n, "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 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