The Lamp of Fate Part 22

"I don't know. But I think Magda is a standing argument in favour of the doctrine of reincarnation! She always seems to me to be a kind of modern embodiment of Helen of Troy or Cleopatra."

"Only without the capacity for falling in love! She's as chilly as an iceberg and yet somehow gives you the idea she's all fire and pa.s.sion.

No wonder the men get misled, poor lambs!"

"She's not cold, really," a.s.serted Gillian positively. "Of that I'm sure. No one could dance as she does--and be an iceberg."

Lady Arabella chuckled again, wickedly.

"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.

CHAPTER VII

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 G.o.dmother and the d.u.c.h.ess 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 finis.h.i.+ng touches to Magda's toilette.

Magda submitted pa.s.sively 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.

"Voila!" Virginie drew back to survey the results of her labours, turning for approval to Gillian, who was in attendance in her capacity of accompanist. "Is it not that mademoiselle looks ravis.h.i.+ng?"

"Quite ravis.h.i.+ng, Virginie," agreed Gillian. "Did you expect her to look anything else by the time you had finished decking her out?" she added teasingly.

"It is nothing that I do," responded the old Frenchwoman seriously.

"Mademoiselle cannot help but be beautiful to the eye--_le bon dieu_ has created her like that."

"I believe He has," a.s.sented Gillian, smiling.

As she spoke the bell of the telephone instrument on the table beside her rang imperatively and she lifted the receiver. Magda, watching her face as she took the message, saw it suddenly blanch.

"Coppertop! . . . He's ill!" she gasped.

"Ill?" Magda could hardly credit it. Two hours ago they had left the child in perfect health.

"Yes." Gillian swallowed, moistening her dry lips. "They've sent for the doctor. It's croup. Oh!"--despairingly, and letting the receiver fall unheeded from her grasp--"What am I to do? What am I to do?"

Magda stepped forward, the filmy draperies of the dress in which she was to dance floating cloudily about her as she moved. She picked up the receiver as it hung dangling aimlessly from the stand and replaced it on its clip.

"Do?" she said quietly. "Why, you'll go straight home, of course. As quickly as the car can take you. Virginie"--turning to the maid--"fly and order the car round at once."

Gillian looked at her distractedly.

"But you? Who'll play for you? I can't go! I can't leave you!" Her voice was shaken by sobs. "Oh, Coppertop!"

Magda slipped a comforting arm round her shoulder.

"Of course you'll go--and at once, too. See, here's your coat"--lifting it up from the back of the chair where Gillian had thrown it. "Put it on."

Hardly conscious of what was happening, Gillian allowed herself to be helped into the coat. Suddenly recollection returned.

"But your dance--your dance, Magda? You've forgotten!"

Magda shook her head.

"No. It will be all right," she said soothingly. "Don't worry, Gillyflower. _You've_ forgotten that Davilof is playing here to-night."

"Antoine?" Gillian stared at her incredulously. "But you can't ask him to play for you! You'd hate asking him a favour after--after his refusal to accompany you any more."

Magda smiled at her rea.s.suringly.

"My dear," she said, and there was an unaffected kindliness in her voice which few people ever heard. "My dear, I'm not going to let a little bit of cheap pride keep you away from Coppertop."

She bent suddenly and kissed Gillian's white, miserable face just as Virginie reappeared in the doorway to announce that the car was waiting.

"There, run along. Look, would you like to take Virginie with you?"

"No, no." Gillian shook her head decidedly. "I shall be quite all right.

Oh, Magda!"--impulsively drawing the slender figure close into her arms a moment. "You are _good_!"

Magda laughed a trifle bitterly.

"That would be news to the world at large!" she replied. Then cheerfully: "Now, don't worry, Gillyflower. Remember they've got a doctor there. And 'phone me presently about Coppertop. If he's worse, I'll come home as early as I can get away. Send the car straight back here."

As soon as Gillian had gone, Magda flung a loose wrap over her diaphanous draperies and turned to Virginie.

"Where is Monsieur Davilof? Do you know?"

"_Mais oui, mademoiselle_! I saw him through the doorway as I came from ordering the car. He is in the library."

"Alone?"