United States or Bhutan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"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.
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.
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.
"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.
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."
"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.
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 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.
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."
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.
Word Of The Day