The Lamp of Fate Part 10

Magda watched him with rebellious eyes. Gradually, however, the rebellion died out of them, replaced by a puzzled look of interest.

There was something vaguely familiar about the man. Had she ever seen him before? Or was it merely one of those chance resemblances which one comes across occasionally? That fair hair with its crisp wave, the lean, square-jawed face, above all, the dark-grey eyes with their bright, penetrating glance--why did she feel as though every detail of the face were already known to her?

She failed to place the resemblance, however, and finally, with a little sigh of fatigue, she gave up the attempt. Her brain still felt muddled and confused from the blow she had received. Perhaps later she would be able to think things out more clearly.

Meanwhile she lay still, her eyes resting languidly on the face that so puzzled her. It was not precisely a handsome face, but there was a certain rugged fineness in its lines that lifted it altogether out of the ruck of the ordinary. It held its contradictions, too.

Notwithstanding the powerful, determined jaw, the mouth had a sensitive upward curve at the corners which gave it an expression of singular sweetness, and beneath the eyes were little lines which qualified their dominating glance with a hint of whimsical humour.

The clock ticked on solemnly. Presently Mrs. Braithwaite bustled in with the tea and withdrew again. But the man remained absorbed in his writing, apparently oblivious of everything else.

Magda, who was rapidly recovering, eyed the teapot longingly. She was just wondering whether she dared venture to draw his attention to its arrival or whether he would snap her head off if she did, when he looked up suddenly with that swift, hawk-like glance of his.

"Ready for some tea?" he queried.

She nodded.

"Yes. Am I"--sarcastically--"allowed to get up now?"

He surveyed her consideringly.

"No, I think not," he said at last. "But as the mountain can't go to Mahomet, Mahomet shall come to the mountain."

He crossed the room and, while Magda was still wondering what he proposed to do, he stooped and dexterously wheeled the couch with its light burden close up to the tea-table.

"Now, I'll fix these cushions," he said. And with deft hands he rearranged the cushions so that they should support her comfortably while she drank her tea.

"You would make a very good nurse, I should think," commented Magda, somewhat mollified.

"Thanks," was all he vouchsafed in answer.

He busied himself pouring out tea, then brought her cup and placed it beside her on a quaint little table of Chinese Chippendale.

"Mrs. Braithwaite--my housekeeper--is looking after your chauffeur in the kitchen," he observed presently. "Possibly you may be interested to hear"--sarcastically--"that he wasn't hurt in the smash-up."

Magda felt herself flushing a little under the implied rebuke--as much with annoyance as anything else. She knew that she was not really the heartless type of woman he inferred her to be, to whom the fate of her dependents was only of importance in so far as it affected her own personal comfort, and she resented the injustice of his a.s.sumption that she was.

She had been so bewildered and dazed by the suddenness of the accident and by the blow she herself had received that she had hardly yet collected her thoughts sufficiently to envisage the possible consequences to others.

With feminine perverseness she promptly decided that nothing would induce her to explain matters. If this detestably superior individual chose to think her utterly heartless and selfish--why, let him think so!

"And the car?" she asked in a tone of deliberate indifference. "That's quite as important as the chauffeur."

"More so, surely?"--with polite irony. "The car, I am sorry to say, will take a good deal of repairing. At present it's still in the middle of the street with red lights fore and aft. It can't be moved till the fog lifts."

"What a nuisance! How on earth am I to get home?"

"There are such things as taxis"--suggestively. "Later, when it clears a bit, I'll send out for one."

"Thanks. I'm afraid I'm giving you a lot of trouble."

He did not hastily disclaim the idea as most men would have done.

"That can't be helped," he returned bluntly.

Magda felt herself colouring again. This man was insufferable!

"Evidently the role of knight-errant is new to you," she observed.

"Quite true. I'm not in the habit of rescuing damsels in distress. But how did you guess?"--with interest.

"Because you do it with such a very bad grace," she flashed at him.

He smiled--and once more Magda was aware of the sense of familiarity even with that whimsical, crooked smile.

"I see," he replied composedly. "Then you think I ought to have been overwhelmed with delight that your car cannoned into my bus--incidentally I barked my shins badly in the general mix-up--and that I had to haul you out and bring you round from a faint and so on?"

The question--without tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs--was unanswerable. But to Magda, London's spoiled child, conscious that there were men who would have given half their fortune for the chance to render a like service, and then counted themselves amply rewarded by the subsequent hour or two alone with her, the question was merely provocative.

"Some men would have been," she returned calmly.

"Ah! Just because you are the Wielitzska, I suppose?"

She stared at him in blank astonishment.

"You knew--you knew who I was all the time?" she gasped.

"Certainly I knew."

"Then--then----"

"Then why wasn't I suitably impressed?" he suggested drily.

She sprang to her feet.

"Oh! you are intolerable!" she exclaimed hotly. "You know I didn't mean that!"

He regarded her quite placidly.

"You did. That is precisely what you were thinking. Only you funked putting it into plain words."

He got up and came to her side and stood looking down at her.

"Isn't it a fact?" he insisted. "Isn't it?"

Magda looked up, tried to answer in the negative and failed. He had spoken the simple truth and she knew it. But none the less she hated him for it--hated him for driving her up into a corner and trying to force an acknowledgment from her. She remained obstinately silent.

He turned away with a short, amused laugh.

"So you haven't even the courage of your convictions," he commented.