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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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
He had been meditating on this while harrowing over a fresh bit for half an hour, when he heard his wife calling from the hill: 'Josef, Josef! 'What's up? 'Do you know what has happened? 'How should I know? 'Is it a new tax? anxiously crossed his mind. 'Magda's uncle has come, you know, that Grochowski.... 'If he wants to take the girl back let him.
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.
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