he onus of chaperoning
her god-child an increasingly heavy burden. As she herself remarked:
"You might as well attempt to chaperon a comet!"

It was almost inevitable that Magda, starred and feted wherever she
went, should develop into a rather erratic and self-willed young person,
but on the whole she had remained singularly unspoilt. Side by side with
her gift for dancing she had also inherited something of her mother's
sweetness and wholesomeness of nature. There was nothing petty or mean
about her, and many a struggling member of her own profession had had
good cause to thank "the Wielitzska" for a helping hand.

Women found in her a good pal; men, an elusive, provocative personality
that bewitched and angered them in the same breath, coolly accepting all
they had to offer of love and headlong worship--and giving nothing in
return.

It was not in the least that Magda deliberately set herself to wile a
man's heart out of his body. She seemed unable to help it! Apart from
everything else, her dancing had taught her the whole magic of the art
of charming by every look and gesture, and the passage of time had only
added to the extraordinary physical allure which had been hers even as a
child.

Yet for all the apparent warmth and ardour of her temperament, to which
the men she knew succumbed in spite of themselves, she herself seemed
untouched by any deeper emotion than that of a faintly amused desire
to attract. The lessons of her early days, the tragedy of her mother's
married life, had permeated her whole being, and her ability to
remain emotionally unstirred was due to an instinctive reserve and
self-withdrawal--an inherent distrust of the passion of love.

_"Take everything. But do not give--anything--in return."_
Subconsciously Diane's words, wrested from her at a moment of poignant
mental anguish, formed the credo of her daughter's life.

No man, so far, had ever actually counted for anything in Magda's scheme
of existence, and as she drove slowly home from Lady Arabella's house in
Park Lane she sincerely hoped none ever would. Certainly--she smiled a
little at the bare idea--Kit Raynham was not destined to be the man!
He was clever, and enthusiastic, and adoring, and she liked him quite a
lot, but his hot-headed passion failed to waken in her breast the least
spark of responsive emotion.

Her thoughts drifted idly backward, recalling this or that man who had
wanted her. It was odd, but of all the men she