u liked of me. But you
showed me once--very clearly--that in your eyes I was nothing more than
your paid accompanist. Very well, then! Pay me--and I'll play for you
to-night."

"Pay you?"

"Oh, not in money"--with a short laugh.

"Then--then what do you mean?" Her face had whitened a little.

"It's quite simple. Later on there is a dance. Give me a dance with
you!"

Magda hesitated. In other circumstances she would have refused
point-blank. Davilof had offended her--and more than that, the
revelation of the upsettingly vehement order of his passion for her
that day in the Mirror Room had frightened her not a little. There was
something stormy and elemental about it. To the caloric Pole, love was
love, and the fulfilment of his passion for the adored woman the supreme
necessity of life.

Realising that she had to withstand an ardour essentially unEnglish in
its violently inflammable quality, Magda was loth to add fuel to the
flame. And if she promised to dance with Davilof she must let him hold
her in his arms, risk that dangerous proximity which, she knew now,
would set the man's wild pulses racing unsteadily and probably serve as
the preliminary to another tempestuous scene.

"Well?" Davilof broke in upon her self-communings. "Have I asked too
high a price?"

Time was flying. She must decide, and decide quickly. She took her
courage in both hands.

"No," she returned quickly. "I will dance with you, Antoine."

He bowed.

"Our bargain is complete, then," he said ironically. "I shall be charmed
to play for you, mademoiselle."

An hour or so later the last burst of applause had died away, and
the well-dressed crowd which had sat in enthralled silence while
the Wielitzska danced emerged chattering and laughing from the great
ballroom.

Their place was immediately taken by deft, felt-slippered men, who
proceeded swiftly to clear away the seats and the drugget which had been
laid to protect the surface of the dancing floor. In the twinkling of
an eye, as it were, they transformed what had been to all intents and
purposes a concert-hall into a flower-decked ballroom, while the members
of the band engaged for the dance began climbing agilely into their
allotted places on the raised platform preparatory to tuning up for the
evening's work.

Magda, released at last from Virginie's worshipfully careful hands,
came slowly down the main staircase. She was in black, diaphanous and
elusive, from which her flo