-bye." Magda nodded indifferently. Then, carelessly: "I shall want
you to-morrow, Davilof--same time."

He swung round.

"I will never play for you again. Did you imagine I should?"

She smiled at him--that slow, subtle smile of hers with its hint of
mockery.

"You won't be able to keep away," she replied.

"I will never play for you again," he repeated. "Never! I will teach
myself to hate you."

She shook her head lightly.

"Impossible, Davilof."

"It's not impossible. There's very little difference between love and
hate--sometimes. And I want all or nothing."

"I'm afraid it must be nothing, then."

"We shall see. But if I can't have you, _I_ swear no other man shall!"

She glanced up at him, lifting her brows a little.

"Aren't you going too far, Antoine? You can hate me, if you like, or
love me--it's a matter of indifference to me which you do. But I don't
propose to allow you to arrange my life for me. And in any case"--after
a moment--"I'm not likely to fall in love--with you or anyone else."

"You think not?" He stood looking down at her sombrely. "You'll fall in
love right enough some day. And when you do it will be all or nothing
with you, too. You're that kind. Love will take you--and break you,
Magda."

He spoke slowly, with an odd kind of tensity. To Magda it seemed almost
as if his quiet speech held the gravity of prophecy, and she shivered a
little.

"And when that time comes, then you'll come back to me," he added.

Magda threw up her head, defying him.

"You propose to be waiting round to pick up the pieces, then?" she
suggested nonchalantly.

But only the sound of the closing door answered her. Davilof had gone.

CHAPTER V

THE SWAN-MAIDEN

Lady Arabella was in her element. She had two brilliant and unattached
young men dining with her--one, Michael Quarrington, a lion in the
artistic world, and the other, Antoine Davilof, who showed unmistakable
symptoms of developing sooner or later into a lion in the musical world.

It was Davilof who was responsible for the artist's presence at Lady
Arabella's dinner table. She had expressed--in her usual autocratic
manner--a wish that he should be presented to her, and had determined
upon the evening of the first performance of _The Swan-Maiden_ as the
appointed time.

Davilof appeared doubtful, and declared that Quarrington was leaving
England and had already fixed the date of his departure.

"He's crossing from Dover the very d