A whimsical light gleamed for an instant in the grey eyes.
“I sometimes wonder if I am,” he returned.
“There’s only one cord I know of that can’t be either unknotted—or cut. And that’s lack of money. That’s not your complaint”—significantly.
“No.”
“So you’ll come?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Magda has promised to dance for me,” proceeded Lady Arabella, entirely disregarding his quietly uttered negative. “They’re not giving The Swan-Maiden that night at the Imperial. She can’t dine, of course, poor dear. Really, dancers have a lot to put up with—or rather, to put up without! Magda never dares to enjoy a good square meal. Afraid of getting fat, of course! After all, a dancer’s figure’s her fortune.”
Like a low, insistent undertone beneath the rattle of Lady Arabella’s volubility Michael could hear again the murmur of a soft, dragging voice: “I’m sorry you’re going away, Saint Michel.”
It seemed almost as though Lady Arabella, with that uncanny shrewdness of hers, divined it.
“You’ll come, then?” She smiled at him over her shoulder, moving forward as the crush in the vestibule lessened a little.