ermitage, Lady Arabella cheerfully communicated the
prospect to him.

He could read between the lines and guess her purpose, and it afforded
him a certain sardonic amusement. It was like Lady Arabella's
temerity, he reflected! No other woman, knowing as much of the special
circumstances as she did, would have ventured so far.

Well, she would soon realise that her attempt to bridge matters over
between himself and her god-daughter was foredoomed to failure. He would
never trust Magda, or any other woman, again. From the moment he had
left England he had made up his mind that henceforth no woman should
have any place in his life, and certain subsequent occurrences had
confirmed him in this determination.

At the same time he was not going to run away. He would stay and face it
out. He would remain at the Hermitage until he had finished the portrait
upon which he was at work, and then he would pack up and depart.

So that when finally he and Magda met in the sun-filled South Parlour at
the Hermitage each of them was prepared to treat the other with a cool
detachment.

But Magda found it difficult to maintain her pose after her first glance
at his face. The alteration in it sent a swift pang to her heart. It had
hardened--hardened into lines of a grim self-control that spoke of long
mental conflict. The mouth, too, had learned to close in a new line
of bitterness, and in the grey eyes as they rested on her there lay a
certain cynical indifference which seemed to set her as far away from
him as the north is from the south. She realised that the gulf between
them was almost as wide and impassable as though he were in very truth
the Spanish dancer's husband. This man proposed to give her neither love
nor forgiveness. Only the feminine instinct of pride--the pride of woman
who must be sought and never the seeker--carried her through the ordeal
of the first meeting. Nor did he seek to make it easier for her.

"It is a long time since you were in England," she remarked after the
first interchange of civilities.

"Very long," agreed Quarrington politely. "It would probably have been
still longer if Lady Arabella had not tempted me. But her portrait was
too interesting a commission to refuse."

"It sounds banal to say how good I think it. You never paint anything
that _isn't_ good, do you?"

"I paint what I see."

"In that case quite a lot of people might be afraid to have their
portraits painted by you--beauty being s