ning-point'--unless"--laughing--"you're going to turn round and
climb down again!"

"There's no top to the pinnacle of work--of achievement," he answered
quietly. "At least, there shouldn't be. One just goes on--slipping back
a bit, sometimes, then scrambling on again." His glance returned to the
picture and Magda watched the ardour of the creative artist light itself
anew in his eyes. "That"--he nodded towards the canvas--"is going to be
the best bit of work I've done."

"What made you"--she hesitated a moment--"what made you choose Circe as
the subject?"

His face clouded over.

"The experience of a friend of mine."

Magda caught her breath.

"Not--you don't mean-----"

"Oh, no"--divining her thought--"not the friend of whom you know--who
loved the dancer. She hurt him"--looking at her significantly--"but
she didn't injure him to that extent. Circe turned men into swine,
you remember. My friend was too fine a character for her to spoil like
that."

"I'm glad." Magda spoke very low, her head bent. She felt unable to meet
his eyes. After a short silence she asked: "Then what inspired--this
picture?"

Was it some woman-episode that had occurred while he was abroad which
had scored those new lines on his face, embittering the mouth and
implanting that sternly sad expression in the grey eyes? She must
know--at all hazards, she must know!

Quarrington lit a cigarette.

"It's not a pretty story," he remarked harshly.

Magda glanced towards the picture. The enchanting, tilted face smiled at
her from the canvas, faintly derisive.

"Tell it me," was all she said.

"There's very little to tell," he answered briefly. "There was a man
and his wife--and another woman. Till the latter came along they were
absolutely happy together--sufficient unto each other. The other woman
was one of the Circe type, and she broke the man. Broke him utterly. I
happened to be in Paris at the time, and he came to see me there on his
way out to South America. He'd left his wife, left his work--everything.
Just _quitted_! Since then I believe 'Frisco has seen more of him than
any other place. A man I know ran across him there and told me he'd gone
under--utterly."

"And the wife?"

"Dead"--shortly. "She'd no heart to go on living--no wish to. She died
when their first child was born--she and the child together--a few
months after her husband had left her."

Magda uttered a stifled cry of pity, but Quarrington seemed not to hear