“A woman who can dance like that ought to be
preceded through life by a red flag. She positively
stirs my old blood—that’s been at
a comfortably tepid temperature for the last thirty
years!”
“Some day,” said Gillian, “she’ll
fall in love. And then—”
“Then there’ll be fireworks.”
Lady Arabella completed the sentence briskly just
as the car pulled up in front of her house. She
skipped nimbly out on to the pavement.
“Fireworks, my dear,” she repeated emphatically.
“And a very fine display, too! Good-night.”
The car slid away north with Gillian inside it reflecting
rather ruefully upon the very great amount of probability
contained in Lady Arabella’s parting comment.
THE GARDEN OF EDEN
Lady Arabella’s big rooms were filling rapidly.
The dinner to which only a few of the elect had been
bidden was over, and now those who had been invited
to the less exclusive reception which was to follow
were eagerly wending their way towards Park Lane.
The programme for the evening promised to be an attractive
one. A solo from Antoine Davilof, Lady Arabella’s
pet lion-cub of the moment; a song from the leading
operatic tenor; and afterwards a single dance by the
Wielitzska—who could never be persuaded
to perform at any other private houses than those
of her godmother and the Duchess of Lichbrooke—the
former’s half sister. So, in this respect,
Lady Arabella enjoyed almost a monopoly, and such
occasions as the present were enthusiastically sought
after by her friends and acquaintances. Later,
when the artistes had concluded their programme, there
was to be a dance. The ballroom, the further
end of which boasted a fair-sized stage, had been
temporarily arranged with chairs to accommodate an
audience, and in one of the anterooms Virginie, with
loving, skilful fingers, was putting the finishing
touches to Magda’s toilette.
Magda submitted passively to her ministrations.
She was thinking of Michael Quarrington, the man who
had come into her life by such strange chance and
who had so deliberately gone out of it again.
By the very manner of his going he had succeeded in
impressing himself on her mind as no other man had
ever done. Other men did not shun her like the
plague, she reflected bitterly!
But from the very beginning he had shown her that
he disapproved of her fundamentally. She was
the “type of woman he hated!” Night and
day that curt little phrase had bitten into her thoughts,
stinging her with its quiet contempt.
She felt irritated that she should care anything about
his opinion. But if she were candid with herself
she had to admit that she did care, intensely.
More than that, his departure from England had left
her conscious of an insistent and unaccountable little
ache. The knowledge that there could be no more
chance meetings, that he had gone right out of her
ken, seemed like the sudden closing of a door which
had just been opening to her. It had somehow
taken the zest out of things.
