--I can't quite explain it, Marraine, but even though +Michael never sees me or speaks to me again, I'd like to feel I'd made +myself into the sort of woman he /would/ speak to." + +From that standpoint she refused to move, declining even to discuss +the matter further, but proceeded quietly and unswervingly with her +arrangements. The failure to complete her contract at the Imperial +Theatre involved her in a large sum of money by way of forfeit, but +this she paid ungrudgingly, feeling as though it were the first step +along the new road of renunciation she designed to tread. + +To the manager she offered no further explanation than that she +proposed to give up dancing, "at any rate for a year or so," and +although he was nearly distracted over the idea, he found his +arguments and persuasions were no more effective than those King +Canute optimistically addressed to the encroaching waves. The utmost +concession he could extract from Magda was her assent to giving a +farewell appearance--for which occasion the astute manager privately +decided to quadruple the price of the seats. He only wished it were +possible to quadruple the seating capacity of the theatre as well! + +Meanwhile Gillian, whose normal, healthy young mind recoiled from the +idea of Magda's self-imposed year of discipline, had secretly resolved +upon making a final desperate venture in the hope of straightening out +the tangle of her friend's life. She would go herself and see Michael +and plead with him. Surely, if he loved Magda as he had once seemed to +do, he would not remain obdurate when he realised how bitterly she had +repented--and how much she loved him! + +It was not easy for Gillian to come to this decision. She held very +strong opinions on the subject of the rights of the individual to +manage his own affairs without interference, and as she passed out of +the busy main street into the quiet little old-world court where +Michael had his rooms and studio she felt as guilty as a small boy +caught trespassing in an orchard. + +The landlady who opened the door in response to her somewhat timid +ring regarded her with a curiously surprised expression when she +inquired if Mr. Quarrington were in. + +"I'll see, miss," she answered non-committally, "if you'll step +inside." + +The unusual appearance of the big double studio where she was left to +wait puzzled Gillian. All the familiar tapestries and cushions and +rare knick-knacks which wontedly converted the further end of it into +a charming reception room were gone. The chairs were covered in plain +holland, the piano sheeted. But the big easel, standing like a tall +cross in the cold north light, was swathed in a dust-sheet. Gillian's +heart misgave her. Was she too late? Had Michael--gone away? + +A moment later a quick, resolute footstep reassured her. The door +opened and Michael himself came in. He paused on the threshold as he +perceived who his visitor was, then came forward and shook hands with +his usual grave courtesy. After that, he seemed to wait as though for +some explanation of her visit. + +Gillian found herself nervously unready. All the little opening +speeches she had prepared for the interview deserted her suddenly, +driven away by her shocked realisation of the transformation which the +few days since she had last seen him had wrought in the man beside +her. + +His face was lined and worn. The grey eyes were sunken and burned with +a strange, bitter brilliance. Only the dogged, out-thrust jaw remained +the same as ever--obstinate and unconquerable. Twice she essayed to +speak and twice failed. The third time the words came stumblingly. + +"Michael, what--what does it mean--all this?" She indicated the +holland-sheeted studio with a gesture. + +"It means that I'm going away," he replied. "I'm packing now. I leave +England to-morrow." + +"You mustn't go!" + +The words broke from her imperatively, like a mandate. + +He glanced at her quickly and into his eyes came a look of +comprehension. + +"You're a good friend," he said quietly. "But I must go." + +"No, no, you mustn't! Listen--" + +"Nothing can alter my decision," he interrupted in a tone of absolute +finality. "Nothing you could say, Gillian--so don't say it." + +"But I must!" she insisted. "Oh, Michael, I'm not going to pretend +that Magda hasn't been to blame--that it isn't all terrible! But if +you saw her--now--you'd /have/ to forgive her and love her again." She +spoke with a simple sincerity that was infinitely appealing. + +"I've never ceased to love her," he replied, still in that quiet voice +of repressed determination. + +"Then if you love, her, can't you forgive her? She's had everything +against her from the beginning, both temperament and upbringing, and +on top of that there's been the wild success she's had as a dancer. +You can't judge her by ordinary standards of conduct. You /can't/! It +isn't fair." + +"I don't presume to judge her"--icily. "I simply say I can't marry +her." + +"If you could see her now, Michael----" Her voice shook a little. "It +hurts me to see Magda--like that. She's broken----" + +"And my sister, June, is dead," he said in level, unemotional tones. + +Gillian wrung her hands. + +"But even so----! Magda didn't kill her, Michael. She couldn't tell-- +she didn't know that June----" She halted, faltering into silence. + +"That June was soon to have a child?" Michael finished her sentence +for her. "No. But she knew she loved her husband. And she stole him +from her. When I think of it all, of June . . . little June! . . . And +Storran--gone under! Oh, what's the use of talking?"--savagely. "You +know--and I know--that there's nothing left. Nothing!" + +"If you loved her, Michael--" + +"If I loved her!" he broke out stormily. "You're not a man, and you +don't know what it means to want the woman you love night and day, to +ache for her with every fibre of your body--and to know that you can't +have her and keep your self-respect!" + +"Oh--self-respect!" There was a note of contempt in Gillian's voice. +"If you set your 'self-respect' above your love--" + +"You don't understand!" he interrupted violently. "You're a woman and +you can't understand! I must honour the woman I love--it's the kernel +of the whole thing. I must look up to her--not down!" + +Gillian clasped her hands. + +"Oh!" she said in a low, vehement voice. "I don't think we women +/want/ to be 'looked up to.' It sets us so far away. We're not +goddesses. We're only women, Michael, with all our little weaknesses +just the same as men. And we want the men who love us to be comrades-- +not worshippers. Good pals, who'll forgive us and help us up when we +tumble down, just as we'd be ready to forgive them and help them up. +Can't you--can't you do that for Magda?" + +"No," he said shortly. "I can't." + +Gillian was at the end of her resources. She would not tell him that +Magda proposed joining the Sisters of Penitence for a year. Somehow +she felt she would not wish him to know this or to be influenced by +it. + +She had made her appeal to Michael himself, to his sheer love for the +woman he had intended to make his wife. And she had failed because the +man was too bitter, too sore, to see clearly through the pain that +blinded him. + +His voice, curt and clipped, broke the silence which had fallen. + +"Have you said all you came to say?" he asked with frigid politeness. + +"All," she returned sadly. + +He moved slowly towards the door. + +"Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand. + +He took it and held it in his. For a moment the hard eyes softened a +little. + +"I'm sorry I can't do what you ask," he said abruptly. + +Gillian opened her lips to speak, but no words came. Instead, a sudden +lump rose in her throat, choking her into silence, at the sight of the +man's wrung face, with its bitter, pain-ridden eyes and the jaw that +was squared implacably against love and forgiveness, and against his +own overwhelming desire. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +"CHILDREN STUMBLING IN THE DARK" + +As Gillian mingled once more with the throng on the pavements she felt +curiously unwilling to return home. She had set out from Friars' Holm +so full of hope in her errand! It had seemed impossible that she could +fail, and she had been almost unconsciously looking forward to seeing +Magda's wan, strained face relax into half-incredulous delight as she +confided in her the news that Michael was as eager and longing for a +reconciliation as she herself. + +And instead--this! This utter, hopeless failure to move him one jot. +Only the memory of the man's stern, desperately unhappy eyes curbed +the hot tide of her anger against him for his iron refusal. + +He still loved Magda, so he said. And, indeed, Gillian believed it. +But--love! It was not love as she and Tony Grey had understood it-- +simple, forgiving, and wholly trustful. It seemed to her as though +Michael and Magda were both wandering in a dim twilight of +misunderstanding, neither of them able to see that there was only one +thing for them to do if they were ever to find happiness again. They +must thrust the past behind them--with all its bitterness and failures +and mistakes, and go forward, hand in hand, in search of the light. +Love would surely lead them to it eventually. + +Yet this was the last thing either of them seemed able to think of +doing. Magda was determined to spend the sweetness of her youth in +making reparation for the past, while Michael was torn by bitterly +conflicting feelings--his passionate love for Magda warring with his +innate recoil from all that she had done and with his loyalty to his +dead sister. + +Gillian sighed as she threaded her way slowly along the crowded +street. The lights of a well-known tea-shop beckoned invitingly and, +only too willing to postpone the moment of her return home, she turned +in between its plate-glass doors. + +They swung together behind her, dulling the rumble of the traffic, +while all around uprose the gay hum of conversation and the chink of +cups and saucers mingling with the rhythmic melodies that issued from +a cleverly concealed orchestra. + +The place was very crowded. For a moment it seemed to Gillian as +though there were no vacant seat. Then she espied an empty table for +two in a distant corner and hastily made her way thither. She had +barely given her order to the waitress when the swing doors parted +again to admit someone else--a man this time. + +The new arrival paused, as Gillian herself had done, to search out a +seat. Then, noting the empty place at her table, he came quickly +towards it. + +Gillian was idly scanning the list of marvellous little cakes +furnished by the menu, and her first cognisance of the new-comer's +approach was the vision of a strong, masculine hand gripping the back +of the chair opposite her preparatory to pulling it out from under the +table. + +"I'm afraid there's no other vacant seat," he was beginning +apologetically. But at the sound of his voice Gillian's eyes flew up +from that virile-looking hand to the face of its owner, and a low cry +of surprise broke from her lips. + +"Dan Storran!" + +Simultaneously the man gave utterance to her own name. + +Gillian stared at him stupidly. Could this really be Dan Storran-- +Storran of Stockleigh? + +The alteration in him was immense. He looked ten years older. An +habitual stoop had lessened his apparent height and the dark, kinky +hair was streaked with grey. The golden-tan bestowed by an English sun +had been exchanged for the sallow skin of a man who has lived hard in +a hot country, and the face was thin and heavily lined. Only the eyes +of periwinkle-blue remained to remind Gillian of the splendid young +giant she had known at Ashencombe--and even they were changed and held +the cynical weariness of a man who has eaten of Dead Sea fruit and +found it bitter to the taste. + +There were other changes, too. Storran of Stockleigh was as civilised, +his clothes and general appearance as essentially "right," as those of +the men around him. All suggestion of the "cave-man from the +backwoods," as Lady Arabella had termed him, was gone. + +"I didn't know you were in England," said Gillian at last. + +"I landed yesterday." + +"You've been in South America, haven't you?" + +She spoke mechanically. There seemed something forced and artificial +about this exchange of platitudes between herself and the man who had +figured so disastrously in Magda's life. Without warning he brought +the conversation suddenly back to the realities. + +"Yes. I was in 'Frisco when my wife died. Since then I've been half +over the world." + +Behind the harshly uttered statement Gillian could sense the +unspeakable bitterness of the man's soul. It hurt her, calling forth +her quick sympathy just as the sight of some maimed and wounded animal +would have done. + +"Oh!" she said, a sensitive quiver in her voice. "I was so sorry--so +terribly sorry--to hear about June. We hadn't heard--we only knew +quite recently." Her face clouded as she reflected on the tragic +happenings with which the news had been accompanied. + +At this moment a waitress paused at Storran's side and he gave his +order. Then, looking curiously at Gillian, he said: + +"What did you hear? Just that she died when our child was born, I +suppose?" + +Gillian's absolute honesty of soul could not acquiesce, though it +would have been infinitely the easier course. + +"No," she said, flushing a little and speaking very low. "We heard +that she might have lived if--if she had only been--happier." + +He nodded silently, rather as though this was the answer he had +anticipated. Presently he spoke abruptly: + +"Does Miss Vallincourt know that?" + +Gillian hesitated. Then, taking her courage in both hands she told him +quickly and composedly the whole story of the engagement and its +rupture, and let him understand just precisely what June's death, +owing to the special circumstances in which it had occurred, had meant +for Magda of retribution and of heartbreak. + +Storran listened without comment, in his eyes an odd look of +concentration. The waitress dexterously slid a tray in front of him +and he poured himself out a cup of tea mechanically, but he made no +attempt to drink it. When Gillian ceased, his face showed no sign of +softening. It looked hard and very weary. His strong fingers moved +restlessly, crumbling one of the small cakes on the plate in front of +him. + +"'Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding +small,'" he quoted at last, quietly. + +Gillian met his harshly cynical glance with one of brave defiance. + +"I don't think God's mills have anything to do with it," she said +swiftly. "He'd understand all the excuses and allowances that should +be made for her better even than I do. And I shouldn't want to punish +Magda. I'd make her--happy. She's never known what it means to be +really happy. Success and gaiety aren't /happiness/." + +"And you?" he asked quickly. + +There was a soft and wonderful shining in the brown eyes that were +lifted to his. + +"I had one year of utter happiness," she answered gently. "And I've +got Coppertop--so I can't ever be quite unhappy." + +"If there were more women like you----" he began abruptly. + +She shook her head. + +"No, no," she said, smiling a little. "If there were more men like +Tony! You men are so hard--so cruelly hard." + +He looked at her very directly. + +"Haven't I the right to be?" he demanded bitterly. + +"Ah! Forgive me!" Gillian spoke with an accent of self-reproach. "I'd +forgotten you still--care." + +"For Magda?" He laughed shortly. "No. That's dead, thank God! I killed +it. Worked it out of my system in 'Frisco"--with exceeding bitterness. +"Then I got the news of June's death. Her sister wrote me. Told me she +died because she'd no longer any wish to live. That sobered me- +brought me back to my sense. There was a good deal more to the letter +--my sister-in-law didn't let me down lightly. I've had to pay for +that summer at Stockleigh. And now Magda's paying. . . . Well, that +seems to square things somehow." + +"Oh, you are brutal!" broke out Gillian. + +His eyes, hard as steel and as unyielding, met hers. + +"Am I?"--indifferently. "Perhaps I am." + +This was a very different Dan from the impetuous, hot-headed Dan of +former times. Gillian found his calm ruthlessness difficult to +understand, and yet, realising all that he had suffered, she could not +but condone it to a certain extent. + +When at last she rose to go, he detained her a moment. + +"I am remaining in England now. I should like to see you sometimes. +May I?" + +She hesitated. Then something that appealed in the tired eyes impelled +her answer. + +"If you wish," she said gently. + + + +Back once more in the street she made her way as quickly as possible +to the nearest tube station, in order to reach it before the usual +evening crowd of homeward-wending clerks and typists poured into the +thoroughfares from a thousand open office doors. But as soon as she +was safely seated in the train her thoughts reverted to the two +strange interviews in which she had taken part that afternoon. + +She felt very low-spirited. Since she had seen and talked with the two +men in whose lives Magda had played so big a part, she was oppressed +with a sense of the utter hopelessness of trying to put matters right. +Things must take their course--drive on to whatever end, bitter or +sweet, lay hidden in the womb of fate. + +She had tried to stem the current of affairs, but she had proved as +powerless to deflect it as a dried stick tossed on to a river in +spate. And now, whether the end were ultimate happiness or hopeless, +irretrievable disaster, Michael and Magda must still fight their way +towards it, each alone, by the dim light of that "blind Understanding" +which is all that Destiny vouchsafes. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +FAREWELL + +The curtains swung together for the last time, the orchestra struck up +the National Anthem, and the great audience which had come from all +parts to witness the Wielitzska's farewell performance began to +disperse. + +A curious quietness attended its departure. It was as though a pall of +gravity hung over the big assemblage. Public announcements of the +performance had explained that the famous dancer proposed taking a +long rest for reasons of health. "But," as everyone declared, "you +know what that means! She's probably broken down--heart or something. +We shall never see her dance again." And so, beneath the tremendous +reception which they gave her, there throbbed an element of sadness, +behind all the cheers and the clapping an insistent minor note which +carried across the footlights to where Magda stood bowing her thanks, +and smiling through the mist of tears which filled her eyes. + +The dance which she had chosen for her last appearance was the /Swan- +Maiden/. There had seemed a strange applicability in the choice, and +to those who had eyes to see there was a new quality in the +Wielitzska's dancing--a depth of significance and a spirituality of +interpretation which was commented upon in the Press the next day. + +It had been quite unmistakable. She had gripped her audience so that +throughout the final scene of the ballet no word was spoken. The big +crowd, drawn from all classes, sat tense and silent, sensitive to +every movement, every exquisite, appealing gesture of the Swan-Maiden. +And when at last she had lain, limp in death, in her lover's embrace, +and the music had quivered into silence, there followed a vibrant +pause--almost it seemed as though a sigh of mingled ecstasy and regret +went up--before the thunderous applause roared through the auditorium. + +The insatiable few were still clapping and stamping assiduously when +Magda, after taking innumerable calls, at last came off the stage. It +had been a wonderful night of triumph, and as she made her way towards +her dressing-room she was conscious of a sudden breathless realisation +of all that she was sacrificing. For a moment she felt as though she +must rush back on to the stage and tell everybody that she couldn't do +it, that it was all a mistake--that this was not a farewell! But she +set her teeth and moved resolutely towards her dressing-room. + +As her fingers closed round the handle of the door, someone stepped +out from the shadows of the passage and spoke: + +"Magda!" + +The voice, wrung and urgent, was Antoine Davilof's. + +Her first impulse was to hurry forward and put the dressing-room door +betwixt herself and him. She had not seen him since that night when he +had come down to the theatre and implored her to be his wife, warning +her that he would prevent her marriage with Michael. He had carried +out his threat with a completeness that had wrecked her life, and +although, since the breaking-off of her engagement, he had both +written and telephoned, begging her to see him, she had steadfastly +refused. Once he had come to Friars' Holm, but had been met with an +inexorable "Not at home!" from Melrose. + +"Magda! For God's sake, give me a moment!" + +Something in the strained tones moved her to an unexpected feeling of +compassion. It was the voice of a man in the extremity of mental +anguish. + +Silently she opened the door of the dressing-room and signed to him to +follow her. + +"Well," she said, facing him, "what is it? Why have you come?" + +The impulse of compassion died out suddenly. His was the hand that had +destroyed her happiness. The sight of him roused her to a fierce anger +and resentment. + +"Well?" she repeated. "What do you want? To know the result of your +handiwork?"--bitterly. "You've been quite as successful as even you +could have wished." + +"Don't," he said unevenly. "Magda, I can't bear it. You can't give up +--all this. Your dancing--it's your life! I shall never forgive myself +. . . I'll see Quarrington and tell him--" + +"You can't see him. He's gone away." + +"Then I'll find him." + +"If you found him, nothing you could say would make any difference," +she answered unemotionally. "It's the facts that matter. You can't +alter--facts." + +Davilof made a gesture of despair. + +"Is it true you're going into some sisterhood?" he asked hoarsely. + +"Yes." + +"And it is I--I who have driven you to this! /Dieu/! I've been mad-- +mad!" + +His hands were clenched, his face working painfully. The hazel eyes-- +those poet's eyes of his which she had seen sometimes soft with dreams +and sometimes blazing with love's fire--were blurred by misery. They +reminded her of the contrite, tortured eyes of a dog which, maddened +by pain, has bitten the hand of a beloved master. Her anger died away +in the face of that overwhelming remorse. She herself had learned to +know the illimitable bitterness of self-reproach. + +"Antoine----" Her voice had grown very gentle. + +He swung round on her. + +"And I can't undo it!" he exclaimed desperately. "I can't undo it! +. . . Magda, will you believe me--will you /try/ to believe that, if +my life could undo the harm I've done, I'd give it gladly?" + +"I believe you would, Antoine," she replied simply. + +With a stifled exclamation he turned away and, dropping into a chair, +leaned his arms on the table and hid his face. Once, twice she heard +the sound of a man's hard-drawn sob, and the dry agony of it wrung her +heart. All that was sweet and compassionate in her--the potential +mother that lies in every woman--responded to his need. She ran to him +and, kneeling at his side, laid a kind little hand on his shoulder. + +"Don't Antoine!" she said pitifully. "Ah, don't, my dear!" + +He caught the hand and held it against his cheek. + +"It's unforgivable!" he muttered. + +"No, no. I do forgive you." + +"You can't forgive! . . . Impossible!" + +"I think I can, Antoine. You see, I need forgiveness so badly myself. +I wouldn't want to keep anyone else without it. Besides, Michael would +have been bound to learn--what you told him--sooner or later." She +rose to her feet, pushing back the hair from her forehead rather +wearily. "It's better as it is--that he should know now. It--it would +have been unbearable if it had come later--when I was his wife." + +Antoine stumbled to his feet. His beautiful face was marred with +grief. + +"I wish I were dead!" + +The words broke from him like an exceeding bitter cry. To Magda they +seemed to hold some terrible import. + +"Not that, Antoine!" she answered in a frightened voice. "You're not +thinking--you're not meaning----" + +He shook his head, smiling faintly. + +"No," he said quietly. "The Davilofs have never been cowards. I shan't +take that way out. You need have no fears, Magda." The sudden tension +in her face relaxed. "But I shall not stay in England. England-- +without you--would be hell. A hell of memories." + +"What shall you do, then, Antoine? You won't give up playing?" + +He made a fierce gesture of distaste. + +"I couldn't play in public! Not now. Not for a time. I think I shall +go to my mother. She always wants me, and she sees me very little." + +Magda nodded. Her eyes were wistful. + +"Yes, go to her. I think mothers must understand--as other people +can't ever understand. She will be glad to have you with her, +Antoine." + +He was silent for a moment, his eyes dwelling on her face as though he +sought to learn each line of it, so that when she would be no more +beside him he might carry the memory of it in his heart for ever. + +"Then it is good-bye," he said at last. + +Magda held out her hands and, taking them in his, he drew her close to +him. + +"I love you," he said, "and I have brought you only pain." There was a +tragic simplicity in the statement. + +"No," she answered steadily. "Never think that. I spoiled my own life. +And--love is a big gift, Antoine." + +She lifted her face to his and very tenderly, almost reverently, he +kissed her. She knew that in that last kiss there was no disloyalty to +Michael. It held renunciation. It accepted forgiveness. + + + +"Did you know that Dan Storran was in front to-night?" asked Gillian, +as half an hour later she and Magda were driving back to Hampstead +together. She had already confided the fact of her former meeting with +him in the tea-shop. + +Magda's eyes widened a little. + +"No," she said quietly. "I think I'm glad I didn't know." + +She was very silent throughout the remainder of the drive home and +Gillian made no effort to distract her. She herself felt disinclined +to talk. She was oppressed by the knowledge that this was the last +night she and Magda would have with each other. To-morrow Magda would +be gone and one chapter of their lives together ended. The gates of +the Sisters of Penitence would close upon her and Friars' Holm would +be empty of her presence. + +Everything had been said that could be said, every persuasion used. +But to each and all Magda had only answered: "I know it's the only +thing for me to do. It probably wouldn't be for you, or for anyone +else. But it is for me. So you must let me go, Gillyflower." + +Gillian dreaded the morrow with its inevitable moment of farewell. As +for Virginie, she had done little else but weep for the last three +days, and although Lady Arabella had said very little, she had kissed +her god-daughter good-bye with a brusqueness that veiled an +inexpressible grief and tenderness. Gillian foresaw that betwixt +administering comfort to Lady Arabella and Virginie, and setting +Magda's personal affairs in order after her departure, she would have +little time for the indulgence of her own individual sorrow. Perhaps +it was just as well that these tasks should devolve on her. They would +serve to occupy her thoughts. + + + +The morning sunlight, goldenly gay, was streaming in through the +windows as Magda, wrapped in a soft silken peignoir, made her way into +the bathroom. Virginie, her eyes reddened from a night's weeping, was +kneeling beside the sunken bath of green-veined marble, stirring +sweet-smelling salts in to the steaming water. Their fragrance +permeated the atmosphere like incense. + +"My tub ready, Virginie?" asked Magda, cheerfully. + +Virginie scrambled to her feet. + +"/Mais oui, mademoiselle/. The bath is ready." + +Then, her face puckering up suddenly, she burst into tears and ran out +of the room. Magda smiled and sighed, then busied herself with her +morning ablutions--prolonging them a little as she realised that this +was the last occasion for a whole year when she would step down into a +bath prepared and perfumed for her in readiness by her maid. + +A year! It was a long time to look forward to. So much can happen in a +year. And no one can foresee what the end may bring. + +Presently she emerged from her bath, her skin gleaming like wet ivory, +her dark hair sparkling with the drops of water that had splashed on +to it. As she stepped up from its green-veined depths, she caught a +glimpse of herself in a panel mirror hung against the wall, and for a +moment she was aware of the familiar thrill of delight in her own +beauty--in the gleaming, glowing radiance of perfectly formed, +perfectly groomed flesh and blood. + +Then, with a revulsion of feeling, came the sudden realisation that it +was this very perfection of body which had been her undoing--like a +bitter blight, leaving in its wake a trail of havoc and desolation. +She was even conscious of a fierce eagerness for the period of penance +to begin. Almost ecstatically she contemplated the giving of her body +to whatever discipline might be appointed. + +To anyone hitherto as spoiled and imperious as Magda, whose body had +been the actual temple of her art, and so, almost inevitably, of her +worship, this utter renouncing of physical self-government was the +supremest expiation she could make. As with Hugh Vallincourt, whose +blood ran in her veins, the idea of personal renunciation made a +curious appeal to her emotional temperament, and she was momentarily +filled with something of the martyr's ecstasy. + + + +Gillian's arms clung round Magda's neck convulsively as she kissed her +at the great gates of Friars' Holm a few hours later. + +"Good-bye! . . . Ah, Magda! Come back to me!" + +"I shall come back." + +One more lingering kiss, and then Magda stepped into the open car. +Virginie made a rush forward before the door closed and, dropping on +to her knees on the footboard, convulsively snatched her adored young +mistress's hand between her two old worn ones and covered it with +kisses. + +"Oh, mademoiselle, thy old Virginie will die without thee!" she sobbed +brokenly. + +And then the car slid away and Magda's last glimpse was of the open +gates of Friars' Holm with its old-world garden, stately and formal, +in the background; and of Virginie weeping unrestrainedly, her snowy +apron flung up over her head; and of Gillian standing erect, her brown +eyes very wide and winking away the tears that welled up despite +herself, and her hand on Coppertop's small manful shoulder, gripping +it hard. + +As the car passed through the streets many people, recognising its +occupant, stopped and turned to follow it with their eyes. One or two +women waved their hands, and a small errand-boy--who had saved up his +pennies and squeezed into the gallery of the Imperial Theatre the +previous evening--threw up his hat and shouted "Hooray!" + +Once, at a crossing, the chauffeur was compelled to pull up to allow +the traffic to pass, and a flower-girl with a big basket of early +violets on her arm, recognising the famous dancer, tossed a bunch +lightly into the car. They fell on Magda's lap. She picked them up +and, brushing them with her lips, smiled at the girl and fastened the +violets against the furs at her breast. The flower-girl treasured the +smile of the great Wielitzska in her memory for many a long day, while +in the arid months that were to follow Magda treasured the sweet +fragrance of that spontaneous gift. + +Half an hour later the doors of the grey house where the Sisters of +Penitence dwelt apart from the world opened to receive Magda +Vallincourt, and closed again behind her. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE GREY VEIL + +Magda felt a sudden stab of fear. The sound of the latch clicking into +its place brought home to her the irrevocability of the step she had +taken. That tall, self-locking door stood henceforth betwixt her and +the dear, familiar world she had known--the world of laughter and +luxury and success. But beyond, on the far horizon, there was Michael +--her "Saint Michel." If these months of discipline brought her nearer +him, then she would never grudge them. + +The serene eyes of the Sister who received her--Sister Bernardine-- +helped to steady her quivering pulses. + +There was something in Sister Bernardine that was altogether lacking +in Catherine Vallincourt--a delightfully human understanding and +charity for all human weakness, whether of the soul or body. + +It was she who reassured Magda when a sudden appalling and unforeseen +idea presented itself to her. + +"My hair!" she exclaimed breathlessly, her hand going swiftly to the +heavy, smoke-black tresses. "Will they cut off my hair?" + +As Sister Bernardine comfortingly explained that only those who joined +the community as sisters had their heads shaven, a strange expression +flickered for an instant in her eyes, a fleeting reminiscence of that +day, five-and-twenty years ago, when the shears had cropped their +ruthless way through the glory of hair which had once been hers. + +And afterwards, as time went on and Magda, wearing the grey veil and +grey serge dress of a voluntary penitent, found herself absorbed into +the daily life of the community, it was often only the recollection of +Sister Bernardine's serene, kind eyes which helped her to hold out. +Somehow, somewhere out of this drastic, self-denying life Sister +Bernardine had drawn peace and tranquillity of soul, and Magda clung +to this thought when the hard rules of the sisterhood, the +distastefulness of the tasks appointed her, and the frequent fasts +ordained, chafed and fretted her until sometimes her whole soul seemed +to rise up in rebellion against the very discipline she had craved. + +Most of her tasks were performed under the lynx eyes of Sister +Agnetia, an elderly and sour-visaged sister to whom Magda had taken an +instinctive dislike from the outset. The Mother Superior she could +tolerate. She was severe and uncompromising. But she was at least +honest. There was no doubting the bedrock genuineness of her +disciplinary ardour, harsh and merciless though it might appear. But +with Sister Agnetia, Magda was always sensible of the personal venom +of a little mind vested with authority beyond its deserts, and she +resented her dictation accordingly. And equally accordingly, it seemed +to fall always to her lot to work under Sister Agnetia's supervision. + +Catherine had been quick enough to detect Magda's detestation of this +particular sister and to use it as a further means of discipline. It +was necessary that Magda's pride and vanity should be humbled, and +Catherine saw to it that they were. It was assuredly by the Will of +Heaven that the child of Diane Wielitzska had been led to her very +doors, and to the subject of her chastening Catherine brought much +thought and discrimination. /"If you hurt people enough you can make +them good."/ It had been her brother's bitter creed and it was hers. +Pain, in Catherine's idea, was the surest means of chastening, and +Magda was to remember her year at the sisterhood by two things--by the +deadly, unbearable monotony of its daily routine and by her first +acquaintance with actual bodily pain. + +Her health had always been magnificent, and--with the exception of the +trivial punishments of childhood and those few moments when she was +sitting for the picture of Circe--physical suffering was unknown to +her. The penances, therefore, which Catherine appointed her--to kneel +for a stated length of time until it seemed as though every muscle she +possessed were stretched to breaking-point, to fast when her whole +healthy young body craved for food, to be chastened with flagellum, a +scourge of knotted cords--all these grew to be a torment almost beyond +endurance. + +Almost! . . . Yet in the beginning the thought of Michael sustained +her triumphantly. + + + +It was a curious sensation--that first stroke of the flagellum. + +As Magda, unversed in physical suffering, felt the cords shock against +her flesh, she was conscious of a strange uplifting of spirit. This, +then, this smarting, blinding thing called pain, was the force that +would drive the will to do evil out of her soul. + +She waited expectantly--almost exultantly--for the second fall of the +thongs. The interval between seemed endless. Sister Agnetia was very +deliberate, pausing between each stroke. She knew to a nicety the +value of anticipation as a remedial force in punishment. + +Again the cords descended on the bared shoulders. Magda winced away +from them, shivering. For a moment Sister Agnetia's arm hung flaccid, +the cords of the flagellum pendant and still. + +"Are you submitting to the discipline, Sister Penitentia?" came her +voice. It was an unpleasant voice, suggestive of a knife that has been +dipped in oil. + +Magda caught her breath. + +"Yes . . . yes . . . I submit myself." + +Dimly she felt that by means of this endurance she would win back +Michael, cleanse herself to receive his love. + +"I submit," she repeated in a rapt whisper of self-surrender. + +Sister Agnetia's voice swam unctuously into her consciousness once +more. + +"I thought you tried to avoid that last stroke. If you flinch from +punishment it is not submission, but rebellion." + +Magda gripped her hands together and pressed her knees into the hard +stone floor, her muscles taut with anticipation as she heard the soft +whistle of the thongs cleaving the air. + +This time she bore the pang of anguish motionless, but the vision of +Michael went out suddenly in a throbbing darkness of swift agony. Her +shoulders felt red-hot. The pain shot up into her brain like fingers +of flame. It clasped her whole body in a torment, and the ecstasy of +self-surrender was lost in a sick groping after sheer endurance. + +The next stroke, crushing across that fever of intolerable suffering, +wrung a hoarse moan from her dry lips. Her hands locked together till +she felt as though their bones must crack with the strain as she +waited for the next inexorable stroke. + +One moment! . . . Two! An eternity of waiting! + +"Go on!" she breathed. "Oh! . . . Be quick . . ." Her voice panted. + +No movement answered her. Unable to endure the suspense, she +straightened her bowed shoulders and turned in convulsive appeal to +where she had glimpsed the flail-like rise and fall of Sister +Agnetia's serge-clad arm. + +There was no one there! The bare, cell-like chamber was empty, save +for herself. Sister Agnetia had stolen away, completing the penance of +physical pain by the refinement of anguish embodied in those hideous +moments of mental dread. + +Magda almost fancied she could hear an oily chuckle outside the door. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THOSE THAT WERE LEFT BEHIND + +For the first month or two after Magda's departure Gillian found that +she had her hands full in settling up various business and personal +matters which had been left with loose ends. She was frankly glad to +discover that there were so many matters requiring her attention; +otherwise the blank occasioned in her life by Magda's absence would +have been almost unendurable. + +The two girls had grown very much into each other's hearts during the +years they had shared together, and when friends part, no matter how +big a wrench the separation may mean to the one who goes, there is a +special kind of sadness reserved for the one who is left behind. For +the one who sets out there are fresh faces, new activities in store. +Even though the new life adventured upon may not prove to be precisely +a bed of thornless roses, the pricking of the thorns provides +distraction to the mind from the sheer, undiluted pain of separation. + +But for Gillian, left behind at Friars' Holm, there remained nothing +but an hourly sense of loss added to that crushing, inevitable +flatness which succeeds a crisis of any kind. + +Nor did a forlorn Coppertop's reiterated inquiries as to how soon the +Fairy Lady might be expected back again help to mend matters. + +Lady Arabella's grief was expressed in a characteristically prickly +fashion. + +"Young people don't seem to know the first thing about love nowadays," +she observed with the customary scathing contempt of one age for +another. + +In /my/ young days! Ah! there will never be times like those again! We +are all quite sure of it as our young days recede into the misty past. + +"If you loved, you loved," pursued Lady Arabella crisply. "And the +death of half a dozen sisters wouldn't have been allowed to interfere +with the proceedings." + +Gillian smiled a little. + +"It wasn't only that. It was Michael's bitter disappointment in Magda, +I think, quite as much as the fact that, indirectly, he held her +responsible for June's death." + +"It's ridiculous to try and foist Mrs. Storran's death on to Magda," +fumed Lady Arabella restively. "If she hadn't the physical health to +have a good, hearty baby successfully, she shouldn't have attempted +it. That's all! . . . And then those two idiots--Magda and Michael! Of +course he must needs shoot off abroad, and equally of course she must +be out of the way in a sisterhood when he comes rushing back--as he +will do!"--with a grim smile. + +"He hasn't done yet," Gillian pointed out. + +"I give him precisely six months, my dear, before he finds out that, +sister or no sister, he can't live without Magda. Michael +Quarrington's got too much good red blood in his veins to live the +life of a hermit. He's a man, thank goodness, not a mystical dreamer +like Hugh Vallincourt. And he'll come back to his mate as surely as +the sun will rise to-morrow." + +"I wish I felt as confident as you do." + +"I wish I could make sure of putting my hand on Magda when he comes," +grumbled Lady Arabella. "That's the hitch I'm afraid of! If only she +hadn't been so precipitate--only waited a bit for him to come back to +her." + +"I don't agree with you," rapped out Gillian smartly. "Women are much +too ready to do the patient Griselda stunt. I think"--with a vicious +little nod of her brown head--"it would do Michael all the good in the +world to come back and want Magda--want her /badly/. And find he +couldn't get her! So there!" + +Lady Arabella regarded her with astonishment, then broke into a +delighted chuckle. + +"Upon my word! If a tame dove had suddenly turned round and pecked at +me, I couldn't have been more surprised! I didn't know you had so much +of the leaven of malice and wickedness in you, Gillian!" + +Gillian, a little flushed and feeling, in truth, rather surprised at +herself for her sudden heat, smiled back at her. + +"But I should have thought your opinion would have been very much the +same as mine. I never expected you'd want Magda to sit down and +twiddle her thumbs till Michael chose to come back to her." + +Lady Arabella sighed. + +"I don't. Not really. Only I want them to be happy," she said a little +sadly. "Love is such a rare thing--love like theirs. And it's hard +that Magda should lose the beauty and happiness of it all because of +mistakes she made before she found herself, so to speak." + +Gillian nodded soberly. Lady Arabella had voiced precisely her own +feeling in the matter. It /was/ hard! And yet it was only the +fulfilment of the immutable law: /Who breaks, pays/. + +Gillian's thoughts tried to pierce the dim horizon. Perhaps all the +pain and mistakes and misunderstandings of which this workaday world +is so full are, after all, only a part of the beautiful tapestry which +the patient Fingers of God are weaving--a dark and sombre warp, giving +value to the gold and silver and jewelled threads of the weft which +shall cross it. When the ultimate fabric is woven, and the tissue +released from the loom, there will surely be no meaningless thread, +sable or silver, in the consummated pattern. + +A few weeks after Magda's departure Gillian received a letter from Dan +Storran, reminding her of her promise to let him see her and asking if +she would lunch with him somewhere in town. + +It was with somewhat mixed feelings that she met him again. He was +much altered--so changed from the hot-headed, primitive countryman she +had first known. Some chance remark of hers enlightened him as to her +confused sense of the difference in him, and he smiled across at her. + +"I've been through the mill, you see," he explained quietly, "since +the Stockleigh days." + +The words seemed almost like a key unlocking the door that stands fast +shut between one soul and another. He talked to her quite simply and +frankly after that, telling her how, after he had left England, the +madness in his blood had driven him whither it listed. There had been +no depths to which he had not sunk, no wild living from which he had +recoiled. + +And then had come the news of June's death. Not tenderly conveyed, but +charged to his account by her sister with a fierce bitterness that had +suddenly torn the veil from his eyes. Followed days and nights of +agonised remorse, and after that the slow, steady, infinitely +difficult climb back from the depths into which he had allowed himself +to sink to a plane of life where, had June still lived, he would not +have been ashamed to meet her eyes nor utterly unworthy to take her +hand. + +"It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do," he ended. "But she +would have wished it. I can never tell her now how I regret, never ask +her forgiveness. And this was the only thing I could do to atone." + +Gillian's eyes were very soft as she answered: + +"I expect she knows, Dan, and is glad." + +After a moment she went on thoughtfully. + +"It's rather the same kind of feeling that has driven Magda into a +sisterhood, I think--the desire to do something definite, something +tangible, as a sort of reparation. And a woman is much more limited +that way than a man." + +Storran's mouth hardened. Any mention of Magda would bring that look +of concentrated hardness into his face, and as the months went on, +giving Gillian a closer insight into the man, she began to realise +that he had never forgiven Magda for her share in the ruin of his +life. On this point he was as hard as nether millstone. He even seemed +to derive a certain satisfaction from the knowledge that she was +paying, and paying heavily, for all the harm she had wrought. + +It troubled Gillian--this incalculable hardness in Dan's nature +towards one woman. She found him kindly and tolerant in his outlook on +life--with the understanding tolerance of the man who has dragged +himself out of the pit by his own sheer force of will, and who, +knowing the power of temptation, is ready to give a helping hand to +others who may have fallen by the way. So that his relentlessness +towards Magda was the more inexplicable. + +More than once she tried to soften his attitude, tried to make him +realise something of the conflicting influences both of temperament +and environment which had helped to make Magda what she was. But he +remained stubbornly unmoved. + +"No punishment is too severe for a woman who has done what Magda +Vallincourt has done. She has wrecked lives simply in order to gratify +her vanity and insensate instinct for conquest." + +Gillian shook her head. + +"No, you're wrong. You /won't/ understand! It's all that went before-- +her parents' mistakes--that should be blamed for half she's done. I +think you're very merciless, Dan." + +"Perhaps I am--in this case. Frankly, if I could lessen her punishment +by lifting my little finger--I wouldn't do it." + +Yet this same man when, as often happened, he took Gillian and +Coppertop for a run into the country in his car, was as simple and +considerate and kindly as a man could be. Coppertop adored him, and, +as Gillian reflected, the love of children is rarely misplaced. Some +instinct leads them to divine unfailingly which is gold and which +dross. + +The car was a recent acquisition. As Storran himself expressed it, +rather bitterly: "Now that I can't buy a ha'p'orth of happiness with +the money, my luck has turned." He explained to Gillian that after he +had left England he had sold his farm in Devonshire, and that a lucky +investment of the capital thus realised had turned him into a +comparatively rich man. + +"Even when I was making ducks and drakes of my life generally, I +didn't seem to make a mistake over money matters. If I played cards, I +won; if I backed a horse, he romped in first; it I bought shares, they +jumped up immediately." + +"What a pity!" replied Gillian ingenuously. "If only your financial +affairs hadn't prospered, you'd have had to settle down and /work/-- +instead of--of----" + +"Playing the fool," he supplemented. "No, I don't suppose I should. I +hadn't learned--then--that work is the only panacea, the one big +remedy." + +"And now?" + +"I've learned a lot of things in the last two years," quietly. "And +I'm still learning." + +As the months went on, Dan's friendship began to mean a good deal to +Gillian. It had come into her life just at a time when she was +intolerably lonely, and quite unconsciously she was learning to turn +to him for advice on all the large and small affairs of daily life as +they came cropping up. + +She was infinitely glad of his counsel with regard to Coppertop, who +was growing to the age when the want of a father--of a man's broad +outlook and a man's restraining hand--became an acute lack in a boy's +life. And to Gillian, who had gallantly faced the world alone since +the day when death had abruptly ended her "year of utter happiness," +it was inexpressibly sweet to be once more shielded and helped in all +the big and little ways in which a man--even if he was only a staunch +man-friend--can shield and help a woman. + +It seemed as though Dan Storran always contrived to interpose his big +person betwixt her and the sharp corners of life, and she began to +wonder, with a faint, indefinable dread, what must become of their +friendship when Magda returned to Friars' Holm. Feeling as he did +towards the dancer, it would be impossible for him to come there any +more, and somehow a snatched hour here and there--a lunch together, or +a motor-spin into the country--would be a very poor substitute for his +almost daily visits to the old Queen Anne house tucked away behind its +high walls at Hampstead. + +Once she broached the subject to him rather diffidently. + +"My dear"--he had somehow dropped into the use of the little term of +endearment, and Gillian found that she liked it and knew that she +would miss it if it were suddenly erased from his speech--"my dear, +why cross bridges till we come to them? Perhaps, when the time comes, +there'll be no bridge to cross." + +Gillian glanced at him swiftly. + +"Do you mean that she--that you're feeling less bitter towards her, +Dan?" she asked eagerly. + +He smiled down at her whimsically. + +"I don't quite know. But I know one thing--it's very difficult to be a +lot with you and keep one's anger strictly up to concert pitch." + +Gillian made no answer. She was too wise--with that intuitive wisdom +of woman--to force the pace. If Dan were beginning to relent ever so +little towards Magda--why, then, her two best friends might yet come +together in comradeship and learn to forget the bitter past. The +gentle hand of Time would be laid on old wounds and its touch would +surely bring healing. But Gillian would no more have thought of trying +to hasten matters than she would have tried to force open the close- +curled petals of a flower in bud. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE RETURN + +Magda slipped through the tall doorway in the wall which marked the +abode of the Sisters of Penitence and stood once more on the pavement +of the busy street. The year was over, and just as once before the +clicking of the latch had seemed to signify the end of everything, so +now it sounded a quite different note--of new beginnings, of release-- +freedom! + +Three months prior to the completion of her allotted span at the +sisterhood Magda had had a serious attack of illness. The hard and +rigorous life had told upon her physically, while the unaccustomed +restrictions, the constant obedience exacted, had gone far towards +assisting in the utter collapse of nerves already frayed by the strain +of previous happenings. + +Probably her fierce determination to go through with her self-elected +expiation, no matter what the cost, had a good deal to do with her +ultimate breakdown. With unswerving resolution she had forced herself +to obedience, to the performance of her appointed tasks in spite of +their distastefulness; and behind the daily work and discipline there +had been all the time the ceaseless, aching longing for the man who +had loved her and who had gone away. + +It was not surprising, therefore, that the tired body and nerves at +last gave way, and in the delirium of brain fever Magda revealed the +whole pitiful story of the mistakes and misunderstandings which had +brought her in desperation to the Sisters of Penitence. + +Fortunately it was upon Sister Bernardine that the major part of the +nursing devolved, and it was into her gentle ears that Magda +unwittingly poured out the history of the past. Bit by bit, from the +ramblings of delirium, Sister Bernardine pieced together the story, +and her shy, virginal heart found itself throbbing in overflowing +sympathy--a sympathy that sought expression in the tender care she +gave her patient. + +During the long, slow days of convalescence Magda, very helpless and +dependent, had gradually learned to love the soft-footed little Sister +who came and went throughout her illness--to love her as she would +not, at one time, have believed it possible she could grow to love +anyone behind the high grey walls which encircled the sisterhood. + +If the past year had taught her nothing else, it had at least taught +her that goodness and badness are very evenly distributed. She had +found both good and bad behind those tall grey walls just as she had +found them in the great free world outside. + +Her last memory, as her first, was of Sister Bernardine's kind eyes. + +"Some of us find happiness in the world," the little Sister had said +at parting, "and some of us out of it. I think you were meant to find +yours in the world." + +It was Magda's own choice to leave the sisterhood on foot. She had +nothing to take with her in the way of luggage, and she smiled a +little as she realised that, for the moment, she possessed actually +nothing but the clothes she stood up in--the same in which she had +quitted Friars' Holm a year ago, and which, on departure, she had +substituted for the grey veil and habit she was discarding. + +At first, as she made her way along the street, she found the +continuous ebb and flow of the crowded thoroughfare somewhat confusing +after the absolute calm and quiet of the preceding months, but very +soon the Londoner's familiar love of London and of its ceaseless, +kaleidoscopic movement returned to her, and with it the requisite +poise to thread her way through the throngs that trod the pavements. + +Then her eyes turned to the shop windows--Catherine's stern discipline +had completely failed to stamp out the eternal feminine in her niece-- +and as they absorbed the silken stuffs and rainbow colours that +gleamed and glowed behind the thick plateglass, she became suddenly +conscious of her own attire--of its cut and style. When last she had +worn it, it had been the final word in fashionable raiment. Now it was +out of date. The Wielitzska, whose clothes the newspapers had loved to +chronicle, in a frock in which any one of the "young ladies" behind +the counters of these self-same shops into which she was gazing would +have declined to appear! She almost laughed out loud. And then, quick +on the heels of her desire to laugh, came a revulsion of feeling. This +little incident, just the disparity between the fashion of her own +clothes and the fashion prevailing at the moment, served to make her +realise, with a curious clarity of vision, the irrevocable passage of +time. A year--a slice out of her life! What other differences would it +ultimately show? + +Something else was already making itself apparent--the fact that none +of the passers-by seemed to recognise her. In the old days, when she +had been dancing constantly at the Imperial Theatre, she had grown so +used to seeing the sudden look of interest and recognition spring into +the eyes of one or another, to the little eager gesture that nudged a +companion, pointing out the famous dancer as she passed along the +street, that she had thought nothing of it--had hardly consciously +noticed it. Now she missed it--missed it extraordinarily. + +A sudden sense of intense loneliness swept over her--the loneliness of +the man who has been cast on a desert island, only returning to his +fellows after many weary months of absence. She felt she could not +endure to waste another moment before she saw again the beloved faces +of Gillian and Virginie and felt once more the threads of the old +familiar life quiver and vibrate between her fingers. + +With a quick, imperative gesture she hailed a taxi and was whirled +away towards Hampstead. + + + +The first excited greetings and embraces were over. The flurry of +broken, scattered phrases, half-tearfully, half-smilingly welcoming +her back, had spent themselves, and now old Virginie, drawing away, +regarded her with bewildered, almost frightened eyes. + +"/Mais, mon dieu/!" she muttered. "/Mon dieu/!" Then with a sudden +cry: "Cherie! Cherie! What have they done to thee? What have they +done?" + +"Done to me?" repeated Magda in puzzled tones. "Oh, I see! I'm +thinner. I've been ill, you know." + +"It is not--that! Hast thou looked in the glass? Oh, my poor----" And +the old Frenchwoman incontinently began to weep. + +A glass! Magda had not seen her own reflection in a looking-glass +since the day she left Friars' Holm. There were no mirrors hanging on +the walls of the house where the Sisters of Penitence dwelt. Filled +with a nameless, inexplicable terror, she turned and walked out of the +room. There was an old Chippendale mirror hanging at the further end, +but she avoided it. Something in the askance expression of Virginie's +eyes had frightened her so that she dared not challenge what the +mirror might give back until she was alone. + +Once outside the door she flew upstairs to her own room and, locking +the door, went to the glass. A stifled exclamation of dismay escaped +her. She had not dreamed a year could compass such an alteration! +Then, very deliberately, she removed her hat and, standing where the +light fell full upon her, she examined her reflection. After a long +moment she spoke, whisperingly, beneath her breath. + +"Why--why--it isn't me, at all. I'm ugly. Ugly----" + +With a quick movement she lifted her arm, screening her face against +it for a moment. + +Her startled eyes had exaggerated the change absurdly. Nevertheless, +that a change had taken place was palpable. The arresting radiance, +the vivid physical perfection of her, had gone. She was thin, and with +the thinness had come lines--lines of fatigue, and other, more lasting +lines born of endurance and self-control. The pliant symmetry of her +figure, too, was marred. She stooped a little; the gay, free carriage +of her shoulders was gone. The heavy manual work at the sisterhood, of +which, in common with the others, she had done her share, had taken +its toll of her suppleness and grace, and the hands she extended in +front of her, regarding them distastefully, were roughened and worn by +the unwonted usage to which they had been subjected. Her hair, so +long, hidden from the light and air by the veil she had worn, was +flaccid and lustreless. Only her eyes remained unchangedly beautiful. +Splendid and miserable, they stared back at the reflection which the +mirror yielded. + + + +It was a long time before Magda reappeared downstairs, so long, +indeed, that Gillian was beginning to grow nervously uneasy. When at +last she came, she was curiously quiet and responded to all Gillian's +attempts at conversation with a dull, flat indifference that was +strangely at variance with the spontaneously happy excitement which +had attended the first few moments after her arrival. + +Gillian was acutely conscious of the difference in her manner, but +even she, with all her intuition, failed to attribute it to its +rightful cause. To her, Magda was so indubitably, essentially the +Magda she loved that she was hardly sensible of that shadowing of her +radiant beauty which had revealed itself with a merciless clarity to +the dancer herself. And such change as she observed she ascribed to +recent illness. + +Meanwhile Magda got through that first evening at Friars' Holm as best +she might. The hours seemed interminable. She was aching for night to +come, so that she might be alone with her thoughts--alone to realise +and face this new thing which had befallen her. + +She had lost her beauty! The one precious gift she had to give +Michael, that lover of all beauty! . . . The knowledge seemed to beat +against her brain, throbbing and pulsing like a wound, while she made +a pretence at doing justice to the little dinner party, which had been +especially concocted for her under Virginie's watchful eye, and +responded in some sort to Coppertop's periodic outbreaks of jubilation +over her return. + +But the moment of release came at length. A final good-night kiss to +Gillian on the landing outside her bedroom door, and then a nerve- +racking hour while Virginie fussed over her, undressing her and +preparing her for bed with the same tender care she had devoted to the +/bebe/ she had nursed and tended more than twenty years ago. + +It was over at last. + +"Sleep well!" And Virginie switched off the electric light as she +pattered out of the room, leaving Magda alone in the cool dark, with +the silken softness of crepe de chine once more caressing her slender +limbs, and the fineness of lavender-scented linen smooth against her +cheek. + +The ease, and comfort, and wellbeing of it all! Yet this first night, +passed in the familiar luxury which had lapped her round since +childhood, was a harder, more bitter night than any of the preceding +three hundred and sixty-five she had spent tossing weary, aching limbs +on a lumpy straw mattress with a coarse brown woollen blanket drawn up +beneath her chin, vexing her satin skin. + +For each of those nights had counted as a step onwards along the hard +road that was to lead her back eventually to Michael. Now she knew +that they had all been endured in vain. Spiritually her self-elected +year of discipline might have fitted her to be the wife of "Saint +Michel." But the undimmed physical beauty and charm which Michael, the +man and artist, would crave in the woman he loved was gone. + +The recognition of these things rushed over her, overwhelming her with +a sense of blank and utter failure. It meant the end of everything. As +far as she was concerned, life henceforward held nothing more. There +was nothing to hope for in the future--except to hope that Michael +might never see her again! At least, she would like to feel that his +memory of her--of the Wielitzska whose lithe grace and beauty had +swept him headlong even against the tide of his convictions--would +remain for ever unmarred. + +It was a rather touching human little weakness--the weakness and +prayer of many a woman who has lost her lover. . . . Let him remember +her--always--as she was before the radiance of youth faded, before +grief or pain blurred the perfection that had been hers! + +Perhaps for Magda the wish was even stronger, more insistent by reason +of the fact that her beauty had been of so fine and rare a quality, +setting her in a way apart from other women. + +With the instinct of the wounded wild creature she longed to hide--to +hide herself from Michael, so that she might never see in his eyes +that look of quickly veiled disappointment which she knew would spring +into them as he realised the change in her. She felt she could not +bear that. It would be like a sword-thrust through her heart. . . . +Better if she had never left the sisterhood! + +Suddenly every nerve of her tautened. Supposing--supposing she +returned there, never to emerge again? No chance encounter could ever +then bring her within sight or sound of Michael. She would be spared +watching the old, eager look of admiration fade suddenly from the grey +eyes she loved. + +Hour after hour she lay there, dry-eyed, staring into the darkness. +And with the dawn her decision was taken. + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +AN UNANSWERED LETTER + +"You shan't do it!" + +When first Magda had bruited her idea of rejoining the sisterhood--the +decision which had crystallised out of the long black hours of the +night of her return to Friars' Holm--Gillian had merely laughed the +notion aside, attaching little importance to it. But now, a week +later, when Magda reverted to the subject with a certain purposeful +definiteness, she grew suddenly frightened. + +"Do you want to throw away every possibility of happiness?" she +demanded indignantly. "Just because Michael isn't here, waiting for +you on the doorstep, so to speak, you decide to rush off and make it +impossible for him ever to see you again!" + +Magda kept her head bent, refusing to meet the other's eyes. + +"I don't want him to see me now," she said shrinkingly. "I'm not--not +the Magda he knew any longer." + +"That's an absurd exaggeration. You're not looking very well, that's +all," retorted Gillian with her usual practical common sense. "You +can't suppose that would make any difference to Michael! It didn't +make any to me. I'm only too glad to have you back at any price!" + +Magda's faint responsive smile was touched with that bitter knowledge +which is the heritage of the woman who has been much loved for her +beauty. + +"You're a woman, Gillyflower," she said. "And Michael is not only a +man--but an artist. Men don't want you when the bloom has been brushed +off. And you know how Michael worships beauty! He's bound to--being an +artist." + +"I think you're morbidly self-conscious," declared Gillian firmly. "I +suppose it's the result of being out of the world for so long. You've +lost all sense of proportion. You're quite lovely enough, now, to +satisfy most people. You only look rather tired and worn out." + +But Magda's face remained clouded. + +"But even that isn't--all," she answered. "It's--oh, it's a heap of +things! Somehow I thought when I came back I should see the road +clear. But it isn't. It's all shadowed--just as it was before. I +thought I should have so much to give Michael now. And I haven't +anything. I don't think I ever quite realised before that, however +much you try to atone, you can never /undo/ the harm you've done. But +I've had time to think things out while I was with the Sisters." + +"And if you go back to them you'll have time to do nothing but think +for the rest of your life!" flashed back Gillian. + +"Oh, no!" Magda spoke quickly. "I shouldn't return under a vow of +penitence. There are working sisters attached to the community who go +about amongst the sick and poor in the slums. I should join as a +working sister if I went back." + +Gillian stared at her in amazement. Magda devoting her life to good +works seemed altogether out of the picture! She began to feel that the +whole affair was getting too complicated for her to handle, and as +usual, when in a difficulty, she put the matter up to Lady Arabella. + +The latter, with her accumulated wisdom of seventy years, saw more +clearly than the younger woman, although even she hardly understood +that sense of the deadly emptiness and failure of her life which had +overwhelmed Magda since her return to Friars' Holm. But the old woman +realised that she had passed through a long period of strain, and +that, now the reaction had come, the Vallincourt blood in her might +drive her into almost any extreme of conduct. + +"If only Michael were on the spot!" she burst out irritably. "I own +I'm disappointed in the man! I was so sure six months would bring him +to his senses." + +"I know," assented Gillian miserably. "It's--it's--the most hopeless +state of things imaginable!" + +Lady Arabella's interview with Magda herself proved unproductive. + +"Have you written to Michael?" she demanded. + +"Written to him?" A flash of the old defiant spirit sounded in Magda's +voice. "No, nor shall I." + +"Don't be a fool, child. He's probably learned something during this +last twelve months--as well as you. Don't let pride get in your way +now." + +"It's not pride. Marraine, I never knew--I never thought---- Look at +me! What have I to give Michael now? Have you forgotten that he's an +artist and that beauty means everything to him?" + +"Well?" + +"'Well!'" Magda held out her hands. "Can't you see that I'm changed? +. . . Michael wouldn't want me to pose for him as Circe now!" + +"He wanted you for a wife--not a model, my dear. You can buy models at +so much the hour." + +"Oh, Marraine! You won't understand----" + +Lady Arabella took the slender, work-roughened hands in hers. + +"Perhaps I understand better than you think," she said quietly. "There +are other ways of assessing life than merely in terms of beauty. And +you can believe this, too: you've lost nothing from the point of view +of looks that a few months of normal healthy life won't set right. +Moreover, if you'd grown as plain as a pikestaff, I don't think +Michael would care twopence! He's an artist, I know. He can't help +that, but he's a man first. And he's a man who knows how to love. +Promise me one thing," she went on insistently. "Promise that you'll +do nothing definite--yet. Not, at least, without consulting me." + +Magda hesitated. + +"Very well. I'll do nothing without--telling you--first." + +That was the utmost concession she would make, and with that her +godmother had to be content. + +The same evening a letter in Lady Arabella's spirited, angular +handwriting sped on its way to Paris. + + + "If you're not absolutely determined to ruin both your own and + Magda's lives, my dear Michael, put your pride and your ridiculous + principles in your pocket and come back to England. I don't happen + to be a grandmother, but I'm quite old enough for the job, so you + might pay my advice due respect by taking it." + + + +"I thought I was shelved altogether." + +Thus Dan Storran, rather crossly, when, a day or two later, he met +Gillian by appointment for lunch at their favourite little restaurant +in Soho. It was the first time she had been able to fix up a meeting +with him since Magda's return, as naturally his customary visits to +Friars' Holm were out of the question now. + +"Well, you expected my time to be pretty well occupied the first week +or two after Magda came back, didn't you?" countered Gillian. + +She smiled as she spoke and proceeded leisurely to draw off her +gloves, while Storran signalled to a waiter. + +She was really very glad to see him again. There was something so +solid and dependable about him, and she felt it would be very +comforting to confide in him her anxieties concerning Magda. Not that +she anticipated he would have any particular compassion to bestow upon +the latter. But she was femininely aware that inasmuch as Magda's +affairs were disturbing her peace of mind, he would listen to them +with sympathetic attention and probably, out of the depths of his +man's consciousness, produce some quite sound and serviceable advice. + +Being a wise woman, however, she did not launch out into immediate +explanation, but waited for him to work off his own individual grumble +at not having seen her recently, trusting to the perfectly cooked +little lunch to exercise a tranquillising effect. + +It was not until they had reached the cigarette and coffee stage of +the proceedings that she allowed a small, well-considered sigh to +escape her and drift away into the silence that had fallen between +them. Storran glanced across at her with suddenly observant eyes. + +"What is it?" he asked quickly. "You look worried. Are you?" + +She nodded silently. + +"And here I've been grousing away about my own affairs all the time! +Why didn't you stop me?" + +"You know I'm interested in your affairs." + +"And I'm interested in yours. What's bothering you, Gillian? Tell me." + +"Magda," said Gillian simply. + +She was rather surprised to observe that Dan's face did not, as usual, +darken at the mere mention of Magda's name. + +"I saw her the other day," he said quickly. "I was in the Park and she +drove by." + +Gillian felt that there was something more to come. She waited in +silence. + +"She has altered very much," he went on bluntly. Then, after a moment: +"I felt--sorry for her." + +"/You/ did, Dan?" Gillian's face lit up. "I'm glad. I've always hated +your being so down on her." + +With an abrupt movement he jabbed the glowing stub of his cigarette on +to an ash-tray, pressing it down until it went out. Then, taking out +his case, he lit another before replying. + +"I shan't be 'down on her' any more," he said at last. "I never +guessed she'd felt things--like that." + +"No. No one did. I don't suppose even Magda herself knew she could +ever go through all she has done just for an ideal." + +Then very quietly, very simply and touchingly, she told him the story +of all that had happened, of Magda's final intention of becoming a +working member of the sisterhood, and of Lady Arabella's letter +summoning Michael back to England. + +"But even when he comes," added Gillian, "unless he is very careful-- +unless he loves her in the biggest way a man can love, so that +/nothing else matters/, he'll lose her. He'll have to convince her +that she means just that to him." + +Storran was silent for a long time, and when at last he spoke it was +with an obvious effort. + +"Listen," he said. "There's something you don't know. Perhaps when +I've told you, you won't have anything more to say to me--I don't +know." + +Gillian opened her lips in quick disclaimer, but he motioned her to be +silent. + +"Wait," he said. "Wait till you've heard what I have to say. You +think, and Magda thinks, that June died of a broken heart--at least, +that the shock of all that miserable business down at Stockleigh +helped to kill her." + +"Yes." Gillian assented mechanically when he paused. + +"I thought so, too, once. It was what June's sister told me--told +everyone. But it wasn't true. She believed it, I know--probably +believes it to this day. But, thank God, it wasn't true!" + +"How can you tell? All that strain and heart-break just at a time when +she wasn't strong. Oh, Dan! We can never be sure--/sure/!" + +"I /am/ sure. Quite sure," he said steadily. "When I came to my senses +out there in 'Frisco, I couldn't rest under that letter from June's +sister. It burned into me like a red-hot iron. I was half-mad with +pain, I think. I wrote to the doctor who had attended her, but I got +no answer. Then I sailed for England, determined to find and see the +man for myself. I found him--my letter had miscarried somehow--and he +told me that June could not have lived. There were certain +complications in her case which made it impossible. In fact, if she +had been so happy that she had longed to live--and /tried/ to--it +would only have made it harder for her, a rougher journey to travel. +As it was, she went easily, without fighting death--letting go, +without any effort, her hold on life." + +He ceased, and after a moment's silence Gillian spoke in strained, +horror-stricken tones. + +"And you never told us! Oh! It was cruel of you, Dan! You would have +spared Magda an infinity of self-reproach!" + +"I didn't want to spare her. I left her in ignorance on purpose. I +wanted her to be punished--to suffer as she had made me suffer." + +There were tears in Gillian's eyes. It was terrible to her that Dan +could be so bitter--so vengefully cruel. Yet she recognised that it +had been but the natural outcome of the man's primitive nature to pay +back good for good and evil for evil. + +"Then why do you tell me now?" she asked at last. + +"Why--because you've beaten me--you with your sweetness and courage +and tolerance. You've taught me that retribution and punishment are +best left in--more merciful Hands than ours." + +Gillian's hand went out to meet his. + +"Oh, Dan, I'm so glad!" she said simply. + +He kept her hand in his a moment, then released it gently. + +"Well, you can tell her now," he said awkwardly. + +"I?" Gillian smiled a little. "No. I want you to tell her. Don't you +see, Dan"--as she sensed his impulse to refuse--"it will make all the +difference in Magda if you and she are--are square with each other? +She's overweighted. She's been carrying a bigger burden than she can +bear. Michael comes first, of course, but there's been her treatment +of you, as well. June, too. And--and other things. And it's crushing +her. . . . No, you must tell her." + +"I will--if you say I must. But she won't forgive me easily." + +"I think she will. I think she'll understand just what made you do it. +So now we'll go back to Friars' Holm together." + +An hour later Storran came slowly downstairs from the little room +where he and Magda had met again for the first time since that +moonlight night at Stockleigh--met, not as lovers, but as a man and +woman who have each sinned and each learned, out of their sinning, how +to pardon and forgive. + +Storran was very quiet and grave when presently he found himself alone +with Gillian. + +"We men will never understand women," he said. "There's an angel +hidden away somewhere in every one of you." His mouth curved into a +smile, half-sad, half-whimsical. "I've just found Magda's." + + + +Lady Arabella and Gillian, both feeling rather like conspirators, +waited anxiously for a reply to the former's letter to Quarrington. +But none came. The time slipped by until a fortnight had elapsed, and +with the passage of each day their hearts sank lower. + +Neither of them believed that Michael would have utterly disregarded +the letter, had he received it, but they feared that it might have +miscarried, or that he might be travelling and so not receive it in +time to prevent Magda's carrying out her avowed intention of becoming +a working member of the sisterhood. + +Even though she knew now that at least June Storran's death need no +longer be added to her account, she still adhered to her decision. As +she had told Dan with a weary simplicity: "I'm glad. But it won't make +any difference--to Michael and me. Too much water has run under the +bridge. Love that is dead doesn't come to life again." + +Each day was hardening her resolve, and both Lady Arabella and Gillian +--those two whose unselfish happiness was bound up in her own--were +beginning to realise that it would be a race against time if she was +to be saved from taking a step that would divide her from Michael as +long as they both should live. + +At the end of a fortnight Gillian, driven to desperation, despatched a +telegram to his Paris address: "Did you receive communication from +Lady Arabella?" But it shared the fate of the letter, failing to +elicit any reply. She allowed sufficient time to elapse to cover any +ordinary delay in transit, then, unknown to Magda, taxied down to the +house in Park Lane. + +"I want you to invite Magda to stay with you, please," she informed +Lady Arabella abruptly. + +"Of course I will," she replied. "But why? You've got a reason." + +Gillian nodded. + +"Yes," she acknowledged quietly. "I'm going to Paris--to find +Michael." + +Lady Arabella, whose high spirits had wilted a little in the face of +the double disappointment regarding any answer from Quarrington, +beamed satisfaction. + +"You blessed child!" she exclaimed. "I'd have gone myself, but my old +body is so stiff with rheumatism that I don't believe they'd get me on +board the boat except in an ambulance!" + +"Well, I'm going," said Gillian. "Only the point is, Magda mustn't +know. If she thought I was going off in pursuit of Michael I believe +she'd lock me up in the cellar. She intends never to let him see her +again. Melrose will manage about the letters, and somehow you've got +to prevent Magda from coming to Friars' Holm and finding out that I'm +not there." + +"I'll take her away with me," declared Lady Arabella. "Rheumatism-- +Harrogate. It's quite simple." + +Gillian heaved a sigh of relief. + +"Yes. That would be a good plan," she agreed. "Then I'd let you know +when we should arrive--" + +"'We?'" + +"Michael and I. I'm not coming back without him. And you could bring +Magda straight back to town with you." + +Lady Arabella's keen old eyes searched her face. + +"You sound very certain of success. Supposing you find Michael still +unforgiving--and he refuses to return with you?" + +"I believe in Michael," replied Gillian steadily. "He's made mistakes. +People in love do. But when he knows all that Magda has endured--for +his sake, really--why, he'll come back. I'm sure of it." + +"I don't know, my dear. /I/ was sure he would come back within six +months. But, you see, I was wrong. Men are kittle cattle--and often +very slow to arrive at the intrinsic value and significance of things. +A woman jumps to it while a man is crawling round on his hands and +knees in the dark, looking for it with a match." + +Gillian laughed and got up to go, and Lady Arabella--whose rheumatism +was quite real at the moment--rose rather painfully and hobbled down +the room beside her, her thin, delicate old hand resting on the silver +knob of a tall, ebony walking-stick. + +"Now, remember," urged Gillian. "Magda mustn't have the least +suspicion Michael may be coming back--or she'd be off into her slums +before you could stop her. /Whatever happens/, you've got to prevent +her rushing back to the Sisters of Penitence." + +"Only over my dead body, my dear," Lady Arabella assured her +determinedly. "She shan't go any other way." + +So Gillian returned to Friars' Holm bearing with her a note from Lady +Arabella in which she asked her god-daughter to pay her a visit. In +it, however, the wily old lady made no mention of her further idea of +going to Harrogate, lest it should militate against an acceptance of +the invitation. Magda demurred a little at first, but Gillian, +suddenly endowed with diplomacy worthy of a Machiavelli, pointed out +that if she really had any intention of ultimately withdrawing into a +community the least she could do was to give her godmother the +happiness of spending a few days with her. + +"She will only urge me to give up the idea all the time," protested +Magda. "And I've quite made up my mind. The sooner I can get away from +--from everything"--looking round her with desperate, haunted eyes-- +"the better it will be." + +Gillian's impulse to combat her decision to rejoin the sisterhood died +on her lips stillborn. It was useless to argue the matter. There was +only one person in the world who could save Magda from herself, and +that was Michael. The main point was to concentrate on getting him +back to England, rather than waste her energies upon what she knew +beforehand must prove a fruitless argument. + +"I'll go to Marraine for a couple of nights, anyway," said Magda at +last. "After that, I want to make arrangements for my reception into +the sisterhood." + +Gillian returned no answer. She felt her heart contract at the quiet +decision in Magda's voice, but she pinned her faith on Lady Arabella's +ability to hold her, somehow, till she herself had accomplished her +errand to Paris. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +AGAINST TIME + +Gillian, dashing headlong into Victoria Station, encountered Storran +sauntering leisurely out of it, a newspaper under his arm. + +"Where are you off to?" he demanded, stopping abruptly. "You look as +if you were in a hurry." + +"I am. Don't stop me. I'm catching the boat-train." + +Storran pulled out his watch as he turned and fell into step beside +her. + +"Then you've got a good half-hour to spare. No hurry," he returned +placidly. + +Gillian glanced at the watch on her wrist. + +"Are you sure?" she asked doubtfully. "If so, my watch must be +altogether wrong!" + +"Unbeliever! Come and look at the clock. And, incidentally, give me +that suit-case." + +She yielded up the case obediently and, having verified the time, +proceeded towards the platform at a more reasonable gait. + +Storran, his long legs leisurely keeping pace with her shorter ones, +smiled down at her. + +"And now, for the second time of asking, where are you off to?" + +"I'm going to France--to fetch Michael." + +He gave a quick exclamation--whether of surprise or disapproval she +was not quite sure. + +"You haven't heard from him, then?" + +"No. And unless something happens /quick/, it will be too late." + +"But if he were at his studio he would surely have answered Lady +Arabella's letter." + +"Yes, I suppose so," replied Gillian absently, her eyes following the +queue of passengers passing through the gate on the platform. By +mutual consent they had come to a standstill outside it. + +"Then if he isn't there, what's the use of your rushing over to +Paris?" protested Storran. "It's absurd--an absolute wild-goose chase. +You can't go!" + +Gillian's brown eyes came back to his face. + +"But I'm going," she said calmly. + +He frowned. + +"If Michael's not at his studio he may be--anywhere!" + +She nodded. + +"I know. If so, I shall follow--anywhere." + +Storran looked down at her and read the quiet determination in her +face. + +"Then let me come too," he said. "Sort of courier, you know. I'd just +be at hand in case of a tangle." + +"Oh, no! I couldn't let you. There's not the least need. Good heavens, +I'm not a baby!" + +There was a curious softness in Dan's blue eyes as they rested on her. + +"No. I think you're--a very good friend," he said. "But I don't see +why you should have the monopoly! Let me show I know how to be a good +pal, too, if I want to." + +"No--no." Gillian still protested, but her tone betrayed signs of +weakening. + +"We'll be as conventional as you like," urged Dan, twinkling. "I'd +stop at different hotels." + +"Well, but--" + +"Say 'yes'!" he insisted. + +Gillian smiled. + +"You obstinate person! Yes, then!" + +"Thank you. Then I'll go along and buy a ticket." + +He turned and went towards the booking-office, while Gillian, inwardly +much relieved, awaited his return. She could not but acknowledge that +in the "wild-goose chase" upon which she was embarking it would be an +enormous comfort to have Storran at hand in case of an emergency. As +to the proprieties--well, Gillian was far too honest and independent a +soul to worry about them in the circumstances. Her friend's happiness +was at stake. And whether people chose to talk because she and Dan +Storran travelled to Paris together--or to Timbuctoo, for the matter +of that, if Michael had chanced to depart thither--troubled her not at +all. + +When Storran rejoined her a much more practical consideration +presented itself to her mind. + +"But, my dear man, you can't fly with me to Paris without even a +tooth-brush! I'd forgotten you'd no luggage!" + +Her face fell as she spoke. But Storran dismissed the matter with a +smile. + +"Oh, I can buy clean collars and shirts as I go along," he replied, +entirely unruffled. "The dickens was to get on to the train at all! +They assured me there wasn't a seat. However, I make a point of never +believing official statements--on principle." + +And as a consequence of such well-directed incredulity, Storran +accompanied Gillian to Dover and thence to Calais. + +They had a good crossing--sun up and blue sky. Looking back, +afterwards, it always seemed to Gillian as though the short time it +occupied had been a merciful breathing space--a tranquil interval, +specially vouchsafed, in which she was able to brace herself for the +coming race against time. Just so long as they were on board, nothing +she could do was of any importance whatever, either to help or hinder +the fulfilment of her errand. She could not quicken the speed of the +boat by a single throb of its engine. So, like a sensible woman, she +sat on deck with Dan and enjoyed herself amazingly. + +Afterwards, in quick succession, came the stir and bustle of landing +and the journey to Paris. They arrived too late to make any inquiries +that night, but ten o'clock the following morning found them outside +the building where Michael had his apartment. + +"Oh, Dan!"--Gillian was seized with sudden panic. "Supposing he is +here, after all, and has /deliberately/ not answered Lady Arabella's +letter?" + +"I shouldn't suppose anything so foolish. Michael may be many kinds of +a fool--artists very often are, I believe. It's part of the +temperament. But whatever he proposed to do regarding Magda, there's +no reason in the world to suppose he wouldn't answer Lady Arabella's +letter." + +"No--no. Perhaps not," agreed Gillian hurriedly. But it was in rather +a shaky voice that she asked to see Mr. Quarrington when finally they +found themselves confronted by the concierge. + +"Monsieur Quarrington?" Hands, shoulders, and eyebrows all seemed to +gesticulate at once as madame la concierge made answer. "But he has +been gone from here two--no, three months. Perhaps madame did not +know?" + +"No," said Gillian. "I didn't know. But I thought he might possibly be +away, because I--I have had no answer to a letter I wrote him." + +"What misfortune!" + +The concierge regarded Gillian with a pair of shrewd, gimlet eyes +while a stream of inquiry and comment issued from her lips. Madame was +the sister of monsieur, perhaps? Truly, they resembled each other! One +could see at a glance. No, not a sister? Ah, a friend, then? And there +had been no answer to a letter! But monsieur had left an address. Oh, +yes. And all letters were forwarded. She herself saw to that. + +At last Gillian managed to stem the torrent of garrulity and +interposed a question concerning the telegram she had sent. + +A telegram! Now that was another affair altogether. Yes, the concierge +remembered the telegram. She had opened it to see if it were of life +or death importance, in which case she would have, of course, +telegraphed its contents to monsieur at his present address. + +Gillian was nearly crying with impatience as the woman's voluble +tongue ran on complacently. + +"Then you did send it on?" she managed to interpolate at last. + +The letter--yes. Not, of course, the telegram. That would have been a +needless expense seeing that monsieur would already have had the +letter, since all the letters were sent on. /All!/ She, Madame Ribot, +could vouch for that. + +At the end of half an hour Gillian succeeded in extracting Michael's +address from amid the plethora of words and, bidding the voluble +concierge /bon jour/, she and Storran beat a masterly retreat. + +It appeared that Michael had been commissioned to paint the portrait +of some Italian society beauty and had gone to Rome. Gillian screwed +up her small face resolutely. + +"I shall go to Rome!" she announced succinctly. There was a definite +defiance in her tone, and Storran concealed a smile. + +"Of course you will," he replied composedly. "Just as well I came with +you, isn't it?" he added with great cheerfulness. + +Her expression relaxed. + +"You really are rather a nice person, Dan," she allowed graciously. "I +was horribly afraid you'd suggest wiring Michael again, or something +silly like that. I'm not going to trust to anything of that kind." + +Accordingly, the only wire despatched was one to Lady Arabella, +informing her as to their movements, and a few hours later found Dan +and Gillian rushing across Europe as fast as the thunderous whirl of +the express could take them. They travelled day and night, and it was +a very weary Gillian who at last opened her eyes to the golden +sunshine of Italy. + +At the hotel whither Madame Ribot had directed them, fresh +disappointment awaited them. The manager--when he found that the two +dusty and somewhat dishevelled-looking travellers who presented +themselves at the inquiry bureau were actually friends of Signor +Quarrington, the famous English artist who had stayed at his hotel-- +was desolated, but the signor had departed a month ago! Had he the +address? But assuredly. He would write it down for the signora. + +"He's in Normandy!" exclaimed Gillian in tones of bitter +disappointment. "At--what's the name of the place?--Armanches. Oh, +Dan! We've got to go right back to Paris again and then on to the +coast." + +Her face was full of anxiety. This would mean at least a delay of +several days before they could possibly see Michael, and meanwhile it +was a moot question as to how much longer Lady Arabella could restrain +Magda from taking definite steps with regard to joining the +sisterhood. + +Storran nodded. + +"Yes," he said quietly. "But all the same, you'll not start back till +to-morrow--" + +"Oh, but I must!" interrupted Gillian. "We can't afford to waste a +moment." + +He glanced down at her and shook his head. Her face was white and +drawn, and there were deep violet shadows underneath her eyes. +Suspense and her anxious impatience had told upon her, and she had +slept but little on the journey. And now, with the addition of this +last, totally unexpected disappointment, she looked as though she +could not stand much more. + +"We can afford to waste a single day better than we can afford the +three or four which it would cost us if you collapsed en route," said +Storran. + +"I shan't collapse," she protested with white lips. + +"So much the better. But all the same, you'll stay here till to-morrow +and get a good night's rest." + +"I shouldn't sleep," she urged. "Let's go right on, Dan. Let's go----" + +But the sentence was never finished. Quite suddenly she swayed, +stretching out her hands with a blind, groping movement. Dan was just +in time to catch her in his arms as she toppled over in a dead faint. + +It was a week later when, in the early morning, a rather wan and +white-faced Gillian sprang up from her seat as the train ran into +Bayeux. + +"Thank goodness we're here at last!" she exclaimed. + +Storran put out his hand to steady her as the train jolted to a +standstill. + +"Yes, we're here at last," he said. "Now to find a vehicle of some +description to take us out to Armanches." + +As he had suggested it would, Gillian's collapse had delayed them some +time. Probably she had caught a slight chill while travelling, and +that, together with the fatigue from which she was suffering, combined +to keep her in bed at the hotel in Rome for a couple of days. + +When the slight feverishness had abated, she slept the greater part of +the time, her weary body exacting the price for all those wakeful +hours she had passed on the train. But it was not until four days had +elapsed that Dan would agree to a resumption of the journey. Even +then, consent was only wrung from him by the fear that she would fret +herself ill over any further delay. He did not consider her by any +means fit to travel. But Gillian was game to the core, and they had +reached Bayeux without further /contretemps/. + +"The thing that puzzles me," she said as they started on the long +drive from Bayeux to Armanches, "is why Michael didn't send his +Normandy address to Madame Ribot. We should have been saved all that +long journey to Rome if he had." + +"Perhaps he intended to, and forgot," suggested Dan. "Artists are +proverbially absent-minded." + +But Gillian shook her head with a dissatisfied air. Michael was not of +the absent-minded type. + +Armanches was a tiny place on the Normandy coast, in reality not much +more than a fishing village, but its possession of a beautiful /plage/ +--smooth, fine, golden sands--brought many visitors to the old- +fashioned hostelry it boasted. + +The landlady, a smiling, rosy-cheeked woman, with a chubby little +brown-faced son hiding shy embarrassment behind her ample skirts, +greeted the travellers hospitably. But when they mentioned +Quarrington's name a look of sympathetic concern overspread her comely +face. + +Yes, he was there. And of course madame could not know, but he had +been ill, seriously ill with /la grippe/--taken ill the very day he +had arrived, nearly a month ago. He had a nurse. Oh, yes! One had come +from Bayeux. But this influenza! It was a veritable scourge. One was +here to-day and gone to-morrow. However, Michael Quarrington was +recovering, the saints be praised! Monsieur and madame wished to see +him? The good woman looked doubtful. She would inquire. What name? +Grey? But there was a telegram awaiting madame! + +Gillian's face blanched as the landlady bustled away in search of the +wire. Had Magda already---- Oh, but that was impossible! Lady Arabella +was in charge at that end, and Gillian had a great belief in Lady +Arabella's capacity to deal with any crisis that might arise. +Nevertheless, they had wired her the Normandy address from Rome, in +case of necessity. The next moment Gillian had torn open the telegram +and she and Dan were reading it together. + + + "Magda insists we return to London on Wednesday. She has completed + preliminary arrangements to join sisterhood and goes there + Thursday. Impossible to dissuade her.--ARABELLA WINTER." + + +Gillian's mouth set itself in a straight line of determination as her +eyes raced along the score or so of pregnant words. She was silent a +moment. Then she met Storran's questioning glance. + +"We can just do it," she said sternly. "To-day is Wednesday. By +crossing to Southampton to-night, we can make London to-morrow." + +Without waiting for his reply she entered the inn and ran quickly up +the stairs which the landlady had already ascended. + +"But, madame, I am not sure that monsieur will receive anyone," +protested the astonished woman, turning round as Gillian caught up +with her. + +"I must see him," asserted Gillian quietly. + +Perhaps something in the tense young face touched a sympathetic chord +in the Frenchwoman's honest heart. She scented romance, and when she +emerged from the invalid's bedroom her face was wreathed in smiles. + +"It is all arranged. Will madame please to enter?" + +A moment later Gillian found herself standing in front of a tall, +gaunt figure of a man, whose coat hung loosely from his shoulders and +whose face was worn and haggard with something more than /la grippe/ +alone. + +"Oh, Michael!" + +A little, stricken cry broke from her lips. What men and women make +each other suffer! She realised it as she met the stark, bitter misery +of the grey eyes that burned at her out of the thin face and +remembered the look on Magda's own face when she had last seen her. + +She went straight to the point without a word of greeting or of +explanation. There was no time for explanations, except the only one +that mattered. + +"Michael, why didn't you answer Lady Arabella's letter?" + +He stared at her. Then he passed his hand wearily across his forehead. + +"Letter? I don't remember any letter." + +"She wrote to you about a month ago. I know the letter was forwarded +on to Rome. It must have followed you here." + +"A month ago?" he repeated. + +Then a light broke over his face. He turned and crossed the room to +where a small pile of letters lay on a table, dusty and forgotten. + +"Perhaps it's here," he said. "I was taken ill directly I arrived. I +never even sent this address to the concierge at Paris. I believe I +was off my head part of the time--'flue plays the deuce with you. But +I remember now. The nurse told me there were some letters which had +come while I was ill. I--didn't bother about them." + +While he spoke he was turning over the envelopes, one by one, in a +desultory fashion. + +"Yes. This is Lady Arabella's writing." He paused and looked across at +Gillian. + +"Will you read it, please?" she said. "And--oh, you ought to sit down! +You don't look very strong yet." + +He smiled a little. + +"I'm not quite such a crock as I look. But won't you sit down yourself +while I read this letter? Is it of importance?" + +"Oh! Please read it!" exclaimed Gillian with sudden nervous +impatience. + +It seemed to her an eternity while he read the letter. But at last he +looked up from its perusal. + +"Well?" she asked under her breath. + +Very deliberately he refolded the sheet of notepaper and slipped it +back into its envelope. + +"It would have made no difference if I had received it earlier," he +said composedly. + +"No difference" + +"None. Because, you see, this letter--asking me to go back to Magda-- +is written under a misapprehension. + +"How? What do you mean?" + +"I mean--that Magda has--no further use for me." + +Gillian leaned forward. + +"You're wrong," she said tersely--"quite wrong." + +"No." He shook his head. "I'm not blaming her. Looking back, I'm not +even very much surprised. But still, the fact remains, she has no +further use for me." + +"Will you tell me what makes you think that?" With an effort Gillian +forced herself to speak quietly and composedly. + +He was silent a moment, staring out of the window at the gay blue sea +beyond, sparkling in the morning sunlight. All at once he swung round +on her, his face wrung with a sudden agony. + +"I /know/," he said in a roughened voice. "I know, because I wrote to +her--six months ago. I was hard, I know, brutally hard to her that +last day at Friars' Holm. But--God! I paid for it afterwards! And I +wrote to her--bared my very soul to her. . . . Wrote so that if she +had ever cared she must at least have answered me." + +He stopped abruptly, his face working. + +"And she didn't answer?" + +A wry smile twisted his lips. + +"I got my own letter back," he said quietly. "After all, that was an +answer--a conclusive one." + +Gillian was thinking rapidly. Six months ago! A momentary flash of +recollection came to her. So Lady Arabella, that wise old citizen of +the world, had been quite right after all! She had given Michael six +months to find out his imperative need of Magda. And he had found it. +Only--something had gone wrong. + +"Magda never had that letter," she said quietly at last. + +She was gradually beginning to piece together the separate parts of +the puzzle. All letters that came for Magda had been forwarded on to +the sisterhood, and had she herself readdressed this of Michael's she +would have recognised the handwriting. But probably she had been away +from home, or had chanced to be out at post time, in which case +Melrose, or old Virginie, would have readdressed the envelope and +dropped it in the pillar box at the corner of the road. + +Then--as was the case with any correspondence addressed to one of the +Sisters of Penitence--the letter would be read by the Mother Superior +and passed on to its destined recipient if she thought good. If +not---- + +Gillian had learned a great deal about Catherine Vallincourt by now, +both from Lady Arabella and from Magda herself, who, before leaving +the community, had discovered the identity of its head. And she could +visualise the stern, fanatical woman, obsessed by her idea of +disciplining Magda and of counteracting the effects of her brother's +marriage with Diane Wielitzska, opening the letter and, after perusal, +calmly sealing it up in its envelope again and returning it to the +sender. + +"Magda never had that letter, Michael," she repeated. "Listen!" And +then, without preamble, but with every word vibrant with pity for the +whole tragedy, she poured out the story of Magda's passionate +repentance and atonement, of her impetuous adoption of her father's +remorseless theory, mistaken though it might be, that pain is the +remedy for sin, and of the utter, hopeless despair which had +overwhelmed her now that she believed it had all proved unavailing. + +"She has come to believe that you don't want her--never could want +her, Michael--because she has failed so much." + +There was more than one reproach mingled with the story, but Michael +made no protest. It was only when she had finished that Gillian could +read in his tortured eyes all that her narrative had cost him. + +"Yes," he said at last. "It's true. I wanted the impossible. I was +looking for a goddess--not a woman. . . . But now I want--just a +woman, Gillian." + +"Then, if you want her, you must save her from herself. You've just +twenty-four hours to do it in. To-morrow she's still Magda. The next +day she'll be Sister Somebody. And you'll have lost her." + +Half an hour later, when Michael's nurse returned, she found her +patient packing a suit-case with the assistance of a pretty, brown- +haired girl whose eyes shone with the unmistakable brightness of +recent tears. + +"But you're not fit to travel!" she protested in horrified dismay. +"You mustn't think of it, Mr. Quarrington." + +But Michael only laughed at her, defying her good-humouredly. + +"If the man you loved were waiting for you in England, nurse, you know +you'd go--and you wouldn't care a hang whether you were fit to travel +or not!" + +The nurse smiled in spite of herself. + +"No," she admitted. "I suppose I shouldn't." + +As the Havre-Southampton boat steamed through the moonlit night, Dan +and Gillian were pacing the deck together. + +"I'm so glad Michael is going back to Magda without knowing--about +June," said Gillian, coming to a standstill beside the deck-rail. +"Going back just because his love is too big for anything else to +matter now." + +"Haven't you told him?"--Storran's voice held surprise. + +"No. I decided not to. I should like Magda to tell him that herself." + +They were both silent for a little while. Gillian bent over the rail, +looking down at the phosphorescent water breaking away from the +steamer's bow. Suddenly a big hand covered hers. + +"I think I'm--lonely," said Storran. + +"Gillian," he went on, his voice deepening. "Gillian . . . dear. We're +two rather lonely people. We shall be lonelier still when Michael and +Magda are married. Couldn't we be lonely--in company?" + +Gillian's hand moved a little beneath his, then stayed still. + +"Why, Dan--Dan----" she stammered. + +"Yes," went on the strong, tender voice. "I'm asking you to marry me, +Gillian, I'd never expect too much of you. We both know all that's in +the past of each of us. But we might help each other to be less lonely +--good comrades together, Gillian." + +And suddenly Gillian realised how good it would be to rest once more +in the shelter of a man's affection and good comradeship--to have +someone to laugh with or to be sorry with. There's a tender magic in +the word "together." And she, too, had something to give in return-- +sympathy, and understanding, and a warm friendship. . . . She would +not be going to him empty-handed. + +"Is it yes, Gillian?" + +She bent her head. + +"Yes, Dan." + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE EDGE OF THE DAWN + +Magda paused outside the closed door of the room. She knew whom she +would see within. Lady Arabella had told her he was there waiting for +her. + +Her first impulse had been to refuse to meet him. Then the temptation +to see him again--just once more--before she passed out of his life +altogether, rushed over her like the surge of some resistless sea, +sweeping everything before it. + +Very quietly she opened the door and went into the room. + +"Magda!" + +She never knew whether he really uttered her name or whether it was +only the voiceless, clamorous cry of his whole consciousness--of a +man's passionate demand for the woman who is mate of his soul and +body. + +But she answered its appeal, her innermost being responding to the +claim of it. All recollection of self, of the dimming of her beauty, +even of the great gulf of months that lay between them, crowded with +mistakes and failure, was burned away in the white-hot flame of love +that blazed up within her. + +She ran to him, and that white, searing flame found its expression in +the dear human tenderness of the little cry that broke from her as he +turned his gaunt face towards her. + +"Oh, Saint Michel! Saint Michel! How dreadfully ill you look! Oh, my +dear--sit down! You're not fit to stand!" + +But when that first instinctive cry had left her lips, memory came +flooding over her once more. She shrank back from him, covering her +face with her hands, agonisingly conscious of the change in herself-- +of that shadowing of her beauty which the sensitiveness of a woman in +love had so piteously magnified. + +Then, drawing her hands slowly down, she braced herself to say what +must be said. + +"You are free of me, Michael." She spoke in a curious, still voice. "I +know Marraine and Gillian between them have brought you back. But you +are free of me. As you see--I shall never do any more harm. No other +man will come to grief for the sake of the Wielitzska. . . . I +determined that as I had made others pay, so I would pay. I think"-- +suddenly moving towards the window and standing full in the brilliant +sunlight--"I think you'll agree I've settled the bill." + +Michael came to her side. + +"I want you for my wife," he said simply. + +She held out her work-roughened hands, while the keen-edged sunlight +pitilessly revealed the hollowed line of cheek and throat, the +lustreless dark hair, the fine lines that Pain, the great Sculptor, +had graved about her mouth. + +"You are an artist before everything, Michael," she said. "Look--look +well!" + +He took the two work-worn hands in his and drew her nearer him. + +"I'm your lover before everything," he answered. "When will you come +to me, Magda?" + +"No, no," she said whisperingly. "I mustn't come. You'll never--never +quite forgive me. Some day the past would come between us again-- +you'll never forget it all." + +"No," he replied steadily. "Perhaps not. Consequences /cannot/ be +evaded. There are things that can't be forgotten. But one forgives. +And I love you--love you, Magda, so that I can't face life without +you." His voice vibrated. "The past must always lie like a shadow on +our love. But you're my woman--my soul! And if you've sinned, then it +must be my sin, too----" + +She leaned away from him. + +"Do you mean--June?" she asked. + +He nodded with set lips. + +"Then--then you don't know--you haven't heard?" + +His expression answered her and her face changed--grew suddenly +radiant, transfigured. "Oh, Saint Michel--Saint Michel! Then there is +one thing I can do, one gift I have still left to give! Oh, my dear, I +can take away the shadow!" Her voice breathless and shaken, she told +him how June had died--all that Dan Storran had learned from the +doctor who had attended her. + +"I know I hurt her--hurt her without thinking. But oh, Michael! Thank +God, it wasn't through me that she died!" + +And Michael, as he folded his arms about her, knew that the shadow +which had lain between him and the woman he loved was there no longer. +They were free--freed from those "ropes of steel" which had held them +bound. Free to go together and find once more their Garden of Eden. + + + +Presently, when those first perfect moments of reunion were past, +Magda gave utterance to the doubts and perplexities that still vexed +her soul. + +"Pain may purify," she said slowly. "But it spoils, Michael, and +blots, and ruins. I think, after all, pain is meaningless." + +Michael's grey, steady eyes met her troubled ones. + +"I don't think pain--just as pain--purifies," he answered quickly. +"Pain is merely horrible. It is the /willingness to suffer/ that +shrives us--not the pain itself." + +Later still, the essential woman in her came into its own again. "I +shall never be able to sit for you any more, Saint Michel," she said +regretfully. "I'm nobody's model--now!" + +She could see only her lost beauty--the unthinking, radiant beauty of +mere youth. But Michael could see all that her voluntary renunciation +and atonement had bestowed in its stead of more enduring significance. + +He took her by the hand and led her to the mirror. + +"There," he said, a great content in his voice, "is the model for the +greatest picture I shall ever paint--the model for my 'Madonna.'" + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Lamp of Fate by Margaret Pedler + |