The Lamp of Fate Part 43

"I can see you as Circe," she commented, "quite well." She tucked her arm into Gillian's and, as they moved away together, threw back over her shoulder: "By the way, have you two settled the vexed question of the model for the picture yet?"

Quarrington blew a thin stream of smoke into the air before replying.

Then, looking quizzically across at Magda, he asked: "Have we?"

"Have we what?"

"Decided whether you will sit for my picture of Circe?"

Magda lifted her long white lids and met his glance.

"Why should I?" she asked lazily.

He shrugged his shoulders with apparent unconcern.

"No reason in the world--unless you feel inclined to do a good turn."

His indifference was maddening.

"I don't make a habit of doing good turns," she retorted sharply.

"So I should imagine."

The contemptuous edge to his voice roused her to indignation. As always, she found herself stung to the quick by the man's coolly critical att.i.tude towards her. She was back once more in the atmosphere of their first meeting on the day he had come to her a.s.sistance in the fog.

It seemed almost incredible that all that followed had ever taken place--incredible that he had ever cared for her or taught her to care for him. At least he was making it very clear to her now that he intended to cut those intervening memories out of his life.

It was a sheer challenge to her femininity, and everything that was woman in her rose to meet it.

She smiled across at him engagingly.

"I might--perhaps--make an exception."

For a moment there was silence. Quarrington's gaze was riveted on her slim, supple figure with its perfect symmetry and rare grace of limb.

It was difficult to interpret his expression. Magda wondered if he were going to reject her offer. He seemed to be fighting something out with himself--pulled two ways--the artist in him combating the man's impulse to resist her.

Suddenly the artist triumphed. He rose and, coming to her side, stood looking down at her.

"Will you?" he said. "_Will you_?"

Something more than the artist spoke in his voice. It held a note of pa.s.sionate eagerness, a clipped tensity that set all her pulses racing.

She turned her head aside.

"Yes," she answered, a little breathlessly. "Yes--if you want me to."

CHAPTER XVIII

A READJUSTMENT OF IDEAS

Magda glanced from the divan covered with a huge tiger-skin to Michael, wheeling his easel into place. A week's hard work on the part of the artist had witnessed the completion of Lady Arabella's portrait, and to-day he proposed to make some preliminary sketches for "Circe."

Magda felt oddly nervous and unsure of herself. This last fortnight pa.s.sed in daily companionship with Quarrington had proved a considerable strain. Not withstanding that she had consented to sit for his picture of Circe, he had not deviated from the att.i.tude which he had apparently determined upon from the first moment of her arrival at the Hermitage--an att.i.tude of aloof indifference to which was added a bitterness of speech that continually thrust at her with its trenchant cynicism. It was as though he had erected a high wall between them which Magda found no effort of hers could break down, and she was beginning to ask herself whether he could ever really have cared for her at all.

Surely no man who had once cared could be so hard--so implacably hard!

And now, alone with him in the big room which had been converted into a temporary studio, she found herself overwhelmed by a feeling of intense self-consciousness. She felt it would be impossible to bear the coolly neutral gaze of those grey eyes for hours at a time. She wished fervently that she had never consented to sit for the picture at all.

"How do you want me to pose?" she inquired at last, endeavouring to speak with her usual detachment and conscious that she was failing miserably. "You haven't told me yet."

He laughed a little.

"I haven't the least intention of telling you," he replied. "'The Wielitzska' doesn't need advice as to how to pose."

Magda looked at him uncertainly.

"But you've given me no idea of what you want," she protested. "I must have some idea to start from!"

"I want a rec.u.mbent Circe," he vouchsafed at last. "Hence the divan.

Here is the goblet"--he held it out--"supposed to contain the fatal potion which transformed men into swine. I leave the rest to you. You posed very successfully for me some years ago--without my issuing any stage directions. Afterwards you played the part of a youthful Circe, I remember. You should be more experienced now."

She flushed under the cool, satirical tone. It seemed as though he neglected no opportunity of impressing on her the poor estimation in which he held her. Her thoughts flew back to a sunlit glade in a wood and to the grey-eyed, boyish-looking painter who had kissed her and called her "Witch-child!"

"You--you were kinder in those days," she said suddenly. She made a few steps towards him and stood looking up at him, her hands hanging loosely clasped in front of her, like a penitent school-girl.

"Saint Michel"--and at the sound of her old childish name for him he winced. "Saint Michel, I don't think I can sit for you if--if you're going to be unkind. I thought I could, but--but--I can't!"

"Unkind?" he muttered.

"Yes," she said desperately. "Since I came here you've said a good many hard things to me. I--I dare say I've deserved them. But"--smiling up at him rather wanly--"it isn't always easy to accept one's deserts."

She paused, then spoke quickly: "Couldn't we--while we're here together--behave like friends? Just friends? It's only for a short time."

His face had whitened while she was speaking. He was silent for a little and his hand, grasping the side of the big easel, slowly tightened its grip till the knuckles showed white like bone. At last he answered her.

"Very well--friends, then! So be it."

Impulsively she held out her hand. He took it in his and held it a moment, looking down at its slim whiteness. Then he bent his head and she felt his lips hot against her soft palm.

A little shaken, she drew away from him and moved towards the divan. She paused beside it and glanced down reflectively at the goblet she still carried in her hand, mentally formulating her conception of Circe before she posed. An instant later and her voice roused Quarrington from the momentary reverie into which he had fallen.

"How would this do?"

He looked up, and as his gaze absorbed the picture before him an eager light of pure aesthetic satisfaction leaped into his eyes.

"Hold that!" he exclaimed quickly. "Don't move, please!" And, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a stick of charcoal, he began to sketch rapidly with swift, sure strokes.

The pose she had a.s.sumed was matchless. She was half-sitting, half-lying on the divan, the swathing draperies of her tunic outlining the wonderful modelling of her limbs. The upper part of her body, twisting a little from the waist, was thrown back as she leaned upon one arm, hand pressed palm downward on the tiger-skin. In her other hand she held a golden goblet, proffering the fatal draught, and her tilted face with its strange, enigmatic smile and narrowed lids held all the seductive entreaty and beguilement, and the deep, cynical knowledge of mankind, which are the garnerings of the Circes of this world.

At length Quarrington laid down his charcoal.