The Lamp of Fate Part 11

Magda clenched her hands, driving the nails hard into the soft palms of them. He was an absolute boor, this man who had come to her rescue in the fog! He was taking a brutal advantage of their relative positions to speak to her as no man had ever dared to speak to her before. Or woman either! Even old Lady Arabella would hardly have thrust the naked truth so savagely under her eyes.

And now he had as good as told her that she was a coward! Well, at least he should not have the satisfaction of finding he was right in that respect. She walked straight up to him, her small head held high, in her dark eyes a smouldering fire of fierce resentment.

"So that is what you think, is it?" she said in a low voice of bitter anger. "Well, I _have_ the courage of my convictions." She paused. Then, with an effort: "Yes, I did think you weren't 'suitably impressed,' as you put it. You are perfectly right."

He threw her a swift glance of surprise. Presumably he hadn't antic.i.p.ated such a candid acknowledgment, but even so he showed no disposition to lay down the probe.

"You didn't think it possible that anyone could meet the Wielitzska without regarding the event as a piece of stupendous good luck and being appropriately overjoyed, did you?" he pursued relentlessly.

Magda pressed her lips together. Then, with an effort:

"No," she admitted.

"And so, just because I treated you as I would any other woman, and made no pretence of fatuous delight over your presence here, you supposed I must be ignorant of your ident.i.ty? Was that it?"

Magda writhed under the cool, ironical questioning with its undercurrent of keen contempt. Each word stung like the flick of a lash on bare flesh. But she forced herself to answer--and to answer honestly.

"Yes," she said very low. "That was it."

He shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

"Comment is superfluous, I think."

She made an impulsive step towards him.

For some unfathomable reason she minded--minded intensely--that this man should hold her in such poor esteem. She wanted to put herself right with him, to justify her att.i.tude in his eyes.

"Have you ever seen me dance?" she asked abruptly.

Surely if he had ever seen that wonderful artistry which she knew was hers, witnessed the half-crazy enthusiasm with which her audience received her, he would make allowance, judge her a little less harshly for what was, after all, a very natural a.s.sumption on the part of a stage favourite.

An expression of unwilling admiration came into his eyes.

"Have I seen you dance?" he repeated. "Yes, I have. Several times."

He did not add--which would have been no more than the truth--that during her last winter's season at the Imperial Theatre he had hardly missed a dozen performances.

"Then--then----" Magda spoke with a kind of incredulous appeal. "Can't you understand--just a little?"

"Oh, I understand. I understand perfectly. You've been spoilt and idolised to such an extent that it seems incredible to you to find a man who doesn't immediately fall down and worship you."

Magda twisted her hands together. Once more he was thrusting at her with the rapier of truth. And it hurt--hurt inexplicably.

"Yes, I believe that's--almost true," she acknowledged falteringly.

"But if you understand so well, couldn't you--can't you"--with a swift supplicating smile--"be a little more merciful?"

"No. I--I _hate_ your type of woman!"

There was an undertone of pa.s.sion in his voice. It was almost as though he were fighting against some impulse within himself and the fierceness of the struggle had wrung from him that quick, unvarnished protest.

"Then you despise dancers?"

"Despise? On the contrary, I revere a dancer--the dancer who is a genuine artist." He paused, then went on speaking thoughtfully.

"Dancing, to my mind, is one of the most consistent expressions of beauty. It's the sheer symmetry and grace of that body which was made in G.o.d's own likeness developed to the utmost limit of human perfection.

. . . And the dancer who desecrates the temple of his body is punished proportionately. No art is a harder taskmistress than the art of dancing."

Magda listened breathlessly. This man understood--oh, he understood!

Then why did he "hate her type of woman"?

Almost as though he had read her thoughts he pursued:

"As a dancer, an artist--I acknowledge the Wielitzska to be supreme. But as a woman----"

"Yes? As a woman? Go on. What do you know about me as a woman?"

He laughed disagreeably.

"I'd judge that in the making of you your soul got left out," he said drily.

Magda forced a smile.

"I'm afraid I'm very stupid. Do you mind explaining?"

"Does it need explanation?"

"Oh--please!"

"Then--one of my best pals was a man who loved you."

Magda threw him a glance of veiled mockery from beneath her long white lids.

"Surely that should be a recommendation--something in my favour?"

His eyes hardened.

"If you had dealt honestly with him, it might have been. But you drew him on, _made_ him care for you in spite of himself. And then, when he was yours, body and soul, you turned him down! Turned him down--pretended you were surprised--you'd never meant anything! All the old rotten excuses a woman offers when she has finished playing with a man and got bored with him. . . . I've no place for your kind of woman.

I tell you"--his tone deepening in intensity--"the wife of any common labourer, who cooks and washes and sews for her man day in, day out, is worth a dozen of you! She knows that love's worth having and worth working for. And she works. You don't. Women like you take a man's soul and play with it, and when you've defiled and defaced it out of all likeness to the soul G.o.d gave him, you hand it back to him and think you clear yourself by saying you 'didn't mean it'!"

The bitter speech, harsh with the deeply rooted pain and resentment which had prompted it, battered through Magda's weak defences and found her helpless and unarmed. Once she had uttered a faint cry of protest, tried to check him, but he had not heeded it. After that she had listened with bent head, her breath coming and going unevenly.

When he had finished, the face she lifted to him was white as milk and her mouth trembled.

"Thanks. Well, I've heard my character now," she said unsteadily. "I--I didn't know anyone thought of me--like that."

He stared at her--at the drooping lines of her figure, the quivering lips, at the half-stunned expression of the dark eyes. And suddenly realisation of the enormity of all he had said seemed to come to him.

But he did not appear to be at all overwhelmed by it.

"I'm afraid I've transgressed beyond forgiveness now," he said curtly.