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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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!"
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."
"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."
"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.
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.
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