“Beloved!” he whispered. “My
beloved!”
NIGHT
Michael and Magda stood together on the deck of the
crippled yacht which now rocked idly on a quite placid
sea. Dusk was falling. That first glorious,
irrecoverable hour when love had come into its own
was past, and the consideration of things mundane
was forcing itself on their notice—more
especially consideration of their particular plight.
“It looks rather as though we may have to spend
the night here,” observed Quarrington, his eyes
scanning the channel void of any welcome sight of
sail or funnel.
Magda’s brows drew together in a little troubled
frown.
“Marraine and Gillian will be frightfully worried
and anxious,” she said uneasily. It was
significant of the gradual alteration in her outlook
that this solicitude for others should have rushed
first of anything to her lips.
“Yes.” He spoke with a curious abruptness.
“Besides, that’s not the only point.
There’s—Mrs. Grundy.”
Magda shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
“Well, if it’s to come to a choice between
Mrs. Grundy and Davy Jones, I think I should decide
to face Mrs. Grundy! Anyway, people can’t
say much more—or much worse—things
about me than they’ve said already.”
Quarrington frowned moodily.
“I’d like to kick myself for bringing
you out to-day and landing you into this mess.
I can’t stand the idea of people gossiping about
you.”
“They’ve left me very little reputation
at any time. A little less can’t hurt me.”
His eyes grew stormy.
“Don’t!” he said sharply. “I
hate to hear you talk like that.”
“But it’s true! No public woman gets
a fair chance.”
“You will—when you’re
my wife,” he said between his teeth. “I’ll
see to that.”
Magda glanced at him swiftly.
“Then you don’t want me to—to
give up dancing after we’re married?”
“Certainly I don’t. I shall want
you to do just as you like. I’ve no place
for the man who asks his wife to ‘give up’
things in order to marry him. I’ve no more
right to ask you to give up dancing than you have
to ask me to stop painting.”
Magda smiled at him radiantly.
“Saint Michel, you’re really rather nice,”
she observed impertinently. “So few men
are as sensible as that. I shall call you the
‘Wise Man,’ I think.”
“In spite of to-day?” he queried whimsically,
with a rueful glance at the debris of mast and canvas
huddled on the deck.
“Because of to-day,” she amended
softly. “It’s—it’s
very wise to be in love, Michael.”
He drew her into his arms and his lips found hers.
“I think it is,” he agreed.
Another hour went by, and still there came no sign
of any passing vessel.
“Why the devil isn’t there a single tug
passing up and down just when we happen to want one?”
demanded Quarrington irately of the unresponsive universe.
He swung round on Magda. “I suppose you’re
starving?” he went on, in his voice a species
of savage discontent—that unreasonable fury
to which masculine temperament is prone when confronted
with an obstacle which declines to yield either to
force or persuasion.
