“You amaze me! And supposing I reply by saying I refuse?”
“But you won’t,” dared Magda.
Davilof’s eyes held something of cruelty in their hazel depths as he answered quietly:
“On the contrary—I do refuse.”
Her hand went up to her throat. It was going to be more difficult than she had anticipated!
“There is no one else who can play for me as you do,” she suggested.
“No,” fiercely. “Because no one loves you as I do.”
“What is the use of saying you love me when you won’t do the one little thing I ask?” she retorted. “It is not often that I ask favours. And—and no one has ever refused me a request before.”
Davilof could hear the note of proud resentment in her voice, and he realised to the full that, in view of all that had passed between them in the Mirror Room, it must have been a difficult matter for a woman of Magda’s temperament to bring herself to ask his help.
But he had no intention of sparing her. None but himself knew how bitterly she had hurt him, how cruelly she had stung his pride, when she had flung him that contemptuous command: “I shall want you to-morrow, Davilof!—same time.” He had unveiled his very soul before her—and in return she had tossed him an order as though he were a lackey who had taken a liberty. All his pain and brooding resentment came boiling up to the surface.