“Well, she intruded on you that day in the fog,
didn’t she? So you’ll be quits.”
She glanced impatiently round the box. “Where
on earth has Davilof vanished to? Has he gone
up in flame?”
Michael laughed involuntarily.
“Something of the kind, I fancy,” he replied.
“Anyway, he departed rather hurriedly.”
“Poor Antoine!” Gillian spoke with a kind
of humorous compassion. “He has a temperament.
I’m glad I haven’t.”
“You have the best of all temperaments, Mrs.
Grey,” answered Michael, as they both followed
Lady Arabella out of the box.
She looked at him inquiringly.
“The temperament that understands other people’s
temperaments,” he added.
“How do you know?” she asked, smiling.
Lady Arabella was prancing on ahead down the corridor,
and for the moment Michael and Gillian were alone.
“We artists learn to look for what lies below
the surface. If your work is sincere, you find
when you’ve finished a portrait that the soul
of the sitter has revealed itself unmistakably.”
Gillian nodded.
“I’ve been told you’ve an almost
diabolical genius for expressing just what a man or
woman is really like—in character, I mean—in
your portraits.”
“I can’t help it,” he said simply.
“It comes—it reveals itself—if
you paint sincerely.”
“And do you—always paint sincerely?”
He laughed.
“I try to. Though once I got hauled over
the coals pretty sharply for doing so. My sitter
happened to be a pretty society woman, possessed of
about as much soul as would cover a threepenny-bit,
and when I’d finished her portrait she simply
turned and rent me. ’I wanted a taking
picture,’ she informed me indignantly, ’not
the bones of my personality laid bare for public inspection.’”
They were outside Magda’s dressing-room by this
time, and Virginie, who had flown to her nurseling
the moment the dance was at an end, opened the door
in response to Lady Arabella’s preemptory knock.
Gillian paused a moment before entering the room.
“Yours is a wonderful gift of perception,”
she said quietly. “It ought to make you—very
merciful.”
Michael looked at her swiftly. Her eyes seemed
to be asking something of him—entreating.
But before he could speak Lady Arabella’s voice
interposed remorselessly.
“Come in, you two; and for goodness’ sake
shut the door. There’s draught enough to
waft one to heaven.”
There was no choice but to obey, and silently Quarrington
followed Mrs. Grey into the room.
MICHAEL CHANGES HIS MIND
Magda’s dressing-room at the Imperial Theatre
was something rather special in the way of dressing-rooms.
It had been designed expressly for her by the management,
and boasted a beautifully appointed bathroom adjoining
it where she could luxuriate in a refreshing dip immediately
after the strain and fatigue of her work on the stage.
