“It’s all right,” he murmured soothingly. “You’re quite safe.”
Unconsciously his arms tightened round her. His breath quickened. The satin-soft hair had brushed his cheek as she fell; the pale, exquisite face and warm white throat lay close beneath his lips—all the fragrant beauty of her gathered unresisting against his heart. He had only to stoop his head——
With a stifled exclamation he jerked himself backward, squaring his shoulders, and released her, though he still steadied her with a hand beneath her arm.
“There, you are all right,” he said reassuringly. “No bones broken.”
The commonplace words helped to restore her poise.
“Oh! Thank you!” The words came a little gaspingly still. “I—I don’t know how I came to fall like that. I think you startled me—I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I didn’t expect to be,” he returned, smiling a little.
Magda did not ask how it had come to pass. For the moment it was enough for her that he was there—that he had not gone away! She was conscious of a sudden incomprehensible sense of tumult within her.
“It was lucky for me you happened to be standing just at the foot of the stairs,” she said a little unsteadily.
“I didn’t ‘happen.’ I was there of malice prepense”—the familiar crooked smile flashed out—“waiting for you.”