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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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
"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.
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?
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.
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!
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."
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