d not have borne it if you had been hurt," he declared
vehemently. "You ought not to go about by yourself. It's horrible to
think of _you_--in a street accident--alone!"

"But I wasn't alone. A man who was in the other half of the
accident--the motor-bus half--played the good Samaritan and carried me
into his house, which happened to be close by. He looked after me very
well, I assure you."

Davilof released her hand abruptly. His face darkened.

"And this man? Who was he?" he demanded jealously. "I hate to think of
any man--a stranger--touching you."

"Nonsense! Would you have preferred me to remain lying in the middle of
the road?"

"You know I would not. But I'd rather some woman had looked after you.
Do you know who the man was?"

"I did not--at first."

"But you do now. Who was it?"

"No one you know, I think," she answered provokingly. His eyes flashed.

"Why are you making a mystery about it?" he asked suspiciously. "You're
keeping something from me! Who was this man? Tell me his name."

Magda froze.

"My dear Antoine! Why this air of high tragedy?" she said lightly. "And
what on earth has it to do with you who the man was?"

"You know what it has to do with me----"

"With my accompanist?"--raising her brows delicately.

"No!"--with sudden violence--"With the man who loves you! I'm that--and
you know it, Magda! Could I play for you as I do if I did not understand
your every mood and emotion? You know I couldn't! And then you ask what
it matters to me when some unknown man has held you in his arms,
carried you into his house--kissed you, perhaps, while you were
unconscious!"--his imagination running suddenly riot.

"Stop! You're going too far!" Magda checked him sharply. "You're always
telling me you love me. I don't want to hear it." She paused, then added
cruelly: "I want you for playing my accompaniments, Davilof. That's all.
Do you understand?"

His eyes blazed. With a quick movement he stepped in front of her.

"I'm a man--as well as an accompanist," he said hoarsely. "One day
you'll have to reckon with the man, Magda!"

There was a new, unaccustomed quality in his voice. Hitherto she had not
taken his ardour very seriously. He was a Pole and a musician, with all
the temperament that might be expected from such a combination, and she
had let it go at that, pushing his love aside with the careless hand of
a woman to whom the incense of men's devotion has been so freely offered
as to have