The Lamp of Fate Part 25

"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. Even the love you've no use for is the biggest thing the poor devil who loves you has to offer you; you've no right to play battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k with it."

He spoke lightly, but Magda could hear the stern accusation that underlay the words. She rose from the table abruptly.

"I think," she said, "I think I'm afraid of love."

As she spoke, she made a movement as though to quit the supper-room, but, either by accident or design, Michael barred her way.

"Love," he said, watching her face intently, "means sacrifice--surrender."

"And you believe I'm not capable of it?"

"I think," he replied slowly, drawing aside to let her pa.s.s, "I think I'm afraid to believe."

Something in the deep tones of his voice sent a thrill of consciousness through her. She felt her breath come and go unevenly and, afraid to trust herself to speak, she moved forward without response in the direction of the door. A moment later they were drawn into the stream of people wending their way by twos and threes towards the ballroom.

As they entered, Antoine Davilof broke away from a little group of men with whom he had been conversing and came to Magda's side.

"The next dance is just beginning," he said. "Are you engaged? Or may I have it?"

"No, I'm not engaged," she answered.

She spoke flurriedly. She was dreading this dance with Antoine. She felt as though the evening had drained her of her strength and left her unequal to a battle of wills should Antoine prove to be in one of his hotheaded moods.

She glanced round her with a hint of desperation in her eyes. If only Michael had asked her to dance with him instead! But he had bowed and left her as soon as the musician joined them, so that there was no escape to be hoped for that way.

Davilof was watching her curiously.

"I believe," he said, "that you're afraid to dance with me!"

On an impulse she answered him with perfect candour.

"I believe I am."

"Then why did you promise? You did promise, you know."

"I know. I promised. I promised because Coppertop had croup and they had telephoned down for his mother to go to him. And you wouldn't accompany me unless I gave you this dance. So I promised it."

Davilof's eyes held a curiously concentrated expression.

"And you did this so that Mrs. Grey could go to her little boy--to nurse him?"

Magda inclined her head.

"Yes," she said simply.

"But you hated asking me--_loathed_ it!"

"Yes," she said again.

He was silent for a moment. Then he drew back from her. "That was kind.

Extraordinarily kind," he commented slowly. His expression was one of frank amazement. "I did not believe you could be so kind--so womanly."

"Womanly?" she queried, puzzled.

"Yes. For is not a woman--a good woman--always ready to sacrifice herself for those she loves?"

Magda almost jumped. It was as though she were listening to an echo of Quarrington's own words.

"And you sacrificed yourself," continued Davilof. "Sacrificed your pride--crushed it down for the sake of Mrs. Grey and little Coppertop.

Mademoiselle"--he bowed gravely--"I kiss your hands. And see, I too, I can be generous. I release you from your promise. I do not claim that dance."

If any single thing could have astonished Magda more than another, it was that Davilof should voluntarily, in the circ.u.mstances, renounce the dance she had promised him. It argued a fineness of perception and a generosity for which she would never have given him credit. She felt a little warm rush of grat.i.tude towards him.

"No, no!" she cried impulsively, "you shan't give up your dance." Then, as he still hesitated: "I should _like_ to dance with you--really I should, Antoine. You've been so--so _decent_."

Davilof's face lit up. He looked radiant--like a child that has been patted on the back and told it is good.

"No wonder we are all in love with you!" he exclaimed in low, vehement tones; adding quickly, as he detected a flicker of apprehension in Magda's eyes: "But you need not fear to dance with me. I will be as your brother--I will go on being 'decent.'"

And he was. He danced as perfectly as any of his music-loving nationality can dance, but there was a restraint, a punctilious deference about him that, even while it amazed, availed to rea.s.sure Magda and restore her shaken confidence in the man.

She did not realise or suspect that just those two simple actions of hers--the good turn she had done Gillian at some considerable cost to herself in the matter of personal pride, and her quick recognition of the musician's sense of fair play in renouncing his dance with her when he knew the circ.u.mstances which had impelled her to promise it--these two things had sufficed to turn Davilof's heady, emotional devotion into something more enduring and perhaps more dangerous, an abiding, deeply rooted love and pa.s.sion for her which was stronger than the man himself.

He left the house immediately after the conclusion of his dance with her, and Magda was speedily surrounded by a crowd of would-be partners.

But she felt disinclined to dance again, and, always chary of her favours in this respect, she remained watching the dancing in preference to taking any part in it, exchanging small-talk with the men who, finding she could not be induced to reconsider her decision, cl.u.s.tered round her chair like bees round a honey-pot.

It was towards the end of the evening that Michael Quarrington finally joined the group. Magda's eyes rested on him with a mixture of annoyance and approval--annoyance because she had expected him to ask her for a dance quite early in the course of the programme and he had failed to do so, and approval because he was of that clean-cut, fair-haired type of man who invariably contrives to look particularly well-groomed and thoroughbred in evening kit.

She had no intention of permitting him to request a dance at this late hour, however, and rose from her seat as he approached.

"Ah! You, Mr. Quarrington?" she said gaily. "I am just going home. It's been a charming evening, hasn't it?"

"Charming," he rejoined courteously. "May I see you to your car?"

He offered his arm and Magda, dismissing her little court of disgruntled admirers with a small gracious nod, laid her slim hand on his sleeve. As they moved away together the orchestra broke into the swinging seductive rhythm of a waltz.

Quarrington paused abruptly.

"Don't go yet!" he said. "Dance this with me."

His voice sounded strained and uneven. It was as though the words were dragged from him without his own volition.

For an instant the two pairs of eyes met--the long, dark ones with their slumbrous fire brooding beneath white lids, and the keen, hawk-like grey ones. Then: