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Updated: May 23, 2025
"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.
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.
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?"
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.
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?
"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!
"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.
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.
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.
"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."
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