“If I meant anything to you,” he said slowly, “if you had even looked upon me as a friend, you could have asked what you liked of me. But you showed me once—very clearly—that in your eyes I was nothing more than your paid accompanist. Very well, then! Pay me—and I’ll play for you to-night.”
“Pay you?”
“Oh, not in money”—with a short laugh.
“Then—then what do you mean?” Her face had whitened a little.
“It’s quite simple. Later on there is a dance. Give me a dance with you!”
Magda hesitated. In other circumstances she would have refused point-blank. Davilof had offended her—and more than that, the revelation of the upsettingly vehement order of his passion for her that day in the Mirror Room had frightened her not a little. There was something stormy and elemental about it. To the caloric Pole, love was love, and the fulfilment of his passion for the adored woman the supreme necessity of life.
Realising that she had to withstand an ardour essentially unEnglish in its violently inflammable quality, Magda was loth to add fuel to the flame. And if she promised to dance with Davilof she must let him hold her in his arms, risk that dangerous proximity which, she knew now, would set the man’s wild pulses racing unsteadily and probably serve as the preliminary to another tempestuous scene.
“Well?” Davilof broke in upon her self-communings. “Have I asked too high a price?”
Time was flying. She must decide, and decide quickly. She took her courage in both hands.
“No,” she returned quickly. “I will dance with you, Antoine.”