el. The Arlingtons were travelling in Spain and saw
her. Mrs. A. said she was a glorious creature--a dancer. And the other
day I saw in one of the papers--the _Weekly Gossip_ I think it was--that
he'd married her."

The carelessly spoken words drove at Magda with the force of utter
certainty. It was true, then--quite true! The fact that the Spaniard
had been a dancer gave an irrefutable reality to the tale; Michael so
worshipped every form of dancing.

"Never give your heart to any man." Her mother's last cynical warning
beat in Magda's brain with a dull iteration that almost maddened her.
She put her hand up to her throat, feeling as if she were choking.

Then, dimly, as though from a great way off, she heard Antoine's voice
again:

"I'm glad Quarrington's married. He was the man who saved you in the
fog--you remember?--and I've always been afraid you might get to care
for him."

Magda was conscious of one thing and one thing only--that somewhere,
deep down inside her, everything had turned to ice. She knew she would
never feel anything again--much. . . . She thought death must come like
that sometimes--just one thrust of incredible, immeasurable agony, and
then a dull, numbed sense of finality.

". . . afraid you might get to care for him." The meaning of Antoine's
last words slowly penetrated her mind. She gave a hard little laugh.

"Why should I? Does one 'get to care' for a man just because he does the
only obvious thing there is to do in an emergency?"

She was surprised to hear how perfectly natural her voice sounded. It
was quite steady. Reassured, she went on, shrugging her shoulders:

"Besides--do I ever care?"

Antoine, sitting on the grass at her feet, suddenly raised himself a
little and put his hand over hers as they lay very still and folded on
her lap.

"You shall care--some time," he said in a low, tense voice. "I swear
it!"

CHAPTER XIII

DAN STORRAN'S AWAKENING

"Fairy Lady, we're going to have a picnic tea!"

Coppertop's excited voice, shrilling across the garden as he came racing
over the grass, put an abrupt end to a scene that was threatening to
develop along the familiar tempestuous lines dictated by Antoine's
temperament.

The child's advent was somewhat differently received--by Magda with
unmixed relief, by Antoine with a baulked gesture of annoyance. However,
he recovered himself almost immediately, and when, a moment later, June
reappeared, laden with the paraphernal