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"You're not the 'Swan-Maiden, whose love was so great that she forgot everything except the man she loved and paid for it with her life." "The process doesn't sound exactly encouraging," she retorted with a flash of dry humour. "But how do you know I'm not like that?" "How do I know? Because, if you knew anything at all about love, you couldn't pay with it as you do.
When finally the curtain fell on what the critics characterised next day as "the most appealing performance of The Swan-Maiden which Mademoiselle Wielitzska has yet given us," she received an absolute ovation.
In reasoning by induction, the greater the number of facts taken into account, the greater the probability of sound reasoning; and therefore the greater the number of facts a theory will explain, the more likely it is to be true. Had Liebrecht's theory touched only the Swan-maiden group, it would have been more convenient to discuss it in the last chapter.
"Magda has promised to dance for me," proceeded Lady Arabella, entirely disregarding his quietly uttered negative. "They're not giving The Swan-Maiden that night at the Imperial. She can't dine, of course, poor dear. Really, dancers have a lot to put up with or rather, to put up without! Magda never dares to enjoy a good square meal. Afraid of getting fat, of course!
"I do." "Oh, Gillian is all right," affirmed Magda, dismissing the matter airily. "She's a gorgeous accompanist, anyway almost as good as Davilof himself. Which reminds me I must go home and rehearse my solo dance in the Swan-Maiden. I told Davilof I'd be ready for him at four o'clock; and it's half-past three now. I shall never get back to Hampstead through this ghastly fog in half an hour."
It will have been obvious to every reader that the tale is simply that of Cupid and Psyche with the parts reversed; and I might urge that Cupid and the witch were beings of precisely the same nature. Waiving this for the moment, however, no one will deny that the witch takes the place of the Swan-maiden, or fairy, in other stories of the group.
The heavier instruments of the orchestra were silenced, but the rippling music of the strings wove and interwove a dreaming melody, unutterably sweet and appealing, as the Swan-Maiden, bathed in pallid moonlight, besought the invisible Ritmagar for mercy, praying that she might not die even though the sun had set. . . . But there comes no answer to her prayers.
Apparently she was too absorbed in her own thoughts to notice Gillian's entrance, for she did not speak. "What are you thinking about? Planning a new dance that shall out-vie The Swan-Maiden?" asked Gillian at last, for the sake of something to say. The silence and Magda's strange aloofness frightened her in some way. It was quite a moment before Magda made any answer.
With great joy he seized her, and, carrying her off, lived with her again for many years and had a numerous progeny. Not a few of her descendants were living when Map wrote, and were known as the children of the dead woman. This, of course, is not a Swan-maiden story at all.
But with her thoughts preoccupied by the work in hand she failed to notice it, and, advancing till she faced the great mirror, she executed a few steps in front of it, humming the motif of The Swan-Maiden music under her breath. "Play, Antoine," she threw at him over her shoulder. Davilof hesitated, made a movement towards her, then wheeled round abruptly and went to the piano.
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