The Lamp of Fate

to a standstill at Friars' Holm, the quaint old Quee

ed miles from town. Fir and cedar sentinelled the house, and in the centre of the garden there was a lawn of wonderful ol

ll, threw open the door of a room whence issued the sound o

ames, seemed to rush out at her, bearing with it the mournful, heart-shaking music of some Russia

l tone of voice calculated to disintegrate any poss

er. The room appeared doubly large by reason of the fact that the whole of one wall was taken up by four immense panels of looking-glass, cleverly fitted together so that in effect the entire w

orward to meet her. There was a kind of repressed eagerness in the a

hair, worn rather longer than fashion dictates, waved crisply over his head, and the moustache and small

f his loosely knit shoulders, and, more than all, in the imaginative hazel eyes with their curious

hands with h

I'm so late, Davilof," she said. "I had a s

lof broke in sharply, hi

te and then afterwards I fainted,

re sur

she smiled at him reassuringly and held out a

he hand i

!" he said

sometimes gave an unEnglish twist to the phrasing of a sentence, but his quick emotion and the

agda allowed her ha

him laughingly. "You're qui

ared vehemently. "You ought not to go about by yourself.

motor-bus half-played the good Samaritan and carried me into his house, w

er hand abruptly.

anded jealously. "I hate to think

referred me to remain lying

ther some woman had looked after

not-at

do now. W

nk," she answered provo

sked suspiciously. "You're keeping something

a fr

agedy?" she said lightly. "And what on ea

at it has to

ist?"-raising her

understand your every mood and emotion? You know I couldn't! And then you ask what it matters to me when some unknown man has held

me you love me. I don't want to hear it." She paused, then added cruelly: "I w

a quick movement he st

," he said hoarsely. "One day you'll

rom such a combination, and she had let it go at that, pushing his love aside with the careless hand of a woman to whom the incense of men's devotion has been so freely offered as to ha

ry panic assailed her. Then she

t!" she said appealingly. "I'm tired. It's b

elmed with compunction. "Forget it! I've behaved like

de himself

felt-I felt I couldn't stand any more to-night. I suppose it's tak

u ought to rest. I wi

she

was out when I came, and

I'll sit here-in this big chair-and you shall switch off these glaring

him for the pain she knew she had inflicted a moment b

d. He stooped swiftly

ood to me!" he

ovising as he played-slow, dreaming melodies that soothed and lulled but held always an undertone of passio

fterwards treated her with blunt candour that had been little less than brutal. She felt sore and resentful-smarting under

ore particularly someone of the masculine persuasion-who, far from bestowing the admiration and homage she had learned

life, a little unwilling doubt of herself assaulted her. Was she really anything at all like the woman Mic

whom she had only met by chance and whom she was very unlikely ever to meet again. He himself had cert

amed in the same breath-and all because an unknown man, an absolute str

hood days, the man with whom she had unconsciously compared those other men who

ysical pain and humiliation of it. And now, this second time they had met, she had been once more forced to endure that strange and unaccusto

suddenly and a welcome voice broke cheerful

t last! Has Magda

hreshold of the room, peering into the dusk. Magda rose from he

aid. "Did you get held

lenderness of her figure. Someone had once said of her that "Mrs. Grey was a charming study in sepia." The description was not inapt.

entirely in the wrong direction! I fetched up somewhere down Notting Hill Gate way, and at last by the help of heaven and a police

sympathetic. "We'll have som

glance at his watch. "And I shan't have too

ld out h

you for keeping me comp

e glance she threw at him which fired his blood

d swinging round on his heel he left the room abruptl

h a gleam of mirth in her brown eyes.

ked, subsiding into a chair and extending a

aughed

n't!" she returned ruefully. "Marraine expended a

much chance of producing any permanent result as the gentle

" had come noiselessly into the room and was arranging the tea paraphernalia with the reverential precision of one making pre

lla's homily?" inquired Gillian

ting his young prospects-his professional ones, I mean. Though I don't quite

Wielitzska' in half a dozen different poses

led invol

she said. "But how

azed meditatively into the fire. "You know, Magda, I think it will mea

seven, who owed his cognomen to the crop of flaming

a la

t happens I shall be q

shook

nless you fall in love, you'll be an une

agda tranquilly. "In which case,"-smiling-"you'd have b

an?" demanded G

venture this afternoon. We

ow dreadful! Ho

r-bus, and then, almost at the same moment, something else ch

e badly hurt? And how did you get home?"

ormed the rescuing stunt. His house was close by, and he carried me in there and proceeded to dose me with sal volatil

's voice as she detailed the afternoon's e

strait-laced prig who disapp

e appreciation of the art of dancing. His disapp

it be-since he

ve a lit

ite comprehensible if he had kn

her la

tly well what I meant! You deserve that

f you

know you a good deal bette

w about me, then

brown eyes smil

and kind and tender and self-sacrificing as any woman living-if only something

with my art. It gives you a bett

when we'd only been married a year. But that year was worth

rward suddenly

ather forlornly. "I don't trust love. It's the thing that hurts and tortures and breaks a woman-as my mother was hurt and tortured and broken." She paused.

ight go on telling me about the man who fished you out of the smash. W

e. But he 'hates my type of woman,' you'll be interested to know.

riskly. "There's nothing like be

led remin

lise that 'a little aversion' is a cloying euphemi

s he lik

irl, he ordered me about as though I were a child of six. He absolutely bullied me! Then it apparently occurred to him to take my moral w

e suppose himself competent to form any opinio

den defiance: "Yes, I do know! A pal of his had-had cared abo

oth reproach and underst

ugged her

d scores on his pal's behalf, he

ike this before; her sombre eyes held a curious strained look like

-I mean the man who came to yo

s Michael Quarrin

he has the reputation of

red into

arm if he cared to exert it. Apparently, how